Mistrust, Afghan insecurity loom over Indo-Pak talks
By Annie Banerji
As India and Pakistan begin diplomatic talks between the two countries’ foreign secretaries, Pew Research Centre published a survey this week that shows Pakistanis are strongly critical of India and the United States as well.
Even though there has been a slew of attacks by the Taliban on Pakistani targets since Osama bin Laden’s killing in May, the Pew Research publication illustrates that three in four Pakistanis find India a greater threat than extremist groups.
In similar fashion, 65 percent of Indians expressed an unfavourable view of Pakistan, seeing it as a bigger threat than the LeT, an active militant Islamic organisation operating mainly from Pakistan and Maoist militants operating in India.
Moreover, a majority of Pakistanis disapproved of the U.S. military operation that killed Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, located 35 miles from Islamabad. Only 12 percent expressed a positive view of the U.S. and most Pakistanis view the U.S. as an enemy, consider it a potential military threat and oppose American-led anti-terrorism efforts.
In the midst of these unflattering opinions that India and Pakistan share of each other, U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer comes to the foreground as Washington’s expectation is to see India and Pakistan jointly fill its shoes. However, India feels it will be left to babysit a dangerous neighbourhood riddled with militancy.
Though both countries wish to have improved relations, Pakistan worries about India’s influence in Afghanistan as it would have to defend both its eastern and western borders from what it sees as its existential threat. In the same way, New Delhi fears the possibility of its nuclear-armed neighbour and the Taliban filling the vacuum left by the U.S. troops.
Krittika Biswas: A series of unfortunate events
By Annie Banerji
With a $1.5 million lawsuit on the line, and the sympathy of the U.S.’s homeland security chief, the Indian media has made this 18-year-old’s unfortunate tale well known to its audience.
Krittika Biswas, daughter of an Indian diplomat in New York, says she was wrongfully accused of sending obscene and anti-Semitic e-mails to her teacher, handcuffed in school and detained with criminals overnight in February this year.
Even after she was cleared of all charges and her name omitted from the records, Biswas said her school sent her to a special suspension programme for more than a month.
Her lawyer stated that not only did her 24-hour arrest, of which neither her father nor the consulate general were informed, violate international, federal, state and city laws, but the whole harrowing experience caused the young girl mental trauma due to the conditions she was kept in.
Reports say Krittika was not provided with proper facilities for water or a toilet. But what has irked her supporters is that despite the discovery of the perpetrator, the New York Police Department and school authorities have apparently not taken any steps.
External Affairs minister S.M. Krishna has asked the United States to follow all international norms, accepted practices and conventions in resolving the case as the Indian government has been concerned about, what many perceive it as, a racially biased case of an Indian citizen.
mnb, maybe you should be falsely arrested for stuff you didn’t write, there is proof that she did not send the emails , read the documents carefully, even the da threw the case out the next day or so.
Afridi’s remarks create ripples off cricket pitch
Maverick Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi is best known for his “boom boom” batting and for scoring the fastest hundred in the 50-over version of the game.
However, he is now creating ripples off the cricket pitch for his remarks against India, at a time when the two countries, who have been to war three times since independence, attempt to resume dialogue at the highest level.
Speaking to Pakistan-based Samaa TV, Afridi, the joint highest wicket-taker in the recently concluded cricket World Cup, said on Tuesday it was difficult to maintain good long-term relations with India.
The remarks come a week after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart to watch the arch-rivals battle it out in the semi-final of the showpiece event at Mohali.
“If I have to tell the truth, Indians cannot have the kind of hearts that Pakistani Muslims have,” Afridi said a week after Pakistan were knocked out by India. “They cannot have the big and clean hearts that Allah has given to Pakistanis,” Afridi told the TV channel amid raucous applause from the studio audience.
His comments sparked outrage in the Indian media, and headline writers had a field day. The Indian Express called it “Afridi’s wrong ‘un,” while the Times of India called it a “bewildering, undiplomatic rant against Indian culture, its people, cricket team and the media.”
To his credit, Afridi quickly went into damage-control mood and said on Wednesday he was quoted out of context. “The media makes a big deal of small issues. It is shameful. I have always done my bit to improve Indo-Pak ties but sometimes you say something and it is interpreted the other way,” Afridi told NDTV.
Get ready to blow your whistles and cheer on the gods of cricket! DLF IPL is hitting a city near you and it all starts April 8th, only on MAX.
Will Singh add Pakistan to his list of triumphs?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long wanted to secure what his dozen predecessors have failed to achieve: lasting peace with arch rival Pakistan. But, if the WikiLeaks cables are to be believed, Singh probably remains isolated in pursuing his dream.
