Xi Jinping’s Chinese Exceptionalism

China’s leader Xi Jinping’s legion of intellectual warriors are on a high, trying to fish out from the mainstream, “realists” — a pedigree of thinkers who have followed former leader Deng Xiaoping’s low-key pragmatism to spur Beijing’s rise.

The Utopian “China Dream” project, of railing the “civilisation state” on a path, which would lead to the recovery of China’s glorious past is apparently at the heart of Xi’s aggressive Wolf Warrior diplomacy, and the show of the flag.

It is the anachronistic idea of the “Middle Kingdom,” where China and its people are at the centre of a global system, of which a number of semi-independent “tributary states” are the moving parts, which appears to fire Xi’s worldview.

“The fact that the Chinese regard themselves as superior to the rest of the human race, and that this belief has a racial component, will confront the rest of the world with a serious problem,” predicted Martin Jacques, the author of the 2009 bestseller, “When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World.”

Xi’s China Dream imagination, which embeds the idea of Chinese exceptionalism, was revealed during the Chinese strongman’s November 2012 tour of the National Museum in Beijing, in the company of six other politburo standing committee members, comprising China’s leadership core. In his remarks on the occasion, Xi made it plain that the “great rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation, was the greatest dream of the Chinese people in the modern era. He also pointed out the entire transition to China’s greatness would be marshalled by none other that the Communist Party of China (CPC), of which, he was the unquestionable leader for life.

Xi’s grandiose plan of spurring a “great rejuvenation” on CPC’s watch, is a sharp and disturbing detour from the ideological direction that had been sketched by Deng, who had replaced Mao Zedong, after his death in 1976. Deng’s worldview, on keeping a sharp focus on rapid economic development through market reforms, while keeping a low profile, in order to avoid geopolitical rifts, in its essence, was also inherited by his successors — Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Both these leaders were essentially status quoists, and were by no means “grand visionaries” in the tradition of Mao and Deng.But the ambitious Xi has turned out to be far more unpredictable. In recent years, he has been revealing traits a hybrid leader–of aspiring to become a historic figure as important as Mao in shaping China– but also as an individual who has not lost touch with Deng’s economic realism.

Xi’s authoritarian line of thinking, in what he self-acclaims is the beginning of a “new era” on his watch, has deeper intellectual roots. By returning to Statism — an attempt to accomplish his Middle Kingdom fantasy driven by the Party-state, which exercises total control over people and politics — Xi has been echoing ultra-nationalist thoughts of intellectuals such as Song Qing. In a book published in 2009, Song, had ardently listed deep-seated grievances, which, he urged, his country was duty-bound to address and remove. He then demanded that China must emerge as a real heavy-weight on the world stage.

Xi has also been pursuing ideas of Yi Junqing, a disgraced Chinese politician, who has been a strong advocate for developing China’s soft-power. “The rejuvenation of our nation, also known as the “Chinese dream”, has been part of the country’s aspirations for the past few generations. However, without cultural power as a driving force, a country can not achieve true global competitiveness despite its economic and political progress.

China has become the second-largest economy in the world. But its potential for soft power projection has not fully exerted,” Yi once told China News Week.

Xi’s clearest articulation of the China Dream came through the two centenary goals, which he announced in October 2017, at 19th Party Congress — a twice-a-decade event. In a marathon three-and-a-half-hour speech at the conclave, Xi formally announced that by 2020, China would eliminate poverty and become a moderately prosperous society. Thirty years later, in tune with the centenary of PRC’s formation in 1949, China would emerge as an unrivalled, and advanced socialist nation in the world.

The project to establish a quintessential Middle Kingdom of the modern era would be accomplished then.But Xi also made no secret of his country’s aggressive intent. He has pointed out that in the journey to achieve greatness, China should be readied for epic confrontations, presumably with the United States and other holdouts such as India and Japan, as seen in the South China Sea and Ladakh to realise his Middle Kingdom dreams.

In his frenzied effort to realise the China Dream, and to smother any form of dissent in the internet age, Xi has pushed the party-state on the path of what can be called, digital totalitarianism. Consequently, Xi’s China has been proactive in using internet-based tools of mass surveillance, including face recognition technology, in tightly monitored social media content, and barricading by the “great firewall” of internet output flowing in and out of China.

In recent years, a new breed of establishment intellectuals have flocked around Xi, providing him the cerebral ballast to legitimise his authoritarian rule.

Trending among them is Jiang Shigong, a Peking University academic who had also earlier served in the Chinese government’s office in Hong Kong. In his essay titled “Empire and World Order” that has appeared on the Reading the China Dream, a website that translates works by Chinese intellectuals, Jiang openly advocates the “reconstruction of China’s civilisation” so that it can emerge as the centrepiece of a new “world order,” and, in fact, transitions into a new “world empire”.

“As a great world power that must look beyond its own borders, China must reflect on her own future, for her important mission is not only to revive her traditional culture. China must also patiently absorb the skills and achievements of humanity as a whole, and especially those employed by Western civilisation to construct a world empire. Only on this basis can we see the reconstruction of Chinese civilisation and the reconstruction of the world order as a mutually re-enforcing whole.

Another Peking University professor Chen Duanhong is a major advocate of statism, who cites Carl Schmitt, the German jurist, who provided some of the intellectual foundations for Adolf Hitler’s rise, as grounds for a new security law in Hong Kong. In a paper written in 2018 to define Beijing’s approach to counter Hong Kong’s challenge to mainland China, Chen quoted Schmitt: “The survival of the state comes first, and constitutional law must serve this fundamental objective.”

Some Chinese scholars are of the view that Chinese statism can be traced to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“Chinese/CPC statism began to come into its own after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the games having created a sense of pride and elation in the people, sweeping away the century-old image of China as the sick man of Asia, and China’s self-confidence burgeoned,” writes Deng Yuwen, in an essay “Chinese Statism, the Transitional Nature of Xi Jinping’s Regime, and America’s Response,” posted on the Reading the China Dream, website. Deng, however, spotlights t that the turning point for Statism to mature was Xi’s China Dream project.

In his article, he points to four stages which cemented Xi’s statism– the US-China trade war, the US attacks on Huawei, the Hong Kong protests, and the coronavirus pandemic. But the Chinese scholar is not sure how long Xi will remain in the saddle, despite the removal of term limits on his presidency in 2017.

“Accepting Mao’s lifetime rule taught the party and the people painful lessons, and that the highest leader would not rule for life is one of the most important shared convictions of the CPC high-level leadership, having become a powerful CPC tradition since the time of Deng Xiaoping. Even if other ‘good’ CPC traditions have been destroyed one after the other by Xi Jinping, this one cannot be lightly dismissed, and even someone like Xi Jinping cannot formally excise this clause from the written text even if in fact he winds up ruling for life,” he observes.

The growing friction with Washington has acquired dangerous proportions after two US aircraft carrier task forces were deployed in July at China’s doorstep in the South China sea. Simultaneously, on the diplomatic front, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s spoke at the Nixon Center, where he announced the futility of 50 years of engagement with China, setting the stage for a new cold war pitting Washington and Beijing against each other indefinitely.

