The appointment of Ghulam Nabi Azad as the puppet chief minister in IHK, with effect from 2 November 25, 2005, is a significant development which has come about at a time when things are in a flux in Kashmir. The trail of destruction left behind by the Kashmir quake has mobilized forces and aspirations among Kashmiris; generating a momentum for solution of the moribund issue. The détente with Pakistan in the background of demands to make progress on Kashmir is gaining in strength. The Indian Government’s dialogue with the APHC is visibly stalling as the second round of talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the APHC chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has failed to materialize after their visits to the United States. Despite passage of several weeks no dates for a second round of dialogue have been announced. And most noticeably, after a hiatus of two years or so the violence is menacingly picking up.
Azad’s appointment is a sequel to the Congress- PDP electoral accord, following the coalition’s victory in the farcical elections held in 2002. Even as Mufti Sayeed’s 3 years tenure as the Chief Minister was coming to an end, the wily politician maneuvered to eek out an extension of his tenure from the Congress Party. This proved futile, as on 27 Oct the Congress Party announced the appointment of Ghulam Nabi Azad as their man in IHK. Azad’s elevation at such significant juncture means that Congress will have a chief minister in J&K after a gap of 30 years since Mir Qasim made way for an aging Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah in the wake of Indira Gandhi – Sheikh Abdullah accord in 1975.
Mufti Sayeed had managed to play his cards well. A diehard establishment man himself (he was the Indian Union’s Home Minister in 1989 when the insurgency demanding freedom from India burst out into the open), as leader of the PDP he professed close affinity with aspirations of the traumatized Kashmiri masses. Brandishing an agenda that was close to the demands made by Kashmiri people, he promised radical changes. He stood for opening up channels of communications with the Kashmiri insurgent groups, promising to break the tyrannical hold of the occupational forces symbolized by institutionalized instruments such as Special Operations Group (SOG) and black laws such as POTA and instituting the healing touch process. Initially seen with suspicion by hardliners in India, he fully lived to up to the expectations of his Indian masters. Yet a perception was fast spreading that he was consolidating his position in the local politics of Kashmir at the cost of the Congress Party which was coming to be increasingly suspicious of his political chutzpah to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. Much against Mufti’s expectations he was asked to step down and make way for Azad ; Congress’ thoroughbred acolyte, to be India’s front man in IHK.
Indians, particularly the Congress Governments have heavily relied on the ‘loyalties’ of chosen turncoats in their attempts to consolidate stranglehold over Kashmir. An anecdote goes far to explain the Indian method. During Sheikh Abdullah’s authoritarian rule (1948 – 1953), Balraj Puri, a Jammu based writer and a political activist met Nehru and pleaded that disgruntled element among national Conference be allowed to form a democratic opposition to Abdullah’s autocratic ways. According to Puri “Nehru conceded the theoretical soundness of my argument but maintained that India’s Kashmir Policy revolved around Abdullah and that nothing should be done to weaken him”. After Abdullah’s fall Bakhsi Ghulam Muhammad was appointed as the puppet Chief Minister and Puri again went on to draw Nehru’s attention to Bakhshi’s un-democratic ways. “Nehru fully agreed that Bakhshi was a thoroughly unsavory person,” wrote Puri, “but argued that India’s case now revolved around him and despite all shortcomings the Bakhshi government had to be strengthened. For according to Nehru, Kashmir politics revolved around personalities and there was no material for democracy there.” Azad’s elevation to his current appointment also amply endorses Nehruvian recipe for Kashmir.
Azad is from Doda District of the Jammu Region and his selection violates the strict precedence set by Nehru, dictating that Chief Minister in IHK had to be from the Kashmir Valley. He was picked up early in his formative years and groomed for promoting the interests of his Congress masters. He was nominated as the President of the Indian Youth Congress 25 years earlier and later served in the Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao’s Cabinets. Azad is currently a Rajya Sabha member from the J&K and has, in the past, won a Lok Sabha seat from Maharashtra as well. He is currently a member of the Union Council of Ministers ( he heads the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs) and is part of the inner group of Congress leadership that regularly meets with Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi to discuss strategy related matters. His longstanding association with Congress Party, however, is no asset for the job in hand since the Party is strongly reviled in the IHK for its manipulative policies and machinations.
Ghulam Nabi Azad’s appointment bears testimony to the fact that more things appear to change, more they tend to remain the same. Ever since India occupied the State of Jammu and Kashmir it has depended upon handpicked persons to advance Indian agenda in total disregard to the grass root Kashmiri aspirations. Well known Kashmiri turncoats, driven by greed and inane ambitions, have been more than willing to sell their soul as well as the Kashmiri people to do India’s bidding. National Conference’s Sheikh Abdullah set the process rolling and thereafter various Indian stooges, belonging to the National Conference provided the vehicle for carrying out the Indian designs and nefarious agenda in Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah (1949 - 1953, 1977 - 83), Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad (1953-1963), G M Sadiq (1963 - 67) and Farooq Abdullah, all bear testimony to this deceitful design. With imposition of such non-representative governance it was only a matter of time that public resentment overflowed – which it did in 1989 with bursting out of the militancy that has gone on despite employment of all tactics under the sun by successive Indian Governments.
Ghulam Nabi Azad has a tough job at hand. Not only is he tainted as an ‘outsider’ in the Valley, the sham polls that brought the PDP- Congress Coalition to power hardly bestow a certification of popular representation for the Congress Party. It only picked up around 10% of the popular vote and factoring the large scale rigging that went into the 2002 sham polls, the actual figures are anybody’s guess. At a time when the local population is clamoring for a respite from the state sponsored terrorism by the Indian Armed Forces and calling for the reining in of the Indian security apparatus how would he balance his loyalties to his Indian masters vis-à-vis his responsibilities to the locals’ aspirations comes across as a tough nut to crack.
The feeling that Azad is India’s own man has already triggered a backlash in the Valley where violence is beginning to pick up. A spate of high-profile attacks on top politicians in IHK is an indicator of things to come. Education Minister Ghulam Nabi Lone was killed in a suicide-squad assault in which Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, barely escaped with his life amply points to the deteriorating security situation which can fast spin out of control. Azad has a tough job to perform for his Indian masters but if precedence is any guide he will probably end up as another puppet Chief Minister who failed to live up to expectations.

