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New Delhi -- India and Pakistan are like a bitterly divorced couple, filled with mutual mistrust because they know each other so well. They rarely miss a chance to spite their ex.
This week, India's feisty press was gleefully speculating that Pakistan's embattled military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, aka 'Mush,' was about to be kicked out by his erstwhile patrons in Washington and replaced by another senior general deemed even more responsive to US policy.
There is growing anger at Musharraf in Washington. The Bush Administration, stuck in an aimless war in Afghanistan, blames Musharraf for not crushing pro-Taliban supporters in Pakistan's tribal belt. But he has already pushed his deeply troubled nation close to civil war. Pakistanis are even more furious at him than Washington.
This week, in an amazingly obtuse, thuggish move, Musharraf sacked his nation's respected chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, for daring to inquire into the fate of political prisoners. This disgraceful act, and new press restrictions, ended any democratic pretences by Mush's increasingly repressive regime.
It also stood in glaring contrast to India's vibrant democracy, free press and independent judiciary
High level sources here tell me Indian PM Manmohan Singh's able government feels there's little point conducting serious negotiations with Musharraf over divided Kashmir since he is on the defensive and his days seem numbered.
More significantly, Delhi has also concluded that the US and NATO war to dominate Afghanistan has failed. The Western powers will withdraw their troops, sooner, think Indian strategists, than later. India should know. It has hundreds of agents from its intelligence agency, RAW, inside Afghanistan and has spent nearly $1 billion there for "reconstruction."
Interestingly, in spite of thawing political relations between Delhi and Beijing, Indian military sources still harbour deep concerns over China's steady expansion of military, economic and political influence into Pakistan, Burma, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. China and India fought a short mountain war in 1962.
WORLD POWER
By contrast to backsliding Pakistan, old rival India is full of pep and optimism. Its still-to-be confirmed strategic alliance with the U.S., and George Bush's blessing of India's hitherto "rogue" nuclear arsenal, was greeted by Indians as their coming of age as a world power.
China met the news with quiet anger and concern. Right on cue, the new Delhi-Washington alliance produced glowing stories about India in the U.S. establishment media.
India is the latest gold rush site for Western businessmen and a must-go for trendy tourists.
But behind all the media hoopla over India, this vast country remains two distinct nations. The smaller one is the vibrant, Westernized urban India. The other is a vast collection of disparate peoples, faiths and languages that remains mired in rural poverty. Nearly 400 million of India's one billion people subsist on less than $1 daily. Health care and education are a shambles. India's $728 per capita income ranks just above sub-Saharan Africa.
Bollywood, space programs and nuclear Viagra notwithstanding, India cannot advance as far and rapidly as it desires until it solves the awesome problems of rural poverty, and the malign, deeply ingrained caste system which relegates darker-skinned Indians to a life of serfdom, malnutrition, abuse, and widespread child labour.
Communist China conquered its social ills by enforcing drastic reforms and is way ahead of India by most measures -- except democracy and personal freedoms. India's democratic governments struggle to advance reforms through a morass of squabbling federal and state politicians and armies of nasty "babus (petty bureaucrats)."
INDIA RELEASED
Fortunately, India's recent governments, both Congress and BJP, finally ditched 1950's British socialism and crippling regulations that hobbled this great nation for so long, releasing India's latent economic power and productivity.
India's former British rulers taught its people to feel racially and intellectually inferior. It has taken India half a century to get rid of this toxic legacy. In spite of its daunting problems, India has regained its self-respect and finally feels centred, comfortable and confident.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2007/03/18/3775976-sun.html
This week, India's feisty press was gleefully speculating that Pakistan's embattled military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, aka 'Mush,' was about to be kicked out by his erstwhile patrons in Washington and replaced by another senior general deemed even more responsive to US policy.
There is growing anger at Musharraf in Washington. The Bush Administration, stuck in an aimless war in Afghanistan, blames Musharraf for not crushing pro-Taliban supporters in Pakistan's tribal belt. But he has already pushed his deeply troubled nation close to civil war. Pakistanis are even more furious at him than Washington.
This week, in an amazingly obtuse, thuggish move, Musharraf sacked his nation's respected chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, for daring to inquire into the fate of political prisoners. This disgraceful act, and new press restrictions, ended any democratic pretences by Mush's increasingly repressive regime.
It also stood in glaring contrast to India's vibrant democracy, free press and independent judiciary
High level sources here tell me Indian PM Manmohan Singh's able government feels there's little point conducting serious negotiations with Musharraf over divided Kashmir since he is on the defensive and his days seem numbered.
More significantly, Delhi has also concluded that the US and NATO war to dominate Afghanistan has failed. The Western powers will withdraw their troops, sooner, think Indian strategists, than later. India should know. It has hundreds of agents from its intelligence agency, RAW, inside Afghanistan and has spent nearly $1 billion there for "reconstruction."
Interestingly, in spite of thawing political relations between Delhi and Beijing, Indian military sources still harbour deep concerns over China's steady expansion of military, economic and political influence into Pakistan, Burma, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. China and India fought a short mountain war in 1962.
WORLD POWER
By contrast to backsliding Pakistan, old rival India is full of pep and optimism. Its still-to-be confirmed strategic alliance with the U.S., and George Bush's blessing of India's hitherto "rogue" nuclear arsenal, was greeted by Indians as their coming of age as a world power.
China met the news with quiet anger and concern. Right on cue, the new Delhi-Washington alliance produced glowing stories about India in the U.S. establishment media.
India is the latest gold rush site for Western businessmen and a must-go for trendy tourists.
But behind all the media hoopla over India, this vast country remains two distinct nations. The smaller one is the vibrant, Westernized urban India. The other is a vast collection of disparate peoples, faiths and languages that remains mired in rural poverty. Nearly 400 million of India's one billion people subsist on less than $1 daily. Health care and education are a shambles. India's $728 per capita income ranks just above sub-Saharan Africa.
Bollywood, space programs and nuclear Viagra notwithstanding, India cannot advance as far and rapidly as it desires until it solves the awesome problems of rural poverty, and the malign, deeply ingrained caste system which relegates darker-skinned Indians to a life of serfdom, malnutrition, abuse, and widespread child labour.
Communist China conquered its social ills by enforcing drastic reforms and is way ahead of India by most measures -- except democracy and personal freedoms. India's democratic governments struggle to advance reforms through a morass of squabbling federal and state politicians and armies of nasty "babus (petty bureaucrats)."
INDIA RELEASED
Fortunately, India's recent governments, both Congress and BJP, finally ditched 1950's British socialism and crippling regulations that hobbled this great nation for so long, releasing India's latent economic power and productivity.
India's former British rulers taught its people to feel racially and intellectually inferior. It has taken India half a century to get rid of this toxic legacy. In spite of its daunting problems, India has regained its self-respect and finally feels centred, comfortable and confident.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2007/03/18/3775976-sun.html
