Last couple of weeks I have been a silent spectator watching some interesting news about our politicians and their election promises. While one promises TVs, subsidized rice, wheat etc.,the others are not falling behind – banning computers, English in schools etc. Everyone is there to outscore each other in terms of either idiotic promises or false ones which can never be met, if the party is of sane mind.

In contrast, Meera Sanyal’s campaign has caught my attention. Like many educated and urban politicians, Meera Sanyal seems to have succeeded in getting the right people in place for her campaign and it is showing results.

Look at her website – The site is updated with the latest that is happening with her campaign, her fans are getting daily updates in their mailboxes, facebook campaign is also gaining momentum. In a nutshell there seems to be lot of moving parts, which definitely is a sign of strength.

I just hope Meera Sanyal wins the South Mumbai constituency even if it is by a small margin. That would really bring a lot of cheer and hope for Mumbai, which the city always deserved.

Kudos to the team that is putting up the brave effort, selflessly. I am sure most of them are volunteers and are happy to give their time for doing the right thing, promoting the right candidate. It is very easy to go with the crowd but it takes courage to stand out from the crowd. What the volunteers are doing is nothing short of creating an independent movement of sorts and is worth applauding. Hope it pays!

My message to Mumbaikars

Think twice before you vote this time. What you have seen on 26/11 is proof enough that our current system has failed and failed miserably. What you need is a government that works and leaders that are effective, not those who sit on a pile of cash and promote their selfish interests. We, Indians, have seen the worst of politics and politicians. Time for a change. Meera is the change that you’ve been looking for. If you don’t see it now, it might be too late.

Mumbai – Vote for change. Vote for Meera!

Image Credit: Wiki

Popularity: 34%

Gandhi gave up his life to instill non-violence,
Terrorism is taking lives to defy all sense.

Day in and day out, there’s news reports coming in on extremists’ actions taking valuable lives. From being isolated incidents across the world, this is now stretching to specific regions of the world being isolated. The justification from the perpetrators is that of fulfilling their ideologies but no matter what angle you look at it, there can be simply no reason to consume innocent lives. The extremists or terrorists, however you word them, have no right to take away something they didn’t create, period.

First it was the 09/11, then the London bombings, the Mumbai blasts in between – all gave widespread publicity. Interspersed between these incidents, I am sure there are other cases in lesser known places around the world which did not get the same publicity. Irrespective of the prosperity of the land affected, the bottom line was – human lives were lost. From being a regional menace, the issue on hand became a global problem with the mighty joining hands to eradicate this thorn of society.

There are various theories as to who helped groom the ‘bad elements’ of the respective societies. In some cases it was the local law of the land, in some cases external forces were to be blamed. In a few cases, oppression even was to be pointed at. I will leave the so called analysts and experts to provide judgmental opinions on the cause and effects of allowing this to blossom. The point I wish to make is simply this – there has to be a solution, and quickly at that, for the impact of every such incident has far reaching effects of gigantic proportions. I don’t think there is any disagreement that the majority of such blatant activities originate from a specific region of the world.

As soon as he took oath, the President of the United States, in spite of offering continued economic assistance and offering other support systems to the country in question, minced no words in highlighting this region as the problematic one, in one of his very first speeches. Canada and the United States are still debating how to get out of one side of this very region, and the Canadian premier even offered his honest insight yesterday that it may be impossible to defeat the insurgency there.

The political diplomacy didn’t work, the governments resorted to using coercion and when that didn’t work, they used force. But that isn’t working by any stretch of imagination. What’s the alternative? However controversial it may sound, I would take an “isolation” philosophy and approach to determining a solution – abandon all forms of trade with the region; stop providing economic aid or military assistance.

Isolate the region by preventing anything other than medical or humanitarian support systems to pass through, either inside or outside. Yes, the initial going would be tough for the locals, but the governments’ hands would be forced as its now a solely internal issue, instead of a regional or global problem, and they have to fix it. The most complex of problems have the seemingly simplest of solutions – maybe this does too.

Image Credit: Saital

Popularity: 13%

There was a furore in January when the Indian cricket team refused to tour Pakistan for a much awaited cricket series, citing security reasons. While the Indians thought it was absolutely rationale, the Pakistanis didn’t think so.

