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.
India votes for Obama as storm clouds gather at home
U.S. President Barack Obama is facing a storm of voter discontent but in India where he travels three days after this week’s huge congressional elections, he’s already a winner. More than seven out of 10 Indians endorse his leadership, saying they believe he will do the right thing in world affairs, a Pew poll released in late October showed.
Contrast that with his approval ratings at home just as he heads into the critical midterm election. More people disapprove of his job performance (47 percent) than the number who approve (45 percent), according to the latest CBS news/New York Times opinion poll.
It’s not just Obama who gets the thumbs-up. Indians are generally well-disposed toward America even when the rest of the world is less inclined to. According to the Pew poll, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) express a favourable opinion of the U.S., although this is down from 76 percent last year. By contrast, only 51 percent Indians rate long-time ally Russia favourably, and even fewer feel this way about the EU (36 percent) or China (34 percent). Indeed, Indians don’t even share the common belief that the United States has increasingly been acting on its own. Some (83 percent) said the U.S. takes the interests of countries like India into account when it makes foreign policy decisions — the highest percentage among the 21 nations surveyed outside the U.S.
Quite extraordinary, the unequivocal vote of confidence in America even though the Obama administration has been more measured toward India than its predecessor; the strategic warmth that marked the Bush years having cooled off a bit. It’s quite possible that Obama’s trip this week may turn out to be a game changer, but at the moment for every positive aspect of their relationship, you can find another such as trade, climate change where they are on opposite sides.
India, as the Pentagon famously put it not long ago, is neither an adversary nor an ally. It should know; for the last three years as this story notes, the Pentagon has been trying to get a logistical support agreement that will allow U.S. military planes to refuel in India. But politicians have agonised over the decision, worried that it will drive the country deeper into America’s embrace, even though ordinary Indians may not share those misgivings.
America’s popularity in India is in stark contrast to its standing in next door Pakistan, a close ally where it is spending $7.5 billion in civilian aid, not to mention a $2 billion military package approved last week. A similar poll on attitudes in Pakistan conducted by Pew in July found that despite the billions of dollars in civil and military aid, the United States had a serious image problem there. Nearly 60 percent of those polled in Pakistan described the U.S. as an enemy, while just 11 percent saw it as a partner. Obama, barely two years in office, is already deeply unpopular. Only 8 percent of Pakistanis thought that he will do the right thing in world affairs, his lowest rating among the 22 nations that Pew surveyed.
U.S. engagement with Pakistan has been far longer and deeper than India. It’s now virtually involved in an undeclared war against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan that most people there see as a blatant violation of its rights as a sovereign nation. The results of the survey, in that sense, cannot be compared with India. But some people, at some point, may start asking if its really worth America’s while to invest in Pakistan when it only seems to turn the country further against it.
Mr Obama is definitely going to provide a great impulse for the Indian leaders and its commerce and the people of the region.
His visit to the middle east brought prosperity and peace to the people of the region. He went to Europe and excited the crowd, upset Bona part a bit and made Barlusconi nevous. At home he managed to have the health bill passed by his fellow democrats, got the approval to salvage the Investment bankers and finally managed to replace the democrat majority congress into a republican congress. He is now in India to make some bucks for the American industry and would most probably leave some attractive hightech lethal weaponry.
The leaders who are now going to call the shots in the next G20 meeting are currently having a debriefing in Paris.
Rex Minor
from Afghan Journal:
Obama in India next month; ripples in the region
U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to India is still a couple of weeks away and there is the huge U.S. election before then, but it has already set off ripples in the region. The Chinese have especially cottoned onto Obama's Indian journey, fretting over what they see as a U.S. attempt to ring fence China by deepening ties with countries around it. And continent-size India with a population of over a billion and an economy growing at a clip just behind China's is seen as a key element of that strategy of containment.
Qui Hao of the National Defense University, writes in the Global Times that while U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea form the backbone of the "strategic fence" around China, the "shell" is the partnership that Washington is building with India, Vietnam and other nations that have territorial disputes with China.
India, Qui cautions, would do well not to blindly follow America's policies in the region, especially if it really wanted to be a global player. India, China and the United States were bound up in a triangular relationship, and as the two weaker parts of that relationship, it was important that they maintained stable ties so that Washington didn't exploit their differences, Qui wrote.
Quite remarkable, since for decades and especially so in recent years, the Chinese have hardly seen India as little more than a regional player locked in disputes with its neighbours, much less an equal in a three-way relationship involving the United States.
