The state’s results show how Nitish Kumar split low-caste Hindu and Muslim votes to beat Lalu Yadav at his own game, says Ajit Sahi Sweeping win Nitish Kumar gets a massive mandate Photo: AP NO FORECAST could predict the sweep of the final score. Nitish Kumar’s alliance: 32; Lalu Yadav’s alliance: 4. Game, set and match, Nitish. Just how did Kumar, the mild-mannered chief minister of Bihar, never known for political cunning, make mincemeat of Lalu Yadav, Bihar’s iconic backward caste leader, one who has ruthlessly decimated many a mass leader in his 35-year career? The answer lies as much in Kumar’s crafty politics of caste and religion as in his electoral plank of development, projected in the name of the 24-month rule of Bihar by his National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which includes the BJP. “This election was a hurricane, just like in 1977,” an ecstatic Ram Sundar Das, a leader of the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United (JD-U), told TEHELKA. His allusion is to the historic election of 32 years ago that swept former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi out of power after the infamous Emergency. Das is the surprise victor over dalit giant, Ram Vilas Paswan, in the Lok Sabha constituency of Hajipur, from where Paswan had made his Lok Sabha debut in 1977 and retained it eight out of nine times since then — losing it only last week.
This election was a hurricane, just like in 1977’, says Ram Sundar Das of the JD-U
For Das, who joined the JD-U just before last month’s elections after years in the political wilderness, the taste of victory is sweeter. He had lost the chief minister’s job to Lalu in 1990 after their party had won the most seats in Bihar’s Assembly, an event that heralded Lalu’s 15-year rule over Bihar until Nitish ended Lalu’s wife, Rabri Devi’s reign as chief minister in 2005.
The results of this year’s Lok Sabha elections in Bihar are historic in many ways. A split among Lalu’s caste brethren saw many Yadavs desert him and the candidates of his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). (Ironically, besides Lalu, none of the three other RJD MPs elected last week are Yadavs. They are all Rajputs.) For example, in Buxar, a constituency adjoining Uttar Pradesh, Lalu and his wife failed to woo the Yadavs despite aggressive campaigning. Although their nominee won, his rival, Daddan Singh ‘Pahalwan’, got more than 1.2 lakh votes in the Yadav-dominated region. Similarly, in many constituencies, dalits appeared to have rejected Paswan and the candidates of his Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Obviously, Lalu and Paswan failed to “transfer” their “vote-banks” to each other as they had hoped to do when they deserted the Congress and allied with each other after the elections were called. Stunningly, Paswan lost even in Raghopur, a Yadav-dominated segment of Hajipur that Rabri Devi represents in the Bihar Assembly.
The Muslim vote has made the JD-U upbeat about the 2010 Assembly elections
On the other hand, large numbers of Muslims voted for the JD-U, overcoming their loathing for the party’s key ally, the BJP. In Bhagalpur, the Muslims even voted for the BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain, a former central minister, giving him a win. In fact, the Muslim vote has made the JD-U upbeat about the Assembly elections due in October 2010. “This time, some Muslims did not vote for the NDA because we projected LK Advani as prime minister,” says Rajya Sabha MP and JD-U spokesman, Shivanand Tiwari. “But for the Assembly, they will vote for us with both hands.” THAT THE Muslim vote has shifted was evident in the Phulwarisharif Assembly segment of the Pataliputra Lok Sabha constituency. The Muslims here voted for JD-U nominee Ranjan Prasad Yadav, who spectacularly defeated Lalu Yadav. Lalu lost in four out of the six Assembly segments of Pataliputra, with the Yadav votes going, quite obviously, to his rival. He scraped through to the Lok Sabha from another seat, Saran. Another strategy that paid off for Nitish Kumar was focussing on the “extremely backward castes”, or EBCs, which account for over 20 percent of Bihar’s eight crore people. “This was a social polarisation that tremendously helped the NDA,” says Patna-based political commentator Arun Kumar Ashesh. Nitish Kumar’s government has wooed the EBCs, which include some 100 poorest sub-castes, by running separate schemes for their economic uplift, including a 20- percent reservation for them in village panchayats (See TEHELKA cover story “Is This Man Going To Surprise Everyone”, May 16, 2009). Similarly, Kumar created a separate category for 18 sub-castes of dalits, calling them “Maha Dalits”, and ran economic schemes for them specifically. So severe was the rejection of the RJD-LJP by the lower-caste Hindu and Muslim voters that the LJP was decimated in the six districts of northeast Bihar, which are collectively referred to as the “Kosi belt”, named after a river there. The Yadavs, Muslims and dalits — the traditional voters of Lalu and Paswan — dominate this belt.
[box] CRIMINALS AND THEIR RELATIVES WHO LOST CONGRESS Ranjita Ranjan
Wife of Pappu Yadav Supaul INDEPENDENT Shanti Priya
Mother of Pappu Yadav Purnea RJD Heena Shahabuddin
Wife of Mohammad Shahabuddin Siwan CONGRESS Lovely Anand
Wife of Anand Mohan Sheohar LJP Veena Devi
Wife of Suraj Bhan Singh Nawada JD-U Munna Shukla
Vaishali LJP Rama Singh
Arrah JD-U Prabhunath Singh
Maharajganj LJP Zakir Khan
Araria RJD Taslimuddin
Kishanganj CONGRESS
Sadhu Yadav
West Champaran BSP
Anwarul Haq
Sheohar RJD
Jay Prakash Yadav
Banka
[/box] There may be a grain of truth in the belief that Lalu and Paswan made a mistake by breaking away from the Congress. “In more than 20 constituencies, the total number of votes polled by the candidates of the Congress and the RJD-LJP exceeded those gained by the NDA candidate,” says political commentator Srikant in Patna. “Had the Congress and RJD-LJP stayed together as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), it would have been tougher for the NDA.” At many places, the Congress attracted the Muslims in droves, a trend seen in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, thus splitting them from the RJD-LJP, for whom the Muslims voted earlier. JD-U spokesperson Tiwari, however, pooh-poohs the claims that a combined UPA could have challenged the NDA. “The people here are so angry with Lalu- Paswan,” he says, “that the Congress wouldn’t even have got the few votes it did in Bihar had it allied with them.” In some 18 seats, the NDA nominee got more votes than the combined vote share of the Congress and the RJD-LJP. According to Tiwari, Lalu lives in the “old world”, believing that caste and not development decided votes. Widely credited for social engineering during his rule from 1990 to 2005 that made the backwards castes aware of their political clout, Lalu is ironically seen as responsible for their desertion this time. It is said that once awakened, Bihar’s backward castes came to expect a much better deal from life than Lalu could offer during his and his wife’s governments. “Poor Biharis began to go out of the state and desire the levels of development they saw there,” says Srikant. Agrees Ashesh, “Nitish’s developmentoriented politics is the logical next step of Lalu’s caste politics of the last decade.” If there is any decimation, however, in Bihar worse than Lalu’s or Paswan’s, it is of the criminal class (see box). Says Bihar’s Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah: “I can assure you that you are not going to see these criminals or their wives and mothers in Parliament for a long time.” ajit@tehelka.com