In a week when officials from both countries meet to resume talks broken off after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and when the two prime ministers play “cricket diplomacy“, have the chances for peace improved?
There seems to be too much loaded against the initiative. The enmity between the two nations is rooted in their very existence and peaceniks are a handful. There is little political gain and much risk to be had from pursuing peace.
Both sides have hardened positions on Kashmir, the Himalayan territory that is claimed in full but ruled in part by both. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the region. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of aiding separatists and wants this to end. Pakistan denies any help apart from moral and diplomatic support.
And while Singh appears to be the only Indian leader the Pakistanis respect and trust, he has little political clout. His Congress party and the government run on the dictates of powerful party chief Sonia Gandhi. A series of corruption scandals and high prices have eroded his image as a leader above India’s murky politics and put him in the opposition’s firing line.
Singh cannot anyway expect much enthusiasm from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu nationalist party which eyes Pakistan with deep suspicion. The BJP has in the past played up tensions with Islamabad and would jump on the government at the slightest hint of mischief from across the border.
Nor is the civilian government in Pakistan particularly in a position to push for peace. Indian policy is made in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistani army, rather than in Islamabad, critics say, and they have little desire to mend relations with India. There have been past instances where the army has scuppered deals.
from Afghan Journal:
Standing on the warfront: when sport divides India and Pakistan
In the run-up to Wednesday's cricket match between India and Pakistan, passions are running high on both sides of the border and in the diaspora which is following their teams' progress in the game's biggest tournament.
How to demolish Pakistan was the title of a programme aired by an Indian television network where former players and experts discussed ways to win the high-voltage game that will be played in the northern Indian town of Mohali, within, in a manner of speaking, of earshot distance of the heavily militarised border with Pakistan. Pakistan television in similarly wall-to-wall coverage ran a programme where one of the guests advised the team to recite a particular passage from the Koran before stepping out to play that day. There is even a story doing the rounds in Pakistan that an enraged Indian crowd put a parrot fortune teller to death for predicting a Pakistani victory, according to this report.
All fair in sport, you would argue, and especially for two countries that take their cricket very seriously. But this contest has an edgy undertone of antagonism that flows from the tension in ties since the Mumbai attacks of 2008 carried out by Pakistan based militants and for which New Delhi seeks greater redress from Pakistani authorities.
The charged atmosphere - and this has very little to do with the players themselves - recalls the fervour and aggression of the 1990s when the people of the two countries treated cricket as essential conflict. Each game was seen as a test of national honour in much the way the border guards of the two countries strut their stuff in a bitter-sweet ceremony at the Wagah crossing each day at sunset. The winner of the cricket game was feted while the loser slinked away in disgrace.
The drums of war are being heard again as the subcontinent virtually prepares to come to a halt for the game this week. "To many cricket fans its a war, to the Pakistani fans it's match of revenge as they think that the BCCI and Indian underground agents have been the criminals in causing all the chaos in Pakistan and its cricket, while India thinks Pakistan as the culprit in creating a zone of terrorism surrounding them," wrote Faisal Caesar in SportPulse.
But what does Indian batting genius Sachin Tendulkar or Pakistan's resurgent captain Shahid Afridi have to do with all that, he asks.
Make no mistake… this is no match like any other match. It’s WAR and a MOTHER OF ALL
India’s Iran double-speak could shed light on its Libya muddle
India’s Congress-led government has a “flimsy” relationship with Iran, and holds a far more U.S.-centric view of Tehran despite a number of public statements clashing with Washington’s stance towards the country, a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable said.
The diplomatic double-speak alleged in the cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and published by The Hindu on Saturday, shows Congress’ ability to address diplomatic pressures while maintaining bigger geopolitical relationships, and could shed some light on India’s decision to abstain from supporting a no-fly zone to thwart attacks by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on civilians, seen by some as a rebuttal of Western influence on New Delhi.
The cable, authored by the Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, describes a 2008 statement rejecting U.S. demands for India to urge Iran to suspend its nuclear programme as “mere tactics in the UPA’s domestic political machinations.”
“The reality remains that India and Iran have a flimsy relationship, which the Congress Party has attempted to spin for the benefit of its Left allies and Muslim voters, who continue to deride India’s two votes in the IAEA against Iran,” the cable says.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party was forced to win a no-confidence vote in 2008 after agreeing to U.S. support for India’s nuclear programme, and has been criticised by opposition parties and the left bloc for fostering closer relations with Washington.
But in a vote this month at the U.N. Security Council, India joined with China and Russia in abstaining from supporting a U.S.-authored motion authorising a no-fly zone in Libya, also a Muslim-majority country.
