Why Do Vice-Chancellors Fail At Aligarh Muslim University?

By KALEEM KAWAJA                                                                       Muslim India

Kaleem Kawaja, lives in Washington DC where he is an engineering manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He led the formation of the Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM), a Non Government Organization that continues to be focused on uplifting India’s Muslim community. For the last twelve years Mr Kawaja has been in the Board of the Muslim Community Center, the largest Islamic Center in metropolitan Washington DC, where he was president for a few years and where he is a trustee now.

If we look at the tenures of Vice Chancellors (VCs) at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in the last couple of decades we find that most of them, even though they were distinguished and competent managers, ran into substantial problems of indiscipline, students’ strikes, violence, arson, forced shutdown of university, indifferent academic achievement, lack of pursuit of excellence and discontent in the community that AMU serves. That brings up the question as to why VCs fail at AMU.

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS

The basic expectation from a VC at AMU is that he solve the problems of the students and teachers, improve the quality of education, quality of research, quality of relationship between teachers and students, campus discipline, and ensure that most of the grants and funds allocated to AMU by the Government and Foundations are actually expended within the stipulated time period and for the intended purpose. Today AMU has a vast and sprawling campus, a variety of professional colleges, teaching faculties and departments, with about 26,000 students living in hostels at the campus. Overcrowding in hostels and classrooms and competition among students and teachers for the scarce resources is a gnawing reality. A variety of factors prevent AMU from achieving pursuit of academic excellence and be ranked among the nation’s top universities. Thus while expansion of AMU academic programs is a laudable goal, upgrading the existing infrastructure and learning systems in order to improve the functioning of AMU is a primary need of the community that AMU serves.

THE STRING OF FAILURES

All of the last four Vice chancellors, Mr Naseem Ahmad IAS, Mr Hamid Ansari IFS, Mr Mahmoodur Rahman IAS, Prof MN Farooqi, faced much campus violence, personal threats to their physical well-being, repeated student strikes, cancellation/postponement of examinations, major disturbances in the residential hostels, non-cooperation from the teachers and arson/murders at the campus.
Why did the handpicked, distinguished Prof MN Farooqi, former Chairman of the Electronics Department at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, despite his innovations, face unending disturbances, serious problems in the enrollment to the university’s professional colleges, strikes, turmoil at the campus that forced him to finally resign well before the end of his term?

Why did the politically savvy and tough guy IAS officer Mahmoodur Rahman face so much campus violence, threats from the students and the campus shopkeeper community, and become an unacceptable official at AMU, despite his hard work and penchant for discipline and scores of new initiatives?

The sophisticated and suave diplomat, IFS officer Hamid Ansari had to leave after serving only 2 years upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. That saved him from further troubles at the campus. In the short period of his 2 year tenure he faced violence and police raids against the then well entrenched SIMI elements at the University campus which threatened the shutdown of the university.

Why did the politically efficient and very personable IAS officer Naseem Ahmad, who even experimented with writing Urdu poetry to help bond with the AMU ethos, face not only murder of students at the campus but also threats on his life, and finally had to leave in a hurry?

The above four VCs were capable and experienced managers who brought a diversity of strengths and qualities to manage AMU. Some of them were very experienced government administrators and others were very experienced academic managers. Yet, all of them were unable to meet the basic expectation from them of trouble free operation of the university, orderly semesters, admissions, classes, examinations and some growth and improvement.
Why the failures?

Some of the factors that bedeviled all of these otherwise capable VCs are:

a. The expectation of the North Indian Muslim community and the Central and UP governments is that the Aligarh Muslim University VC be an ex-officio leader of the Indian Muslim community, a sort of central minister for the Muslim community’s higher education. That in addition to managing AMU he should manage the expectations and issues in the area of higher education of the 150 million strong Muslim community. The VC is given a signal that his next assignment after AMU may be a Central Cabinet Minister or Ambassador to a Muslim country or Governor of a state. Everyone is reminded of Dr Zakir Hussain Khan who after AMU ascended to the offices of governor of Bihar, Vice-President and President of India.


b. Thus after about a year as VC at AMU, the gentlemen start spending considerable time, effort and strategy with the top politicians and political parties in New Delhi and in international political circles. The Indian government itself propels the AMU VC in that slot. Thus the administration of the sprawling AMU campus, discipline at the campus and in the departments, the struggles of the students and teachers etc get much smaller time and attention from the VC. Most AMU VCs feel that they are not like the VCs of other big universities, because they are expected to carry the heavy burden of leadership of the Muslim community, which they think is their unofficial assignment. That results in the compounding of AMU’s core problems and periodic blowups.

c. Being short of time due to his pre-occupation with external functions the VC typically does not go beyond the department chairmen in the management of the various teaching departments. That transforms the department chairmen into sort of czars of the affairs of teachers, students, research scholars and research programs in their departments. Many a lecturers, readers, research scholars and research programs sometimes suffer from the whims of the chairmen and the VC remains blissfully disconnected from it. The department chairmen and senior professors start to control the hiring of new teachers to candidates from their ethnic sub-communities or extended clans leading to significant in-breeding. The net result is frequent frustration among the students and junior teachers and stagnation of the quality of academic output and pursuit of excellence.

d. The students, many of whom have high expectations of a bright new beginning in their lives, most of whom have just left their homes for the first time and who are trying to survive in the badly overcrowded AMU hostels, find that there is no official at AMU whom they can approach to get their many problems looked at. I recall that a few years ago a niece of mine, upon joining one of the AMU hostels, found herself living with five other girls in a crowded room in the girls’ hostel. She had just one bed and no desk, to spend her days and nights including studying daily and for tests and examinations. Often the food in the dining halls is not satisfactory, the instructions in the classrooms are indifferent and the teachers do not pay attention to students. As I said earlier many students suffer at the hands of the feudal attitude of senior professors but have no real recourse.

The VC, busy with his pursuit of high level educational problems of the Muslim community and making visits to New Delhi, has little time for the mundane daily issues of the students, and gets disconnected from the masses of students. Thus when some leaders of the students’ union sometimes politicize the core grievances of the students, the VC looses patience and reacts. This cycle which has so often caused indiscipline, turmoil and violence at AMU repeats itself every few years. Unfortunately successive VCs have continued to downplay this issue and it has come back to blow up in their face.

e. Many a retired Muslim government officials and extended family members of AMU teachers, who have settled down in Aligarh, some of whom have business interests with the university, have vested interests in AMU and they expect the VC to pay attention to their needs. Also they want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU. In recent past some of them have taken undue advantage of the AMU land and properties. Efforts of some VCs to stop this abuse has resulted in some of these folks’ instigating turmoil and violence at the campus. Many a VCs have overlooked this problem which got compounded with some nefarious elements taking residence in the university’s hostels, operating unauthorized businesses and muscling the students and teachers. The lesson is that the VC should give enough attention to these issues, unpalatable as they may be.

f. The many alumni of AMU and their vast global network often want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU, yet they provide limited resource support for the development of AMU. The Alumni with either excessive praise or excessive criticism, but either way a significant demand on the time and attention of the VC, make the VC’s life complicated. The VC has to manage the role of the AMU alumni with a proper perspective.

g. To cope with all these expectations from the AMU community, the government and the nation’s Muslim community, the VC starts to juggle a large number of balls in the air and fights with lots of fires simultaneously. At the same time the possibility of the next assignment as a senior political leader representing the Muslim community distracts the VC’s attention away from the university’s routine issues.

Unlike the VC of any other university in India, who is not burdened with such diverse expectations, instead of being a good academic administrator of AMU who spends time improving across-the-board quality of education, the VC becomes a semi-political leader who practices the politics of expediency and gives too many promises that he has no chance to keep. Most of the time the core issues of students and teachers get short shrift and low priority from the VC , and finally they come back to harm AMU and bite the VC himself.
The end result is that as the VC steps into the last year of his term he notices that most of the visions and goals that he had set for AMU in his first year have either not survived the many controversies and political in fights that erupted, or he compromised them so much that he can not recognize them any more. One reason is that the VC detaches himself from the two communities that matter most for the welfare of AMU– the students and the teachers.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

For instance with the current HRD minister’s encouragement AMU VC Prof Abdul Azis has launched an ambitious program to build five AMU extension centers remote from Aligarh. By itself it is a visionary program to improve college level education in the Muslim community. But managing this program is going to be a full time job in itself. It will take a lot of the VCs time, resources and attention, that will necessarily come out of the time that he needs to spend on the issues and programs of AMU itself. That may very well result in intensified problems at AMU. If the HRD ministry wants this program implemented it should first look at the constitution and charter of AMU that does not allow AMU to be a multi campus educational entity.