Manmohan Singh Harinder Baweja,Editor, News & Investigations FOR THE five years that he remained Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh was credited with little. The only things that came his way were invectives — he is weak, he is a selected, not elected PM, he takes directions from the Madam at 10 Janpath. In short, that he is a mere puppet, a rubber stamp, a man who was selected not because he had any great vision or political acumen; but because he lacked the one singular thing: Ambition. Photo: AP Hindsight often lends itself to great wisdom and as Verdict 2009 is now being hailed as a victory of the troika, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi stand out as the two leaders who reaped great benefit for the Congress Party. The third (not necessarily in that order) stands tall as the Governance Man. As senior Congressman Kapil Sibal put it, “The Manmohan Singh government’s contribution was huge and so was his persona, his gentlemanliness and statesmanlike demeanour. In contrast, the Advanis and Karats were seen as political animals and power-hungry opportunists.” The invectives — again on hindsight — seem to have worked. Manmohan has become the only prime minister since 1971 to win a successive victory after serving a five-year term. And suddenly, many in the Congress who have rediscovered the merits of the ‘selected’ Prime Minister are all praise for achievements they never credited him with — till the EVMs threw up the magical numbers. The mother and son Gandhi duo had, however, invested faith in him throughout — so much so that Manmohan became the only Congressman to have ever been named as the party’s candidate in advance. On earlier occasions, it was perhaps never necessary, as the Gandhi surname always came with the prime ministerial tag firmly in place. In an amazing display of faith, just before the big battle, Sonia Gandhi covered her photograph with her hand as she held up the manifesto, and said: he is our prime ministerial candidate. And so, as contemporary history is now being written, no analysis of the Victory is possible without accolades being sung to the tune of ‘Singh is king’.
His lack of aggression was ridiculed in a rough-playing polity. But the ‘weak’ PM’s decency took him past the finishing line
“Sonia chose well in 2004 and Manmohan performed well,’’ is the common refrain at 24, Akbar Road, the party headquarter that has come alive with fresh energy. But there is also an inside story; a lesser known secret. For the record, of course, Rahul Gandhi wasted not a second when asked the rather blunt question — Is Manmohan Singh negotiable? — by a select group of 10 journalists, including this reporter, he was interacting with. The answer could have been different. After all, it was an informal session. But, a few hours later came an email in which he chose to put this question on record and the answer read, “From my side, I know — and I do know my mother’s views on this — that he is the best prime ministerial candidate. He is our candidate and we are going to stick by him. Like we did in the nuclear deal.” And now for the inside story. A very close aide of the Gandhi scion also let it be known that the young pilgrim of progress was working to a longterm agenda and was not thinking of the next five years. That was well-known. What was not, was that because of this long-term view, defeat would not have come as an irreparable blow. To quote the aide, “It will not be a big deal.” This little secret is important to make the point that even within the Congress, no one, senior or junior, had scripted a tally of 206 for the grand old party (taunted alternatively as buddiya Congress and guddiya Congress by Narendra Modi). To the contrary, some were prepared for defeat and that’s why hindsight lends itself to great wisdom, for, the UPA emerged only a whisker away from the 272 figure. But their number shot up to 322 with help from unlikely, unconditional support by UP Chief Minister, Mayawati. Till a little before the electoral battle began, Manmohan was not seen, by his own party, as being worthy of driving the Congress’ ad campaign. All posters and campaigns championed the trio with the slogan: aam aadmi ke badhte kadam, har kadam par bharat bulandh. It was in stark contrast to the BJP, which positioned its entire campaign around LK Advani and the slogan: mazboot neta, nirnayak sarkar (determined leader, decisive government). The irony is inescapable — the ‘weak’ prime minister is the one who has emerged true to the BJP slogan. KAPIL SIBAL is not wrong when he says that Advani and Modi contributed to Manmohan’s victory by running a negative campaign. Interestingly, BJP insiders agree that Manmohan’s (self) image of sobriety and decency went a long way in the UPA’s victory. If the loyal urban, middle-class voter deserted the BJP and swung towards Manmohan Singh for his record of governance and the Congress’ promise of stability, it was due, again, to Advani’s negative campaign. The Congress trio shone brighter than Advani, Rajnath Singh and Varun Gandhi, who collectively revived toxic memories of Mandal and Mandir-style exclusivist, identity-based politics. Abhishek Singhvi, national spokesperson and Congress strategist, says, “Our troika is unmatched and caught the BJP unawares. The PM symbolised decency in politics, the Congress president symbolised stability and sacrifice. Rahul Gandhi symbolised youth power and the ability to experiment. Their mutual chemistry and DNA made it an unbeatable combination.” The Slumdog Millionaire tune yielded dividends. “Jai Ho for Bharat, Jai Ho for the poor and Jai Ho for the people of India,” is how Congress general secretary, Digvijay Singh summed up the Congress’ victory. Only last year, the mild-mannered Manmohan had surprised his own colleagues by displaying nerves of steel when pushing the nuclear deal. He risked the fall of his government, and if the electorate did not punish the UPA with anti-incumbency, the credit, in large measure, must go Manmohan Singh’s way. It would, probably, be accurate to say that the ‘invisible’ Manmohan turned out to be a factor. After his bypass surgery, his doctors wouldn’t allow him more than a dozen-odd public rallies, but Advani ensured that the spotlight stayed firmly on the invisible Manmohan. A senior Congressman says, “The prime minister is not a great orator but he didn’t need to speak. Advani did all the talking on his behalf.” And because the BJP supremo pitched the battle presidential-style, Manmohan stands taller by sheer comparison. Even by his own colleagues, Manmohan was always seen as a half — half a man, half a politician, half a leader. Adjectives always preceded any introduction, but post-elections, the technocrat-prime minister, economist-prime minister has metamorphosed into a complete person, a complete politician, a man worthy of occupying the top seat in government.