Their cricketing greats came out in strong opposition of the move saying that this was a black day for cricket. Their former captain turned politician, Imran Khan was the loudest of them all criticizing India and saying that sports was beyond politics and hatred and that India backing out was bad for the game.

He was joined by his erstwhile opening partner, Wasim Akram who too was surprisingly critical of India’s decision. Wasim’s reaction was a bit of a surprise for me as he always comes across as a logical person. The fact that he has logic is manifested in the fact that he is invited to comment on the game across the world. As they started off this India bashing, several other Pakistani players joined in.

I am a patriotic citizen and I completely understand how it feels when someone talks ill of your country. That said, one needs to apply logic to rationalize what is said before you react to criticism. The cricketing greats of our neighboring country didn’t and went out lashing with their loose tongue. In less than 60 days from their claim that their country was safe for cricketers has come back to slash mud on their faces.

A 26/11 style terrorist attack was unleashed on the Sri Lankan team that went to tour Pakistan as a replacement for India.  6 of them have been injured and are in hospital. The tour has been called off.

It’s a known secret that Pakistan is an epicenter of terror around the world. The fact that the Taliban has their government by their b***s and beat them into humble submission to their demand is evidence enough. What’s equally puzzling is the fact that the crickets who spoke so strongly against India’s decision have their residences in the heart of central London and don’t live themselves in their country that they speak so highly of!

While my heart goes out to the Sri Lankan players, I pray and hope that they recover soon. As for Pakistan cricket, this is their Black Day, a day that no cricket playing country will forget. As far as I can see it, the international cricket stadiums can now be converted into play grounds for kids as no team will ever step in to that country to play cricket ever! A decision on whether to convert them into play grounds or training fields will be taken by the Taliban I am sure!

While they say hind sight in 20-20, I am so thankful and glad that our cricketers chose not to go. Thank god for small mercies. Should this have happened to Indian cricketers who are larger than life here, there would have been another war! The result though, very different!

Image Credit: Prakhar

Popularity: 17%

The admission of Pakistan that the 26/11 attack was carried out by Pakistan based elements is a significant turning point in the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent. The Indian government can heave a sigh of relief as it can now tell the people that it has succeeded in nabbing the culprits. The Government of India should ensure that the real culprits are brought to justice.

From Pakistan’s perspective, this is a big loss of propaganda war against India. It is not clear if there is going to be a public backlash there. Pakistan is in a very tricky position. On the one hand, it has to show the public that the Pakistan army is defending the eastern border with India. On the other hand, several suicide attacks are taking place across the country.The Pakistan and NATO forces are also engaged in a fierce war against the Taliban in the NWF Province. In fact, it is reported that scores of civilians are migrating from the Swat region(a.k.a Pakistan’s Switzerland) because of the terror unleashed by Taliban. Taliban is getting stronger by the day and it is a worrisome trend for the world.Overall, the Pakistan civilian government is weak and has no full control over what is happening across the country.

India’s immediate task should be to strengthen the hands of the Pakistan civilian government. As a first step, India should wholeheartedly welcome Pakistan’s acceptance of blame and assure cooperation in the investigation to take it to the logical end. The next step should be to immediately stop the rhetoric of tough action. The objective of this rhetoric has been achieved and now i t is time to silently work behind the scenes. India should also continue its diplomatic efforts to get the terror infrastructure dismantled in Pakistan. The government should take all the parties on board and try to explain this strategy.

It is very important for leaders like Narendra Modi to show restraint and stop making vicious comments about the 26/11 attacks. This is critical because India should not be seen as aggravating Pakistan’s apparent humiliation. At this point, by showing more responsibility, India can gain the goodwill of the world community. This will also help Pakistan focus more attention on its western border and worry less about public opinion against India.

India should also take the initiative in restoring bilateral ties. As a positive gesture, Pakistan players should be invited to continue play in IPL and Pakistan artists allowed to perform in India. Other goodwill measures should be restored to reduce Indo-Pakistan tensions.

Cynics will argue that Pakistan is not going to mend it ways when it comes to promoting terror against India. After all, the very existence of Pakistan rests upon its hatred of India. While this argument is very valid, this is the time for India to support Pakistan and the international community in fighting the war against Taliban. India simply cannot afford to watch further weakening of the Pakistan civilian government and allow Pakistan fall into the hands of Taliban. At the moment, India should focus on addressing the weaknesses in the internal security apparatus and strengthen the intelligence gathering mechanisms.