If the Government really wants to make AMU a multi campus university it should first implement proper legislation to revise the charter of AMU to give it the legal authority to be a multi-campus university, and change the office of VC into an “AMU System Director General”. The legislation should ensure that AMU’s minority status is not compromised by non-minority colleges in Aligarh district or elsewhere demanding affiliation with AMU. Failing to do that first will land AMU in lawsuits and much waste of AMU’s resources. Furthermore, the task of expanding AMU into a multi-campus higher education entity should be assigned to someone other than VC. May be to some top Muslim educationist or some former VC, or IAS official, so that the AMU VC is not sidetracked from his main responsibility of running AMU and is over-burdened. All of us should realize that with its massive student body and many colleges, AMU needs a dedicated full time VC to manage and improve AMU into a superior academic institution; not a part time VC who is also a part time leader of the Muslim community.

The VC’s job being a heavy burden he should delegate many of his responsibilities by appointing a set of Pro-Vice Chancellors (PVCs) and Officers on Special Duty (OSD). The system will work much better if people for these positions are recruited from the IAS or IPS cadres on term appointments and given sufficient responsibility to carry out their functions. In the past recruiting these positions from among the AMU teachers has led to instances of influence peddling and politicking within the community of AMU teachers.

It can not be over-emphasized that the VC has to not only pay enough attention to the teachers and students, he also has to ensure that the relationship between these two sub communities is good. In view of the failures of several successive AMU VCs in the last two decades it is time that the Indian Muslim community, the Government and the AMU community introspect on the situation and makes suitable adjustments in the role of the AMU VC.

Source: KHABREIN.INFO

Democracy & Former Islamic Colonies in Asia

Prof. Michael Brenner                                             Muslim India

Dr. Michael Brenner is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. He publishes and teaches in the fields of American foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. He is also Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers on a broad range of topics.

The common experience of British dependencies in Asia was direct, custodial rule over a prolonged period. I believe that this is the principal reason why constitutional democracy has fared better there than in the Arab Middle East.

That experience was shared by the two largely Islamic states that had formed part of colonial India: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Deviations from the democratic standard have occurred in both – repeatedly so. But there never has been an outright rejection of the system bequeathed by the British or the propagation of anti-democratic political ideologies. Where autocratic powers have been taken by military governments or civilian strongmen, authoritarianism has been justified in terms of exigent circumstances and accompanied by an affirmation to restore democratic rule. However delayed, that indeed has occurred – albeit often under popular pressure.

In Pakistan, the military takeover led by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999 was the latest in a series of military governments that in the past had seen a reversion to free elections and the restoration of civilian rule. The arrogation of exceptional powers, and the emasculation of the legislature, is accompanied by a continuation of local elections, in keeping with what has become established practice. The suppression of political dissent is far from total. The press and other media remain unmuzzled and feisty, although at times intermittently censored. Witness the success of anti-Musharraf Islamist parties in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan on the Afghan border in the regional elections of fall 2002 at the very time when Musharraf was expanding his extra-constitutional authority at the federal level. This pattern is qualitatively different from the autocratic regimes in the Middle East where political power has been concentrated in dictatorial hands, democratic governance has never occurred, the abuse of human rights is widespread (in some places, systematic), and the commitment to democracy is purely rhetorical or non-existent.

Pakistan introduced Shari’a, traditional Islamic law, in the early 1990s. The move was punctuated by the declaration of the country as an Islamic republic. That did not stand in the way of the return to civilian rule. Free elections, an accountable government, respect of political pluralism, an open press, and tolerance for religious minorities existed within an avowedly Islamic state. Pakistani politics during this period were dominated by two political parties, bitter rivals for power, neither of which had distinct Muslim identity. Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) alternated in office with Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party led by Nawaz Sharif. Avowedly Islamist parties garnered less than 10% of the vote in the last open, nation-wide elections. The Islamists relative success in 2002 owed much to the Musharraf government’s volte-face in transforming itself from a patron of the Taliban in Afghanistan to a close ally of the United States in an unpopular war on so-called terrorists in the Tribal Areas and Northwest Frontier province. Islamist opinion was further inflamed by his public promises to rein in the Pakistan backed insurrection against Indian rule in Kashmir. Their fortunes reversed in the national elections of February 2008. The coalition of Islamist parties lost control of the regional government of the Northwest Frontier and were also-rans at the national level. Traditions of a less militant brand of Islam and a politics of accommodation reasserted themselves. The Islamists were thrashed at the polls. Radical Islamist groups today do remain a force in Pakistani politics, but more through their acts of violence than by their appeal to the populace.

The resilience of democratic norms recently has been demonstrated in Pakistan where Pervez Musharraf’s move toward autocracy, punctuated by the imposition of martial law, was thwarted by a stubborn judiciary, manifestations of popular opposition and Musharraf’s own inhibitions about taking actions that could spark a civil war. The brake on Musharraf’s ambition was Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court Iftikar Mohammed Choudry. His implacable resistance to the General’s attempts to rule by decree led his ouster. That arbitrary action itself made Chaudry the pivot of an aroused opposition led by fellow jurists and the National Lawyer’s Guild. Musharraf’s loss of credibility obliged him to move ahead with the scheduled legislative elections that proved his downfall. That bow to democratic norms proved his downfall. His coalition was thumped by the PPP, benefiting from the assassination of Bhutto, and the PML led by Nawaz Sharif who had been exiled for eight years by Musharraf.

Three features of the recent Pakistani drama underscore the crucial importance of an ingrained, inherited liberal political culture: an intractable autonomous judiciary; a vivid ‘civil society’ composed of professional associations, independent press and party organizations; and a military officer corps restrained by its own convictions from pushing for a true revolution. Further confirmation was provided by the new governing coalition’s decision not to oust Musharraf from the Presidency to which he had been elected, albeit in a tainted contest.

Bangladesh provides yet another example of a former British dependency, overwhelmingly Muslim, that has managed to maintain its democratic constitution and Bangladesh has experienced periods of authoritarian government as both military and civilian leaders have at times declared states of emergency which involved the suspension of elections and the imposition of martial law. The country went through periods of military rule in the 1970s and 1980s, triggered on two occasions by the assassination of elected prime ministers by maverick officers. Since 1990, threats to constitutional rule have receded. Democratic norms of electoral competition were reinforced. The country has observed three multi-party parliamentary elections (1991, 1996, and 2001). Domestic and international observers widely recognized them a mostly free and fair.

Two external factors played a role in ending military rule. For one thing, the United States lost its liking for strongmen devoted to keeping under control an unruly politics. For another, international donors pressed for a restoration of free elections as a condition for badly needed economic assistance. The military retreated to their barracks in a period of fierce partisanship marked by corruption and violence. The main protagonists have been the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the murdered General Ziaur Rahman, and the Awami League headed by the Sheikh Hasina, herself a daughter of Sheikh Mujib who led Bangladesh to independence. Each of these two women was placed under house arrest on grounds of endemic corruption in January 2007. Each had her political rights restored and returned to partisan combat when the caretaker government cleared the way for fresh elections in February 2008.

The threat of a military coup will continue to hang over whatever civilian government emerges. The Bangladesh military has issued statements touting its “own brand of Democracy” and calling for changes in the constitution to allow military participation in politics. They play on the discontent with the woeful record of the civilian politicians to promote the idea of a unitary, ‘clean’ working only for the national welfare. This, of course, is the theme of men in uniform everywhere who are seeking political power. In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, there is no talking of abandoning wholesale the country’s political inheritance. For the most part, the country has become an imperfect working democracy.
Bangladesh has felt the reverberations from the fundamentalism movement sweeping the Islamic world. Bengali mujahideen, veterans of Afghanistan, introduced an element of political militancy and religious fundamentalism. That effect has been reinforced by expatriates returning from jobs in the Gulf where they absorbed, to varying degrees, the strictures of Wahabi-ism. In an attempt to wellsprings of discontent and aspiration that feed it, the government introduced elements of Shari’ a law to govern domestic affairs such as marriage and inheritance. When Prime Minister in 2001, Begum Zia avidly deployed the symbols of an Islamic republic, as in Pakistan. She went as far as to place in the constitution a clause to the effect that the country’s rule would conform to “the sovereignty of Allah.” For the most part, though, Bangladesh has kept in place civil codes based on English common law. They protect civil liberties and rights of political expression. Despite manifest signs of militant jihadist sects working underground to bring down the government, there have been no draconian restrictions on rights of assembly, speech and privacy. The Bangladeshi political establishment was badly shaken by a wave of orchestrated suicide attacks in August 2005, but it refrained from imposing severe restrictions. Indeed, constitutional reforms by the Caretaker government of 2007 were designed to strengthen the independence of the civil judiciary, which has been weaker than its Pakistani counterpart, as part of a general overhaul of a criminal justice system seen to have been politicized and corrupted. The main imperative was to crackdown on corruption in all its forms. The Caretaker government sought to ”cleanse” politics by taking a criminal justice approach to dealing with the mainstream political parties’ chronic habits of self-enrichment. Domestic NGOs, international donors, and national media all gave support to the military-backed interim government.