A Congressman says, ‘The PM is not a great orator but he didn’t need to speak. Advani did it on his behalf’
Sonia Gandhi has demonstrated that she did choose well. The chemistry of the troika is evident even now. If Sonia Gandhi’s demeanour is any indication, she respects the man and understands his importance. The two made their first appearance together on May 16 — after it was clear that the mandate had gone squarely in their favour — and both displayed faith and belief in each other in different ways. She waited by the door of her house till he drove in, and walking upto him, congratulated him: “mubarak ho”. The photo-op told a story in itself. It spoke of a partnership the two had cemented. The electorate appears to have voted for this partnership. As a BJP leader remarked, “It’s worked to their advantage that while Sonia spent time on the party, Manmohan had a free hand at governance.” A neo-confident Manmohan is already visible. Yes, Karunanidhi and Mamata Banerjee could prove difficult allies but there is also the quiet reassurance that they will not come close to playing the role Prakash Karat and his comrades did. But even while he was managing the knives that came out each time he pushed liberalisation, disinvestments or the nuke deal, his government stayed focussed on the common India, on the idea of inclusion. This is how Rahul Gandhi articulated the government’s and the party’s social agenda in his interaction with the 10 journalists: “We have two models before us. One is the private sector, India Shining and a focus on issues that don’t impact the people. The people of India have already demonstrated their silent resilience to this. The other model is growth with distribution, — job guarantee, food in schools and RTI. This is inclusion not just of the poor, but also of the middle classes. That is the idea of the aam aadmi.” Social inclusion is only one of the many things that has seen Manmohan Singh rise in stature. Verdict 2009 proves that he is not just the Gandhis’ or the Congress’ aam aadmi.˚
shammy@tehelka.com
ANGRY VOICES inside the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are beginning to growl at Narendra Modi inside his home state. The Gujarat chief minister was the BJP’s poster boy, the one the party proudly paraded across India in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. They excitedly touted him as a future prime minister, hoping to swing the Hindu votes. The poster boy now faces a looming storm. This, despite the fact that he has won 15 of Gujarat’s 26 Lok Sabha seats for his party. And when cracks appear within the Gujarat BJP, the terra firma that Modi has controlled with an iron hand, a control that’s made him the darling of Hindutva and fueled his fancy for a national political role, then it’s a red light flashing all the way. To know just how vulnerable Modi is now, one must begin with his home state. For what would Modi be nationally, if only a straw in the winds of Gujarat?
“Just how could we expect someone who had nothing to do with politics or the BJP until a month ago to win on the party ticket? Why was I dumped?” This is the anguished voice of Vallabhbhai Kathiria, a BJP old-timer from Gujarat, who was a minister in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government and has remained a hardcore cadre of the BJP’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for decades. Kathiria is livid because this year, Modi denied him a fifth straight shot at the Lok Sabha constituency of Rajkot, even though Kathiria had won it the last four times. Three of those victories had come even before Modi became the Hindutva phenomenon in Gujarat following the mass killings of Muslims in 2002. But Modi gave the BJP ticket from Rajkot to businessman Kiran Patel, a cinema house owner who also runs schools. Patel had never contested any election until then. And this time, he lost. A stinging loss this has been, because Rajkot was the jewel in the BJP’s Gujarat crown. The party has won the seat all six times since 1989, including Kathiria’s back-to-back wins.
“I will certainly speak up whenever the party sits down to analyse the losses,” Kathiria told TEHELKA. (Recognise that this outburst is rare in Modi’s BJP, where his opponents, which have included two former chief ministers, have been sacked for the barest murmur. Few have anyway dared to defy Modi since his most vocal critic within the BJP, his former home minister Haren Pandya, was brutally shot dead in 2003.)
anguish may or may not happen, because the Gujarat BJP still cowers in fear of Modi. But this time, it won’t be easy for Modi to silence Kathiria or other voices that may come up. Rajkot isn’t the only seat Modi has lost the party in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. In 10 other seats, Modi’s handpicked nominees are licking their wounds. At least two others among them were tainted newcomers, who promptly lost the election. This includes the steady seat of Patan in north Gujarat, where Modi forced out the BJP leader who won it four out of the last five times since 1991, including in 2004 when he wrested it back from the Congress. Instead, Modi nominated someone who was once a horseback bandit, implicated for murder and drug running, and someone who was, to boot, a Congress leader until he joined the BJP a few days before the election. He, too, lost.
The BJP’s most infallible icon feels the heat from unexpected electoral losses in Gujarat. Has the poster boy lost his charm?
So why did Modi’s hubris backfire in election 2009?
Remember that Modi engineered a smashing victory in the 2002 Gujarat assembly elections, riding on dubious popularity gained after his government seemed to back the mass killings of Muslims. But 18 months later, he faced a setback, winning only 14 of Gujarat’s 26 Lok Sabha seats in the 2004 general election. Subsequently, however, he swept the assembly election in 2007, reconfirming his stature as the unrivalled BJP leader in Gujarat. Taking advantage of his renewed unassailable status, Modi shocked everyone this year by unilaterally deciding not to re-nominate 13 of the BJP’s 14 outgoing MPs without any explanation. (The one spared was his mentor and the BJP’s prime ministerial aspirant, LK Advani.)
So brazen was Modi that he dropped even a key Advani lieutenant, Harin Pathak. Advani was forced to overrule Modi at the last minute to include Pathak, who went on to win massively from Ahmedabad East. Another MP, Rajendrasinh Rana, a sworn RSS cadre, had to rush to the RSS’ Nagpur headquarters to pressure Modi to re-nominate him from Bhavnagar, the once princely state that he has represented in the Lok Sabha unbroken four times since 1996. He eventually contested, and won.
BUT MODI retired the 11 other MPs and nominated new candidates. As many as four of these won with margins of less than 20,000 votes each on seats that averaged over six lakh votes. In the Panchamahal seat, which includes the infamous Godhra where the Sabarmati Express was set afire in February 2002 triggering the anti-Muslim carnage, the BJP candidate won by a mere 2,000 votes.
“Modi simply wants his MPs to suck up to him, so he brought in rank outsiders as candidates,” says Ahmedabad-based commentator Achyut Yagnik. Adds Ajay Umat, editor of Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar: “This was Modi’s mistake. Both the party’s leaders and workers refused to work for these newcomers.”
Wait a minute. BJP leaders and workers in Gujarat flout Modi’s diktat? Apparently, yes. Modi met his comeuppance in many constituencies because several of his ministers reportedly worked against his nominees. Unlike in 2004, when he monitored the daily progress of BJP candidates across Gujarat, this time, he was forced to rely on his deputies because he had to travel across India. Modi flew an astonishing 300 hours to attend more than 325 rallies of the BJP in support of scores of other candidates. But his fabled charisma utterly failed to turn the vote in most places despite his headline-grabbing high-strung oratory.
From Uttar Pradesh to Tamil Nadu, from Maharashtra to Assam, Modi thundered day after day, attacking Sonia Gandhi’s Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as opportunistic and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a weak and ineffectual chief executive. Modi’s delusions of grandeur have now made him the BJP’s most shaken man — after Advani, whose dream to be the oldest ever person to become PM lies shattered.
