SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 42, May 5, 2003

ASSESSMENT

INDIA	PAKISTAN

J&K - Stumbling out of the Bind
K.P.S. Gill
President, Institute for Conflict Management

There has been an enormous burst of activity and accompanying euphoria since India's Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, visited Srinagar on April 18 and made an offer of renewed talks with Pakistan over the vexed Kashmir issue. The move has been greeted with a crescendo of international approval, and has drawn enthusiastic responses from the US as well, with Secretary of State Colin Powell declaring: "All this is very, very promising at a time when we were beginning to wonder whether or not we were not going back to the potential of conflict."

More significant has been the response within Kashmir and in Pakistan. While there are dissenting voices in the Valley - there would be reason for suspicion if there were none - the political response has been largely positive, even eager. As for Pakistan, the sheer rapidity of the reactions has been remarkable. There is currently little available intelligence on the background of Prime Minister Vajpayee's offer, but the consensus in the popular media appears to be that this was an off-the-cuff gesture, not a well-thought-out and planned policy shift. Nevertheless, the character and velocity of responses from Pakistan, and the speed with which a graduated peace process appears to be emerging, suggests that the probabilities of substantial behind-the-scenes activities preceding these developments cannot be entirely discounted. This is borne out further by the timing of the appointment of N.N. Vohra as the Centre's new interlocutor in Kashmir, and several reports over the past months regarding the creation of the groundwork for official-level talks between the two countries.

Whatever be the case on this point, the fact is that the present process has a far greater probability of success than any of the preceding attempts, and the reasons for this are rooted in the radical transformation of the geo-strategic context of Asia, the impact of the US coalition campaign in Iraq, and the progressive 'denial of plausible deniability' by the international community - and specifically the US - to Pakistan on its role in international and cross-border terrorism. Among the most significant of these factors has been the humiliating defeat inflicted on the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. This has sent a very strong message to the extreme elements of political Islam, and to the rogue states bound to this ideology and supportive of the terrorist campaigns inspired by it. It has long been the position of the Institute for Conflict Management that military defeat is a critical element in the delegitimisation of the terrorists and their state sponsors, and the defeat in Iraq has had an inevitable impact on Pakistan and the Musharraf regime, as well as on at least a segment of those who had thrown in their lot with the Islamist extremists in the anticipation of a great and proximate victory. For Pakistan, this impact has been multiplied manifold by a number of secondary inputs, including repeated and strong statements from the highest echelons of the US leadership that - while they continued to appreciate the country's assistance in apprehending Al Qaeda elements operating in the country and 'cooperation on the war against terror' - had also clearly confirmed Pakistan's role in supporting terrorism in J&K, and had emphasized that the Musharraf regime had failed to fulfill its promises and had not done enough on this count. There has also been a strong media buildup in the US - fuelling urgent speculation and apprehensions in the Pakistani media and policy circles as well - regarding the possibility of Pakistan becoming the next target of American 'pre-emptive action', though this has been firmly denied by US authorities. Subtle signs of a clear shift in the US policy have also emerged as, for example, in the redrawing of the CIA's map of Kashmir that earlier showed the entire area - both Pakistan and Indian controlled Jammu & Kashmir - as a 'disputed territory'. The recently revised maps - which would have gone through an extended process of review by various Government Departments, and would certainly reflect the consensus of the present Administration - mark out the areas east of the Line of Control (LoC) as the "Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir", while the territories to the west are designated "Pakistan-controlled areas of Kashmir", correctly reflecting the position of the 1948 UN Resolution that it was, in fact, only the "Pakistan-controlled" area that was in dispute. The message to Pakistan cannot have been ignored by the Musharraf regime.

There is, moreover, a growing awareness among Pakistani commentators that the ongoing terrorist campaign cannot upset the status quo in Kashmir, and a certain measure of pragmatism is now clearly replacing the delusional strategic overreach that has dominated Pakistani military thinking over the past decades.