BNP has formed alliances of convenience with two relatively new Islamist parties, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jot. That has gone some way toward giving Islamists a stake in the party system. For its part, the Awami League at first shunned the Islamist movement in preference for an alignment with small leftish and secularist parties. That changed in 2007, when the party invited avowed Islamists to run under its banner. Simultaneously, they formed a tacit electoral alliance with the small Islamist party, the Bangladesh Khelefat. Still, it is noteworthy that there has been no upsurge in support for the latter, despite the countries chronic economic woes, tarnished political establishment, and the movement’s extra-parliamentary actions. Moreover, the Caretaker government took a tough stance on radical Islamist elements. Several high profile terrorists were arrested, prosecuted, and even a few death sentences were handed down.

As the December 2008 deadline for the national election approached, the interim administration released most of the high-ranking political leaders imprisoned on corruption charges, tied to an understanding that members of the Caretaker government would not be targeted by a newly elected government. The electoral outcome was a blow to the Islamist political movement and a tribute to Bangladeshi democracy.

Sheikh Hasina Awami League party won an overwhelming victory, gaining 230 of 300 seats in parliament (if only 48% of the raw vote) in a largely peaceful poll. Moreover, it did so in a campaign that contrasted its secular character with the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islama party which was aligned with the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Kheleda Zia. The Jamaat-e-Islama’s tally of seats dropped from 17 to 2. Its uncompromisingly fundamentalist line on issues of social policy and orthodoxy cost it, and the coalition, a significant slice of support among the electorate. The interim government largely delivered on its promise of laying down the conditions for a fair, neutral election that stood in sharp contrast to the country’s past experiences. The three most senior ministerial positions in the new government are held by women. Despite recent extra-constitutional developments, Bangladesh’s liberal democratic institutions have not been deformed. The country appears back on the track toward a multi-party parliamentary democracy.

Malaysia offers a striking example of the resistance to autocratic tendencies and radical Islam alike. Malaysia has experienced uninterrupted rule by the dominant United Malay National Organization (UMNO) party which has been the political embodiment of Malay nationalism. The party followed a pragmatic course in forming ties with the small CHH party that represents the country’s substantial, and economically powerful, Chinese community. Under the strong-willed leadership of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, state powers were used to consolidate its domination – primarily by the soft means of deploying government resources to secure the allegiance of supporters and to punish opponents. However, there are no curbs on opposition political parties, the press is not bridled (although tending to be deferential to the government), and constitutional provisions observed. In the one notorious deviation from this norm, Mahathir in 2002 jailed UMNO Vice-president and possible rival for power, Anwar Ibraham, who was convicted on trumped up charges. Ibrahim, a popular leader of the Islamist opposition, had been co-opted by an invitation to join the government. That conformed to Mahatir’s strategy of neutralizing potential opposition rather than suppressing it. His readiness to attack Ibraham also was an indication of the government’s confidence in its ability to handle nascent Islamist forces.

Malaysian democracy is strengthened by the emergence of a civil society, including groups promoting women’s rights. They are noteworthy in a country where Islamist influence has been steadily growing, inspired by the Iranian example and the wave of Sunni fundamentalism originating in the Middle East. In reaction, Mahathir gave a pronounced Islamist cast to the Malaysian government. That policy has entailed the calculated use of Islamic symbols and rhetoric in identifying Malaysian nationalism with its Islamic roots. More concretely, beginning in the 1980s Sharia law was introduced in a number of the country’s constituent states. (Mahathir formally established it at the federal level as the basis for adjudicating domestic matters, displacing the civil codes inherited from the British.
Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Shari’a courts when it comes to matters of Faith and Obligations as a Muslim, i.e. marriage, inheritance and custody others. Other criminal or civil offences come under the authority of secular courts, as in Pakistan and Bangladesh. As a rule, the Civil Courts cannot overrule any decision made by the Sharia Courts in their stipulated areas of jurisdiction. This introduction of Shari’a courts has two noteworthy qualifications. The scope of the Shari’a courts’ authority is circumscribed; they have no authority over political matters or criminal acts beyond the domain of traditional social mores. Moreover, only Muslims are subject to Sharia law. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. Chinese and non-Muslim Indians represent between 35 and 40 percent of the population. Concern for maintaining the domestic peace, which has been disturbed on several occasions since independence by bloody inter-ethnic violence, has induced the government to accord non-Muslims the right to have their domestic affairs overseen by secular courts. Eagerness to keep Malaysia a hospitable place for the heavy foreign investment that has fueled the country’s economic boom points in the same direction. Characteristically, as John Esposito has pointed out, Islamic values are “equated with hard work, discipline and progress.” The Malaya version of the Islamic revival seems more associated with creating a counterpart to the Confucian ethic than the fundamentalist creed that has taken root to the West.

Malaysian democracy’s resilience was shown when Mahatir stepped down in 2003. He passed the baton to Abdullah Ahmad Bawari who succeeded as Prime minister. Bawari continued to cultivate the multi-racial National Front (Barisa Nasional – BS) political coalition as his electoral instrument. He maintained the ONUM’s alliance with the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), which represents Hindus, and a small Chinese counterpart. The coalition won a landslide electoral victory in 2004 that increased its parliamentary majority to over 80% of the seats. His administration was marked by perpetuation of the political status quo, sustained economic growth and signs of growing political discontent both among minorities over the government’s aggressive pro-Malay affirmative action programs and Malays of Islamist orientation in the poorer provinces of the country’s north.

A stern test – for the government and for Malay democracy – came with the national elections of March 2008. In a shock result, the BN lost five of thirteen governorates (including the industrial center Penang) and its two-thirds majority in Parliament. The opposition coalition was composed of the Chinese based Democratic Action Party (PAS), the People’s Justice Party of Anwar Ibrahim (Parti Keadilan Rakyat – PKR), and the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PIM). It also has the support of disaffected Hindus. The coalition’s de facto head was Ibrahim, despite his still being denied his full political rights under the Internal Security Act. Prime Minister Badari reconstituted a diminished government. It was further weakened when a federal court indicted, and then convicted Anwer Ibrahim on charges of sodomy in July which were widely seen as a politically motivated fabrication. Despite his being under a legal cloud, Anwer won a seat in parliament by a wide margin in a by-election held in August. He immediately vowed to directly challenge the ruling government by forging a majority composed of his supporters and dissent elements of the BS. Were he to succeed, Malaysia will experience its first change of power since independence.

Three features of this seismic political event stand out. The results were accepted by the ruling party without protest after a fair and open election. Opposition politicians followed the pragmatic course of putting aside potentially divisive ethnic interests for the sake of electoral success. In doing so, the coalition mirrored the multi-ethnic politics of the long dominant OMUN. Finally, heightened Islamic sentiment among segments of the Malay community was channeled mainly through a party, the PIM, that was ready to play the game of democratic electoral politics.

Placed in perspective, the post-colonial history of the largely Muslim countries that emerged from the British empire in Asia supports the judgments that: (1) colonial experience is an important factor that offers a partial explanation for the divergence between the autocratic path followed by some former Muslim dependencies and the relative resilience of democratic institutions in others despite severe stresses internal and external; 2) democratic political forms can co-exist with a relatively strong Islamic self-identity, e.g. Malaysia; and 3) public authorities can enforce a policy of respect for adherents to other faiths even while acknowledging, and lending a measure of official recognition to the preponderantly Islamic nature of the society it governs. Witness Hindus in Bangladesh; Chinese, Hindus and Sikhs in Malaysia. Indeed, Bangladesh’s national anthem is based on a song composed by a Hindu – Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winning poet and author who is viewed by all Bengalis as the fountainhead of their remarkable twentieth century renaissance.

Maulana Waris Mazhari: Countering Pakistani Terrorists' Anti-India Propaganda (On the Ghazwat ul-Hind)

By Maulana Waris Mazhari                                                 Muslim India

(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

For almost two decades now, self-styled jihadist outfits based in Pakistan have been engaged in a war against India in Kashmir. This war of theirs has no sanction in Islam, which does not allow for proxy war, and that too one declared by non-state actors. It is an explicit violation of all Islamic principles. These outfits, which have considerable support inside Pakistan, see the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a religious struggle, and they wrongly describe it as a jihad. They regard their role in Kashmir as but the first step in a grand, though completely fanciful, plan to annex India into Pakistan and convert it into what they style as dar- ul-islam, the Abode of Islam. But what they finally dream of establishing, or so they boast, is Muslim hegemony throughout the entire world.