The rise of the statist intellectuals, supporting Xi, appears to be edging out “realists,” including former senior commanders of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who have essentially aligned their views with Deng Xiaoping’s lie-low-and-grow pragmatism.

But some from the Deng Xiaoping school have not thrown in the towel yet. On the contrary, they have mounted a fierce riposte to Xi’s confrontational approach toward US, warning that an underestimation of Washington’s military, technological and soft power heft could be disastrous.

Two old school hawks from the PLA’s stables have stood out in calling out for an urgent course correction.

In a July 5 article titled “2020, Four Unexpected Things and Ten New Understandings About the United States,” which appeared on the website guancha.cn Dai Xu, Professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies, at China’s National Defence University (NDU), has listed 10 concrete factors that explain why China will lose out to the Americans.

Dai asserts that China needs to urgently review its perception of the US. He cautions that unless Beijing changes its ideological understanding of the US, China will be in danger of committing serious mistakes.

The veteran General stresses that China should neither underestimate Washington’s power nor the patriotism of American politicians. “Do not think of Imperial America as a “paper tiger”. It is a “real tiger”, that kills people,” warns the General.

He adds, “Do not think of American politicians as gentlemen. They are not philanthropists. They are extremely loyal to their country and voters. They are not easily bought. They are only loyal to their voters. They will do everything to satisfy their voters.”

Second, the Americans are quick learners, capable of carrying out urgent course corrections, once they realise their mistakes.

“All Presidents have their own governing ideas and methods, but their principles remain the same. One of the significant characteristics of Imperial America is that once a national strategy goes wrong, a new government will make a 180-degree change to it without hesitation, changing their policies faster than flipping a page in a book.”

Separately in a May article that appeared in the South China Morning Post, Qiao Liang, a retired air force major general, and a professor at the NDU, warned that China should not attempt a military takeover of Taiwan, seeing the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity.

“China’s ultimate goal is not the reunification of Taiwan, but to achieve the dream of national rejuvenation – so that all 1.4 billion Chinese can have a good life,” Qiao, said in an interview.

“Could it be achieved by taking Taiwan back? Of course not. So we should not make this the top priority. If Beijing wants to take Taiwan back by force, it will need to mobilise all its resources and power to do this,” he said. “You should not put all your eggs in one basket, it is too costly.”

But so long as Xi is in power, it is unlikely that, in the absence of a major upheaval, pragmatic scholars in the tradition of Deng can mobilise a critical mass to marshal the reigns of China’s intellectual power. Nevertheless, the dormant threat posed by the “realists” to the mainstream will remain open, for Deng’s influence on the Chinese psyche, notwithstanding the glossy attraction of Xi’s China Dream, runs deep.

The author is an expert on strategic affairs. (ANI)

Raje’s Role In Gehlot Govt Survival

Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah took control of the government and the party, most Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have been reduced to pygmies. But recent developments in Rajasthan have shown that senior party leader Vasundhara Raje is no push-over and that she is unafraid to take on the Central leadership.

The two-time Rajasthan chief minister steadfastly refused to endorse the party’s decision to dislodge the Ashok Gehlot government, forcing the saffron camp to abandon this plan. As a result, the Gehlot sailed through a trust vote last week after the BJP-supported rebellion by disgruntled Congress leader Sachin Pilot failed to take-off because of Raje’s non-cooperation.

Raje proved that despite her electoral defeat two years ago and the party’s best efforts to marginalise her, the Central leadership can ill-afford to ignore her as she commands the loyalty of 50 of the 72 BJP legislators.

Moreover, Raje’s charisma and appeal put her on top of the list of vote catchers in Rajasthan where she remains a dominant force. Raje has the capacity to lead the BJP to a victory in the next election. But conversely, she can also play spoiler and give the party a tough time.

Irked by Raje’s obduracy and desperate to put her in place, the BJP’s Central leadership (read Amit Shah) proceeded to go ahead with its plan to overthrow the Congress government in Rajasthan without taking the former chief minister into confidence. The task of implementing these plans was entrusted to Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (a Shah favourite), Satish Poonia, president of the party’s Rajasthan unit, and BJP’s legislature party leader Gulab Chand Kataria.

The pride of place given to Shekhawat was a clear message to the party rank and file that he was the leadership’s chief ministerial candidate once the party succeeded in dethroning the Gehlot government.

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But the BJP soon realised that it needed Raje on board but she refused to fall in line. On her part, the former chief minister had her reasons for thwarting the party’s plans. Not willing to settle for anything less than the top post, Raje was clearly angry with her bete noire Shekhawat’s projection as the future Rajasthan chief minister. Raje was obviously was not going to make it easy for anyone else to snatch this post from her. It was the same reason that she was unhappy over Pilot’s possible induction into the BJP as he has also set his eyes on the chief minister’s chair.

Though the BJP consistently denied that the revolt led by Sachin Pilot was an internal affair of the Congress, the saffron camp had been in touch with him for several months before he finally walked out with 19 loyal legislators to demand Gehlot’s removal. The rebels were spirited away to a resort in BJP-ruled Haryana. In fact, the “operation kamal”, designed on the same lines as similar successful exercises it executed in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

For the record, Pilot maintained that he had been humiliated by Gehlot for the past two years and that he was driven to take the extreme step of going public with his grievances after he was sent a notice by the police in connection with the BJP’s plan to “bribe” Congress legislators.

Responding in equal measure, Gehlot collected his loyalist MLAs and sequestered them in a hotel in Jaipur, making sure there was no contact between them and the Pilot camp or the BJP. Gehlot guarded his flock zealously, making sure that the numbers in the rebel camp did not touch the magic figure of 30, the required figure to bring down his government. The chief minister maintained he had the support of 100-plus legislators in the 200-member assembly and accused the BJP of using “money power” to destabilise his government.

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Even as this drama continued for nearly a month, Raje maintained a studied silence. Her colleagues, Shekhawat, Poonia and Kataria, on the other hand, were never at a loss to offer their comments on the Congress crisis. It was only when her silence and absence became a talking point that Raje posted one wishy-washy tweet, saying the people of Rajasthan were suffering because of the continuing rift within the ruling Congress.

In a tweet posted on July 18, Raje said, “There is no point in trying to drag the BJP and the BJP leaders’ names through the mud. It is the interest of our people that must remain paramount.” This was meant essentially to dispel the public perception that she was helping Gehlot.

Raje was only spotted in Jaipur on August 14 when she attended the assembly session where Gehlot won the trust vote. She later told the media that she was unaware of the past month’s developments as she was observing shravan mass, the holy month of monsoon, and was busy with pujas at her Dholpur home. She had earlier skipped a party meeting, which had to be called off because of her absence.

She did surface briefly in Delhi on August 7 for a meeting with BJP president JP Nadda where she refused to get involved in the party’s efforts to bring down the Gehlot government. Instead she complained that she was being ignored and deliberately sidelined in Rajasthan. The recently reconstituted executive committee of the state unit has not accommodated her supporters while the state unit chief Poonia and opposition leader Kataria are known to be Raje baiters.

Unable to persuade her to fall in line with its plans and unwilling to risk alienating Raje, the BJP had no option but to call off “operation kamal” in Rajasthan. This was a major victory for Raje though it is early days to say what the future holds for her as the current BJP leadership is unlikely to forget her intransigence in a hurry.