Crucially, it is clear that, after Iraq, the US would like to see peace in the Palestine-Israel conflict, and the conflict over Kashmir. The shift in strategy on both these areas is now visible, and the US is reportedly exerting extraordinary pressures on Syria and Lebanon to stop covert support to Palestinian terrorist groups. It is clear that parties in the conflict are now being forced into isolation from the networks of their clandestine supporters in order to facilitate a clear focus on the actual issues in the conflict, with terror being pushed out of the negotiating equation. This, precisely, is what the US would seek to secure on Kashmir. With America's unarguable status as the world's sole superpower, and the inevitable impact of its policies on the economic and security future of this region, US interests, perspectives and responses will certainly weigh in on the decisions of the South Asian leadership. In any event, Musharraf has tended to go along with America on all major decisions since 9/11, and though he will be reluctant to be seen as withdrawing too suddenly from his strident position on Kashmir - "Kashmir is in our blood", as he put it - it is apparent that, once the US position is stated clearly, he will fall obediently in line. He may, of course, use the puppet Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali government, and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, as a front to make the more distasteful of about-turns, but compliance would tend to be inevitable.

Lest all this appears to be a matter of course, it is important to strike a note of extreme caution. The situation remains complex and immensely uncertain, and there is no surety that the peace process will last. Indeed, if another madcap military adventurist emerges on the Pakistani political scenario, if a few fundamentalists run amuck, or if renegade terrorists unwilling to comply with the shifts in policy of their state sponsors in Pakistan engineer a few dramatic strikes in J&K, the entire process could well be derailed, yielding another cycle of escalated violence.

The greater danger in the present peace process, however, is that it fails to address underlying character of the 'enduring rivalry', the 'intractable conflict' between the two countries. The conflict over Kashmir is not, as is widely believed, a quarrel over territory; it is, rather, an irreducible conflict between two fundamentally incompatible ideologies - a pluralistic democratic ideology, on India's part; and an authoritarian-fundamentalist-exclusionary Islamist ideology that asserts that different belief systems cannot coexist within the same political order. A permanent peace in South Asia will only result after one or the other of these ideologies succumbs - and these are crucial to national identity, consciousness, and even the existence of these two nation states. A permanent peace is, consequently, contingent on Pakistan abandoning the ideology of hatred and exclusion that lies at the very foundations of its creation. Failing this, the only other option, as I have suggested before, is the de-nuclearisation and de-militarization of Pakistan, or the creation of a tremendous military imbalance in the region that makes it impossible for Pakistan to engage in the military adventurism that has characterized much of its independent existence.

ASSESSMENT

BANGLADESH	INDIA

Cautious Tango
Guest Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar
Senior Columnist & Consulting Editor, The Pioneer

The advent of summer seems to have led to a thaw in India-Bangladesh relations which had come under a freezing chill in winter following several confrontations along the border, when India's Border Security Force (BSF) sought to push illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators back into their own country. The change is supposed to have been strikingly underlined by a joint statement issued by the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, Kanwal Sibal of India and Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury of Bangladesh, on April 30, the second day of the former's two-day visit to Dhaka. It said, "In response to India's concerns regarding the activities of Indian insurgent groups, the Bangladeshi side reiterated its commitment not to allow its territory to be used for any activities inimical to India." According to the statement, the two sides would address thorny issues like border demarcation, the exchange of enclaves and illegal cross-border movement of people "in a balanced manner."

The meeting between the two Foreign Secretaries also discussed issues like India's grant of duty-free access to more Bangladeshi goods, free trade, the establishment of transportation links, and the signing of an agreement on bilateral investment protection and another on cooperation in science. Also, India reportedly also offered help in the Information Technology sector and cyclonic-tidal-surge-management.

All this sounds impressive and the signing of the joint statement has been viewed in some quarters as a major achievement. While, friendly and cordial mutual relations are in the best interest of both India and Bangladesh, one must ensure that wishes don't become the mother of thought. Bangladesh's past conduct shows that there is normally a huge gap between promise and delivery. The reiteration of "its commitment not to allow its territory to be used for any activities inimical to India" leaves one with a feeling of déjà vu. The "activities inimical to India" refer to the help in the form of sanctuary, arms and ammunition, training and funds being given to insurgent groups active in northeastern India since the time Bangladesh was East Pakistan.