I have used the term 'hegemony' here deliberately, for radical Muslim groups in Pakistan and in the Arab world have been indelibly influenced and shaped by the hegemonic designs of European colonialism in the past and Western imperialism today, and, in some senses, are a reaction to this hegemonic project. They seek to counter Western political supremacy and replace it by what they conceive of as Islamic political supremacy. In my view, this approach is in sharp contradistinction to Islamic teachings. The term ghalba-e islam, the establishment of the supremacy of Islam, used in the context of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (Hadith), refers not to any political project of Muslim domination, but, rather, to the establishment of the superiority of Islam's ideological and spiritual message. This, in fact, was the basic crux of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the term has been distorted at the hands of the self-styled jihadists, who present it as a project to establish Muslim or Islamic political domination over the entire world.

War against India

Today, as the case of the Pakistani self-styled jihadists so tragically illustrates, many of those who claim to be struggling in the cause of Islam themselves work against Islamic teachings by deliberately or otherwise misinterpreting them. This is the case with their misuse of the term jihad in the context of Kashmir in order to win mass support for themselves. Needless to add, this is a major cause for growing anti-Islamic sentiments among many non-Muslims.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been lingering for more than half a century. A major hurdle in the resolution of this conflict is the self-styled jihadists based in Pakistan, who insist that the conflict over Kashmir is an Islamic jihad and that, therefore, war is the only solution. They claim that participation in this so-called jihad has become a farz-e ayn, a duty binding on all Muslims, and some of them, most prominently the dreaded Lashkar-e Tayyeba, even go so far as to claim that the war in Kashmir is nothing but the ghazwat ul-hind, the 'war against India' which is mentioned in a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. By this they want to suggest that waging war against India is an Islamic duty, something prophesied by the Prophet Muhammad himself.

What is the actual meaning and implication of the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind, which the Pakistan-based self-styled jihadists regularly refer to, and grossly misinterpret, in order to whip up anti-Indian sentiments and seek what they wrongly claim is Islamic sanction for their deadly terror attacks against India, in Kashmir and beyond? Before I discuss that, I must point out that the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind is found in only one of the sihah sitta, the six collections of Hadith reports of the Sunni Muslims—in the collection by al-Nasai. This statement was narrated by Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet. According to him, the Prophet prophesied a battle against India. If he (Abu Hurairah) got the chance to participate in this battle, Abu Hurairah said, he would do so, sacrificing his wealth and life. If he died in this battle, he said, he would be counted among the exalted martyrs. According to another narration, related by the Prophet's freed slave Thoban, the Prophet once declared that there were two groups among the Muslims whom God had saved from the fires of Hell. The first would be a group that invaded India. The other group would be those Muslims who accompanied Jesus (after he returned to the world). A similar narration is contained in the collections of Hadith by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Baihaqi and Tabrani.

Explanation

Because this hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind mentions India, and is marshaled by self-styled Pakistan-based jihadists active in Kashmir, it marks the Kashmir conflict out as clearly distinct from other conflicts elsewhere in the world between Muslims and others. These self-styled jihadists regularly invoke this hadith, trapping people in their net by claiming that if they were to die fighting the Indians in Kashmir they would be saved from hell and would earn a place in heaven. This claim, false though it is, is regularly and constantly repeated, as is evident from a host of Pakistani websites and periodicals.

Let me quote a revealing instance in this regard. Recently, I came across the August 2003 issue of 'Muhaddith', an Urdu magazine published from Lahore, Pakistan. It contains a 20-page article on the ghazwat ul-hind, written by a certain Dr. Asmatullah, Assistant Professor at the Islamic Research Academy of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. The article represents a pathetic effort to project the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as precisely the same ghazwat ul-hind that the Prophet is said to have predicted. And it is on the basis of this reported hadith of the Prophet that ultra-radical Islamists in Pakistan talk about unleashing a so-called jihad, extending out of Kashmir and to consume the whole of India. This is no longer limited to just fiery rhetoric alone, but, in fact, is also now accompanied by deadly terror attacks in different parts of India, which Pakistan-based radicals wrongly style as a jihad or even as the ghawzat ul-hind reportedly prophesied by the Prophet. It is striking to note in this connection that in the above-mentioned article, the editors of 'Muhadith' disagree with the views of the author, expressing their differences in the form of a footnote. Yet, this counter-view, as expressed by the editors of the magazine, is hardly ever discussed or even referred to in Pakistani so-called jihadist literature, indicating, therefore, that the rhetoric of the self-styled jihadists is based less on proper scholarly analysis of the Islamic textual tradition than on strident, heated emotionalism and a deep-rooted hatred and feeling of revenge. This applies not just in the Pakistani case. Rather, is a phenomenon common to almost all so-called jihadist movements throughout the rest of the world.

The Pakistani self-styled jihadists, it would appear, have made the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind into a plaything in their hands in order to entrap innocent people. It is quite possible that the Pakistani youth who were involved in the recent deadly terrorist attack on Mumbai were fed on this sort of poisonous propaganda and led into believing that they might go straight to heaven if they waged war against India. In India, the banned Students Islamic Movement of India appeared to have backed the same wholly erroneous and unwarranted interpretation of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, following in the footsteps of Pakistani radical groups. Mercifully, as far as I know, no other Indian Muslim group or scholar worthy of mention has adopted the 'Pakistani interpretation' of this particular hadith report.

Tragically, the concept of jihad has been subjected to considerable abuse and made to serve extremist ends by self-styled jihadists. This started in the very first century of Islam itself, when intra-Muslim
wars were sought to be christened by competing groups as jihads. And because of the distorted understanding of jihad championed by many Muslims themselves, they labeled any and every controversy and conflict with non-Muslims, even if it had nothing at all to do with religion but everything to do with politics, as a jihad, as the case of Kashmir well exemplifies. Another facet of the distorted understanding of jihad by some Muslims are suicide-bombings, in which innocent civilians are killed. Yet another is proxy war by non-state actors, such as armed self-styled jihadist groups, which actually has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Scrutiny

Coming back to the question of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, some aspects of the report deserve particular scrutiny. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this report is mentioned only in the collection of al-Nasai from among the six collections of Hadith which most Sunnis regard, to varying degrees, as canonical. However, considering the merits or rewards of the ghazwat ul-hind that it talks about, it ought, one might think, to have been narrated by many more companions of the Prophet. But that, as it curiously happens, is not the case.

Secondly, and this follows from above, it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine and that it might have been manufactured in the period of the Ummayad Caliphs to suit and justify their own political purposes and expansionist deigns. On the other hand, if this hadith report is indeed genuine—which it might well be—in my view, the battle against India that it predicted was fulfilled in the early Islamic period itself, and is not something that will happen in the future. This, in fact, is the opinion of the majority of the ulema, qualified Islamic scholars. And this view accords with reason as well. It is quite likely that the ghazwat ul-hind that this report predicted took the form of the attack by an Arab Muslim force on Thana and Bharuch,

In coastal western India, in the 15th year of the Islamic calendar in the reign of the Caliph Umar. Equally possibly, it could have been fulfilled in the form of the missionary efforts of some of the Prophet's companions soon after, in the reign of the Caliphs Uthman and Ali, in Sindh and Gujarat. Some other ulema consider this hadith to have been fulfilled in the form of the attack and occupation of Sindh by Arab Muslims led by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 93rd year of the Islamic calendar, which then facilitated the spread of Islam in the country. This might well be the case, for the hadith report about the ghazwat ul-hind contained in the Masnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a well-known collection of Hadith narratives attributed to the Prophet, mentions that the Muslim army that would attack India would be sent in the direction of Sindh and Hind.

Thirdly, this hadith mentions only a single or particular battle (ghazwa), and not a series of continuing battles, unlike what the author of the article in the 'Muhaddith', referred to above, echoing the arguments of Pakistani self-styled jihadists, claims.

Fourthly, one must raise the very pertinent question of how it is at possible that, in the face of the numerous attacks on India by Arab and other Muslims over the last one thousand years, the more than six hundred rule of Muslim dynasties that controlled most of India and the rapid spread of Islam in the country in the period when they ruled, any scope could be left to consider India a target of jihad in the future. Furthermore, today India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations and are bound by treaty relations. Hence, the proxy war engaged in by Kashmir by powerful forces in Pakistan in the guise of a so-called jihad is nothing but deceit, which is a complete contravention of, indeed a revolt against, accepted Islamic teachings.