Qui is not alone. Du Youkang who heads the center for South Asian studies at Fudan University said the rise of India and China was the 21st century's biggest development, and both countries must work to deepen ties. Some Western countries and the media were trying to drive a wedge between the two neighbours , Du said in the China Daily, urging both to be vigilant against elements inside their countries and outside trying to stir trouble and derail a growing relationship. There was much that was common between the two countries, not least their desire to meet the challenges globalisation in a Western-dominated international economic system.
China and India share a lot of common views on many major international issues such as a multi-polar world, reform of the international economic and financial system, South-North relations, democratization of international relations, climate change and World Trade Organization talks. In recent years, the two sides have enhanced coordination and cooperation over these issues to protect their as well as the entire developing world's interests.
China is not the only one watching Obama's passage to India. Arch rival Pakistan will be closely following the trip, beginning from Mumbai and indeed the very hotel which was one of the centres targeted by Pakistan-based militants in deadly attacks in 2008. Pakistan, and by extension Afghanistan, will by themselves be the elephants in the room when Obama sits down for talks with his Indian hosts. Any tilt, or a perceived slight or remarks such as the one made by British Prime Minister David Cameron when he was visiting India, saying Pakistan couldn't look both ways in the fight against terrorism, run the risk of further souring U.S.-Pakistan ties.
Strategic games like this are far more complex and subtle than it may appear at first.
Now the main topic is about “containing” China through an alliance between the United States and India but this is just one possible outcome.
Most people may know that the United States’ influence extends deep into Japan and South Korea as a result of the Cold War (switching to North Korea as of recent) and now is a convenient force against “threats” in the region but what is to say that the United States won’t use the “China Threat” to gain influence into India and surrounding regions in a similar fashion.
In this triangle relationship, let’s say that the US-India grouping wins, then what is stopping the US from turning against India. Is there something inherently special about the US-India relationship that it “works” or is it just a strategic relationship based on function but not substance, in which case there runs a risk of a “fallout” once there is no more need.
Also, many may remember that the United States ran a covert operation to resist Soviet influence in Afghanistan back in the 80′s and at first that was deemed a huge success but as can be witnessed in today’s ongoing war in Afghanistan, that success manifested into unintended conflict. Can the same thing happen here?
Let’s say the US “interferes” in the Indian region against “Chinese influence” then after the operation is deemed a success, can the same unintended conflict inflict the Indian region. Afghanistan came to bite the US in the behind many years after so what is to say that the current agenda won’t come back to haunt the US in another 20 years?
Do people in India see the United States as treating India as an equal or is the US just using India like a pawn in the “Great Game” of the 21st Century? How many actually think the US would empower India because there is very little chance that the US would allow India grow beyond the United States’ own power.Thus this alliance would only be a short term solution since if it were India on top it would be using another country (Pakistan?) to “contain” India.
As a side note I would like to hear some Indian opinion on some issues in reply.
KINGFISHER you said: “India is a divided Sub Continent already many states are waiting for an opportunity to secede like once it was the condition in Russia”
Is there any other sources for this? Can any Indians give an opinion on the truth (or false) of this? KINGFISHER if I were to ask you to give the probability of fracture of the states what would you say and are there sources to back up your claim?
Also, can any Indians comment on the tensions between India and Pakistan? I want to hear some real Indian opinions about what are the causes of conflict and where do they see the relationship in the future. Thanks
Is it time to end the death penalty in India?
Suddenly, everyone in India is talking about executions.
Grim hangings are a topic of animated conversation at water coolers, cocktail parties and chat shows. Everyone seems to favour them, the quicker the better.
Just weeks ago, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani gunman convicted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was sentenced to death by hanging.
Everywhere in Mumbai, where 166 people were gunned down by Kasab and his accomplices, people cheered and fought to express their joy to newspapers and TV channels.
But Kasab, who has the right to appeal his sentence at a higher court, is in queue. Ahead of him is Afzal Guru, who was convicted in the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.
Guru had filed a mercy petition, which is doing the rounds between ministries in Delhi.
No human being has the right to kill other(s). Even killing animals are considered a sin, except for livelihood or in self-defense.
The sinner(s), if not today, shall regret and repent for his wrong-deeds.
Give every sinner his right for penance (Sanskrit-Prayaschit).
Greatest justice is forgiveness and must not been seen as act of weakness.
“Love the creatures for the sake of God and not for themselves. You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look toward God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy. Therefore, do not look at the shortcomings of anybody; see with the sight of forgiveness.”
— `Abdu’l-Bahá.