Till then Raje can enjoy this victory as she has clearly won this round and is worthy of being declared the “man of the match”.

Bangladesh – The Next Asian Tiger

Last December, after witnessing Bangladesh’s ‘Bijoy Divas’, the day in 1971 Pakistani military had surrendered to Indian and Bangladeshi joint command, I experienced a sad, solemn moment at the home of its founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was assassinated along with 20 of his family members on August 15, 1975.

On that fateful night of August 14-15, a group of serving and retired Bangladesh Army officers had, in a planned conspiracy, stormed this house located in Dhanmondi Residential Area. After killing other inmates including his wife, three sons, one of them just ten, and two daughters-in-law, one of them pregnant, they confronted Mujib as he came down from the second floor bedroom.

They demanded he resign. When he refused, he was gunned down. Bullet marks bear testimony and rose petals spread where Mujib fell remind of the mayhem. Then posted at Dhaka, I had reported that coup d’etat. As memories came rushing, the passage of almost 45 years couldn’t steel my senses. I cried while signing the Visitors’ Book.

India had played a key role in 1971. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government hosted ten million refugees. On diplomatic front, she could persuade lawmakers like the US’ Edward Kennedy, sections of the international media, artistes like violinist Yehudi Menuhin and philosophers like France’s Andre Malraux. But she could not shake the Western governments driven by Cold War bias.  

Signing the Friendship and Peace Treaty with the then Soviet Union, India, when attacked, responded with full military fury. Its confidence showed at the massive rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan that Indira addressed, with fighter jets providing air cover.

The two-week war ended with surrender of 93,000 Pakistani soldiers. It was the swiftest and most decisive outcome of a war since the World War II. And precisely three months later, the Indian Army left, its departing columns saluting Mujib. There is no precedence.

Viewed in the backdrop of the Cold War, this was a debacle for the West. Bangladesh was not recognized for long by the West and the Islamic world. An unrepentant Henry Kissinger called Mujib “history’s favourite fool.”

That Mujib’s assassination, like Chile’s Salvadore Allende, was a conspiracy is glossed over today, post-Cold war. American journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, in his book ‘Bangladesh: An Unfinished Revolution’, writes that the “CIA station chief in Dhaka, Philip Cherry, was actively involved in the killing of the Father of the Nation—Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.” Cherry, of course, denied this. His boss, the US Ambassador, said he was unaware. But, among the many pointers, one is of Cherry’s woman colleague being friendly to Major Shariful Haq Dalim, one of the “killer majors”, who announced on the radio Mujib’s killing and the success of the coup.

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Final touches to the conspiracy were given during Dhaka visit of the first Pakistani trade delegation barely ten days before it unravelled. It included a retired Pakistan Army major general, a former Intelligence chief. As per official itinerary, the delegation met Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed, then Commerce Minister. Within hours of Mujib’s assassination, Moshtaque became the President.

Moshtaque replaced the national slogan “Joy Bangla” with “Bangladesh Zindabad”. He was removed in November 1975 after he had signed the Indemnity Ordinance that blocked any punishment to the “killer majors”. Two decades later, after Hasina Government took office, the National Assembly repealed it.

In office, Mujib left a mixed record. An astute politician and agitator, his experience of and hold over governance were poor. He fought against heavy odds, even natural calamities like drought and flood during his short tenure that witnessed chaos and food shortages. Bangladesh came to be called an “international basket case.”

Daughters Hasina and Rehana escaped the massacre as they were in Germany. They were hosted for six years at a safe house in New Delhi, protected from hostile governments in Dhaka. This has been a less-known chapter of India helping in the well-being of Bangladesh.

This contemporary history, it seems, is poised to take a full circle. Pakistan and Bangladesh are set to normalize relations, almost half-a-century after they were violently snapped. A thaw is building. Imran Khan last month phoned Hasina to invite her to Islamabad.

This will be epochal for the generation of Indians that suffered while hosting ten million refugees in 1971, paying Refugee Relief Tax. Those who fought and families of those who died in the conflict that year, may find this heart-breaking.

But shorn of Indian sentiments, and that of Bangladesh’s own freedom fighters, this is also inevitable when seen from a larger prism. After all, Vietnam, last century’s most violated nation, has normalized ties with the US.

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Times are a-changing. The US is about to hand over Rashed Chowdhury, one of the “killer majors”, to be hanged by Dhaka, so that the latter doesn’t get too close to Beijing!

The regional context explains it better. There is definitely a nudge from China that has crossed the Himalayas. It is wooing all of South Asia, once India’s backyard, with its deep pockets and political determination.

For Pakistan, if the Indian enemy’s enemy (China) has been a long-time friend and now a saviour, then the enemy’s friend (Bangladesh) should be more so. It would be is getting back at India.

Arguably, Pakistan under Khan and his mentors, the Army, is trying to cleanse its image as militancy hotbed. Unable to sell its line to the world since India ended Kashmir’s special status, reaching out to Bangladesh serves multiple purposes: a) it can hope to be seen as a conciliator in the western eye and also please the Muslim ummah, b) it can in the long run hope to drive a wedge between Delhi and Dhaka when the latter is already peeved with the Modi Government’s Hindutva agenda and; c) it can tug at the sentiments of those that once lived as part of Pakistan and enjoyed privileges.

Although Khan renewed invitation to Hasina to visit Pakistan, it seems unlikely for now as she prepares to lead Bangladesh into 50th anniversary celebrations, already underway. She wouldn’t like to answer this query: liberation from whom? Would she invite Khan to the celebrations, the way her father had invited Z A Bhutto to Dhaka in 1974?

A rush is unlikely. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdul Momen asked the Pakistani envoy who met him that Pakistan formally apologize for 1971. Khan can’t sell this to the army, forget his people.

Undoubtedly, it is for Bangladesh to decide how to respond to Pakistan’s overtures. Separation from Pakistan was not only due to political and economic discrimination. Bengalis had shed blood to preserve their language and culture. That ethos sustains among emotion-driven Bangladeshis. It was evident while fighting the Islamist extremists.

One thing is clear. Bangladesh is not Pakistan’s neglected kid brother. Pakistani scholar Pervez Hoodbhoy last year extolled Bangladesh’s strides in numerous areas that have eluded his country.

He sees Bangladesh as the next Asian Tiger. Its population graph has reversed in Pakistan’s comparison. The health indicators are positive. “Bangladesh and Pakistan are different countries today because they perceive their national interest very differently. Bangladesh sees its future in human development and economic growth,” says Hoodbhoy.

“For Pakistan, human development comes a distant second. The bulk of national energies remain focused upon check-mating India. Relations with Afghanistan and Iran are therefore troubled; Pakistan accuses both of being excessively close to India. But the most expensive consequence of the security state mindset was the nurturing of extra state actors in the 1990s. Ultimately they had to be crushed after the APS massacre of Dec 16, 2014.” This, Hoodbhoy points out, “coincidentally, was the day Dhaka had fallen 43 years earlier.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Political Milking Of Sushant’s Death

It is a month since Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide but there is no let-up in the controversial and often unsubstantiated revelations which are continuously being aired by television networks on his untimely demise, particularly since the case acquired political overtones.