Hi Henry,
This may come as a surprise to you but most governments do this “double speak” you describe. What do you suppose are other embassies are writing about the intervention in Libya and decision not to enter other middle eastern states? Double speak is everywhere, it’s nothing new! India is in a neighbourhood which has Russia and China, all of whom go in the other direction of the US. What’s the benefit of sticking out all the time on these issues? Do you think India has enough clout to stick out on its own? Is the west going to embrace India with open arms if India stops the double speak? India has to work, and live in this neighbourhood. The Libyan situation has surely pointed the double speak that is present. Compare the press releases that come out for the Libyan situation versus the situations in countries which are friendly to the west. Therefore, India’s iran double-speak doesn’t shed light onto anything.
An “emerged” India still hasn’t come out of diplomatic closet
India may be “emerged” in the sound bite used by U.S. President Barack Obama during his landmark visit last year. But if the U.N. vote on a no-fly zone is anything to go by, New Delhi’s rise to wield global economic clout has so far not been replicated as easily on the geopolitical stage.
Despite vocal opposition to a no-fly zone in Libya , India decided as a non-permanent security council member to abstain at the United Nations, along with fellow BRIC, Brazil, on the issue.
Realpolitik, the government may say. Who would want to be seen as the only opponent of the no-fly zone (the only other “opposition” came from abstained German, Russia, China). And there is a danger India would be seen as supporting Gaddafi.
But unlike China – which as one of five permanent security council members could destroy any plans for the no-fly zone with its single veto – India’s opposition would have been seen as purely symbolic, and would have signalled widespread worries among many countries that the West will quickly get involved in a military quagmire.
Brazil, which was vocal in its opposition to getting involved militarily in Libya, also abstained.
Maybe a vote against would have been politically impossible amid a flexing of its muscle by the United States. But India may have lost an opportunity to develop a single voice on the world stage, flip-flopping over its first major test since assuming its U.N. seat in January. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the motion, the United States clearly has set the agenda and shown that it is still the effective world military and diplomatic power.
India saw the U.N. seat as its coming of age. Obama may have feted India last year, but he also warned that with added power comes added responsibility. He was referring to India’s position on a host of delicate diplomatic issues such as Iran and Myanmar.
India abstaining from voting on Libya is a positive step.It portrays India’s willingness to take self-reliant decisions in security council.This should be seen as a sign of growing diplomatic confidence.This is a sign of emergence of BRIC(brazil,India,Russia,China) in cooperation on diplomatic grounds.
Should Britain continue its controversial £1bln India aid package?
The UK will continue to send more than £1 billion to India over the next four years, despite huge cuts to government spending under London’s Conservative-led coalition government and soaring economic growth in the Asian giant. Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development secretary, told the Financial Times on Monday that Britain’s annual £280 million aid payments to India would not be reduced, in spite of the country’s space ambitions, nuclear energy development, soaring numbers of billionaires and its own aid program to many African nations.
Mitchell’s comments, a day before an official announcement, are likely to infuriate some UK MPs who have seen spending slashed in their constituencies, and those who have called for a reduction in overseas payments as British taxpayers brace for a period of tough austerity measures.
In September, suggestions from Westminster that aid may be reduced sparked a terse response from New Delhi, as Indian officials reportedly mulled rejecting UK support rather than waiting for London to decide whether its slice of the pie would shrink.
British newspapers have questioned financial assistance for a country whose economy is growing at over 8.5 percent with a $31.5 billion defence budget and ambitions to join the U.N. Security Council. Permanent Security Council members Russia and China were told by London last year that continuing to supply aid to them was “not justifiable”.
Yet despite its booming economy and global power aspirations, India still accounts for a large proportion of the world’s poorest people, presenting international donors with a quandary.
“India has more poor people in it than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. If you’re going to achieve the [UN] millennium development goals, you have to make big progress in India,” Mitchell told the Financial Times.
But should India need cash from British taxpayers to protect the poorest in its society, and could the UK’s overseas aid be better spent elsewhere?
Have the Brits gone crazy or what?? Despite the billionaires and billion scandals in India why would Indian people want to see the money inflow being hampered. Brits can stop aid at risk of getting their investments kicked out of India. Do you want Vodafone to pack up from India and many others as well??? Yes its a blackmail but then Brits looted the Golden Bird for 300 long and painful years…pay the price now!!
Where has India’s hawkish stance on China gone?
India’s complex diplomacy with China became further muddled on Friday as the chief of the Indian army categorically denied any troop build-up on either side of the Asian giants’ shared border in response to recent reports of Chinese military incursions into Indian territory.