As much as India hates the prospect of supporting Pakistan, India needs to support the current Pakistan government. If we don’t do it now, India will soon be fighting Taliban right across our border. A bad neighbor is better than a worse neighbor.

So India, please help Pakistan.

Image Credit: ElektraCute

Popularity: 12%

Finally, Pakistan showed pragmatism and accepted that the 26/11 attack is largely linked to its citizens. The outcome of India’s diplomatic offensive has striking similarities to the outcome of Kargil war in 1999.

Planning

Both the attacks were executed after careful and lengthy planning and were highly professional. 26/11 has a frighteningly expansive global footprint. If Pakistan is correct, people in Spain, Austria, Italy and USA were involved in the attacks.

Objective

The Kargil war was waged to undermine the Pakistan civilian government and also to destroy the improving Indo-Pakistan relations at that time. The 26/11 attack also seems to follow the same pattern. While the former succeeded in achieving both objectives, we will have to wait to see if 26/11 also achieves the objectives.

Responsibility

Whereas Kargil war was carried out by the Pakistan military, 26/11 was carried out by militant groups with some apparent connection to the Pakistan intelligence agencies. India has accused the ISI of masterminding the attacks. In both the cases, the civilian government was caught unawares.

Strategic miscalculation 

If the masterminds of Kargil went wrong in the assumption that they can occupy Kargil forever before India can counterattack, the 26/11 planners went wrong in their assumption that none of the terrorists were going to be captured alive. The attackers also left evidence behind which turned out to be very crucial.

The aftermath

India suffered significant casualties in both the attacks. Indians were angry and went through enormous anguish, but in both the cases, rallied around each other and showed their outstanding resilience.

US influence 

In both the cases, US played a huge role in normalizing the situation. President Clinton acted very tough against Pakistan and was able to force the Pakistan army to pull back from Kargil. In the case of 26/11, US sent the FBI to India and helped in collecting foolproof evidence that Pakistan could not brush aside. If Pakistan were to divert its army from the Pakistan-Afghan border to Indo-Pakistan border, the biggest problem will be for the US. So it was in US’s interest to ensure that it did not happen.

Strategic implications

If Kargil forced the international community for the first time to acknowledge that India is the victim of Pakistan sponsored terrorism, 26/11 went further. International community, especially US and UK, put enormous pressure on Pakistan to come out of its denial mode and confront the terrorists in its soil. The first global “live telecast” of terror attacks and the killing of the foreigners significantly increased the concerns of the international community.

There is no doubt that while it must have been very painful for Pakistan to admit India’s blame, this is a significant victory for the Indian government for keeping up the pressure on Pakistan with its diplomatic offensive. Kudos to them for resisting the call by the war-hawks to attack Pakistan. That would have been disastrous. The only concern is, our political leaders will start a war of wards to claim credit and squander away the advantages of India’s huge symbolic victory.

One question remains. Kargil ensured electoral victory for the ruling establishment. Will 26/11 have a similar effect? We’ll find out the answer in another 4 months.

And how should India respond now? Read the article “India, please help Pakistan!”

Image Credit: Stuti

Popularity: 13%

The 2009 General Elections are around the corner and the political scene is heating up. These elections will be conducted at a critical juncture and will have a great impact on the country’s economy and society.

The last 5 years have seen lot of ups and downs for the country. India continued to grow as a leading economy but also continued to be the victim of organized global terrorism. Overall, the country remained relatively stable on most fronts. Credit goes to the PM and his staunch supporters within the ruling establishment for the achieving the political stability. But there were also significant failures. The time has now come for the citizens to appraise the performance of this government and decide whether they want a change.

All the political parties have started their preparations for the elections. Coalitions are being formed, manifestoes being prepared and ticket distribution being finalized. The BJP took an early lead in its election preparations. It has projected Mr.Advani as NDA’s PM candidate. On his part, Mr. Advani is trying to replicate Obama’s US Presidential election campaign success and naturally, the theme of bringing positive change is on top of his agenda.

I recently visited L.K. Advani’s website and was impressed to see that development issues were the focus of his election campaign. His website talks about farmers’ upliftment, plans for drinking water to all and rightfully highlighted UPAs failure in the National Highway project. It went on to blame the UPA government for causing the recession and inflation. The accusation about recession was absolute dishonesty on BJP’s part as they very well know that this is a global phenomenon. Despite that, I happily concluded that this election will be setting new standards with regards to the discussion of developmental issues.