Since the BJP’s rout, Modi has cried off his scathing criticism of the UPA, which crushed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to win a historic successive second term at the Centre. Modi’s only comment on the loss came on May 18, after he emerged from two days of hiding in his official residence: “The people’s verdict is final in a democracy. We accept it with humility.”
In state after state, Modi’s roughedged campaign failed to bring a favourable result other than in the BJPruled Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh. In Rajasthan, the BJP was routed despite his extensive campaign. The BJP lost heavily in Uttarakhand, where it rules, despite Modi’s presence. The Congress swept the five Lok Sabha seats there. In Orissa, where the ruling Biju Janata Dal dumped the BJP as its ally on the eve of polling, Modi’s electrifying speeches could not stop his party’s defeat: the BJP lost all seven seats it had won in 2004. In Punjab, the BJP returned only one of the three seats it had won in 2004.
Modi’s ignominy in Maharashtra and Goa is worse, because he was given charge of the BJP in these two states, being the only one of the BJP’s six chief ministers asked to handle more than his state. In Maharashtra, Modi held rallies in 20 of the state’s 42 constituencies, even speaking a smattering of Marathi. But the BJP got only one of these 20 seats. Its partner Shiv Sena won two.
In many Gujarat constituencies, several of Modi’s thwarted ministers worked against his nominees
Modi failed to harness the anti-incumbency against Maharashtra’s Congress- NCP ruling alliance. The BJP won only nine seats in the state, four lower than in 2004. Worse, the Congress won four extra from 2004 to go up to 17. Perhaps Maharashtra’s BJP leader Gopinath Munde accurately assessed Modi as just hot air. Munde did not allow the Gujarat chief minister to campaign in his constituency, Beed. Munde won it by more than 1.4 lakh votes.
Indeed, many in the party and its allies did not see Modi as a wonder boy. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan kept his distance from Modi. Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United swept Bihar in alliance with the BJP without Modi setting foot in that state. In fact, the BJP more than doubled its seats in Bihar, from five to 12, without any help from Modi.
So what has Modi to do now? Surprisingly, the answer is: back to his much-touted governance. “There is much unrest across Gujarat — water shortage, joblessness among diamond workers, and so on,” says commentator Achyut Yagnik. “The people are beginning to get disenchanted.”
Photo: AP Do you agree with President Zardari’s recent statement that India is not a threat or an enemy? India should certainly not be an enemy after 60 years of conflict. We need to invest in peace and a composite dialogue that can withstand a crisis like the tragedy of Mumbai. President Zardari admitted that the Pakistani Army did not want the ISI chief to come to India after the Mumbai attack. What were the Army’s concerns? The ISI chief was not the level needed for dispatching to India without a pre-agreed template on the investigation would proceed. To this day, Pakistan needs more admissible evidence from India to ensure a conviction, as well as from seven other countries. This is a trans-national criminal trial and cannot be wrapped up without the requisite evidence. Obama has called Zardari. Is this diplomatic pressure? Coercive diplomacy is not a productive way to handle a crisis. Do you think the drone attacks by the US should stop?
The drones symbolise for the Pakistani people a predatory American footprint on their soil. No Pakistani is willing to countenance a military presence that violates the country’s sovereignty. These UAVs are very targeted in their approach and they help to keep al Qaeda operatives on the run, but the costs of such a military operation outweigh the benefits. The US must not confuse a tactical option with a full-fledged strategy. Better options can surely be found. Assess the PPP government’s first year in power.
It has had almost impossible challenges to surmount. While it has not been perfect at managing the domestic political game, it has survived critical roadblocks while laying an infrastructure of consensus against terrorism, for rebuilding the shattered economy, for introducing the first social sector net in the country and for working out a new formula for provincial tensions. Military options are always a last resort, as they cause displacement and loss of innocent lives, but Pakistanis are rallying to the aid of their government.
‘India should certainly not be an enemy after 60 years of conflict. We need to invest in peace’
Should Nawaz Sharif rejoin the government?
Yes, Nawaz Sharif is an important political stakeholder in the democratic system, and Pakistan would be better served if his party rejoined the cabinet. These are difficult times for Pakistan. Political stability and the N League’s buy-in to the democratic system would help maintain focus on the main challenges facing us. Why did you resign as a key member of the Cabinet and do you regret it?
I have clear views on the promises made by our party on upholding media freedoms, even if they oppose us. I’ve no regrets over any action taken in my political career or my life.
You were tough against the Naxals but your tenure also saw a rise in Naxalism.
Arjun Munda, Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren who followed me as CM all played a negative role and diluted the fight against the Naxals. I invited the Naxals to join the mainstream but also punished those who refused the offer. Many Naxals surrendered in the Bokaro and Giridih districts. There were many encounters and Naxals were on the run then. I also started development activities. In the worst affected districts of Palamu and Chatra, the farmers came back to their farms. So why has Naxal activity shot up?
Because the politicians are all scared of the Naxals. Everyone demands that [Parliament attack convict] Afzal Guru be hanged but no one dares to speak against the Naxals. I had arrested many Naxals under POTA. But the then Union Home Minister LK Advani called me and said, “Why are you doing this? I have to answer for it in Parliament.” Do you think the CRPF killed Naxals or innocent villagers on April 15 in Latehar? See, often the Naxals threaten to kill innocent villagers if they don’t do their bidding. In my own village in the Giridih district, the Naxals put pressure on villagers to not sell their timber to the neighbouring villages of Bihar. I asked the police also to threaten the villagers to sell timber in Bihar, so that one threat cancels out the other. What does one do? How else does one counter the fear created by the Naxals? But, yes, as for the April 15 incident, the government must order an inquiry, as the villagers have demanded. Does the train hijack mean the government has lost out to the Naxals?
Jharkhand is a small state and the government has enough muscle. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram says the Naxals are bandits bereft of ideology.
So who is ideologically driven in all these big parties? Even amongst the Naxals, few are ideologically driven and only two or three are ideologically inspired and they use people who’ve gone astray to do their bidding. It is also alleged that the Naxals take hefty cuts from public funds. Obviously, there is no straight way, so they take the way of “levy”.
I had arrested many Naxals under Pota. But Advani called me and said,‘why are you doing this?’
Do you see a role for the Centre in fighting the Maoist insurgency? The Centre’s role can only be limited. They can give money. But only the state police and administration can bring a resolution. Do you think Naxalism can be eliminated in Jharkhand?
Positively. It will take two years to eliminate it, provided the governments of Bihar and Jharkhand work in unison.