India’s civil government and army officials strike a delicate balancing act in their position on the country’s powerful neighbour, with a hawkish military stance traditionally tempered by more reserved – but domestically unpopular – rhetoric from New Delhi.
However that appeared to be out of date on Friday as General V.K. Singh, Chief of Army staff said neither side was bolstering its border troops, four days after trashing media reports of potential acts of Chinese aggression on Indian soil last September.
“Force deployment on both the sides of the Sino-Indian border has not increased. The force deployment is exactly the same as has been there for a large number of years,” Singh told reporters.
“In this region, the Chinese patrols go up to their perceived region and our patrols go up to our perceived region.”
“When our patrols go to our perceived region, you do not report because they are our patrols. But, when their patrols come, you report that an incursion or transgression has taken place,” he added.
India may think China has forgotten the issue due to extending the hand of friendship to India and in turn swiftly took the hand and kissed it not knowing that the claws of the dragon is more dangerous than the cyanide poison.
Why because during the recent visit of the china’s President Hu Jintao made it clear to the American that China would request US not to interfere with the internal affairs of China as China considers Twain and Tibet as their internal affairs. This is enough to drive China’s point home that It will retaliate if any one interfere in China’s internal affairs and that also drives home the point directing to India Thus asking US and India both to keep off from it
After US visit of the China’s President when he is back home, things will take shape with Tibet and India and later with Twain. It seems India’s defense pacts with countries may end up in fiasco. It is becoming clear that India sooner or later is going for a big high jump and when it returns to earth its shape and size may have to be redrawn afresh.
It is because of these new developments India may be is in deep tension and thinking hard as what can be done to confront. It is supremacy over Pakistan seems to be taking a dive down to earth.
In addition it is reported that the eastern states and the countries are all anti-INDIA even yesterdays friendly people of Bangladesh is fast turning anti-India today, because of its border Atrocities. BSF killing Bangladeshi’s like birds, and the government is mum to protests by opposition of the country.
In the west is Pakistan, needs no elaboration, so no neighbor to help. This is what happens when people think it can walk alone in this world of uncertainty.
We well wishers of the west pray for India to learn to walk with friends instead of making enemies. It is known that out side enemies can be taken care of but home borne enemies are more ferocious and catastrophic in all respect. Now India is amidst the most ferocious and catastrophic self-created enemies. Only God alone can help it.
Think after having gone through the above why ‘India’s hawkish stance on China is gone with the wind?’
India’s indignation over (un)diplomatic conventions
Forget WikiLeaks, according to India’s Foreign Minister the greatest threat to Indo-U.S. relations are the hands of airport security guards on New Delhi’s diplomatic elite. On Dec 4, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Meera Shankar was pulled from the interminable airport security queue at Jackson-Evers International Airport in Mississippi and subjected to a full body pat-down by security officials, despite reportedly stressing her diplomatic credentials.
India’s three biggest English newspapers gave the story front-page treatment on Friday, jostling for column inches alongside the continued investigations into a $39 billion telecoms scam and India’s crucial role in the ongoing climate change talks in Cancun.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s view, that the incident was “appropriate under the circumstances“, fuelled a sense of injustice in New Delhi.
“This is unacceptable to India and we are going to take it up with the U.S. government and I hope things will be resolved so that such unpleasant incidents do not recur,” S.M. Krishna, India’s Foreign Minister, was reported as saying in response.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, presumingly taking a break from such pressing issues as thawing talks with nuclear-armed neighbour Pakistan and organising the upcoming visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, told reporters on Friday that India was awaiting a report from Washington before taking up the matter with American authorities.
But not everyone is caught up in the hyperbole.
“Just think there is too much fuss and fury wasted on this stuff. And anyway, why should a diplomat be above the normal rules?” prominent Indian broadcast journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted on Friday, as her channel, NDTV, screened U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s promise to respond to Krishna’s complaints prominently in its news bulletins.
its really about quid pro quo – us diplomats go through the same checks as indian ones. but you’re right, non-issue…
The show must go on; the majority of Indians and Pakistanis do not want peace, but a continued war with each other, until the other party has been annihilated. This is their destiny and many of the leaders who went into dialogues to talk about talks and negotiations about the disputes ended the talks by adding new issues to the main conflict of Kashmir. The leaders of both countries have been the masters of deceit, duplicity and betrayal outwitting even the spin master of Politics, the famous Machiavelli. They have never tried sincerely to protect people’s interests or those of the coming generations, inspite of their supposed commitment to fairness and justice for their people.In the meantime they have acquired enough lethal weapons to annihilate each other, the genuine desire of both parties.
Rex Minor