Fifthly, it must be remembered that it would have been very easy for Muslim conquerors of India in the past, men like Mahmud of Ghazni, Shihabuddin Ghori, Timur, Nadir Shah and so on, to present the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind and wield it as a weapon to justify their attacks on the country. The corrupt ulema associated with their courts could well have suggested this to them had they wished.

However, no such mention is made about this in history books. In the eighteenth century, the well-known Islamic scholar Shah Waliullah of Delhi invited the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India and dispel the Marathas, which he accepted, but yet Shah Waliullah, too, did not use this hadith as a pretext for this.

Indian ulema

It is also pertinent to examine how some well-known contemporary Indian ulema look at this hadith report. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, a leading figure of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind, opines that this hadith was fulfilled at the time of the 'Four Righteous Caliphs' of the Sunnis, soon after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad, when several companions of the Prophet came to India, mainly in order to spread Islam. Mufti Sajid Qasmi, who teaches at the Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, is also of the same opinion, although he believes that it might also refer to the invasion of Sindh by the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century. On the other hand, Maulana Mufti Mushtaq Tijarvi of the Jamaat-i Islami Hind believes that it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine at all and that it might have been fabricated at the time of Muhammad bin Qasim's invasion of Sindh in order to justify it.

Whatever the case might be, the misuse by radical groups of this hadith report to spearhead war in Kashmir in the name of so-called jihad and to foment conflict between India and Pakistan is tragic, to say the least. It is nothing sort of a crime against God and the Prophet. In their worldviews and in their actions as well, the self-styled jihadist outfits seem to have gone the way of the Khawarij, a group that emerged in the early period of Islam and who were rejected by other Muslims. The Khawarij believed that they alone were Muslims and that all others, including those who called themselves Muslims, were infidels and fit to be killed. With reference to the Khawarij, the Prophet predicted that they would depart from Islam in the same way as an arrow flies out of a bow. About the Khawarij the Caliph Ali mentioned that they take the word of truth and turn it into falsehood (kalimatu haqqin urida beha al-batil). This he said in the context of the Khawarij misinterpreting the Quran and claiming that Ali and his followers were infidels who deserved to be killed.

It is imperative, and extremely urgent, for Muslim scholars, particularly the ulema, to take strict notice of, and stridently oppose the radical self-styled jihadists, who are distorting and misunderstandings Islamic teachings, following in the footsteps of the Khawarij of the past, and spreading death and destruction in the name of Islam. Jihad, properly understood, is a struggle to put an end to strife and conflict, not to create or foment it, as is being done today. The general public, particularly Muslims themselves, should be made aware of the dangerous deviation of the self-styled jihadists and the horrendous implications of their acts and views. In this regard, a major responsibility rests with the ulema of India and Pakistan. These days, ulema groups in India are very actively involved in organizing conferences and holding rallies seeking to defend themselves and Islam from the charges terrorism leveled against them. This is a very welcome thing. However, they must also stridently speak out against and clearly and unambiguously expose and denounce the self-styled soldiers of Islam who are promoting terrorism in the name of Islam. At the same time, it is also urgent to promote re-thinking of some medieval notions of jihad, such as that of offensive jihad, which does not actually have any Islamic legitimacy. This is essential for Muslims to live in today's times and to come to terms with democracy and pluralism. Simply verbally defending Muslims and Islam from the charges of terrorism is, clearly, not enough. Nor is it adequate to simply condemn terrorism in very general terms. The truth is, and this cannot be disputed, that today there is also a pressing need to unleash a 'jihad' against the self-styled jihadist outfits themselves. And in this jihad, undoubtedly, the ulema and Muslim intellectuals have a central role to play and a major responsibility to shoulder.
______________________________________________________________
Maulana Waris Mazhari, a graduate of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, is the editor of the Delhi-based 'Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom', the official organ of the Deoband Graduates' Association. He can be contacted on w.mazhari@gmail.com

Hindutva Terror in Karnataka: Malegaon in Hubli

By Subhash Gatade                                             Muslim India

(A Karnataka dacoit with links to a radical Hindu rightwing group has confessed to having carried out the Hubli district court bombing of May10, 2008. The blast took place as the first phase of polling for the Karnataka Assembly elections was on - in a magistrate's courtroom where cases against top SIMI leaders including Safdar Nagori were scheduled to be heard two days later.

- Dacoit with Hindu Outfit links behind Hubli blast, Indian Express, January 13, 2009)
Does anybody remember the bomb blasts in Hubli (Karnataka, May 2008) courts last year when preparations were on for the coming state assembly elections ? These blasts which took place on a holiday did not witness any casuality although they extensively damaged the court premises. But the most important part played by these blasts was the atmosphere it created in favour of the BJP.

As it always happens after any such mysterious sounding blasts, many innocents belonging to minority community were illegally detained and quite a few among them also were booked for their 'role' in the blasts. The police had promptly claimed that 'sleeper cells belonging to LeT and SIMI' had executed the blasts.

One still remembers the manner in which Sangh Parivar had tried to exploit the bomb blasts in its favour. The former Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, had even used the bomb blasts case to attack the Congress led UPA government at the centre for 'soft-pedalling the issue concerning terror' and accusing it of responsibility' for the increase in terrorist activities in the country'.

The Hubli bar association had followed many other bar associations in different parts of the country to immediately pass a 'unanimous' resolution that they would not defend any 'terrorists' supposed to be involved in the blasts. And when a conscientous lawyer named Ibrahim Jalagir tried to file bail application on behalf of the detained he came under organised attack. His office was vandalised and he alongwith his colleague were badly beaten up by these hoodlums.

Now when the BJP government is firmly in the saddle and the accused in the bomb blasts case have already spent months together behind jails, has come a news which is definitely not soothing to the ears of the the saffron commanders.The IGP of North Karnataka Ragavendera Auradhkar recently addressed a press conference telling the media that the mysterious bomb blasts which had struck the Hubli courts last year were the handiwork of a criminal gang led by one Nagraj Jambagi .

According to the IGP it was the same team which had planted a bomb on the Belgaum-Hubli highway last year.However, this bomb failed to explode as it was raining heavily. After high drama, the bomb squad had finally retrieved the bomb.In fact Nagraj had led the gang which was also involved in seven murder cases in North Karnataka and several cases of abduction also. Interestingly the police had stumbled upon this gang while investigating the murder of a Bagalkot businessman.
Reporting about the incident, Mailtoday writes (13 Jan 2009)

'Hindutva terror has struck Karnataka. The Karnataka police arrested nine persons with Sangh Parivar links for allegedly setting off a bomb in the court of the junior first class magistrate in Hubli May 2008. They were also accused of planting a live bomb on the Dharwad-Belgaum road. This points to the presence of Hindutva terror suspects in the state.'

The police had initially blamed SIMI for both the Hubli court blast and the planting ofthe live bomb.
Police have also seized live bombs, gun powder, lethal weapons, Rs 11.08 lakh in cash, gold, silver and two motorbikes from them. Apart from Nagaraj Jambagi (24), a resident of Heggur Plot in Bilagi taluk; the arrested persons include Ramesh Pawar (24), Basavaraj Diggi (22), Manjunath Binjawadagi (19), Deepak Govindakar (28), Lingaraj Jalgar (24) - all from Bagalkot; Basavaraj Rugi (20) of Honakuppi village in Gokak taluk; Hanamanth Sainasakali (22), and Channabasappa Hunasagi (35) of Indi taluk in Bijapur.

Ofcourse although the police do not seem to be forthcoming on divulging the political connections of the group and sharing the important information about its alleged Sri Ram Sena connections anyone familiar with the Hubli-Dharwad region would have many other details about the gang of criminals, their political affiliations and their other deeds.

Many residents of Bagalkot have been witness to the Trishul Deekshe ceremony in the area wherein many of the arrested had wholeheartedly participated. For the uninitiated it may be told that VHP international secretary Praveen Togadia had popularised this trident-wielding programme as part of mobilising Hindus. Nagaraj Hollbasappa Jambagi, the gang's leader has also been closely associated with Sri Ram Sene,(SRS) a 'saffron front'.

A social worker from Hubli told 'Mailtoday' (Jan 13, 2009) that the '[b]ombings were part of an effort to set up a militant Hindutva organisation.' "Jambagi is the right hand man of SRS chief Pramod Mutalik (known as Karnataka's Togadia), who is setting up a Rashtra Raksha Army. He does not believe in the police or the armed forces. His people are given weapon's training. There are several such groups here. They had a five-day training camp in Koodala Sangama recently."