THE SAVIOURS of Islam — or at least that is how the Taliban sees itself — now want Shariah to extend beyond the valley of Swat to the rest of Pakistan. No sooner had President Asif Ali Zardari consented to the Swat peace pact than an emboldened Taliban brazenly upped the ante. It will not disarm, is their latest missive. The peace pact signified a strategic retreat by the Army, one which encouraged the ‘saviours’ to continue using religion to expand their political writ and base. Already, Sufi Mohammad — the key cleric who brokered the deal — has declared that there can be no appeal to the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan from judgements given out by Shariah courts. His argument, simply, is that Pakistan’s constitutional judicial system is ‘un-Islamic’. In other words, judicial power should be vested in the hands of qazis. Obviously, these qazis will be handpicked by Sufi Mohammad himself. Illustration: Anand Naorem But the problem is not only about what the Taliban are capable of. The bigger problem is that Zardari has spent the last one year consolidating himself and not his beleaguered country. The peace pact was signed after nearly four lakh Swatis fled the Valley. After the Army said it could not fight its own people, and after terrified policemen advertised in newspapers proclaiming that they had resigned from the force. Zardari, in fact, is not alarmed that the Taliban has openly expressed its expansionist intent and has not only called for Shariah to be enforced throughout Pakistan but is slowly making its way towards Islamabad. It is clear that the Taliban has little intention of keeping its end of the bargain: to end all terror activities, lay down arms and enable the local government to regain administrative control. On the contrary, Sufi Mohammad is now asserting that the Talibs accused of murder and extortion cannot be brought to book. This clearly indicates that the Taliban are only using the peace pact to gain greater power for themselves. This steady encroachment towards Islamabad is also causing grave concern in Delhi’s political and intelligence circles. Intelligence agencies are now reporting that batches of Talibs are making their way across the border into Kashmir. What should worry them is the fact that scores of Talibs are intimately familiar with Kashmir, having been there to fight for the Harkat-ul-Ansar and the Harkat-ul- Mujahideen in the early and mid-90s, when the insurgency was at its peak.
The Talibs are intimately familiar with Kashmir and its insurgency. I can testify to this
can testify to this. While in Kabul in September 1996, when the Taliban were flush with victory after they had conquered the capital, I met any number of Talibs in Kabul and near the Panjsher Valley who gave graphic details of their battles against Indian security forces in Kashmir. Many were particularly keen to secure the release of their commander, Nasarullah Langriyal. Langriyal travelled from Afghanistan to Kashmir where he was arrested in 1993 for an attack on the Border Security Force. As the meeting with the Talibs comes back in vivid detail, what stands out is what they told me back then — that they had only returned to Afghanistan to support the Taliban’s final push into Kabul, which they capped with the brutal hanging of then President Najibullah. Flush with their victory in Swat, the Taliban will no doubt turn their attention to Kashmir once again. It is an integral part of their expansionist intent.
Shashi Bhushan Pathak Why can’t the police take on Jharkhand’s uncontrollable Naxals?
The police can’t put out the Maoists [Naxals] by force. The police only kill innocent people, which is wrong. The government should give the CPI (Maoist) political party status and hold talks. The Andhra Pradesh talks [in 2004] between that state government and the Maoists saw zero human rights violation from either side. Goverment says they’re criminals.
Then why haven’t the police controlled them? This is an ideological problem, not crime. Naxalism is a creation of democracy’s failure. To pretend to be democratic and actually take the pain to practice the democratic process are two different things. You claim that the Naxals are popular in villages. Why would that be?
The Maoists did several good things. They supported the ‘nationality’ movements [for local sovereignty]. Then they worked towards creating ‘land banks’ [for community farming]. They made sure poor mahua flower pickers became the owners. If Jharkhand still has 30 percent forests left, it’s only because of the Maoists. The government and the forest mafia have virtually denuded the state’s forests. Lastly, the Maoists ensured ‘speedy trials’ through their own justice system. But why take innocent train passengers hostage? I guess they oppose any symbol of state machinery. The police say the five men killed by CRPF in Latehar on April 15 were Naxals.
The CRPF is a goonda force. The five killed were innocent villagers.
Provocation Bodies of the five people killed by the police in Bhadhaniya on April 15 Photo: Avinash Kumar DOG-EARED textbooks and crumpled school knickers are thrown on a hardwood flatbed that is half the hut’s bare room. Forty-year-old Naori Budra limply holds a copy and stares at a handwritten page of school assignment. If she weren’t unlettered, she could have read her elder son’s uneven scrawl on it: Leher leher lehraye re mora jhanda tiranga. Translation: Wildly flutters my tricolor flag. Last week, on April 15, the paramilitary in Jharkhand allegedly shot Budra’s sons, 16 and 14 years old, claiming that they were Maoist rebels who had no faith in the sovereign Indian tricolor. “I sold my utensils to pay their fees,” Budra says, stung with rage. “My sons were no Maoists. I want them back.” Early morning on April 22, a week after her sons were killed, dozens of rebels of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) stormed a rural railway station 20 km from Budra’s village — about 190 km west of Jharkhand’s capital, Ranchi — and shockingly took a train at gunpoint. They held an estimated 700 passengers hostage before releasing them four hours later. The hijackers demanded the arrest of those uniformed men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) who allegedly killed Budra’s sons along with their paternal uncle, his son, and another male neighbour, minutes after dragging them away from their village Badhaniya, in Latehar district, one of the state’s three most affected by Maoist violence. Before letting the train off, the rebels threatened more violence if the families of those killed were not given money and government jobs as compensation.
[box] THE TRAIL OF VIOLENCE Since April 1, Maoists have attacked 40 times in Jharkhand On April 15, five innocent villagers were killed by the police The Naxals have regrouped and launched counter attacks ever since Six BSF solidiers and four CRPF
men were killed by Naxals in three incidents Police admit that of Jharkhand’s 24
districts, 16 are wracked by violence 25 civilians have died in Naxal
violence since January 1, 2009. 74 were killed last year
[/box] Maoist attacks in Jharkhand, a state of under three crore people, have risen dramatically. But the human rights watchdog group, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), blames the CRPF for the spiralling violence. “In the name of killing Naxals [Maoist rebels] the CRPFmostly kills innocent people,” says Shashi Bhushan Pathak, PUCL general secretary in the state (read interview here). “Adding insult to injury, its policemen are rewarded instead of being punished.” The police now say that the five men killed did not have any criminal history. “Our thinking is that it does not appear as if those men were linked with the Maoists,” Latehar Superintendent of Police Hemant Toppo told TEHELKA. “We are still investigating if they were caught in the middle when passing by.” For the Maoists, the killing of the five men proved a godsend. To force justice for the dead, the rebels called an indefinite statewide shutdown, launching this with the train hijack on April 22. Maoist violence had already been booming in the General Election season, its scale and reach worsening when the ballot was cast on April 16 for six of Jharkhand’s 14 Lok Sabha seats. From April 1 till the concluding round of voting on April 23, the Maoist rebels had carried out no less than 40 fierce attacks across Jharkhand, killing six soldiers of the Border Security Force (BSF) and four men of the CRPF in three incidents using landmines; besides bombing schools, hospitals and health centres, police stations, railway stations, Panchayat buildings, campaign vehicles, businesses, shops, houses and roads; kidnapping poll officials; and looting electronic voting machines.