Cow slaughter in India
Amjed Jaaved

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has demanded a nation-wide ban on cow slaughter (Modi seeks nationwide ban on cow slaughter, Hindu, November 21, 2005, PTI, Ahmedabad). Now even India’s Supreme Court is singing in chorus with Modi’s Inc_ On October 26, the Supreme Court had reversed a 36-year-old ruling and upheld the constitutional validity of a Gujarat law imposing a ban on slaughtering of bulls, and bullocks. Modi’s demand is in line with Indian government’s long-cherished plan. The BBC had reported in August 2005, ‘The Indian Government has introduced plans to impose a nationwide ban on cow-slaughter across the country (India targets cow slaughter, By Jyotsna Singh BBC correspondent in Delhi, bbc.com, August 11, 2005).
The report adds, ‘Cow-slaughter is now banned in a majority of states except Kerala, West Bengal and the seven-north-eastern states. In Kerala, Muslims, Christians and even Hindus eat beef. The government spokesperson refused to give any details of the proposed law. But she said the ban would be binding on all states’. Cow slaughter is banned even in Uttar Pradesh whose several districts have Muslim in majority (India’s most populous state bans cow slaughter. ‘Under the ban, anyone found slaughtering cows in Uttar Pradesh can be jailed for up to seven years and fined $290, said Ratan Kumar Srivastava of the state Commission to Help Cows. #Uttar Pradesh, which now has some 180 million residents, enacted a law in 1955 banning most cattle slaughter, but allowed older cows and defective calves to be killed, Srivastava said’.
Indian Cabinet had decided to formulate a more stringent central law to ban cow slaughter as far back as May 7. But, cow slaughter being a state subject, the central government could not pass such a law straightaway. As such, the cabinet decided that agricultural ministry’s animal-husbandry department should specifically call upon the states to adopt anti-cow-slaughter resolutions authorising the centre to pass a cow-slaughter-banning law. The decision was a caricature of India’s secularism (article 15 of the constitution), interference in the religious freedom of the Muslims, besides being an encroachment on state’s legislative powers. Interestingly, even now almost all States, except Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh Meghalaya Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, have laws restricting, if not banning, cow-slaughter.
The ostensible reason for central legislation is that the state’s laws are not stringent enough and have several loopholes to allow slaughter of young cows. But the fact is that, since British Raj days, Slaughter of Kine Act exists to prevent slaughter of young cows. The real reason behind the Centre’s directive is desire to pander to sentiments of the Hindu extremists. Last year, the Hindu high priest, Shankaracharya of Kanchi, had threatened a fast unto death over “neglect” of the country’s cow population”. Mr Vajpayee appeased him by agreeing to constitute the National Cow Slaughter Commission. This pseudo-commission recommended central ban on cow slaughter.
The anti-cow-slaughter bill is a sequel to anti-conversion bills, enacted by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat legislatures. It reflects continued surge of Vajpayee’s Hindutva policies. Doubtless, cows are objects of veneration for the majority Hindus. But, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, besides some Hindu tribes and Dalits, relish beef. The Indian government’s callous attitude towards the beef-eating communities bears a marked contrast to the Muslim rulers’ tolerant attitude today and in the past. For instance, cows are not slaughtered in Saudi Arabia. Mughal emperors like Babar, Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb imposed selective bans on cow slaughter during their reigns in deference to the Jain or Brahmanical feelings for veneration of the cow.
With the passage of time, the cow has become an instrument of politics. The issue of cow slaughter provoked a series of serious communal Hindu-Muslim riots in the 1880s and 1890s. In recent past, the cow slaughter issue engendered riots in Bhiwandi (Maharashtra). In 1893, in Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh), anti-Muslim riots broke out on the issue of cow slaughter. More than 100 people were killed in different parts of the country. Hindus deliberately exploit this issue to kill Muslims. In historical context, they cannot deny the fact that their forefathers were themselves beef-eaters and passionately indulged in cow slaughter. The Hindu religious texts, particularly the Vedas, are replete with verses which tell how the Brahmins indulged in cow slaughter and beef eating.
The Hindu religious scripture Rigveda presents textual evidence of beef-eating by ancient Hindus. Quoting from Rigveda, historian H. H. Wilson wrote, “The sacrifice of the horse or of the cow, the Asvamedha or Gomedha, appears to have been common in the earliest periods of the Hindu ritual.” The early Aryans, who came to India from outside, indulged in animal sacrifices. In the Agnadheya, which was a preparatory rite preceding all public sacrifices, a cow was required to be killed. Brahmanical religious texts such as Grhyasutras and Dharmasutras state that the killing of animals and eating of beef was very much in practice. The ceremony of guest reception consisted not only of a meal of a mixture of curds and honey but also of the flesh of a cow or bull.
Followers of the Jain religion and a sect of Buddhists are known to propagate the teachings of non-violence and strictly avoid eating meat. But, the fact is that even their founders could not exempt themselves from devouring meat. Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhist religion, is known to have eaten beef and pork. Vardhmana Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, is said to have consumed the meat of a cockerel. In the state of Kerala, 72 communities among Hindus currently prefer beef to the more expensive mutton. The lower-caste Hindus such as Dalits and scheduled castes consume beef and indulge in cow slaughter. The upper-caste Hindus shunned their age-old beef-eating practice to accentuate differentiation with carnivorous communities of Buddhists, Christians and Muslims in the country. It appears the cow slaughter is being fanned by Hindu fundamentalists to create an excuse to start anti-Muslim riots. After all, this issue has been a convenient excuse in the past to kill Muslims en masse.