It may be known that Pramod Mutalik happened to be the former Convener of the South India Unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and of the Bajrang Dal. He was dismissed 2005-06 following inflammatory speeches made by him on the Baba Budan Giri issue and is presently the founder and National President of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena and of the Shreerama Sene, active in Karnataka. Mutalik had recently affiliated with the Shiv Sena of Bal Thackeray.

Few months back when Karnataka witnessed anti-Christian violence.Shreerama Sene had publicly claimed credit for the attacks and desecrations of Christian churches, schools and convents and thereafter for the attacks on protesting Christian youth, women and children by invading Christian properties.This open violence had forced Christians taking to blocking the streets in protest against police complicity and inaction against the fanatics.

The fact that the Karnataka happens to be a BJP ruled state where the police allegedly face political pressure and were unwilling to go on record about the Sangh Parivar links of the accused, the establishment would not be too willing to expose the real connections of the criminal-terrorists. Taking into consideration this dilly-dallying on part of the government organisations who had been fighting for communal harmony have raised a strong demand 'to arrest the National President of SRS Pramod Mutalik'.(Hubli court blast: Demand to arrest Shri Ram Sena chief, S.O. News service, Tuesday, 13 January 2009)

Koppal: There was a strong demand in Koppal by All Progressive confederation (Pragati Sanghatana) demanding the state to arrest the National president of Shri Ram Sena Pramod Mutalik immediately whose organisation is responsible for the blasts carried out in Hubli court.

Speaking on the occasion, the State president of Karnataka Sauharda Vedike Basavraj Suli bhavi said that Pramod Mutalik is responsible for creating an atmosphere of disharmony and hatred in the state. He is a liability in a peaceful and his organization can cause a lot of harm in the society. His organization is involved in Hubli court blast and a failed attempt to blast the NH Bridge in Dharward. It is very much possible that the Shri Ram sena is positively involved in this. ..

He also expressed his anger that only the activists are arrested and not the chief of the Shri Ram Sena. It should be noted that Pramod Mutalik was an active activist of Bajarang dal earlier, later he left that organisation to form Shri Ram Sena. He also had declared that he will form a suicide bomber for which he already has enrolled many of them.

With pressure building up for his arrest, Pramod Mutalik has flatly denied any knowledge of Jambagi and his gang. Much on the lines of his Sangh veterans who were put on the defensive when their links with Sadhvi Pragya and others in the Malegaon bomb blast case became apparent, he declared that they do not hold SRS membership, although he promised legal aid to the accused. . It is a different matter that none from the Sangh Parivar network maintains any membership register which suits them in dissociating the 'parent organisation' from any wrongdoing of its associates. Inadvertently or so Pramod Mutalik was imitating his other Sangh Parivar veterans especially BJP leadership which had denied any knowledge of the Malegaon accused but had readily agreed to defend them.He was even ready to 'start an agitation to defend them.'

Indian Express (13 Jan 2009) further adds that according to IGP Auradkar Jambagi had procured the bombs from one Hanumant Sainsakali. a 22 year old technical diploma student from Indi on the Maharashtra border. It is worth noting that investigations in the aftermath of the bomb blasts in the Hubli courts had shown that the bomb was similar to the one used in the May 18, 2007 blast at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid.

One needs to remember that when the Malegaon investigations had started involvement of Hindutva terrorists in similar incidents had also come under scanner. The Mecca Masjid blasts as well as blasts in Samjhauta Express which had remaind unsolved were further investigated. Although initially the ATS Maharashtra had not deciphered any connection with Karnataka with the Malegaon blasts as of now there seems to be a qualitative change in the picture.Karnataka connection to the Malegaon blast is also being explored.

As we go to the press a team from ATS, Maharashtra is camping in Karnataka to hunt for one Pravin Mutalik. A report filed by a reporter of the Times of India tells us that ( TOI, Jan 18, 2009, ATS team in K'taka to nab suspect) Mutalik could be 'one of the three bomb planters in the Malegaon case.' "As per our investigation Mutalik was very much present in Malegaon alongwith wanted accused Ramji Kalangasara and Sandeep Dange.' Mutalik has been termed as a technical expert.

There is no denying the fact that Hubli, which happens to be a small town situated 425 km northwest of Bangalore, and which had remained more famous for many stalwarts of Hindustani and Karnataka classical music living in its environs, is a pale image of itself today. No lover of classical music would have ever imagined in their wildest dreams that a day would arise when it would be witness to a music of a different kind.

But as things stand today Huballi (Hubli's new name, the name Hubballi literally means "Hu" - flower and "Balli" - creeper in Kannada.) seems to be metamorphosing into 'birthplace' of Hindutva terror in Karnataka and a strong link in the emerging pan Indian network of Hindutva terror.

Cut out the middlemen!

Amit Baruah, Hindustan Times

‘It looks like a students’ union is running Pakistan,’ a friend in Islamabad told me over the phone the other day. It wasn’t a flippant comment. He was dead serious. Between the two of them (and ably aided by the military establishment), President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have reduced governance to a joke.

Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Mahmud Ali Durrani was ‘sacked’ for telling the media that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the 26/11 terrorist, was a Pakistani. Okay, so he was sacked. But actually, as the Pakistani media reported, he is yet to be removed from the job formally. Durrani may have the support of the Pakistani President, but where does it leave the Pakistani State? Nowhere.

In the wake of 26/11, a hoax call was made to Zardari, ostensibly by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, threatening Pakistan with dire consequences. Mukherjee made no such call. But Zardari was scared out of his skin by Pakistan’s intelligence establishment, which wanted to ensure that Zardari abandoned his pro-India policies double-quick. And the ruse worked. Zardari called many capitals across the world in a bid to secure support against India’s imminent aggression after the hoax call.

Remember that before 26/11 punctured relations with New Delhi, Zardari was making comments on the lines of India never being a threat to Pakistan and that Islamabad wouldn’t be the first country to use nuclear weapons. Army chief Parvez Kayani wanted all this pro-India sentiment put down, as did the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which must have viewed with alarm the extent of Zardari’s pro-India comments.

With the benefit of hindsight, one can only wish that Zardari had been more restrained in his choice of words. But that’s now a peripheral issue. The central question today is: how does India deal with Pakistan’s weakest ‘civilian’ government ever? Who should one believe when it comes to Pakistan’s post-Mumbai actions? It’s a confusing scenario in which a divided civilian leadership seems to be bumbling along. At a time of tension with New Delhi, no one in Pakistan, including the civilian leadership, can survive by being soft on India.

After ensuring Pervez Musharraf’s ouster from the presidency in 2007, the Pakistani army has quickly distanced itself from its last chief. In fact, the country’s sole institution that actually functions is once again poised to play the role of ‘saviour-from-India’ that it has played so well. Nothing unites Pakistan more than a heavy dose of ‘anti-India’ emotion.

It looks as if Gilani is being propped up by the army to take on Zardari, who after all the tall promises of returning Pakistan to democracy, has taken on the role of an executive president, much like Musharraf. This is unconstitutional. But when has that ever bothered Pakistan’s long line of rulers, be they uniformed or otherwise? For India, which has no direct access to Kayani, the emergence of three (or two-and-a-half) power centres in Pakistan is ominous. Judging who is doing what, or even the authority of public statements, is a big job in itself.

It’s easy to say that India will deal with the government of the day. But unlike Western nations that talk of strengthening democracy in Pakistan and continue dealing with the generals to get their job done, New Delhi has no direct channel to Kayani. In the event of hostilities between India and Pakistan, the civilian leadership will be irrelevant. Only the army will matter. “For Pakistan, there is no concept of ‘limited war’. Any war with India is seen as a total war for survival. It risks losing everything the moment India crosses its border… As the battles escalate, India’s numerical and weapon superiority will become critical. If no external intervention takes place quickly, Pakistan will then be left with the ‘poison pill’ defence of its nuclear weapons,” argued Shuja Nawaz, author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within, in The Huffington Post recently.

We have moved away from the path of war-mongering. But dealing with the problem of Pakistan is likely to occupy India full-time. A middle path between resorting to military strikes and no-business-as-usual is the only option open to India.

Across the board, political opinion in India wants Pakistan to deliver. Purge the country of jihadi terrorists who have realised that the rest of India is a far better target than Kashmir. India can no longer bear the costs of an imperfect State structure in Pakistan. If Pakistan wants business as usual, then it must prosecute and convict all those behind 26/11. And nip any more terrorist strikes on India in the bud.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=9fff52c3-ba51-486c-b8e4-b8640e6f07d9

Jon Favreau: The man behind Obama's speeches!