Two subsequent events totally shattered my short-lived happiness. First, the BJP party secretary announces that building Ram temple will be the prime election issue, again.If this is the main issue, why was BJP silent about it all these days? Is the BJP not aware that the timing of the announcement alone shows how morally corrupt the party is? This announcement shows their insincerity to voters and is shamefully opportunistic. And what is it going to achieve in improving the lives of millions of poverty stricken people? The only explanation I could think of is that it is aimed at improving BJP’s prospects in UP where it is very weak. But the repercussions of reviving this issue doesn’t look good for the country.

Second, during an election campaign, Narendra Modi hinted that 26/11 had internal support. No doubt about that. But is it responsible on the part of Modi to play into the hands of Pak’s theory about the attacks? The entire Indian diplomatic community is trying to expose Pak’s role in the attacks and here, the “Iron man” of BJP sabotages these diplomatic efforts with extraordinary ease. With leaders like these, do we need enemies?

It is now incumbent upon Advani to clearly state his stance on the election campaign. Does he want to be inclusive and focus on development issues? Or is it business as usual with issues planned to divide people along communal lines? Advani must be the first to admit that this is not the mid 90s when the Ram Janma bhoomi issue was a huge vote generating issue. (IBNLive highlighted this confusion in it’s website)

Since Advani is modeling his campaign along the lines of Obama, he could learn from the US election results that after a period of time, people become tired of the ideological issues and start yearning for real change. In US, the “Right” and the “Left” ideologies were rejected and the pragmatic development oriented centrist policies were welcomed. India is lot more complicated with the caste and regional issues thrown in. However, the overall trend will be in the same direction. The recently concluded assembly elections in a few Indian states are a pointer to that.

Thankfully, a BJP supporter, one Mr.Aditya, has expressed his frustration over this issue and has posted his views in the forum in Advani’s website. He rightly says “NO RAM TEMPLE ISSUE AT THIS POINT OF TIME “.

Mr. Advani, are you hearing?

Image Credit: Bast

Popularity: 14%

In this age of cable TV and sensational journalism, the news channels in their bid to make the maximum out of a news item sometimes go overboard by using their so called “panel of experts” and end up creating a monster out of it.

Media should understand that because of its mass appeal it has a major role in portraying an organization or a country or an individual as a protagonist or an antagonist. If media were to bring news to the audience it should understand present the facts and analysis to them, rather than providing their interpretation of things.

After 26/11 incidents the media on both sides of the border (viz. India and Pakistan) has become extremely charged up trading charges against the politicians for bringing in a war like atmosphere. The media on both sides of the border, in an effort to play the role of a devil’s advocate, has become increasingly jingoistic rather than just providing plain facts through journalism.

Instead of providing any coverage on how the investigations were proceeding on the Mumbai attacks, and a host of other national issues, they have been busy blaming each other for having a belligerent attitude towards each other. Though the national leaders on both sides of the border want to avoid war at all costs, the sentiments expressed on media are different.

Looking at some of the incidents post the 26/11, it doesn’t seem that the media is helping the cause of bringing the perpetrators to justice, but pushing two nations to war. There have been many instances where the media has been very insensitive and careless in their reporting.

For instance:

One of the leading Pakistani newspapers had quoted this in one of their editorials:

India’s stance is part of ‘‘sinister designs against Pakistan to exact concessions on Kashmir and trade.” It warned India against war. ‘‘Indian leadership is under the wrong impression that Pakistan will take it lying down, as Pakistan has not downed any drone despite warnings. But India is not a superpower and certainly not a partner in war on terror. Nor Pakistan is Iraq or Afghanistan that any country can do the carpet-bombing.

A couple of days ago one of the Indian news channels was doing an estimate on the arsenal which Indian military have with them and how fast Indian forces can attack Pakistan.

On whose side is the media on? Will it help the ongoing investigations?

The whole incident reminds me of the 007 movie “Tomorrow Never Dies” where a media Mogul in a bid to get extensive coverage engineers world events to trigger a war between Britain and China. Though the unfortunate events in this case are not triggered by the media but the media is sure to trigger a war between India and Pakistan with their “Sensational Journalism”.

Popularity: 11%