Taming Pakistan: Modi Effect

[Dayuhan]

If I were Mr. Modi, I would put it along these lines: Any form of ideological indoctrination that discourages citizens from embracing modern education and incites them into taking law into their won hands and trying to unlawfully enforce/impose rules on an ideological basis will not be tolerated, as are violence acts against all citizens.

Are the freedoms of speech and religion constitutionally guaranteed in India? Efforts to suppress "ideological indoctrination" might run afoul if they are... certainly they would in the US, but India is of course a very different place. While recognizing the impact of indoctrination, I'd be uncomfortable with any effort to treat indoctrination as the equivalent of actual violence if that were proposed in my own neighborhood.

I will just list the abstract of my upcoming scholarship:

Many militant groups around the world are purportedly fighting to institute sharia as the governing law of Muslims. However, very few scholars have studied the relationship between sharia and violence, presumably because the former is largely viewed as dealing with internal governance issues. This perspective has likely led to the West’s policy of accommodating political and community groups that seek to promote sharia. In this paper, I argue that public surveys in Muslim communities are ill-prepared to identify the potential links between sharia and violence, especially when the majority of poll respondents identify themselves as peace-loving Muslims who perceive sharia as divine law. Moreover, I identify a radicalized subpopulation of jihadist clerics that benefit from sharia’s popularity. Empirical data is presented regarding the growth of clerical power in Pakistan and elsewhere, aided in part by this popularity, which the clerics themselves have helped to nurture. In particular, the analysis suggests that jihadist clerics and militant groups leverage sharia’s esteem in order to advance a violent agenda.

Interesting, but again difficult to comment without seeing the actual work. Do you intend to publish it?

The key really is not to let the problem get to this stage, and since it has, understand its ideological basis, and neutralize it at that level.

The big question, of course, is how does one neutralize the ideological basis?

It's not an easy thing to do. Generations of effort to neutralize the Communist ideology, ranging from "winning hearts and minds" to mass murder, accomplished very little: the Communist ideology eventually neutralized itself through its own abject failure to deliver on its promises. How does one "neutralize" the Islamist ideology?

[Dayuhan]

Discussion of Modi and of India in Foreign Affairs:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...5YWhvby5jb20S1

This one is subscriber only but some here may have access:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...5YWhvby5jb20S1

Useful mostly as an indication of perceptions among the US foreign policy elite, for whatever that's worth.

At this point of course all is speculative: Modi will have to develop and implement actual policies toward Pakistan, toward the Muslim minority, and (most important) to deal with economic and other core domestic issues. It will not be possible to evaluate what he's doing until we see what those policies are and how they are being implemented. All of them are complicated and intractable problems.

[davidbfpo]

By a ret'd Indian intelligence officer:

It is gratifying that Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi's first meeting with bureaucrats was with Home Secretary Anil Goswami on 19 May, if press reports are correct. He also met former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval. This indicates the importance he attaches to internal security despite some "strategic community" fabulists attempting to distract him with foreign issues.

Our internal security problems need immediate attention. No one has paid any attention to it since 1947 except for setting up some institutions that have not performed. As a result, we have growing communalism, a serious ethnic strife in the Northeast, rising domestic religious insurgency and persisting Leftist militancy, while our preventive security machinery shows its inability to anticipate and deal with such situations.

Link:http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analy...odis-attention

[MoorthyM]

By a ret'd Indian intelligence officer:

Link:http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analy...odis-attention

Indeed. Any attempt to "Modi"fy Pakistan has to first start with neutering Pakistan-Saudi axis' attempts to create multiple Pakistans within India itself.

As discussed (and now confirmed in this article) in my book Defeating Political Islam, this Islamization project has blossomed virtually unchecked for several decades now.

[Ray]

It is an incorrect and a most condescending remark to state that - The subcontinent also retains the power to screw things up on its own, although when they do somebody somewhere will invariably find a way to blame it on the US. Some things are inevitable.

Suffice it to say, anyone who has an iota of knowledge of history and is not biased, will observe that whenever the colonial powers quit, they encouraged and then left a legacy for conflicts.

That apart, the scars left behind by the colonials cannot be wished away pronto by any magic wand. It will take time and in the interim anything can happen and then return to normal. Of course, such events with give grist to gleeful condescensions again.

There is no question of any country taming any other country. The very notion is a western concept of imposing superiority over others.

In our parts, it is 'Live and Let Live' as much as possible, till nudged by 'global strategic interests' and that comes not from any specific sector either.

Let us debate on issues and not on preconceived condescensions.

Further, so long as there is the concept of 'minorities' and not looking at all as Indians, there can be no progress. Poverty, social inequalities etc are not solely the preserve of the so called minority. It manifests itself on all divisions of society. What has to be done is uplift the economically backward irrespective of religion. Then, and then only, can India progress.

This minority bogey is a votebank tactics i.e. scare the minority against the majority and vice versa and ensure getting their votes.

It might interest all that unless the minority (who has got wise to this Votebank manipulation)had not voted for Modi (hardline rightwing to the western folks), there was no shadow of hope that such a huge majority would come Modi's way.

It is time for less condescensions and replace the same with serious analysis by poring into reports, and then be equipped to enjoy the smell of the coffee.

In India we say Jago Mohan Pyare.

If the subcontinent retains the power to screw things up on its own, I guess it is suggested that it is the subcontinent which has screwed Ukraine.

For strategic interests, every nation screws thing up. It is not the copyright of any country or a region. Therefore, one should look before one leaps.

In India and Pakistan, we have a saying - Hamam men sab nanga hai.

[Dayuhan]

If the subcontinent retains the power to screw things up on its own, I guess it is suggested that it is the subcontinent which has screwed Ukraine.

I did not suggest that the power to screw things up is in any way exclusive to the subcontinent. It is alive and well all over the world.

For strategic interests, every nation screws thing up. It is not the copyright of any country or a region. Therefore, one should look before one leaps.

That's exactly what I meant to suggest when I said the subcontinent has the power to screw things up on its own. That power may or may not be used, but it certainly exists. Being on the cynical side, I generally expect things to be screwed up, and I generally expect that somebody, somewhere (often here at SWC) will find some way to blame the US.

One cannot downplay or eliminate the colonial legacy, nor can one reasonably attribute all things that go wrong to the colonial legacy.

The appropriateness of the reference to "taming Pakistan" you'd have to take up with MoorthyM, who included it in the thread header.

[Ray]

A short commentary by IISS's South Asia expert, Rahul Roy-Chaudhury and here are two passages:



Link:https://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voice...-campaign-5e65

By a ret'd Indian intelligence officer:

Link:http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analy...odis-attention

The strife in the NE is confined to the Bodoland issue with the Muslim minority, the large part having migrated illegally from Bangladesh.

Illegal immigration remains a grey area

The 2012 violence was variously described as having begun over the Bodos' destruction of a mosque or an under-construction mosque in Kokrajhar or as having begun after the killing of some BLT men by Muslims. Either way, public perception was largely that the skewed demographics of Assam, owing mainly to the continuing illegal immigration from Bangladesh -- the Bengali-speaking "settlers" are also called "Bangladeshis" -- were at the root of the ethnic violence. The immigration issue is an important factor, with Bodos believing that the Muslim settlers support illegal immigrants who continue to arrive through the riverine areas. There have also been reports of rampant encroachment of state-owned forest land by Muslim encroachers.

http://www.firstpost.com/india/assam...t-1507865.html