 

Invest in Russia now? Forget about it
David Wall

I recently attended a conference in Moscow aimed at attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to Russia. It was a high-level conference, organized by Interfax and Chatham House and attended by ministers, senior bureaucrats and leading businessmen, both Russian and foreign. For a conference designed to attract FDI — and there were many businessmen from West Europe and North America in the room — it was a strange event. Usually at such conferences, the locals try to oversell their country, but in this case Russian ministers, officials and businessmen competed with each other to give the strongest reasons for not investing in Russia.
The minister for economic development and trade, German Gref, and natural resources minister Yuri Trutnev complained about the government for delaying, even reversing, economic reforms and about the bureaucracy for delaying and distorting the implementation of reforms that have been introduced. It was mind-boggling, yet understandable. FDI in Russia is low and falling, currently less than 5 percent of gross domestic product. If the big foreign investments in the oil and gas sectors are excluded, it is tiny by international standards. The conference was really about why foreign investors are not investing in Russia and why they may continue not to invest there.
Why is Russia, with 25 percent of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves (probably much more) and with about the same share of the world’s exploitable timber reserves, unable to attract the FDI that it will need to develop its economy in a sustainable way? Why does it look at present as if it is condemned to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of oil for the foreseeable future (and to be a provider of large amounts of imported luxury consumption goods for those benefiting, legitimately or not, from the hewing and drawing)?
Politics is the answer. It became clear at the conference that the political situation in Russia today does not lend itself to attracting FDI. Russia under President Vladimir Putin is going backward politically; it is becoming nationalistic and xenophobic. Putin, a former KGB official, has gathered around him a group of cronies among the politicians and bureaucrats who look back to the days of the Soviet Union with nostalgia. He recently described the Soviet Union’s collapse as the most significant geopolitical event of the 20th century. Re-establishing Russia as a respected world power means, to Putin and his cronies, setting up an autocratic political system backed up by willing military, security and police (and even criminal) networks. These networks are proving themselves very willing to support Putin — they may even control him.