Pakistan aided the rebel Naga leader, Zapu Phizo, who announced the formation of a Republican Government of Free Nagaland on September 18, 1954. Laldenga, the President of the Mizo National Front had led a group of followers through then East Pakistan for arms and training in West Pakistan in late 1963. Insurgency exploded in Mizoram on February 28, 1966, and the Army and Air Force had to be used to restore order. Meitei insurgents of Manipur began receiving aid from the beginning of 1970 and conducted guerrilla raids in Cachar and Tripura during the India-Pakistan war of 1971, which was the decisive factor in East Pakistan's emergence into freedom as Bangladesh. Aid to northeastern insurgents stopped after Bangladesh's liberation in December, 1971, but was resumed after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination in 1975. The process ran parallel to a planned policy of Islamisation of Bangladesh and patronization of fundamentalist Islamic elements, which had collaborated with Pakistan during the liberation war, by President Ziaur Rahman (1975-81), the present Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia's late husband, and President H.M. Ershad (1981-1990).

Sheikh Hasina closed down some of these camps after becoming Prime Minister, but soon called a halt to this process and it was once again business as usual. Things have become worse since Begum Khaleda Zia's return to power in October 2001, as the Prime Minister in a coalition government formed by her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and fundamentalist Islamist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami. This is hardly surprising because Begum Zia, who was earlier Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996, and who is known for her pro-Pakistan disposition, had, during her spell as the Leader of the Opposition between 1996 and 2001, described insurgents active in north-eastern India as 'freedom fighters' and said that Bangladesh should help them, instead of curbing their activities.

At present, Bangladesh's Directorate-General of Forces' Intelligence (DGFI) assists and nurtures, in collaboration with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, insurgent groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) of Manipur, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), the National-Socialist Council of Nagaland - Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) of Nagaland.

India has repeatedly taken up the matter with Bangladesh. During Begum Khaleda Zia's first tenure as Prime Minister, the then Chief Minister of Assam, Hiteshwar Saikia, had produced evidence to show that top ULFA leaders not only moved about freely in Bangladesh but also operated bank accounts in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Government had said that it had no knowledge of their presence. New Delhi had, at the last meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Working Group (JWG), handed over to Dhaka the names of 88 insurgents, including Sanjit Dev Barman of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and Anup Chetia and Paresh Barua of ULFA, who are in Bangladesh and whom it wants returned. Not one of them has been handed over so far.

The joint statement's reiteration of Bangladesh's "commitment not to allow its territory to be used for any activities inimical to India" can, therefore, by no means be taken at face value. New Delhi must wait for results. This is all the more so because Bangladesh has not only been assisting and training these organizations but has allowed the ISI to operate freely on its soil and use it as a base for its operations against India.

The target is not just India. This was dramatically brought to light in January 1999, when the Delhi Police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US embassy in Delhi and the US consulate general in Chennai. He revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine had gathered in Calcutta in December 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six 'Afghans' - a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by the Al Qaeda - went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six 'Afghans' managed to disappear.

New Delhi needs to be all the more careful about Bangladesh's intentions because of the Khaleda Zia Government's sustained promotion of pro-Pakistan, fundamentalist Islamist and anti-India forces, and the relentless persecution of secular and liberal intellectuals like Shahriyar Kabir and Professor Muntasir Mamun. That the message is that intellectuals like them who oppose violent and fundamentalist political Islam need to watch out, becomes even clearer if one considers the terrorization of the cultural world by fundamentalist Islamists led by the Jamaat-e-Islami. They have been targeting members of modern cultural troupes and stopping the showing of films, staging of plays and the holding of musical performances, they consider objectionable. They stopped the screening of Tanvir Moqammel's Lal Salu (Red Cloth), which shows how mullahs cheat the laity, in Sylhet. Directors and scriptwriters of plays like Kath Krishna Kali have been arrested and tortured at their behest without even the framing of proper charges against them. The Bangladesh Film Censor Board had released for public viewing the much acclaimed film Maatir Molina (Clay Bird), which had been selected for an Oscar nomination and has received two international awards, only after the deletions of parts considered 'highly objectionable' by the Jamaat. The latter's ire against the film arose not only from its stark portrayal of Bangladesh's reactionary madrassa system of education, but also the fact that its director, Tareq Masood, had made a much-acclaimed documentary on the Songs of the Liberation War - which the Jamaat had actively opposed as a collaborator with Pakistan's savage genocide in its Eastern wing just before the emergence of Bangladesh.