From an initial discussion on mental health of actors to nepotism in the Hindi film industry and discrimination against outsiders, 34-year-old Rajput’s death has degenerated into an all-out war between the Maharashtra and Bihar governments which are currently led by opposing political coalitions.

It is no coincidence that the Bihar government, led by National Democratic Alliance partners, Janata Dal (U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, has upped the ante on this case as the state assembly elections are due in a few months. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s popularity ratings have dipped in recent weeks as the state machinery is unable to cope with the rising cases of coronavirus.

Fighting with his back to the wall, the Rajput case has proved to be a handy diversion for Nitish Kumar who has successfully deflected public attention by decrying the Maharashtra government’s tardy investigation into the death of Bihar’s son Rajput. It helps that the Maharashtra government is headed by his coalition partner BJP’s bete noire Shiv Sena.

It suits the Janata Dal (U) and the BJP to build pressure on the Maharashtra government by keeping up the narrative on Rajput’s “mysterious death”. In Bihar, the two parties have an eye on the Rajput vote, a small but influential community which has been demanding justice for the actor.

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It is not just the JD(U) and the BJP which are eyeing the Rajput vote but opposition parties, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, have also joined the race. The two parties joined the chorus for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation when the issue figured in the state assembly when it met recently for a day to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the state.

BJP legislator Neeraj Kumar Singh, the actor’s cousin, raised the demand first, drawing instant support from across the political spectrum. Leader of opposition Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD went a step further and proposed that the upcoming film city at Rajgir be named after Rajput while Congress leader Sadanand Singh suggested that the assembly adopt a resolution demanding an inquiry by the Central agency.

If tempers are running high in Bihar, it is no different in Maharashtra. Always on the lookout for issues on which it can discredit the Uddhav Thackeray government, the BJP feels the Rajput case is a potent weapon to mount an effective attack against the chief minister and his son Aditya Thackeray. Former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane and his son Nilesh have been particularly vocal and even suggested that Rajput was murdered. They have demanded that Aditya Thackeray should step down as minister to facilitate a fair probe since his name has figured during the course of a hearing in the Supreme Court.

Finding himself under constant attack, Aditya Thackeray broke his silence to deny his involvement in the case while his Shiv Sena colleagues are putting up a stout defence in his favour. Senior party leader Sanjay Raut, who has been at the forefront in hitting out at the BJP, described its allegations as a “political conspiracy”, aimed at maligning the government because the opposition did not succeed in toppling it.

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Though the controversy regarding Rajput’s death had been simmering since he was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on July 14, it picked up pace after the Bihar police registered a case against the actor’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and others on July 25 following a complaint filed by the dead artist’s father KK Singh. The charges ranged from cheating, abetment to suicide and wrongful confinement.

On cue, the Bihar government dispatched a team of police officers to Mumbai to investigate the case. Furious at this interference, the Maharashtra government retaliated by placing Vinay Tiwari, the leader of the Bihar police squad, under quarantine by citing existing guidelines for containing coronavirus. 

At the same time, the Maharashtra police made it clear that the Bihar police has no jurisdiction to investigate the matter in their state as the incident took place in Mumbai. Moreover, it said, it was already in the process of investigating Rajput’s death. The Bihar police charged that the Maharashtra police was deliberately going slow in this matter as it was protecting an important person (read chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s son and minister Aditya Thackeray) whose name is said to have surfaced during the investigations.

This opened the floodgates further as charges and counter-charges have been flying thick and fast. Faced with an obdurate Maharashtra government and under all-round pressure from political parties in Bihar, an angry Nitish Kumar proposed that the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. It was not surprising that the request was accepted with alacrity by the BJP-led ruling alliance at the Centre. Normally a demand for a CBI probe is made by the state government where the crime has occurred. In this instance, rules were conveniently bypassed by the Centre which acceded to the Bihar government’s demand even though the incident took place in another state.

Meanwhile, the case gets murkier by the day. Besides the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate has been summoning the actor’s girlfriend and other associates for questioning. Rajput’s father has accused Chakravorty of siphoning off Rs. 15 crore from his son’s bank account, of overdosing him with drugs and creating a wedge between the actor and his family.

Needless to say, the media has had a field day reporting and “investigating” this case. It has essentially declared that Chakravorty is guilty. Breathless and excited reporters on television news channels have, with leaks from helpful sources, accessed details of Rajput’s holidays with his girlfriend and provided “breaking news” about the actor’s finances and mental health in back-to-back coverage. Chakravorty is predictably the villain of the piece.

With Bihar elections a few months away, it can be safely said that interested political parties will continue to work doubly hard to ensure that the Rajput case remains centrestage.

Kamala Harris’ Heritage Matters

Reena Bhardwaj

India-born engineer turned politician Aruna Miller met California Senator Kamala Devi Harris at an event last year in New York. Harris’ tribulations, achievements and her connection to India had always made a special spot in Miller’s personal and political journey in the United States.

So when former Vice President Joe Biden picked Harris as his running mate and then made his first appearance with Senator Harris on Wednesday evening, 55-year-old Miller was elated. “Indian Americans with whom I have spoken are extremely excited and energised by Kamala’s selection,” Miller told ANI.

The emergence of Senator Kamala Devi Harris has broken barriers for not just people of colour but also for the Indian American women who believe in her. “Her (Kamala) mother said it best — you may be the first to do a lot of things but make sure you are not the last,” Miller further added.

Harris is not just another Indian-American politician running for any office, she is also the first woman of Indian descent who is running for the second-highest office in the history of the United States.

More than 1.3 million Indian-Americans are expected to vote in this year’s election- and Harris is one of them. With nearly 200,000 in battleground states like Pennsylvania and 125,000 in Michigan the Indian American Vote matters. (Data credit- research firm CRW Strategy).

As a woman of Indian-American and African-American descent, Harris’ heritage matters. Experts and political commentators say that Harris’s addition to the ticket might influence the election results in close states like Ohio and Pennsylvania because the Senator from California can pull the Indian American voters to the polls.

Harris is being endorsed by Indian Americans for having a ripple effect on the many who were mere fence-sitters up until now.

“I am sure those Indian Americans who have been sitting on the fence will now come in support. The ticket given to Harris by Biden is a proud moment for all of us Indians, and this will be a great thing for India,” said Dr Suresh C Gupta, a practising physician and Indian American who has lived in Washington DC metropolitan area since 1968.

Harris’ vice-presidential candidacy would be historic, not only for Black Americans but for millions of voters of Indian American descent –who are soon becoming the ‘growing political force’ in the upcoming elections in the US. “I usually gave a small amount to the presidential candidate, but this time I am going to all go out of my way to make sure that we Indian Americans fund this campaign and fund it to a degree that we will be proud of that. And they (Democrats) will be very happy with our contributions,” Gupta further added.

Senator Kamala Harris who made her first appearance today as Joe Biden’s pick, as vice president could play a more important role on immigration than in prior presidencies. And her pro-immigration agenda appeals to many including Delegate Kumar Barve, whose ancestors immigrated to the United States in 1911 from Maharashtra.