Jharkhand inherited a truncated police force of 30,000 men and an ancient armoury
“There has been a regrouping and a strengthening of the Naxal resources,” the state’s former Director General of Police until 2004, RR Prasad, who retired in 2007, told TEHELKA in Ranchi. “The threat and the challenge from them is as genuine now as it was when the state was created [in 2000].” In fact, social and rights activists, commentators and even police officers say the balance has steadily and sharply tilted in the favour of the Maoists since 2002, when the state’s first chief minister, the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman, Babulal Marandi, was forced out of the job. FORMER DGP Prasad recalls that when the state was split from Bihar in November 2000, Jharkhand had inherited a truncated police force of just about 30,000 men, and sported an ancient and depleted armoury. (Now it has about 50,000 policemen.) Taking a tough line against the Maoists, Marandi quickly sought to upgrade the police force and moved to buy AK-47 guns and INSAS rifles to replace some of the archaic 303 rifles, as well as purchase anti-landmine trucks and even 600-odd jeeps to be farmed out to the state’s over 300 police stations. Marandi, whose son was killed by the Maoists in 2007, blames the three chief ministers who succeeded him — Arjun Munda, Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren — for a lack of political will to fight the Maoists for the increase in the rebel violence. These leaders, especially Soren, repeatedly pedalled a soft line towards the Maoists claiming that the insurgents were only “our own brothers and sisters” who had gone astray and should be reconciled. Soren even suggested the government should share power with the Maoists. “It is one thing for the Maoists to attack in the cover of the night but quite another to take an entire train hostage,” Marandi told TEHELKA. “The state is non-existent in Jharkhand(read interview here).” Under attack An injured police officer in Ranchi, after Naxals struck booths on the eve of polling Photo: AFP INDEED, THIS isn’t the first time that the Maoists rampaged openly and took a train hostage. Three years ago, in March 2006, the Maoists had taken over a train at exactly the same station and held some 100 passengers hostage. In December 2006, the rebels had attacked a train in the southern district of West Singhbhum and robbed the Railway Protection Force men of their rifles and the train guards of their wireless sets. Police officers admit that the Maoists have over the years daringly attacked policemen, police patrols and police stations at will and looted arms, including AK-47 guns.
Maoists have daringly attacked policemen at will and looted arms, including AK-47s
In the over eight years that the state has existed, several efforts to prepare a top-of-the-line police action force have come to naught. Right at the start, an exclusive commando force of some 220 policemen was raised to combat the Maoists and was used extensively initially. But it was increasingly moved to protecting ‘VVIPs’ and top police officers. After the commandos faded away, a Special Task Force (STF) was raised with about 1,000 policemen trained in counterinsurgency by the army. They too now protect ministers. Yet another attempt saw a special force of 1,500 men raised and given the name “Sengal”, which means “fire” in a local tribal language. None of these forces were given dedicated police chiefs. Nor did they write coherent combat strategies or launch comprehensive offensives, with their own intelligence gathering and search operations. Finally, last year, the state police constituted yet another force called “Jaguar”, which has now been given the dedicated ranks of an inspector-general (IG) and a superintendent of police (SP), but is yet to show any substantial results. Four years ago, the state police placed an order with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to buy two helicopters especially to abet anti-Maoist operations. One such helicopter was bought in August 2007 for Rs 35 crore. It was meant for evacuation operations besides aerial survey. Until July 2008, it hadn’t been used even once. Innocent pawns Soma and Naori Budra, parents of the two boys shot by the paramilitary on April 15 Photo: Sunil Kumar The truth is that Jharkhand is a state where the police have been beaten hollow by the Maoist insurgency. (During a 12-hour to-and-fro car drive between Ranchi and Badhaniya village on April 21, this reporter saw not a single police patrol party, just hours before the Maoists were to launch their indefinite shutdown.) On April 22, the police did not even reach the railway station for all the four hours that the hijacked train was parked there, content with taking ineffectual helicopter rides above. Ranchi’s newspapers later reported that top police officers in Ranchi and in Latehar were asking journalists to visit the railway station and bring them details. More than a day later, the police still hadn’t visited that station.
The police didn’t reach the station for the four hours the hijacked train was parked there
“The police have vanished,” veteran social activist Ashok Rai ‘Bhagat’ told TEHELKA. His NGO, Vikas Bharati, runs social projects worth crores of rupees across Jharkhand, especially in Maoistsaffected areas where the police and the administration are practically non-existent. Last year, the Maoists burned down one of its ambulances. “I phoned the police officers,” he recalls. “They said: ‘Please handle it yourself’.” (When TEHELKA contacted Jharkhand’s Director-General of Police, Vishnu Dayal Ram – who, besides heading the state police, is also responsible for the functioning of the CRPF in the state – and sought his response to the issues of police failure and preparedness, he said, “Wait for a few days for our response.”)
Police officers asked the media to bring them details of the train held by Naxals
THE GOVERNMENT admits that of the state’s 24 districts, as many as 18 are deeply wracked by the Maoist violence. Shockingly, in October 2007, Jharkhand Police IG (Operations) DK Pandey (who did an aerial survey of the hijacked train site last Wednesday) wrote to the SPs in 15 of these 18 districts, accusing them of not undertaking anti-Maoist combing operations, and pressing the CRPF, which is a Central force, into action while keeping the state police out of it. He reportedly sent copies of that letter to the state government, too. Nothing happened. Predictably, it is the CRPF that has increasingly faced allegations of highhandedness or outright killing of innocents, especially whenever the Maoists attack its patrols. In fact, the killing of the five men in Budra’s village on April 15 came just an hour after suspected Maoists blew up a private bus carrying CRPF policemen barely half a km from the village, which has only about 50 houses. “We heard a loud boom around 6 am and thick smoke went up over the road,” Budra’s husband, Soma Budra, 50, told TEHELKA, at their village, Badhaniya. Their younger son, Masih — a keen footballer who had this month passed seventh grade ranking fourth in his class — was about to head off to school but held back. For a half hour, they heard gunfire hiding in their homes. When firing ceased, a few boys and men collected in an open space and began preparations to bake mud tiles for their homes. THEN, ABOUT 7 am, as several of them worked an earthen oven under a tree, two men in uniform drew close. “They were screaming as they came and began beating my father, brother and cousins,” recalls Sapna Budra, Masih’s 14-year-old cousin. Sapna and her two sisters watched in terror as the uniformed men took away their two male cousins; their father, Supay Budra, a permanent employee of the public sector Coal India Limited who was home for a vacation; and brother, Sanjay, who had dropped out of his Bachelor of Arts degree at St Paul’s College Ranchi last year and mostly stayed home. A neighbour named Pitay Mundu who was tending his bullocks was also taken away. Says Mundu’s sister, Suni: “We assumed our men were being taken to help the victims of the road blast.”