The ruling coalition has also sought to clip the wings of the non-government organisations, which have played a major role in empowering and educating women in the countryside. On the other hand, Al Qaeda and Taliban escapees, who have arrived in Bangladesh since the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan last year, move about freely. The continuing and brutal countrywide military crackdown on crime, which has prompted a reminder from the US State Department that the Army should observe human rights, has touched neither the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the violent student arm of the Jamaat, which has a huge cache of arms, nor the 15,000-strong and heavily-armed Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI), a terrorist organization with close links with the Al Qaeda and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.

Clearly, New Delhi needs to be careful. If Dhaka now appears to be in an accommodating mood, it is because India's strong response to the border confrontations last winter has clearly conveyed to it that this country means business. Also, post 9/11 the global climate is increasingly hostile to fundamentalist Islamist terrorism of which, as borne out by reports in the Western media, Bangladesh has become a new and fertile breeding ground. It has no doubt been trying to reach out towards the north to China, and east to Myanmar and Thailand. It can, however, expect little help from any of these countries, should it go for a confrontation with India. Of them, the most important is doubtless China. But not only have India-China ties been improving rapidly - a process that received a massive boost during Defence Minister George Fernandes' recent visit to Beijing - but China can also not be indifferent to the rise of fundamentalist Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh and the growing presence of elements of the Al Qaeda and Taliban there.

New Delhi must demand not only an end to assistance to insurgents operating in its Northeast, but also the curbing of the ISI's activities in Bangladesh and a meaningful effort to stanch the flow of illegal migrants across the porous India-Bangladesh borders. Further concessions on the economic front must wait. India has conceded quite a lot already, the latest clutch including the grant of duty free access to Bangladeshi products bracketed in 39 tariff categories, having been extended during Commerce Secretary level talks between the two countries in Delhi on March 24 and 25. On the other hand, Begum Khaleda Zia and the BNP have always resolutely opposed New Delhi's plea for the grant of transit facilities for goods to India's Northeast through Bangladesh and the sale of Bangladeshi natural gas to India. During Sheikh Hasina's tenure as Prime Minister, Bangladesh had also opposed the purchase of electricity from India by her country, which was then facing an acute power shortage. And, soon after Begum Zia became Prime Minister, Bangladesh stopped importing cotton yarn from India causing this country a revenue loss of $ 250 million annually.

In principle, there is everything to be said for a big country bending over backwards to accommodate a small neighbour, but not when the latter has been as cussed as Bangladesh.

ASSESSMENT

INDIA

Arunachal Pradesh: Law-makers Booked Under Anti-crime Act
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati

In August last year, Tongpong Wangham, a cabinet minister in the Northeast Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering Myanmar and China's Tibet region, and T.L.Rajkumar, a legislator, joined fellow law makers belonging to the ruling Congress party to push through a rather harsh Anti-crime Bill in the State Legislature. The Bill was easily passed in the 60-member House, where the Congress, led by Chief Minister Mukut Mithi, commands a strength of as many as 59 members. With the State Governor's assent on October 3, the Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Act, 2002 (APCOCA), became law. Chief Minister Mithi had stated that the new piece of legislation would help tackle organized crime and insurgency in his State, where as many as 14 armed groups were operating, most of them propped up or backed by one or the other faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN).

Less than a year later, on April 30, the Arunachal Pradesh Police arrested Wangham and Rajkumar under APCOCA on charges of having 'links' with the Isak-Muivah faction of the NSCN, though they were freed on bail just hours later. Another Congress legislator, Lowangcha Wanglat, is also sought by the Police on similar charges, but is said to be outside the country.