Reactions to the Kasab verdict
A Mumbai court sentenced to death Pakistani citizen Mohammad Ajmal Kasab over the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Here are some reactions from people in New Delhi.
I must not sound like a mindless murderer…..but i am very good at writing , well there are some kids who born after kasab started killing the innocent people and some unfortunate kids will die with some or other reason but kasab may still be alive……!
I dont support killing of any human being…..and i wont support the hanging or kasab but thanz god he has proved himself not being a human…..! so the fast they hang him ….the better.hope they feel the same what those people are feeling whom kasab and his gang has done.
Is the Kasab verdict a victory for India’s judiciary?
Almost a year and a half since the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, Ajmal Kasab, the lone gunman captured during the three-day rampage, has been sentenced to death by a special court.
“He shall be hanged by the neck till he is dead,” Judge M.L. Tahilyani said at a special court as Kasab sat with his head bowed, occasionally wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and then covering his ears with his fingers.
The judgement was hardly surprising given the accused pleaded guilty during the course of the trial (although he later retracted) and more than 650 witnesses testified against Kasab, backed by video grabs of him walking around the attack site with an AK-47 rifle in hand.
Add to that intense public pressure for awarding the harshest punishment possible and the fact he is from Pakistan, India’s traditional enemy, the verdict was more or less a given.
The speedy trial, hurried by public pressure and overwhelming evidence, is also a victory for India’s notoriously slow judicial system.
The verdict came within a year after court proceedings against Kasab, compared to a 14-year trial in the 1993 serial blasts case in the same city.
Surprisingly, two Indian nationals accused of being members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and of conducting reconnaissance in Mumbai before the attack, were acquitted of all charges because the judge felt the evidence against them was weak.
I think most of the victims family will be relieved and the Death Penalty is appropriate if it has been proved that he is the man who killed so many innocents, and the other two being acquitted shows that the prosecution has failed to prove the charges and some innocents have become the fallout of this tragedy, i wonder if the prosecution will appeal to the higher courts for the two acquitted people or is it the they have been wrongly framed.
we have lost some very honest and secular police officers in this carnage who where getting into the roots of other blasts carried in the name of muslims but proving to be done by a Hindu terror organization called Abhinav Bharath.
My condolences to all the brave citizens of India who have lost their near and loved ones. We should get to the people who have planned this and bring them all to justice.
26/11 – Lasting images, limited impact?
Ahead of the first anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, India’s financial hub is on heightened alert.
Metal detectors and scanners “beep” in office blocks and malls, snipers and sniffer dogs keep guard at hotels, and barricades are in place around high-profile locations. And various talking heads have made power point presentations to show the city is now safer.
In the past year, several measures have been put in place to tighten security in Mumbai, including a hub for elite commandos, and new weapons, armoured vehicles and speedboats for the police.
But how safe is the city that has been a target of bomb attacks before and remains a magnet for militants bent on hurting India’s status as an economic powerhouse?
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has said India remains just as vulnerable to another attack, but that our capacity to deal with them has improved.
But some security experts say little has changed, and the fact that there have been no major attacks in the last year has little to do with India’s improved ability, and more to do with the greater pressure on Pakistan. That it is only a matter of time before the Lashkar-e-Taiba launches another attack in India. That the revamping of the police force that is needed to secure the city has not been done.
Even in Mumbai, at the main train station where militants gunned down the most number of victims last year, door-frame metal detectors stand unmanned and bags go unchecked. And the coastline, which was easily breached by the gunmen, remains largely unprotected.
If post 9/11 USA can go in Afghanistan,bomb the country throw Taliban out all in the name of securing their homeland.. my question is y cant we Do the same thing wid all d camps in PoK and inside Pakistan? – our army knows where exactly these camps r! We also have a right to protect our homeland right?It is not an eye for an eye!Its only a slap for an eye. Pak is lucky we dont bomb them like USA
Manmohan Singh’s shrinking room for manoeuvre on Pakistan
It is more than two weeks since Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a declaration with his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani aimed at rebuilding ties, but the attacks on Singh haven’t abated at home.
By agreeing to delink terrorism from the broader peace process and including a reference to the threats inside Pakistan’s troubled Baluchistan province – which Pakistan says is stoked by India – Singh is seen to have gone too far to accommodate the neighbour without getting anything in return.
If the sustained nature of the attacks from the security establishment, the Hindu nationalist opposition and the sniper firing from within Singh’s ruling Congress is any indication, he has a rocky path ahead in any engagement with Pakistan.