The problem is that politicians are using the Naxals as muscle power to settle scores
But when none returned for over two hours, the villagers sensed trouble. With his wife, Naori, and another male relative, Soma headed to a nearby township where the local Catholic priest gave them the bad news: they headed to the police station and found the five men lying dead, shot, in the back of an open tractor trolley. It would be another 48 hours before the villagers would bring the dead bodies home, after they were taken to the Latehar town 80 km away for the post-mortem. While the police initially backed the CRPF claim that the two men and three boys were killed in an exchange of gunfire, the post-mortem report claimed that four of the men had actually died in the landmine blast. But this is refuted by news photographers who took pictures of the dead bodies as well as the villagers who later buried their dead as per tribal custom. According to them, the bodies had gaping bullet wounds but no lacerations and wounds that a bomb blast must cause. The villagers also question the post-mortem, which, they say, was carried out in the open and was finished in just minutes. WHETHER OR not the postmortem was fixed, the fact is there is a deep distrust among the villagers towards the police over its counterinsurgency operations. An increasing number of innocent civilians are being killed in the deadly spiral of violence between the Maoists and the security forces. According to the New Delhi-based South Asia terrorism portal, www.satp.org, which is run by former Punjab DGP KPS Gill, 25 civilians have been killed in Jharkhand in Maoist violence since January 1 this year. The number of security personnel killed during this period is 23 and the number of Maoists killed is 28. Last year, as many as 74 civilains were killed in such violence, higher than Maoists (50) and policemen (39). Of course, PUCL contests nearly all the killings of the Maoists and demands independent judicial inquiries to ascertain if they were indeed Maoists or innocent civilians that were killed by the police. Despite its absolutely abysmal performance against the Maoists, the state government has demanded upward of Rs 7,000 crore in an ambitious plan to upgrade the police force. In its submission before the 13th Finance Commission seeking such funds, the state government has also conceded that nearly a third of all its police stations are in areas deeply affected by the Maoist violence. But of the money sought, while only Rs 100 crore will be spent on a STF, as much as Rs 1,200 crore would be spent on “police colonies”. The biggest problem, though, in combating armed Maoist insurgency could well be that Jharkhand’s politicians are widely seen as closely integrated with the Maoists, using them as muscle power in settling political scores, especially during elections, and raising funds, through “levies”, or extortion from public spending of as much as 30-40 percent. The Jharkhand assembly has witnessed legislators leveling open charges at each other for supporting the Maoists. A police officer requesting anonymity said that about five years ago, when he had arrested a key Maoist leader, a top state minister had phoned him to seek that man’s release. “It is clear that the state is dead in Jharkhand,” says one of Jharkhand’s best known commentators, Harivansh, who also edits the vocal daily newspaper, Prabhat Khabar. “There is no accountability, no response mechanism for a crisis.”\ ajit@tehelka.com
Playing house house Anandi(Avika Gor) and Jagdish(Avinash Mukharjee) I’M NOT sure what I’m more addicted to — caffeine or Balika Vadhu. The question, ‘what’s that?’ is not even valid. It is the most watched serial on Colors — discussed by politically- conscious reporters in newsrooms, including ours, and in beauty parlours by women getting their talons painted a bright red. And just why would women — hair streaked deep purple and burnt gold; feet daintily tucked in stilettos — be watching a soap set in a village in Rajasthan where its cast even sleeps in bridal jewelry and heavy-dutylehengas, that for most would resemble oversized tents? Why, indeed, would they be hooked on a show about child marriage? Yes, that done-to-death subject that we in metros make polite, socially correct noises about; that done-to-death subject that seldom makes non-tweezed eyebrows shoot up simply because it is so part of the ‘parampara’ they’ve grown up in. What is it about this serial that sometimes keeps me awake well past my nocturnal hour? If Balika Vadhu has the highest television ratings and if it has, in so many ways, effectively sealed the fate of all the K-serials that shot Ekta Kapoor to fame and pots of money, there is obviously meat and matter. Child marriages may be a hackneyed subject but the serial transports you into a very real world. It takes you into the deep recesses of a Rajasthani home and makes you feel like a participant, like a member of the joint family in which the grandmother is the head of the parivar. Kalyani, the rigid old lady, sets the rules and expects to be obeyed. She terrorises everybody — her two sons, their wives and two grandchildren, a girl and a boy. Initially, you start hating her but realise soon enough — through the many nuances and layers that the serial takes you through — that Kalyani is steeped in tradition. She knows no other way of life. She shocks you in almost every episode. In one, she pays money to procure a child bride for her older son after his wife dies in childbirth, because she has grown up watching village midwives and thinks allopaths are bad news. She also finds girls from poverty-stricken families and brings them home as brides and thinks nothing of humiliating their parents. The serial revolves around the eight-year-old child bride Anandi, married to an equally young Jagdish, Kalyani’s grandson. Kalyani delivers shocker after shocker but the serial simultaneously also delivers hope, through Jagdish’s parents who encourage their children to break traditions. They encourage Anandi to go to school even though her grandmother wants her to master the art of Rajasthani delicacies. She helps her husband with his homework and when she takes the exam at school, her report card shines brighter than his.
Child marriage may be a hackneyed topic but the show transports you to a very real world
Balika Vadhu is more than just a serial on child marriage. It portrays a slice of life women in metros can still identify with. It is not black and white about its exploration of good and evil, right and wrong. With its onion-like layers, it shames you about the way widows are treated. When Sugna, Kalyani’s granddaughter is widowed on her wedding day, a broken and grieving Kalyani insists that she spend a year in the outhouse. When her older son forces himself on his child wife, the camera focuses directly on the marks he has left on her body. Currently, Kalyani’s sister has walked into the family fold and is doing a delightful job of opening the windows of her sister’s mind, and the rigid old lady is slowly shedding her superstitious beliefs. Why would you opt for other serials where the saas and the bahu are still bitching and scheming each other out. Balika Vadhu is socially relevant but doesn’t preach. It’s a fine depiction of life and its setting in Rajasthan is now merely incidental for a hardcore Delhiite like me. A modern me, if I may say so. And yes, I’ve been through burnt gold streaks myself. WRITER’S EMAIL shammy@tehelka.com
Photo: Shailendra Pandey You headed the first committee set up to investigate the role of the police. What were your findings?