“We are an immigrant nation. Nearly 100 per cent of the population of America, came here over the last 200 years or so. She is very much in keeping with the traditional view of how America is built as a nation, and I look forward to her as vice president.’ Barve, who is a leader in Maryland state politics, told ANI. (ANI)

Money Talks: IPL Organisers Are Shameless

In forty days, the Indian Premier League, cricket’s most hyped club tournament, will be roaring in the United Arab Emirates. Given the situation now in India, with COVID-19 surge, it is impossible to think of hosting any sporting event. Forget a tournament, even in the local area of your city, playing sport is still considered risky.

Ideally, in such a situation, where sporting action is near zero and even elite athletes preparing for the postponed Tokyo Olympics are struggling to get going, there is no place for cricket. Even Australia has postponed the ICC World T20, another blockbuster cricketing event.

Sadly, the mandarins who “head” cricket administration in India (read BCCI) by default, Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah, have ensured the IPL takes place. Nobody minds watching the IPL, which is more commerce and less cricket. But the timing of the event is baffling and why are the organisers so desperate for a club event that it is being moved offshore to a country like UAE.

Ideally, if at all cricket has to resume in India, it has to be first at the club level, then national level. If things get better and the COVID-19 situation improves, one can think of international cricket, maybe in 2021. Ignoring the ground realities, the government has given the permission for the event to be staged abroad. There are many reasons why this permission should not have been given.

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For those familiar with off-shore cricket having been played in the UAE in the late 1980s and 1990s, images of Sharjah should be fresh in memory. The anti-India slogans, a mix of glitz and glamour, mafia dons appearing on stands, Bollywood starlets in the background, cannot be erased. Cricket in Sharjah then became synonymous with players from India and Pakistan being paid huge “benefit funds”. One is not sure how this money was generated but the benefactors did not mind it. However, once it became clear that cricket in the Gulf was not clean, viewers started avoiding it.

A similar heady mix was recreated in 2008 as IPL, bringing together cricket mania and Bollywood glamour. Money flowed in. Before the lockdown, brand values of top IPL teams as of March 2020, stand as follows: Mumbai Indians – ₹809 crores; Chennai Super Kings – ₹732 crores; Kolkata Knight Riders – ₹629 crores and; Royal Challengers Bangalore – ₹595 crores.

Clearly, the stakes are high, despite the fact the BCCI has lost its title sponsor (Vivo) for this season. The brand value of the Vivo sponsorship deal was estimated at ₹450 crores. As Vivo has now pulled out of this year’s IPL deal, owing to an anti-China sentiment post-Galwan valley clashes on LAC, the BCCI is hoping they can get a new title sponsors for even half that sum. Strangely, Patnajali is being touted as a front-runner for the slot.

For the sake of these big bucks, COVID-19 protocols are being compromised. Everyone knows that creating a bio bubble is not easy. That has been done in England and Europe for hosting football tournaments and cricket as well. It succeeded to some extent but there is still risk in a sport like cricket (IPL).

You can ban the fans from stadia in UAE and host the IPL just so that the broadcaster shows tamasha cricket which will be played in high temperatures and extreme humidity. It will be killing for the players. The players have not played any matches and their bodies, despite all training, will be still fragile. To punish the player’s body for holding IPL, a glorified club event, is shocking.

To put it bluntly, the BCCI and IPL governing council are shameless. For them, commerce is more important than health and safety. One galling fact is that even former greats of the sport like Sunil Gavaskar and even Rahul Dravid are batting for the event.

Even though the cases of COVID-19 have shown a decline, one cannot gloss over the fact that UAE had 62,525 positive cases. The recovery was 56,568 and death toll 357. As of now, it is the only country near India which has allowed tourists to fly in. The passenger only needs to have a negative COVId-19 test report 96 hours before boarding the flight.

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Cricket fans know the IPL has a huge sprinkling of foreign players, where Aussies, Englishmen, West Indians and Sri Lankan players compete. Australia has not opened its international borders and to imagine they will allow players to fly out for the IPL is bizarre. Yet, for the dreamers, the IPL will be on!

Another important fact which cannot be glossed over is how IPL cricket in the UAE is likely to generate huge volumes of betting. Even though sports betting is illegal in the UAE, anyone with a faint idea of how hyped cricket events operate, knows betting takes place in a very clandestine atmosphere. There have been instances of the IPL (2010) in India, getting into controversy because of betting, match fixing and spot fixing.

Is betting being given permission unofficially or are there other compulsions that cricket in the slam bang T20 format has to be played at any cost. The way things are, controlling betting even in domestic Indian football is impossible, as was the case recently in Goa.

Even when the IPL is played in India, there is concern over dubious men being seen near the dressing rooms. Players are under scrutiny and also who they talk to on the phone. People have still not forgotten the old incidents involving players like S Sreesanth and how Chennai Super Kings name was tarnished.

As far as international cricket is concerned, the world body (ICC) has mechanisms to check any shady activity. However, given the fact that the IPL is a glorified club event, there are no institutional checks over what goes behind the stadium. If you think this is for the benefit of players, you are mistaken. They are mere pawns who play to earn pay cheques while the shady characters will sweep big money.

That is IPL for you, where the common man claps and cheers while the dark underbelly operates without batting an eyelid. Raise your voice to stop this farce, at least for one year, when Corona virus has crippled millions.

(The writer is a senior sports journalist. The views and opinion expressed in the article belong solely to the author)

Systematic Genocide Of Uighurs In Progress

Last month in early July, the BBC reported that the Americans, in a significant move, have “seized a shipment of human hair products from China” that it says was made by forced labour from children or prisoners. “Production of these goods constitutes a very serious human rights violation,” said US customs official Brenda Smith. China, as it routinely does and rather nonchalantly, with a straight face, vigorously denied the charges. The ‘forced labour’ charge was malicious and totally fabricated, it claimed.

The American authorities did not clarify if the hair products, or products made from hair, literally, came from children or women, or prisoners, especially those imprisoned in the huge province of Xinjiang in China. Indeed, did they come from this far-west province, now dubbed as a vast concentration camp, perhaps bigger in size than what the Nazis ever imagined before the Second World War and during the Holocaust, where more than one million local Muslim Uighurs are reportedly trapped as prisoners and bonded labourers, including children and women.

According to the report, the products were detained by the US Customs and Border Protection at the Port of New York and New Jersey. The products were part of a 13-tonne shipment of hair products worth more than $800,000. “The goods came from a company in Xinjiang, which, the agency said, indicated potential human right abuses of forced child labour and imprisonment.”

If anything, the seizure was scary and reminded the world of yet another grotesque and heart-rending chapter of history: the manner in which the Nazis used the body parts of Jewish prisoners in the death and labour camps, especially that of women and children, including their skin, hair, etc, to make products. Their teeth, especially those with gold embedded in it, were melted to extract gold.

So what is happening in Xinjiang, and with its indigenous population, even as China enforces a total information blockade in the region with reporters not allowed to venture in, and vast prisons and ‘concentration camps’ the size of several football fields being used for ideological indoctrination, mass brutalization, sexual slavery, bonded labour and total subjugation with a military clampdown? Are Uighurs the victims of mass incarceration with total denial of fundamental rights which the world is refusing to see despite the stark evidence pointing to it again and again?

