On February 17, Dr.Subramaniam Swamy, President of the Janata Party, got a taste of the ire of a few pro-LTTE lawyers for speaking his mind. They entered the court room while he was arguing a case, and assaulted him in the presence of judges. The unruly behaviour continued for nearly 15 minutes despite warnings from the judges. They also roughed up a policeman, who was in the visitors’ gallery. Some of them threw rotten eggs at Dr.Swamy, abused him and shouted anti-Brahmin slogans.

Two days later, the battle was truly joined. The advocates protested against the arrest of their colleagues in the Dr.Swamy assault case. They taunted the police and set ablaze a police station in the court premises. Then the pitched battle started. Of course there is no second guessing who won this round. Among those injured in the violence was a High Court judge, more than 50 lawyers and several policemen.

A day later, lawyers all over Tamil Nadu protested and condemned police excesses. In a few places they set ablaze vehicles. Advocates staged protests in almost all district headquarters.

During this year so far, Chennai courts functioned only for 9 days. The lawyers have been boycotting the courts demanding that the Sri Lankan government announce a ceasefire and stop all operations against the LTTE. They know only too well, the Sri Lankan government has no obligation to the striking lawyers. Their campaign does not have anything to do with legal matters and has the look of a politically motivated activity.

They are doing this at a time when there are 406,958 pending cases in Madras High Court. Imagine the plight of the hapless litigants. Imagine the plight of justice in our land. I have to agree with Clarence Darrow, “The trouble with law is lawyers.”

26/11 was a defining moment in the history of our country. This type of terror can be countered.

There is terrorism of another kind, called internal terrorism. It happens when a group of powerful persons join together to steam roller the rule of the law and conscience of the nation. This category of terrorism is even more pernicious than external terrorism because the innards of our society get poisoned and corroded like the annihilation caused by cancerous cells.

Unlike the strong and spontaneous reaction subsequent to the 26/11 attack, the reaction to this internal terrorism is very much muted. The ruling party is afraid of out-staring the lawyers. They want to patch up. They even removed one top police official under whose jurisdiction the violence happened. The opposition parties are fishing in troubled waters and enjoying the discomfiture of the government in power. The general populace is mute spectators to the goings on.

On February 26, the Supreme Court ordered that action be taken on four more top police officials. The Chief Justice asked the lawyers to get back to work. Even that does not seem to have any effect on the striking lawyers. They are adamant they will not return to the courts till more number of police heads roll.

It is fashionable in our country to blame the police for every problem under the sun. They are mostly at the receiving end from the media, from the politicians and the general public. They get shunted from one place to another and from one position to another to satisfy the whims of the powerful people.

To me, the police force in our country is more sinned against than sinning. Whether it is day or night, they stay out in freezing cold, under the spewing fire of the summer sun or in the pouring rain, breathing in the bellowing smoke and fumes from vehicles to ensure that we the citizens can move around in the land freely. They have to stand in between warring groups to ensure that there is no blood bath. They do all this with outdated weapons. At the end, they have to accept abuses with folded hands from every Tom, Dick and Harry. If I were in a policeman’s uniform, I would have echoed Shylock and asked:

“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”

It is very tragic when we are not able to distinguish between the villains and the heroes. We all get swayed by perceptions and appearances.

Like Don Corleone said in The God Father,

“A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”

And I like to add – when they are in a crowd, they can terrorize and pillage the conscience of a nation.

And we see this menace, more dangerous than the guns and bombs of terrorists and we go on with our daily lives. We need bombs, guns, thundering sounds and blinding lights to wake up our conscience.

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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!”

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They say “accidents do happen” and when you are in front of a mindboggling audience with millions turning to Washington and may be many more millions glued to the TV sets watching history being made, there is bound to be tension and a few words exchanged.

I was witness to some tension and exchange of a few words during the Presidential Swearing In Ceremony, albeit literally. Read on…

John Roberts, the Chief Justice, was responsible for swearing in Barack Obama as the 44^th President of USA. While he was reading out the swearing in words,

As per the American Constitution, the words that make up the oath is written as

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

But when Roberts was swearing in Obama, he exchanged few of those words, saying:

“I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.”

Roberts faltered, Obama watched on and the crowd had some good moment of laughter.

But that’s ok…Never mind..Let’s move on !

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This quote is, without-doubt, attributable to the President-Elect of the United States. Ever since I heard him say it with passion for the very first time early in ’08, I have been enamoured. Why? Read on

There’ve been many factors quoted by the experts for Barack Obama’s popularity around the world, the least of which is not the historic factors surrounding his origins. That aside, the ability to intellectually connect and therefore favourably polarize people isn’t being quoted (at least publicly) as the principal factors for his worldwide acceptance.

If looked closely, there’s a lot of similarity between his position in the American ecosystem (and the demographic engulfed within) and India’s current position in the economic world order:

Rising from a position of adversity, where the only way is up, it is possible to talk on the same terms what India’s economic growth has done to the world’s perception as has Obama’s win done to America’s (and indirectly the world’s) perception of race. Not for a moment am I indicating that this is a win of any sorts for any non-political reasons, but let’s take a magnanimous look at the impact of “faith, belief” and “hope” in the end result.

India, as it’s been since 1947 until the technology-driven economic boom of the 21^st century, has been at some level continuously driven by the “hope” that the hard work of the people will bear fruit eventually. We are not the new world order, yet, economically or strategically, but India is the new kid on the block that the neighbors stand up to take notice.

If I were to express all of this change or transformation in one key word or phrase, it would arguably be the “HOPE” or the “yes we can” attitude. That we didn’t definitively come out and say as much explicitly reflects on the confidence that initial success gives you to make that bold statement.

To draw a parallel again, note that this wasn’t Obama’s message from the get go, but rather the initial primary wins over Hillary that gave him the confidence to put his confident foot forward and issue the war cry of “yes we can”.

The message to the new “leaders” (I prefer this to “politician” for its long been misused and therefore tarnished) that govern India should be: Drive Change at all levels, for it is change that gives rise to new possibilities; use hope to power this transformation, and the beliefs from past successes to achieve this change.

Signing off, I hope (yes I do too) it is time to expand on the original quote:”Yes we can, and we should!”

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Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan called the Terrorist as Non State Actors. Subsequently, even the Prime Minister Gilani also came up with this term. Manmohan Singh, Condoleezza Rice followed suit.

I had this confusion as to who were these Non State Actors – Terrorists living in one’s country with no known state OR people acting on behalf of illegal entities OR someone who did not belong to a particular state or boundary ?

Hence decided to look the term on Wikipedia.

As per Wikipedia,

Non-State Actors, in international relations, are actors on the international level which are not states. The admission of non-state actors into international relations theory is inherently a rebuke to the assumptions of realism and other “black box” theories of international relations, which argue that interactions between states are the main relationships of interest in studying international events

The various types of Non State Actors includes

• Non Governmental Organisation
• Multi National Corporations
• Terrorist Organisations
• Criminal Organisations
• Religious Groups etc

Coming to the point – Zardari said these terrorists were Non State Actors. What it means is that they have State Actors, Non State Non Actors, State Non Actors and the many combinations.

Manas Chakravarthy of Hindustan Times explained it well , I thought. Do give it a read !

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