I was brought back to Delhi Police after the 1984 anti- Sikh riots and asked to inquire into the role of police officers and give my report in three months. I spent night and day to complete the inquiry. I examined a number of persons, both in the police as well as outside. But I did something more. I seized all records of the police stations [in whose jurisdiction] the killings had taken place, and that alarmed people because they realised the trend of the inquiry. The records could not have been challenged. It was obvious that the men in uniform had vanished from their police stations [when the massacre happened]. According to police rules, all movements of police officers are recorded minute by minute into the thana daily diary. [But] the diaries were totally blank and they had obviously disappeared. The other thing that I found was that the so-called mob comprised a small number of people: groups of 20 to 30. So the police could have intervened and stopped the groups from setting Sikhs ablaze. This is something that bothered them. Then, some Delhi Police officers, whose names figured prominently, filed a writ against the inquiry in the High Court. The court refused to stall the inquiry. Then they used political clout. I completed my inquiry and only had to write the report when I received, out of nowhere, an order to stop my inquiry. From whom? From the Commissioner of Police, because it was he who had ordered the inquiry. It was a written order. Did you ask him why? He only smiled. The ostensible reason was that the government had decided to appoint another commission, headed by [former Chief Justice of India] Ranganath Mishra. Wasn’t that just an excuse?
I should have been allowed to complete my inquiry but the police officers concerned didn’t want it to go any further. Ironically, I have been hounded for 25 years. A number of cases have been filed against me on flimsy grounds. They do it even today. Summons came to me even when I was the Governor of Manipur. The last summons were pasted in front of my flat. This is how a former commissioner of police and governor is treated. So much litigation requires money. The police officers are obviously funded. Who is funding them?
Obviously, powerful people who were against the inquiry.
The records I seized showed the police officers vanished when the massacre happened. Their daily diaries were blank. They could have stopped the mobs if they wanted
Can’t the police stop a riot, if they choose to, in five-tosix hours? I can’t talk about any other riot, but in this case it was certainly possible because Delhi is a city where you can get additional manpower. Again, [from] the complete police control room record I seized, I remember clearly that odd cases had started taking place in the night [of October 31] itself. There was plenty of warning that an attempt will be made to settle scores with the Sikhs. Even then nothing was done. For two-to-three days, even normalcy wasn’t restored. The Sikh community was accused of killing the PM. They should have called the army. And it wasn’t done. Why, I can’t say. So the trend of the inquiry alarmed not only Delhi Police officers but also some other people. You mean the politicians? Well, the politicians, the senior bureaucrats. Their role came under question. Is it not appalling that not a single police officer has been punished?
Some of them were promoted. This is the saddest part. If this sort of thing happens in the Capital, it sends a very wrong signal. That is why I have been strongly pressing for police reforms, particularly with regard to recruitment, promotions and transfers, [and] particularly [on] the role of the ruling party, which decides which case is registered and which will be investigated. So the absence of the police from their duty obviously encouraged the mobs and added to the death toll? In a place like Delhi it is unthinkable that a small mob can hold a territory and kill people. Obviously, they had believed, rightly or wrongly, that they had impunity. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have dared. And look at the consequences. Both the 1984 riots and the 2002 Gujarat [anti- Muslim] riots have had a huge fallout on the country’s security. The 1984 riots gave birth to people like Surjit Singh Penta and Jinda. I met Jinda in hospital after his encounter. The man was bandaged and we thought he would not survive. He said, “Sir, I can’t get up but I want to tell you that I have great regard for you.” I reminded him that he had sent me a threatening letter. He said it was because I was with the Delhi Police. So why did he hold you in high regard?
He was referring to the fact that I treated the Sikh officers in Delhi Police on an equal basis, because an order had somehow gone that the Sikh officers should be withdrawn from key positions in Delhi after the riots. As Police Commissioner, I rescinded the order in 1985. You know, [one should] look at an officer not as a Hindu or a Sikh but whether he is fit for the job or not. The point is that the police must be a composite force and above the prejudices of a communal divide.
The Taliban Trail To India
THE SAVIOURS of Islam — or at least that is how the Taliban sees itself — now want Shariah to extend beyond the valley of Swat to the rest of Pakistan. No sooner had President Asif Ali Zardari consented to the Swat peace pact than an emboldened Taliban brazenly upped the ante. It will not disarm, is their latest missive.
Illustration: Anand Naorem
The peace pact signified a strategic retreat by the Army, one which encouraged the ‘saviours’ to continue using religion to expand their political writ and base. Already, Sufi Mohammad — the key cleric who brokered the deal — has declared that there can be no appeal to the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan from judgements given out by Shariah courts. His argument, simply, is that Pakistan’s constitutional judicial system is ‘un-Islamic’. In other words, judicial power should be vested in the hands of qazis. Obviously, these qazis will be handpicked by Sufi Mohammad himself.
But the problem is not only about what the Taliban are capable of. The bigger problem is that Zardari has spent the last one year consolidating himself and not his beleaguered country. The peace pact was signed after nearly four lakh Swatis fled the Valley. After the Army said it could not fight its own people, and after terrified policemen advertised in newspapers proclaiming that they had resigned from the force. Zardari, in fact, is not alarmed that the Taliban has openly expressed its expansionist intent and has not only called for Shariah to be enforced throughout Pakistan but is slowly making its way towards Islamabad.
It is clear that the Taliban has little intention of keeping its end of the bargain: to end all terror activities, lay down arms and enable the local government to regain administrative control. On the contrary, Sufi Mohammad is now asserting that the Talibs accused of murder and extortion cannot be brought to book. This clearly indicates that the Taliban are only using the peace pact to gain greater power for themselves.
This steady encroachment towards Islamabad is also causing grave concern in Delhi’s political and intelligence circles. Intelligence agencies are now reporting that batches of Talibs are making their way across the border into Kashmir. What should worry them is the fact that scores of Talibs are intimately familiar with Kashmir, having been there to fight for the Harkat-ul-Ansar and the Harkat-ul- Mujahideen in the early and mid-90s, when the insurgency was at its peak.
can testify to this. While in Kabul in September 1996, when the Taliban were flush with victory after they had conquered the capital, I met any number of Talibs in Kabul and near the Panjsher Valley who gave graphic details of their battles against Indian security forces in Kashmir. Many were particularly keen to secure the release of their commander, Nasarullah Langriyal. Langriyal travelled from Afghanistan to Kashmir where he was arrested in 1993 for an attack on the Border Security Force.
As the meeting with the Talibs comes back in vivid detail, what stands out is what they told me back then — that they had only returned to Afghanistan to support the Taliban’s final push into Kabul, which they capped with the brutal hanging of then President Najibullah.
Flush with their victory in Swat, the Taliban will no doubt turn their attention to Kashmir once again. It is an integral part of their expansionist intent.