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Recently, a video had surfaced which looked like a bigger and more draconian version of what used to be the Guantanamo Bay during the times of George Bush in the US after the September 11 attacks in America by the Al Qaeda. Rows of uniformed prisoners sitting with their heads bowed, their heads shaved, being herded by armed military men.

The picture taken by drones was shown in almost all top television channels in the West and in some cases the Chinese ambassadors and other officials were asked to respond. In most cases, the Chinese had no answer at all, not even a clear denial, saying, really, what’s new about these video pictures, they could be just routine movement of prisoners in routine prisons, what’s so surprising about it?

However, the drone videos clearly pointed out that the location was Xinjiang and the people were Uighurs. Indeed, in a dark Orwellian twist, these prisons and concentration camps are called ‘re-education camps’, even ‘loving, kindness camps’ or even vocational training camps where all are happy and healthy. Typically, it is reported that the prisoners are forced to sing and shout aloud in chorus praising Xi Jin Ping, the Chinese president for life.

Xinjiang was incorporated in China in 1949. Unlike the occupation of Tibet, the diabolical paradigm shift in the demographics of population and social and economic life came much later. Tibet has over the years seen the influx of Han Chinese population from the mainland, shifting the local population in this vast, scattered and beautiful mountain landscape to an inferior position, with most top positions held by the Han Chinese appointed by the Chinese Communist Party and the regime in Beijing, and with local Tibetans having been totally compromised and coopted.

This reporter has witnessed several ‘exemplary villages’ in Tibet, as he covered the region before the Summer Olympics in China in 2008. Every house in the village celebrated ‘happy’ Tibetan families and farmers, with a calendar showcasing the smiling leaders of the Chinese government: Deng Xiao Ping, Hu Jintao etc. All of them unanimously praised the Chinese government in the various Tibetan-Buddhist monasteries controlled by Beijing and the Prefecture of Tibet, as well in these exemplary villages which showed no signs of poverty with beautiful rivers and water bodies, flourishing agricultural fields, sturdy houses, and with private property, including land, now allowed.

The only irony was the hidden joke: that under some of these government calendars with smiling faces of top Chinese leaders of the past and present, there might occasionally lurk another small calendar: that of a smiling Dalai Lama.

However, Tibet, where, even before the Olympics, scores of monks did ‘self-immolation’ in protest, and where several other protesting monks – branded criminals – literally disappeared, has not gone through the same kind of mass persecution which the Uighurs are going through right now in Xinjiang. Tibet did not have concentration camps, though State repression was universal and there were no freedoms. Perhaps this is because Tibet has always been under the international scanner with celebrities, world leaders and human rights groups openly backing the Dalai Lama.

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However, the huge administrative province of Xinjiang, with its Islamic, Turkic and Central Asian roots, and bordering, among others, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, has chosen to violently rebel many times in the region and even in Beijing. There have been clashes with the Han Chinese, the police and military, and a car exploded at Tiananmen Square in Beijing too in the past. China clamped down with an iron hand branding them terrorists.

The locals speak a variant of Turkish and are believers in strong Islamic traditions. Ethnically and culturally they believe they have inherited their history from Central Asia. Kashgar here was a famous town during the Silk Road era, with local craft and agriculture their mainstay at one time. Now, everything is controlled by the Han Chinese and the Chinese military administration.

As of now, almost 40 per cent of the population is Han Chinese. Mass surveillance including facial records of individuals is now an accepted reality. Islamic traditions have been banned and instead indoctrination based on so-called ‘Chinese Communist Characteristics’ are drilled inside children and adults. Most ‘brainwashed’ children are separated from their family and friends who do not know their whereabouts. Recently, some local students returned from Hong Kong to find that their parents, family and friends have disappeared. In secret files discovered and exposed by The New York Times, several such cases were reported.

The students were told, as the leaked internal Chinese government documents of 400 pages plus revealed, that if they choose not to follow the dominant code, even in answering the questions put up to them, the detention period of their loved ones can be prolonged or shortened accordingly. They were told that their family is in a ‘training school’ set up by the government and that they were not criminals, but they will not be allowed to leave these training schools. Occasionally, some of the disappeared people appear on state television, looking emaciated and tortured, praising their life and the contribution of the Chinese government. This especially happens if their relatives and friends choose to campaign for them ‘outside China’ especially in the West.

There have been other horror stories, one most horrifying being that local women, whose husbands are in prison, or have disappeared, are being forced to sleep in the same bedroom with unknown Han Chinese men – so as reportedly ‘to acclimatize and protect them with mainstream Chinese culture and family values’. Not only that, in yet another move reminiscent of the Nazi era, birth control measures are being pushed forcibly down the throat of Uighur women. Soon, observers believe, that they might be forced into marriage with Han Chinese men, or compelled into some form of sex slavery or trafficking.

Wrote the Newrepublic.com in a recent article: “The horrors Beijing has rolled out in Xinjiang are almost too nauseating to name. Buoyed by a series of thousands of so-called ‘re-education camps’, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities have effectively transformed the entire region into what The New York Times describes as a ‘virtual prison’ with everything from race-based facial recognition tools to the  tracking of DNA samples and iris scans stalking Uighurs wherever they go. To take just one measure of comparison, Xinjiang now has a higher level of police density than even East Germany— which itself had magnitudes more police informants per capita than even Nazi Germany — at the end of the Cold War. “Nowhere in the world, not even in North Korea, is the population monitored as strictly as it is in Xinjiang,” wrote the German magazine, Der Spiegel. ”

“China’s camps have yet to become reprises of Dachau or Sachsenhausen, and the region has not fully collapsed into outright genocide. But that’s not for lack of trying. While Chinese authorities continue to strip-mine the region of any of its pre-CCP past—of mosques, of Islamic graveyards, of cultural trappings and non-Han ethnic identity—the CCP has launched a simultaneous campaign of eugenics against the Uighur population.” By forcing sterilization and abortions alike on hundreds of thousands of Uighur women, China hopes to kill off the next generation of Uighurs before they’re even born.

India And UN, The Coveted Prize

Foremost in the speeches of Indian leadership and diplomats as India occupies the chair of the UN Security Council for a month as non-permanent member will be demands to convert its status to a permanent veto holding power in future. It will be Modi’s crowning glory if he achieves it in his term. India has been campaigning since 1990s for UN super five to become super five plus in the Security Council

India has made its case for a seat as permanent member of UN on the strength of being a regional superpower, a world economic power, the ‘biggest’ democracy, second highest number of citizens (16% of world population), long civilization, tolerance, diversity, compliance with UN treaties, commitment to multilateralism, newborn interest on climate change and growing influence in the world. By any one’s reckoning it is a deserving claim if the only long due change in UN was expansion.

That the United Nations needs to change is obvious. It is neither representative nor does it deliver what it set out to do. It was formed by western countries after the Second World War to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. The institution is divested to prevent wars between countries. Power and War have both overtaken the era of nation State monopoly. The UN is out of depth in the new world of Transnational Corporations (Amazon, Facebook, Shell etc), Global Wars (Al Qaeda, ISIS) and internal conflicts.

