Asoka Chakra, Chanakya and RAW

[BanglaBhoot]

By Janaka Perera

In all probability those who caused the horrifying bomb explosion at the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad and those behind the bomb blast in several Indian cities this month share the same extremist politico-religious objectives even if they are not members of the same group. The nature of the explosions – especially the one at the Marriot clearly reflect the technical expertise that only a mafia gang like the LTTE can provide – may be on payment because the Tigers seem to be running short of funds nowadays.

At the same time there is no question that Prabhakaran is plotting and dreaming of doing a 'Marriot' in Colombo, even as the Security Forces are moving towards the gates of the last remaining town of his mythical Tamil Eelam.

During this year's SAARC summit Indian delegates agreed on the urgency on combating terrorism. If they are sincere then they cannot afford to pick and chose but go all out to convey a clear message not only to terrorists of all hues who are deliberately and willfully targeting unarmed civilians and non-combatants but also to their ardent supporters within and outside India. And these terrorist-sympathizers include the Norwegians whose dubious peace-making India too endorsed, although it lost all credibility among the Sinhalas.

The majority of Sri Lankans therefore do not want to hear Delhi's or any other government's pontifications about the need to win over the Tamils and ensure their safety in the Wanni before dealing with the Prabhakaran's terrorist outfit. Perhaps by the same token Pakistan has every right to tell India to ensure the security of India's Muslims against periodic Hindu extremist violence - before going after Muslim zealots for blasting bombs there.

We however need to recall here that the Sinhala majority by and large had a great regard for India in the years before Indira Gandhi got the bright idea of 'disciplining' Sri Lanka with the LTTE 'rod' which eventually turned out to be a viper. Even today Hindi movies, music, songs and dances are popular among the Sinhalas far more than Tamils. North Indian languages like Bengali have close ties with Sinhala.

As a school boy I witnessed the very warm welcome that large crowds gave Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru when he arrived at the then civilian airport of Ratmalana in 1962 during Sirimavo Bandaranaike's first term as Prime Minister. Contrast it with the visit of his grandson Rajiv Gandhi in 1987 when he was nearly hit on the head with a rifle butt by an enraged Sri Lankan sailor. Eventually the PM was destined to die at the hands of a group which his mother nurtured.

It appears that since 1983 Delhi has caught a Tiger's tail which it cannot now let go lest the animal turns around and attacks – especially because the Tamil National Alliance and Tamil Nadu jingoists are riding the brute. Even when GOSL is trying to convince India to let go off the tail she is hesitant to do so. In this context in if ever President Mahinda Rajapaksa succeeds in handing over a captured Prabhakaran to India it would be no surprise if he is not put on trial, after all the Gandhis (Sonia and Priyanka) seem to have slowly developed – perhaps for political expediency - a soft corner for Nalini and other convicts who plotted Rajvi's assassination.

Delhi's mistake has been to imagine that Kautilyan methods would always work in India's favour in the region. Kautilya alias Chanakya was Indian Emperor Chandragupta's Chief Minister who developed a strategy of destabilizing and weakening neighbouring states around 320 B.C. His methods proved advantageous to both Chandragupta and his successors including Emperor Asoka (who later gave up wars of expansion after embracing Buddhism and adopted the Dharma Chakra as the State symbol).

India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW ) subsequently researched, developed and used these Kautilyan methods for expanding Delhi's power in the region including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In fact this is the Indian Government's real reason to adopt the Saranath Lion Capital and the Asoka Chakra or Dharma Chakra as India's National symbol - which appears on her national flag - more than out of respect for a great Buddhist Emperor and his religion as many Buddhists believe, according to Bangladeshi writer and Barrister M.B.I. Munshi (The India Doctrine published by Bangladesh Research Forum)

- Asian Tribune -

Asoka Chakra, Chanakya and RAW | Asian Tribune

 

[Flintlock]

For goodness sake...

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Security agencies are losing their secular ethos

Josy Joseph

DNA - September 28, 2008

As home-grown terrorists step up their attacks, the police are retreating within their shell instead of reaching out to the Muslim community.

As terrorism gets a comprehensive domestic makeover, the security establishment is becoming a conglomerate of non-Muslim forces carrying a bias and ignorance about Islam and men who preach violence in its name.

The situation is alarming. And a startling statement on the failures of India in improving the very structures and institutions meant to protect the nation state and its democracy.

Look at the scenario: The Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency whose task is to monitor Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Kashmir terrorism, does not have a single Muslim on its rolls. The Intelligence Bureau, whose task is to monitor internal security where Islamic terrorism and naxalism are the biggest worries, has just one Muslim officer in the middle and upper ranks. In the Delhi police’s special cell, which carried out the encounter in Jamia Nagar, there are no Muslims to our knowledge. Similar is the story of most institutions tasked with fighting terrorism.

The eight years that followed the 9/11 attacks in the US have again established the value of human intelligence. All the American technical capabilities and overriding military power have not helped the US in overcoming Islamic terrorism. The US is now convinced that reliable contacts within the Muslim communities have to complement a large number of boots on the ground to win this asymmetrical Long War. And they are making efforts at it.

Sadly, over the past decade and more, the Indian agencies that are at the forefront of fighting terrorism have withdrawn, and continue to withdraw, into non-Muslim organisations manned by Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others. Rarely do you find any Muslim today working in these agencies. Despite the Sachchar Committee recommendations for increasing the Muslim presence in the security forces, there are no visible efforts. If anything, it is the lingering ignorance of Islam and its violent preachers that is palpable in these institutions.