The inspiring words in Obama's speech that stirred thousand across the US were actually written by a baby-faced wonderkid. Jon Favreau, 27, has spent the last two months working for up to 16 hours a day on the speech in locations all over Washington, from a Starbucks cafe to his new, still-unfurnished apartment. Favreau found himself writing until 2 or 3am, fuelled by double espresso shots. A team of assistants was on hand to furnish him with material, from research on key moments of crisis in American history to the collected speeches of former presidents. In fact, a cult has grown up around new the chief presidential speechwriter since he penned the Iowa victory speech that launched Obama towards the White House. His boyish good looks have not hurt, nor has the emergence of an unfortunate online photograph showing him drunkenly groping a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton, at a Thanksgiving party. What also has Washingtonians swooning is his way with words, his effortless blending of his master's voice with his own almost musical ear. He wrote the catchphrase "Yes We Can", and he will be relied upon to come up with the most apposite, least-expected Lincoln quotation to frame Obama's hopes for America's future. Favreau — or "Favs" as he is known to friends — was barely out of college and working for John Kerry when he met Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention. The senator was running over his lines when Favreau impudently interrupted him to suggest a rhythmical rewrite. Obama was astonished — and hooked. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Man_behind_Obamas_speech/articleshow/4014160.cms

Democracy Promotion and Islam — Part 1

By Michael Brenner                            19/01/2009                                                   Muslim India

The moment is propitious to take a hard look at the efficacy of strategies designed to promote liberal political values in Islamic societies. The metaphoric democratic wave that gained impetus from the Soviet Union’s breakup has registered successes in most of the world. The Islamic world, the Arab Middle East in particular, still stands out among the regions resistant to democratization. Its unique strategic importance highlights the analytical and policy issues we place under the heading: Democracy & Islam. For Middle Eastern politics is at the heart of concerns about energy security, international terrorist movements, nuclear proliferation and the toxic effects of inflammatory crises in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon. The absence of accountable, representative governments is commonly cited as cause and reinforced effect of these turbulent conditions. In truth, the seeming correlation of authoritarian leadership and endemic conflict does not necessarily mean a strong causal connection. The objective reality, though, is that such a connection is assumed in the West – by intellectuals, politicians, policy-makers and publics. The saliency of the Middle East in their interest calculations and threat perceptions has reinforced the conviction that outside parties have reason and opportunity to inflect the course of political development there. Exigencies have and do intrude to force tactical qualification of this commitment to democracy. Yet, it continues to bulk large in thinking about the region’s stability.

Since 2001, the United States has spearheaded a multiform campaign of democracy promotion. Democracy at the point of a gun, democracy through tutelage, democracy through suasion and exhortation. The results range from the baneful to the discouraging. As Barack Obama prepares to enter the Oval office, he will have neither a viable program in place nor a clear line of retreat. A root-and-branch reappraisal of the premises ends and means of the campaign is an essential requisite for making needed adjustments. European governments should be part of that process. They have been junior partners in this historic enterprise, until now. Their efforts, for the most part, have been in parallel, occasionally in tandem, and in exceptional cases have followed different interpretations of the same score. This paper takes the convergence of strategic interest and political principles as a given even as it contrasts divergences between the American and a generalized European perspective.

The United States

Democracy promotion as a strategy is animated by American idealism. Idealism in the United States is exceptional in a number of respects. It expresses the belief in progress guided by reason that lies at the heart of the United States’ civic religion. America was born in a condition of ‘original virtue.’ America is seen as having a mission to serve as agent of a teleology in the world’s affairs that points to the global triumph of enlightened liberal principles. That mission is unique to the United States; yet the truth it embodies is taken to be universal. Hence, American tends to be inattentive to cultural differences even as it is ‘culture-blind’ in the positive sense of the term. History, too, is seen as yielding to the will of the well-intended. Therein lies the optimistic conviction that the United States can successfully sponsor what looks audaciously improbable to others. Therein lies as well the basis for the unquestioned assumption of its good intentions – and their power to succeed.

Those convictions were reinvigorated by victory in the Cold War and further reinforced by democracy’s implantation in the newly liberated countries of East and Central Europe. A program to foster a liberal form of politics in the Islamic world was a natural extension. Dedication to doing so received impetus from the so-called ‘war on terror’ launched with a vengeance after the horrific events of 9/11.

Afghanistan was the immediate target. Unseating the Taliban and installing an accountable government under Western patronage bolstered confidence in Washington and heightened ambitions. The Bush administration then set itself the objective of toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The President’s men were persuaded that the elimination of a leader supposedly bent on acquiring unconventional weapons was crucial to attenuating the latent dangers represented by virulently anti-Western Islam. However, his mere replacement by another autocratic leader, Ba’athist or military, did not satisfy American interest in a risk-free Iraq; nor did it serve the larger ends of the emerging strategy for a political transformation of the Middle East as a whole.

It followed inexorably that regime change was essential. In the abstract, various types of regimes were imaginable. In the thinking of American leaders, only the building of a constitutional democracy made sense. This was true for three perceived reasons. First, a democracy where the exercise of power is based on the consent of the governed is the sole political arrangement that provides assurance against reckless state actions. This judgment is predicated on the doctrinal belief that the citizenry at large has no appetite for war; and that it harbors no grandiose dreams of national or religious glory through demonstrated prowess on the battlefield. Indeed, the citizenry at large sees war as squandering scarce economic resources and putting in jeopardy their safety. This essentialist Kantian postulate thrives in official Washington, by no means only within neo-conservative circles. The downfall of a rogue regime in Baghdad meant an end to an incubator, refuge or collaborator of terrorists of all stripes.

Washington saw itself as having a critical catalytic role to play in that reform process. It could encourage elites, cajole current officeholders, and propagate a vision of a better future to the Muslim street. Such initiative, it was argued, will not be taken as alien or intrusive since it coincides with the interests, proclivities and aspirations of the large majority. Crucial to the success of this enterprise is the living model of a liberalized Arab country, one that functions as a working democracy, that allocates economic resources to the welfare of its populace and that nurtures a vibrant yet positive mode of Islam. Iraq was nominated for this role. Iraq thereby became the centerpiece of a far-reaching plan to reconfigure the political landscape of the Middle East. Europe opinion, official and otherwise, has been skeptical of this radical enterprise – for the most part. Skepticism stems from quite different historical experiences and sense of identity.

Morality & The American ‘Calling’

Americans and European leaders alike freely use the language of morality in proclaiming the ideals that inspire them. They also use moral values as well as hard interests as benchmarks for evaluating the probity of their actions and those of other governments. Yet the common language does not mean that they have the same moral sensibilities or apply them in the same way. Nor do they draw their moral principles from religious and secular sources in the same measure.

The United States’ keen sense of being destiny’s child preordained to lead the world into the light of freedom and democracy has oriented its thinking about its external relations. It is an article of faith to Americans that the country was imbued with political virtue at its founding. That idea has secular roots and religious ones. The United States is at once the embodiment of Enlightenment ideals and an expression of Providential will. American singularity can take one or another form, or combine them. Presidents as varied in their religious and intellectual persona as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have proclaimed as given truth the nation’s mission to ‘improve’ the world. This theme of America as the ‘chosen nation’ resonates from Abraham Lincoln’s declaring America to be “the last, best hope on earth” to Woodrow Wilson’s offering American leadership for “the redemption of the world” to John F. Kennedy’s conjuring of “a rendezvous with destiny” to Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as the Biblical “city on a hill.’ George W. Bush has been exceptional in casting the American purpose in eschatological terms. His public remarks are suffused with evangelical references to the US being “called” by the “Maker of Heaven” who has imparted to the United States “a visible direction set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.” But the tradition harks back to the very beginning. Here is Thomas Paine: “America is its own mistress and can do what it pleases….America is a new character in the universe. She started with a cause divinely right….The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.”

[i]: None of this rhetoric strikes most Americans as odd or strained. American civic religion easily shades into a civic millennialism.

[ii]. The missionary version of America’s pre-destined role as world savior acquires a righteous dimension from being suffused with religious belief. But its more secular counterparts, which lacked explicit religious imagery, were no less zealous. Surely, American foreign policy during the Cold War did not suffer from a shortage of zeal or righteous passion inspired by a sense of mission in performing its fated task. Where Barack Obama’s thinking lies on the secular-divine continuum of American exceptionality will have some bearing on how he approaches the issues associated with being in the democracy promotion business. What is not in doubt is that he shares his predecessors’ core beliefs in what America is and what it should be in the world.