Launched officially on 24th October 1945, the UN institutional structure was developed to maintain western hegemony and award the victors of the Second World War with permanent control. The USA, United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and China gave themselves veto power in the Security Council, the organ of UN that essentially lords over everything United Nations. Africa, Middle East and South Asia were completely ignored so was the Latin world such as South America.

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The rest of the world has the General Assembly which can decide by simple or two third majority on a number of matters including punitive changes to UN. But altering the Security Council needs the veto holding members to finally say yea or nay. That is where India’s main hurdle lies.

The pro-West Republic of China, now exiled to the island of Taiwan, had the veto. But it was overthrown by Communists in 1949 making mainland China the People’s Republic of China. Within a short time and even before it became a world power, China successfully moved the rest of the world against American wishes, to replace Taipei (Taiwan) at the top table in 1971.

The 1970’s was a decade of opportunity for India to have pushed for expansion of Security Council. But Mrs Gandhi had already waged a war on Pakistan in 1971 making it difficult for Islamic world to support it then. She then busied herself becoming a dictator in India in 1976 losing the trust of western powers. Moreover India was too close to the Soviet despite pretending to be ‘non Aligned.

In the 1980s and 90s India had waged war on Sikhs and Sri Lanka with disastrous outcome. It lost two Prime Ministers. It didn’t quite give the impression of a responsible country that could hold the peace within India let alone save the planet from scourge of future war.

By the time India dusted itself, gained the trust of both the west and Russia, China became a superpower and now stands in its way saying ‘mei men er’ (no way).

Furthermore India’s game plan is somewhat unimaginative. India ticks all the boxes that make it a ‘most favourable’ salesperson for western ideological hegemony in upholding status quo world order. The West and even Russia (at least verbally) would like to see it in an expanded UN Security Council. China however is subtly seeking to overhaul the current fundamental western liberal foundations of the United Nations to one based on a pluralistic political thought.

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Similar currents are underway in other parts of the world. In Sub Saharan Africa there is a growing search for an indigenous civilizational philosophy that is distinct from influences of Islam or Christianity.

The Islamic world is still going through a painful period of evolving a sustainable political system that is representative of the people but distinct from western secularism. Iran has shown that there is a viable Islamic democratic polity possible.

India on the other hand has locked itself with the west. Simply reassigning secular Westphalian ethno-nationalism to a mythic non-existent Hindu ethnicity does not make a civilisation distinct.

India’s lack of constructive originality is evident in its historic failure to lead the post-colonial world by example out of the havoc colonialism created with ill thought out territorial boundaries and disregarding of historic national communities.

The post-colonial world is riddled with territorial disputes. India is at the front with territorial conflicts with Pakistan and disputes with its other neighbours including China.

Colonial boundaries fragmented communities. ‘Peoples’ like the Somalis and Masai were split by arbitrary map lines drawn during colonialism. Others were forcibly grafted onto States without consultation. The Sikhs, Tamils, Kashmiris and Nagas among many feel their nationalism has been suppressed by post-colonial States in which they find themselves.

The Europeans can and cannot be blamed for this. They came as exploitative conquerors and colonialists not as ethical saviours or messiahs. It needed a mature and creative leadership from one of the post-colonial States to propose a resettlement of boundaries through dialogue and address hopes of historic nations within with an original political system. That would have been a model for other post-colonial States to have followed.

Instead India acted as was predicted by some British politicians such as Churchill. Instead of drawing wisdom from its civilization, it adopted the Westphalian nation state model, obsessed with every inch of territory given to it by the British and forcing every minority indigenous historic nation within to forego its aspirations and accept the majority vision of a supra nation.

In contrast, the five permanent members of the Security Council all have something original to offer. Britain gave the world the parliamentary democratic system. The USA gave separation of Church and State along with rule of law. France gave the world human rights theory.

Russia (Soviet Union) offered a communist alternative to western liberal democracy. China brings a completely different civilization now increasingly being constructed around its current political interpretation of Confucian thought.

It is not clear what India would bring to the table. With minor variations, India has competitors in Brazil, Germany, Japan and a few others. If it is to stake its claim as a regional economic power then, North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East and South America are also contenders. The UN would need 10 permanent members if not more.

However expanding the UN isn’t going to make the world any more peaceful, resolve the issues that are now out of UN’s depth or lead to a future free from scourge of war. India could have won immense respect and world leadership had it led the post-colonial period with solutions to the inevitable problems of territorial tensions and internal disputes inherited from European rule.

India’s choices are limited. It can appease China by sacrificing land to China and Pakistan. India can join up with the west to push China into submission and accept Indian seat at UN. Or it can bring some originality to world peace.

But as a risk averse and conservative institution, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is not known for imaginative leaps in international theory. India has been competing for recognition in yester world of 1970s. The future of UN is being changed by China, for better or for worse slowly eroding hegemony of western political paradigm. The UN will metamorphose but not into what MEA has prepared for.

Why Is Europe Quiet On Baloch Journalist’s Death?

The story is known, and has been written and advertised for at least a month before disappearing from the radars of the press. The story is known and starts with a body dumped into a river. The body of a Baloch journalist, Sajid Hussain.

Is not uncommon, unfortunately, to find mutilated dead bodies, in various stage of decomposition and beyond recognition dotting the roads of Balochistan: it is part of the nefarious ‘kill and dump’ policy of Pakistani intelligence agencies highlighted many times by human rights organisations both national and international. But this time, there was a twist in the usual plot.

Sajid was dumped into a river, but the river was in Uppsala, Sweden. The place where he had fled is country and asked for political asylum. “His body was found on 23 April in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” Jonas Eronen, a police spokesman, said. Adding that a crime could not be completely ruled out, but that Hussain’s death could equally have been an accident or suicide. And, after more than three months, the Swedish authorities did not give any answer yet.

The family has been allowed to see the body only after two months, and have been denied permission to bury Sajid in Balochistan by the Interior Ministry until ISI did not give permission: yesterday. The clearance has just been given but, with the clearance, another strange thing happens.

An Urdu newspaper, in Pakistan, carried a story on Sajid quoting the police report on his death. According to the article, the investigative reports states that Sajid has not been killed but his death was an accident. Point is, nobody has this police report and the person the article is quoting as a source, Taj Baloch who was Sajid’s flatmate, has no idea of what the article is talking about.

The family, until today, has not been given any investigative report and the Swedish police are not even releasing the post mortem report. Not to the family, not to the lawyers, after more than three months. According to sources close to the family: “There must be something political and diplomatic going on between Sweden and Pakistan”.

And there must be for sure, because is just unbelievable, especially for a European citizen, that Sweden is behaving, in this particular case, practically like Pakistan.

And, if the article tells the truth and they saw the report, is even worst: giving reports to Pakistani press and intelligence agencies (don’t forget in Pakistan press is controlled by the agencies) before the family is informed is not only against the law but against any decency.

The Swedish police should answer many questions, and quickly: Why the investigations about Sajid’s death started only the March 28 if he disappeared the two of the same month; why during all this time they did not give any news to the family about the developments of the case; why after a round of inquiries there was only a deafening silence; how a body can stay for almost two months in a river which, by definition, flows; why the post mortem report is not out after more than three months; and why somebody who had survived ISI and Frontier Corps ‘attention’ would go and drop himself in a river in Sweden.