A couple of years ago, the R&AW tried to make amends to its image of being a non-Muslim organisation by recruiting an IPS officer from the community. The officer went on study leave even before the order was signed, and the effort got shelved forever.

That was tokenism at best, and is no solution to the problem.

The stereotyping of Muslims is rampant across the investigation agencies. “We are discussing Islamic terrorism everyday. Wouldn’t it be odd to have a Muslim officer sit in such meetings?” a liberal officer once asked me. Another officer talks about the stereotyping of Muslims and Pakistan that have taken deep roots within the establishment ever since violence broke out in 1987. “The vested interests and suspicions are too deep. It is a struggle to fight them,” he points out.

The lack of appreciation of Islam’s internal struggles and the huge amount of liberal values among Indian Muslims is hampering efforts at getting to the root of the domestic terrorism involving local Muslims, admit many officials. But these officers are isolated voices in organisations that have already grown deeply suspicious of Muslim communities and drawn up horribly distorted images of Islam.

Such ignorance is the key factor leading many a police officer into operations in which innocents are killed or trapped. It is visible even in the latest round of arrests across India. If what the Delhi police is saying now, that the module they neutralised carried out the 2006 Varanasi blasts is correct, then the UP police has blood on its hands. It shot dead an alleged terrorist said to be involved in the blasts. If the crime branch of Mumbai is doing the right thing now, then the ATS has a lot of explaining to do about their findings on the 2006 train blasts. Both are at odds, though they are trying to reconcile these differences.

For over a decade, this correspondent has reported on the security establishment, witnessing what can only be described as the slow disintegration of the secular and professional credentials of these institutions. This decay hastened after an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Kandahar. What followed in the next nine years has been the unleashing of trigger-happy police forces across India. Dozens of ‘encounters’ may have had Kashmir Muslim youth ‘smuggled’ into India from Nepal as its victims. But we would never know. In almost none of these encounters have the police followed the rigorous process of law-to file an FIR, carry out a proper investigation and dispose of it under an independent judiciary.

The insensitivity of the political class has contributed to the ‘empowerment’ of this police and intelligence apparatus. Both the IB and R&AW have no parliamentary supervision, with their top bosses operating like chieftains of unruly tribes. The state polices are not under any scrutiny to expose human rights violations and ensure impartial investigations. It isn’t a surprise that many Indians, especially Muslims, are suspicious of the capability of the police. The situation is both an opportunity and a threat.

Opportunity to reform these institutions on the cusp of a great future, or a threat that could pull down the nation’s economic surge into social chaos. Empires and states have more often been defeated from within than by external enemies.

DNA - Wide Angle - Security agencies are losing their secular ethos - Daily News & Analysis

 

[T-Rex]

Since Mr. India does not approve of it it must not have any credibility. Since when did Ram's Wings (RAW) became the factories of credibility, for heaven's sake look at yourselves.

 

[Flintlock]

Since Mr. India does not approve of it it must not have any credibility. Since when did Ram's Wings (RAW) became the factories of credibility, for heaven's sake look at yourselves.

Very funny.

Now lets get together and write a piece about the sinister conspiracy behind the Bangladeshi flag.

Munshi should write the Bangladeshi version of Da Vinci Code. That'll do his talents far greater justice. And perhaps earn him a few Takas more.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Ridicule is the resort of the weak and pathetic. You Indians should try to address the criticisms of both articles I submitted. We always knew that RAW was a communal organization.

 

[T-Rex]

Very funny.

Now lets get together and write a piece about the sinister conspiracy behind the Bangladeshi flag.

Munshi should write the Bangladeshi version of Da Vinci Code. That'll do his talents far greater justice. And perhaps earn him a few Takas more.

The Indian newspapers have been writing many epics on the non-existent communal riots in Bangldesh and the need to invade it. It's very funny, all these coming from a country which has experienced eighteen thousand communal riots since independence.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Eighteen thousand communal riots since independence!

Wow is that a world record? We should check with Guinness. Finally India might have achieved something.

 

[Vinod2070]

We did achieve the liberation of Bangladesh. That should be enough for you guys to last a lifetime and then some!

 

[BanglaBhoot]

......and you did that all by yourselves. Now you might consider giving independence to Kashmir and the Seven Sisters. Since you saw the demand for Bangladesh as just the same principle should apply to India's colonies.

 

[T-Rex]

Eighteen thousand communal riots since independence!

Wow is that a world record? We should check with Guinness. Finally India might have achieved something.

Have a bon-fire like the one you had in Gujrat. There's no shortage of fuel, there are two hundred million Muslims in India. That will be a pretty good celebration and I'm pretty sure other champions of human rights like bush and blair would love that.

 

[Vinod2070]

So you can see nothing different in the Bangladesh liberation and what is happening in Kashmir? Is that the best you can come up with?

Seven sisters! What about them? What is your interest there except to be ready to take back all illegal migrants when they are finally thrown back.

 

[T-Rex]

So you can see nothing different in the Bangladesh liberation and what is happening in Kashmir? Is that the best you can come up with?

Seven sisters! What about them? What is your interest there except to be ready to take back all illegal migrants when they are finally thrown back.

Who would migrate to India to be burnt alive ?

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Oh so you do admit that Kashmir and the Seven Sisters are Indian colonies. Thanks for the confirmation. Every imperialist power seeks to retain their colonies for as long as possible.

 

[T-Rex]

I'm pretty sure everybody here knows what has happened to the sole super power, it is now a beggar and facing a collapse of its economy. Yet only a few years ago it was as confident as India is today. I think there's a very good lesson in it for other aggressive powers.