The American drive to judge, to pronounce and to instruct, exemplified by Condoleezza Rice’s school mistress-like sermons, is unsettling to many Europeans, and to most Middle Easterners, on two counts. First, it implicitly devalues the moral convictions of other nations while routinely implying that they have baser motives. Second, it is seen as simplistic in its facile assessments of right and wrong, the good and the bad. Finally, American unilateralism of moral judgment is precursor to the imposition of American views in identifying malefactors and meting out punishment. Belief in its more finely honed moral instincts reinforces the claim to superior political judgment. The absence of agreement from allies on interpretation or prescription gives pause only insofar are it has practical consequences. The absence of overt dissent is read as confirmation of America’s unique competencies.

The Greater Middle East Initiative

The grandiose Greater Middle East Initiative inaugurated in 2004 was designated as the omnibus vehicle for effecting a political transformation of the region in line with America’s higher mission. The Bush administration’s’ launch of its signature program for the region met with a frosty response from governments in the region and quiet doubts from most European governments.. The latter were taken aback by what they saw as the latest display of Washington’s audacity in mounting a campaign for radical, speedy political change. Europeans also were peeved by the lack of prior consultation. Most, democrats in Europe and in the Middle East, worried about a backlash that could stiffen resistance to the calls for liberalization from within Arab societies while exposing indigenous reformers to charges that they were agents of the United States. Too, the European Union members were distressed by Washington’s disregard of their own, low-key efforts, via the Barcelona Process, to open a dialogue on moves toward more open societies and accessible politics.

The original version of the plan leaked in February 2004, provoking sharp reactions. A modified set of proposals for the Bush administration’s strategy, renamed the Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative (BMENA), was presented to the G-8 governments at their summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June where it won general acceptance. The outcome of extensive discussions, and strenuous efforts to overcome recalcitrance in Berlin and Paris, the new plan was presented as a common enterprise. Its inspiration and motor force was American, as was its brand name.

Europe

Europeans have had to reflect on how and why they should align themselves with the United States, and where they must part company. As one European analyst summed it up, “if opposition is impossible, unconditional support is inconceivable.”[iii] Europeans could not decline to associate themselves with the goal. After all, to allow themselves to appear blasé about autocratic rule and its malign effects would be to deny their own political birthright. All the same, they were more sensitive to the unwanted consequences of setting in motion forces that could destabilize strategic partners while opening the way for virulently anti-Western elements to gain power via the ballot box, e.g. in Saudi Arabia where fundamentalists would be the odds-on favorite in any fair and open election.

Therefore, they counseled flexibility to Washington and made flexibility a leitmotif of their own approach. Flexibility might help to advance the purposes of democracy promotion in terms of sensitivity both to local political circumstances and to timing. There are moments of greater and lesser susceptibility to external influences and well meant symbolic acts. No ideal time is identifiable – especially since the Europeans were imagining a long-term process, not a specific action. That said, some moments are more conducive than others to a publicized initiative. What is to be avoided above all, in stimulating a reflexive negative reaction because passions evoked by the region’s multiple conflicts, the American invasion of Iraq foremost among them, were running high.

The EU already had an established program of encouraging reform minded groups in the region. It came under the heading of the afore-mentioned Barcelona Process, so named for the initiative launched in the Catalan city in 1995. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership christened at that Conference has as its stated purpose strengthening the EU’s relations with the countries of the Mashriq and Magreb through an array of cultural, economic and political activities. Tutoring in the principles and workings of a liberal democratic polity had been one of its most prominent objective. Against this background, the question Europeans posed for themselves was: would their low-key efforts be energized by association with the United States’ enterprise or might they be jeopardized in the highly charged atmosphere created by heavy-handed American actions?

A discomforting reality that the multiple American interventions, direct and indirect, in the Middle East had ‘queered the pitch’ against all and any Western intrusions into the region. Washington’s collaboration with Israel in its 2006 assault against Hezbollah (and Lebanon generally), its insensitivity to civilian casualties, and then the American-led embargo/boycott of the elected Hamas government in Palestine, all stoked anger across the region. Those events, punctuated by the continuing traumas of Iraq, has meant that the Europeans’ own human rights credentials have become hostage to the moral vagaries of American behavior, to some unknowable degree. That line of analysis strengthened the case for a parallel European strategy for encouraging democratization in the Middle East rather than one integrated with the United States. Europeans do not feel they must observe a categorical imperative to judge and to guide others in campaigns of moral uplift. That is America, not Europe.

Post-modern Europe’s moral sensibility is humanistic. It is uneasy with grand formulations. Too, it is leery that impulsive, premature exercises in democracy building can open the way to rabid sectarian forces whose commitment to democratic forms is opportunistic. Most Europeans find unpersuasive this American belief in the pliability of societies and, therefore, the swiftness with which they can be transformed. History has instilled in them the conviction that the past casts its shadow over the present in ways that set bounds on how far and how fast enduring change can be made, however desirable it may be. The United States, in a sense, was “born against history.” Its founding as a democratic republic was a break from all past experience on a virgin territory distant from the old centers of civilization. Europeans have lived enveloped by their all too eventful history.

Self-identities, therefore, remain different. Whereas Americans see themselves mandated the mission to light the path for the rest of the world, Europe lacks an analogous sense of mission. It was not anointed by Providence or Destiny to do good in the world. Their community was created arduously by pragmatic men inspired as much by dread of repeating the past as realizing a dream. Its focus has been wholly introspective.

The meaning of the EU’s ‘Good Neighbour’ policy for the Mediterranean, embodied in the Barcelona process, was underscored by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s much heralded plan for a Union of the Mediterranean in2007-08. This French conception was vague on substance. It striking innovation was a proposed restriction on the European membership to those countries bordering the Mediterranean. Funding would be provided by all the EU 27 members. Predictably, Sarkozy’s brainchild met with a lukewarm response from northern European states, Germany’s Angela Merkel leading the critics. A classic community compromise was reached at a Ministerial meeting on March 13, 2008. The Barcelona process was slated to be “upgraded,” and “revitalized” in a relaunch by the European Union as a single entity.[iv] With the amalgamated title of ‘The Barcelona Process – Union for the Mediterranean,” the program is slated to have a small secretariat to help coordinate projects. The Commission moved quickly to take hold of the reins, thereby blunting France’s ambition to head a new, autonomous structure. The new model was unveiled in Paris on July 13 amidst much fanfare. However, significant enhancement of European influence on Middle Eastern political developments looks unrealistic. Nothing basic in the equation has changed. Rhetoric stands in contrast to the limited capacity of Europeans, whether acting singly or together, to make an appreciable difference so long as they defer to the United States’ jealous control the field of action., and so long as democracy promotion is hostage to American conduct. A challenge to that state of affairs requires a measure of self-confidence that they lack.

Together In Democracy Promotion?

Most Europeans do not share the confidence that clever constitutional architecture in itself can ensure against the victors abusing that power; nor can it prevent the rise to power of fiercely sectarian or militant fundamentalist elements. The outcome of elections in Algeria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and Iran feeds that skepticism. If this European skepticism is well-founded, then a number of conclusions follow. One, time frames lengthen. Therefore, ways need to be found for well-wishers to provide sustained encouragement and engagement. Two, tutelage can be a valuable assist. How though can it be provided without trespassing on the autonomy of existing state authority? Regime change, after all, is the objective. But by what measure is it decided what the appropriate and effective means are, with what deference to the wishes of local rulers? in collaboration will local liberal forces? Is it the ‘West,’ the constellation of working democracies, the world community that does the deciding? Who directs a modulated set of programs at once congenial to the local culture and with the promise of being efficacious – democratic governments, their multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations? Finally, if entrenching a truly democratic polity is a long-term project, how can outsiders make these contributions without trying the patience of those it implicitly is tutoring and, thereby, compromising the very enterprise of democracy-building? The answers to these questions given by the United States and European governments are not likely to be identical. It remains to be seen whether they will prove to be compatible.

State of the Debate

Participants in the debate over democracy promotion in the GME now agree on the axiom that the fostering of democratic institutions and practices can succeed only if the process is sensitive to cultural and social circumstances. Those circumstances include past experiences with diverse modes of political life. Considerable discussion has addressed the issue of whether all societies are equally accommodating to democracy. When posed in the abstract, the proposition defies validation or invalidation. There are too many intervening variables, the empirical data too varied, to allow for confident conclusions.

Democracy itself is composed of multiple elements. One needs to separate to them and then use each as a benchmark against which to gauge a given country’s approximation to it. They include: the legitimization of rulers through open, competitive elections; the representation of the populace through their elected officials; legal limits on how the holders of governmental office exercise state powers; and the protection of individual human rights against abuse by political authorities. Differentiation among these components enhances the analytical value of an approach that is historically informed and culturally sensitive.

(To be continued)

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Dr. Michael Brenner is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. He publishes and teaches in the fields of American foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. He is also Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers on a broad range of topics.