While the authorities themselves were tight-lipped on the arrests, both Wangham and Rajkumar, contacted by this writer over telephone in the State capital, Itanagar, admitted they were arrested under APCOCA for their alleged links with the NSCN-IM, a charge they vehemently deny. The two veteran Congress leaders (Rajkumar has been representing his Khonsa East Assembly constituency in Tirap district for the past 24 years) said their names were among several other names that figured in the diaries of two NSCN-IM cadres arrested from Itanagar in August last year. Stating that simply finding their names in documents recovered from the possession of any insurgent cadre cannot be regarded as proof of their links with that group, the two legislators repeatedly sought to emphasise that the area they belong to (Tirap and Changlang districts, bordering Myanmar) was in the grip of insurgents, and that lot of things can happen due to the 'threat factor' under the prevailing situation.

The duo were said to have been booked under Section 3 of APCOCA, on charges of harbouring insurgent cadres. What Wangham and Rajkumar told the special magistrate (the executive doubles up as the judiciary in Arunachal Pradesh), who is the Deputy Commissioner of the Papum Pare district under which capital Itanagar falls, is not known. But what Wangham told this writer is both interesting and significant. He said: "I come from an insurgency affected area. We often get written notices from the rebels as well as threatening telephone calls. At times, we need to reply to certain notices sent by them (rebels). On certain occasions, we being public leaders, need to meet certain people to find out whether those who have sent a particular notice are genuine rebels of that particular group or not. We keep the authorities informed of such things most of the time. Now, it is unfair and incorrect to term these actions on our part as evidence of links with insurgents. After all, the ground situation needs to be understood and taken into account." Provided a special 'Z' category security cover by the State Government, Wangham admitted that insurgency is continuing in the two districts despite counter-insurgency operations by security forces, and despite the operation of laws such as the Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in the area.

If the arrests of a cabinet minister and a ruling party legislator itself was an unprecedented development in the annals of Indian democracy, their immediate release on bail, and their continuance in their respective positions - particularly Wangham continuing in his post as the minister for rural works - is equally, if not more, intriguing. Within hours after a Deputy Inspector General and a Superintendent of Police arrived at Wangham's official residence in Itanagar, completed the formality of the arrest, and asked him to accompany them to the court, he returned after securing bail. So did Rajkumar. "The magistrate was convinced that we have no links with the insurgent group," Rajkumar claimed later. Several questions need to be answered by the authorities here: If there was evidence of Wangham's links with the NSCN, why did Chief Minister Mithi not drop him from his ministry as a first move before approving his arrest? How could a district magistrate be expected to stick to the rulebook when he or she has to double up as a judicial magistrate and examine a cabinet minister in the State of his/her posting? Since the minister has actually been booked under the anti-crime law, why has he been allowed to continue as a cabinet minister? Would it not have been proper for the Chief Minister to drop Wangham from the ministry until he was formally given a clean chit by the investigating authorities?

This would have been the expected course of action that should have been followed, though this is not intended to suggest that Wangham or Rajkumar actually do have links with the militants. The whole episode is peculiar in the sense that when APCOCA was brought about, human rights and student groups in the State opposed it, saying the Congress has put the Act in place to silence its rivals. Now we see a Congress government picking up two of its own party legislators under the Act. Is it possible that Chief Minister Mithi was using the Act to quell possible dissidence within his party? The facts are far from clear, but Mithi has to share equally in the blame if it is eventually proved that his party colleagues were hand-in-glove with the militants.

More than this, the near immediate grant of bail to the duo also interesting. APCOCA is supposed to be quite a stringent piece of legislation, widely described as a 'draconian law' by rights groups in the State. The Act has no easy provision for anticipatory bail, or for automatic enlargement on bail, has punishments laid down that include three years in jail to life imprisonment, and fines ranging from Rs 100,000 to Rs 500,000. But, by far the most controversial provision is the modification of Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in terms of which an accused can be kept in police remand for up to 30 days (from the normal 14 days under CrPC) and in judicial remand for 90 to 180 days (from the usual 60 days under CrPC). The Act empowers the police to intercept telephones and other modes of communication used by a suspect. Under the circumstances, Chief Minister Mithi will have to do a lot of explaining regarding the circumstances leading to the arrest of two of his colleagues and their subsequent release on bail. Else, speculations on the motive behind this drama will fly thick and fast, and these can only erode the credibility of the Act itself in the long run.