The article is perfectly in line with the ISI behaviour, and they are most probably trying to cook up a story in order to wash their hands of Sajid’s death.

But, since Sajid had been granted political asylum, Swedish authorities must have been familiar with Pakistan’s behaviour toward its own citizens.

In the country and now even abroad. A number of human rights organisations have been openly calling out Pakistani ISI for Sajid’s murder.

But, apparently, no attempt of investigation has been done following this track. No country and no official international body is even trying to charge Pakistan for enforced disappearences and kill and dump, even though they violate international treaties and laws.

Filing Sajid’s disappearance and murder as an ‘accident or suicide’ case is very tempting, because it will allow Swedish Government, and other European governments after it, to deny what is happening under their own eyes. Sajid is dead, but his death should not be taken lightly. European governments are responsible for the safety of their citizens.

Democratic governments are responsible for the freedom of those fleeing dictatorial, military regimes. Silence and connivance with those regimes in the name of diplomatic relationships are as criminal as the deeds of the perpetrators.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author) (ANI)

Bulldozing Van Gujjars Out Of Their Habitat

While the famous Jim Corbett National Park is legendary for its tigers, its wildlife, bio diversity and flora and fauna, the Rajaji National Park near Dehradun and Rishikesh is still young and growing into a lush green wildlife sanctuary and tiger reserve despite a highway and a train line crossing its buffer zone and reasonably big towns in its vicinity. Established in 1983, comprising the rocky terrain of the ancient Shivalik hills, just about on the foot hills of the Himalayas, this 820 km landscape of dense forests has two beautiful rivers flowing: the Ganga and the Song. The Ganga, like a mountain river, in a mysterious move, actually disappears and goes underground near Chilla, only to appear yet again at a distance. The area is marked by a huge canal and several water bodies.

The national park is also home to around 30-plus tigers with many cubs. It also has a wide variety of wildlife and animals, including the elephant which has occasionally attacked people on the highways, the sloth bear, deer species, king cobra, birds, insects, among others. It also has had for decades, stretching before the Independence era, an indigenous community which has lived deep inside the forest in peaceful co-existence with the wildlife: the robust and hardworking Van Gujjars – Gujjars who belong to the forests.

Over the years, there has not been a single instance of a man-animal conflict in this region. This indigenous community used to build huge and strong huts in the thick of the forests, so powerfully built that the incessant rain during monsoon or a storm would never be able to hurt these architectural marvels. These homes of the communities would usually be near a stream or water body, and they would mostly rear cattle, and trade in milk and milk products. Of late, their children have started going to the neighbourhood schools, their women have started to venture out, and the forest community has also established links with the urban market.

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In recent times, their life changed drastically, as has been a phenomenon all over Indian forests and their indigenous communities. As is well-known, be it the tribal interiors in Chhattisgarh’s Abhujmad or the forests of Uttarakhand, the forest department has been notoriously marked since the British times as an oppressive, reckless and brutal force, out to terrorise and exploit the peaceful forest communities. Post-independence, indeed, nothing changed, despite greater environmental consciousness and the gradual recognition of the forest people’s role in sustaining the ecological balance, and generally nourishing the ecological landscape as part of their sacred duty and everyday life.

After the area was declared a tiger reserve and a national park, it became a kind of dictatorship of the forest department, alleged local activists. They would further brutalise and bulldoze the indigenous communities, who just did not know what hit them.

First, they were promised Rs 10 lakh to move away from their traditional habitats in the core area into the buffer zone near the roads, and to urban areas like Pathri, a rocky and dry area, where the Tehri dam oustees were also pushed at one time and which mountain and forest people hated for its barren landscape. Some of them did not get compensation despite moving from the core areas. In many cases, this reporter would find, they were forced to settle near a dry water body, or, where their cattle could not graze, or where they had to literally walk for miles for water. For a peaceful community whose life was so closely intertwined with nature, this was a violent jolt with which they just could not reconcile.

Then arrived the optimistic and forward-looking Forest Rights Act, enacted by the UPA government in December 2006 under the auspices of the National Advisory Committee led by Sonia Gandhi and with eminent social activists in the committee like Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, Farah Naqvi and Harsh Mander, among others. One of the most crucial objective of this path-breaking legislation enacted by the Indian Parliament is to end the “historic injustices” faced by indigenous communities since colonial times. It was meant to resolve and reconcile the prevailing conflicts in forest regions, mainly between Forest Department and communities through effective implementation of the Act at the grassroots.

This was indeed an epistemological rupture in the life of all forest communities, including adivasis in remote and inaccessible areas. It was a big boost to their morale, self-esteem and self-confidence, and a positive sign for social activists and voluntary groups who were working in the area of indigenous collectives and ecological protection, including in the national parks. Hence, for the first time, the people in the forests, started exercising their rights. This did not go down well with the powerful and unilateral forest departments in most forest regions across India.

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At the Rajaji National Park, the domination continued in different forms but with not a similar intensity as politically conscious pastoral and tribal communities started demanding their rights, the right to life and livelihood and compensation if they were forced to move from their homes and habitats.

As per a latest complaint lodged by the Citizens for Justice and Peace and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), using the pandemic and lockdown, the forest department and police has yet again launched illegal assaults and evictions of certain Van Gujjar families. According to the complaint on June 16 and 17 this year, police and forest officials arrived at the Asharodi forest in the Ramgarh range of the park. Their intention was clear: to destroy a shelter belonging to Noorjahan, daughter of Ghulam Mustafa aka Mustafa Chopra, (75).

Apparently, the community elders were assaulted, dragged and beaten up badly. Women were not spared. Their homes were destroyed.  The attack has been captured on camera by the children of the Van Gujjar community. A false complaint has been lodged against the members of Mustafa’s family. Indeed, he was taken into custody on June 18. Noorjahan has alleged that she was hit on her private parts.

Incidentally, the backdrop is that Mustafa has been relentlessly campaigning for forest rights within the bureaucracy and the administration in Uttarakhand, has mobilized his community, and has also petitioned the courts. It has been a long, two-decade struggle for the old man.

According to activists, the officials violated the stated provisions of the Indian Forest (Uttaranchal Amendment) Act, 2001. A notice has to be apparently given to the occupants before eviction. The complaint states that no such notice was given to Noorjahan or her father Mustafa and the assault was an unauthorized act. The matter has also reached the district administration and the NHRC.

Said veteran activist Ashok Chaudhury, leader of the (AIUFWP), currently based in Saharanpur near the park, “Traditionally, the indigenous forest communities used to remain very ‘obedient’ under the domain of the forest department. But, with the enactment of FRA, like all forest dwellers, Van Gujjars, also felt that they are have become truly independent and so they also started asserting for their rights. Forest officials, because of their feudal culture, could not appreciate this new assertion. So they started creating obstructions in the implementation process of the FRA especially on the vulnerable communities.”

As of now, the stalemate continues even as the local media and human rights groups have taken up the issue. Clearly, post FRA, things are not going to be the same anymore. People who have been subservient and oppressed are asserting their fundamental rights now. Indeed, not only the Rajaji National Park, this has become a phenomena all over forests across the Indian landscape.