As Pratap Bhanu Mehta who heads the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi notes, the continuing controversy over the Sharm el-Sheikh statement poses a huge challenge for the prime minister. “He has to recognise how much at odds his strategy on Pakistan appears to be with a lot of public opinion.”
You can be sure the next time Singh meets Gilani or anyone else from the Pakistani establishment in some third nation (a trip to Islamabad is hard to comprehend on current public opinion), there will be a billion people watching him. They will scrutinise every move, every comment, and every word that he signs off on.
There is even a piece by Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s foremost modern historians, pointing out that three men in charge of India’s foreign policy – Singh, foreign minister S. M. Krishna and National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan were all on the wrong side of 75, and at a time when India’s foreign policy faced a daunting challenge. “In the rocky ocean of global politics, the Indian ship of State can carry one old man, perhaps even two. But three?” he asks.
United States of India .. A view from MIT
“By 2040, after a transformative reformation of entire power structure in former Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will formally merge into a United States of India”
http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N30/indiapakist an.html
And now, Pakistan’s militants strike in its Kashmir region
A suicide bomber has struck in Pakistani Kashmir killing two soldiers in what is said to be the first such attack in the Himalayan region. The attacker targeted military barracks, which raises the question whether Pakistan’s Islamist militants are opening a new front just as they come under pressure in the northwest.
A suicide attack in Muzaffarabad, eerily identical to the scores that have taken place on the Indian side of the scenic region in the past, will trigger interest in New Delhi for likely clues to which way the war in Pakistan is headed.
Nobody yet has claimed responsibility, but if it is the Pakistan Taliban what signal is it sending? Is it going to fight the Pakistani army everywhere including Kashmir, which really has been at the core of Pakistan’s policy towards India.
Or is it the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has long operated on the Indian side of Kashmir as also other parts of India ? Are they sending a warning against any crackdown on the group, which New Delhi has been demanding even more stridently since the Mumbai attacks.
For the Lashkar, seen to have long-running ties to Pakistan’s security establishment, to be turning against its benefactors in such manner and such an emotive location would indeed be a watershed.
Or is this intended to raise tensions between India and Pakistan in Kashmir again? India holds Pakistan-based groups responsible for the rebellion in Kashmir. Are the Pakistanis going to point the finger at India, now that violence has reached their part of Himalayan region?
No coincidence, but the attack comes just as India’s defence minister said infiltration by guerrillas from Pakistan into Indian Kashmir was down this summer.
Given the false promise of democracy in Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas, the anti-government sentiment is not new to the region. the only difference is that, like India administered J&K, the militants are taking advantage of popular unrest to spread violence. http://thetrajectory.com/blogs/?p=630
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India: should it take a gamble on Pakistan?
Some people in India are calling upon the new coalition government to make a series of bold moves towards Pakistan that will compel the neighbour to put its money where the mouth is.
If Pakistan keeps saying that it cannot fully and single-mindedly go after militants on its northwest frontier and indeed increasingly within the heartland because of the threat it faces from India, then New Delhi must call its bluff, argued authors Nitin Pai and Sushant K. Singh in a recent piece for India's Mint newspaper.
How about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, back for a second term, giving a categorical public declaration that Pakistan need not fear an Indian military attack so long as the Pakistan army is engaged in fighting with Taliban militants? While a verbal commitment may not convince the military brass in Rawalpindi, it will likely play well in Washington as it rathchets up pressure on the Pakistan army to take the battle to the militants.
Second and to back up its assurance, India could move some of the army strike formations from the international border with Pakistan in Punjab and Rajasthan. "Such a bold, strategic move will not only make India's verbal assurances credible, but it will also immediately result in irresistible pressure on the Pakistani army to commit more of its troops to the western border," the authors wrote in the Mint piece.
Clearly, the aim of such a peace gamble is to expose the contradiction within the Pakistani position, force them to either go full throttle after militant groups, some of whom are suspected to be tied to its intelligence agencies, or face America's wrath.
Moving Indian troops back will compel the Pakistan army to act against the Taliban, and because it is incapable of doing so, will cause the United States to realise that there is no alternative to dismantling the military-jihadi complex, Pai and Singh argue.
Umair,
You would not have asked for moral courage from Sanjiv if you knew the turn of events that went from 1947 through 1971 in East Pakistan, aka Banladesh. It’s a pity that your knowledge is limited to what is written on the blogs and what is printed in irresponsible Pakistan media.
Besides, how is Bangladesh related to solving the border dispute in Kashmir?
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