Written by the Indian journalist, Jawed Naqvi. Some very interesting observations... In general, I am glad at least some commentators in India are seeing the Obama visit for what it was, and not some pro-India glory trip that it is childishly being made out to be.
Why India's realty scam should interest President Obama
Jawed Naqvi
Yesterday
Jawed Naqvi
ON the face of it, the Adarsh housing society scam in Mumbai does not look very different from dozens of similar scandals spawned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs dream to make India rich with a nearly vertical take-off. A nation that pawned its gold reserves to avert default just 20 years ago was being wooed at the weekend by President Barack Obama to help save the American economy.
A UNDP report released last week has presented a damning picture of the countrys social health, evidently rooted in its grinding poverty and political callousness. The report equates the countrys most populous states with shocking social indicators of sub-Saharan Africa. It is difficult to say if the hurriedly acquired wealth or the intractable poverty is the bigger scandal.
If you were a Kashmiri stone-thrower, or even a simple apple farmer living under an inevitably violent occupation by the Indian army, you should look at the Adarsh scam with concern, even fear. If the highest ranking officers of the Indian army could be involved in a corrupt transaction in Mumbai, short-changing the government and the Indian taxpayer under public glare, what havoc could the lower ranking soldiers be wreaking in Kashmir, where they enjoy unbridled immunities?
If they can do it to themselves, what wont they do to others?
The rush for rewards and promotions by producing corpses of alleged militants in Kashmir came to a head in a bizarre revelation in the Siachen Glacier in 2004. The Indian defence establishment was shaken over revelations by a newspaper that its officers on duty in the glacier had routinely stage-managed encounters with imaginary Pakistani troops.
The idea was to paint the Indian officers with false glory that would fetch them coveted gallantry awards. The army promptly admitted to faking encounters with enemy personnel in Siachen last year and ordered administrative action against a colonel and a major and disciplinary action taken against another major.
The Adarsh scandal surfaced recently after Indias Western Naval Commander Vice Admiral Sanjeev Bhasin wrote to the defence ministry seeking action against the building promoters for disregarding security concerns over army land handed over for the multi-storeyed structure.
Among those reportedly allotted flats in the 100 feet building are former Army Chiefs Generals Deepak Kapoor and N.C. Vij, retired Navy Chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh, former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu and kin of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Of the 104 apartments in the buildings, about 40 have been allotted to serving personnel from the army, navy and the defence estates, which is the custodian of all defence land in the country.
Why should Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who advises President Obama on South Asia and the Middle East, be made to be interested in the Adarsh society scam? There is an excellent reason. In President Obamas interaction with students in Mumbai on Sunday, his key policy statements on Pakistan and Afghanistan were an echo of what Mr Riedel has been saying recently.
That includes what Mr Obama did not say for example, on Kashmir. Bruce Mr Riedels importance in the Obama administrations thinking on the region linked with Afghanistan is discussed in detail in Bob Woodwards new book, Obamas Wars.
What did Mr Riedel say recently that seems to be the mantra followed by the American president on his India tour? He said: The intifada that exploded this summer in Kashmir cannot be ignored by the president during the visit but any comments on it will be potentially explosive.
He has said that President Obama and Prime Minister Singh needed to cooperate to help Pakistan solve its jihadist nightmare. It cannot be resolved by outsiders, nor can it be contained and isolated from the outside. Other points Mr Riedel made in this regard, include: Senior Indian officials in private say that New Delhi and Washington now share a common diagnosis of the problems, but neither has developed a strategy that promises success.
It is an increasingly urgent concern, but one that does not have any magical answers. Both agree that engagement with Pakistan is the only way forward, but neither feels satisfied that its engagement is working.
The third parties also involved, particularly Pakistans ally China, will also figure extensively in the private talks. Obama is keen to find ways to use regional diplomacy to strengthen Pakistan, and Beijing must be a player in that process.
These points have naturally worried the hawks among the Indian establishment and within its hand reared media. But what can Mr Riedel or for that matter his president do if the idea is to discreetly, and certainly not publicly, nudge India to discuss the issue of Kashmir with Pakistan. Mr Obama did not refer to the K word in Mumbai, but he left little doubt that India should resume talks with Pakistan by first taking up the less difficult issues and moving on to the complex ones, meaning the key dispute. For Mr Riedel this is an important condition for a successful American strategy in Kashmir.
Therefore, whatever the public posture, the Kashmir issue is inevitably up for discussion and its probably going to be out in public. Yet a resolution of the Himalayan dispute is not lurking round the corner or is about to spring upon us any time soon.
This is where it is important in the interim, beginning now, to get Indias military presence in Kashmir to open up to international scrutiny, to be made accountable. Prime Minister Singh has frequently promised zero tolerance to human rights abuse in Kashmir, but has done little to stop the disease from festering.
Last week, just days before the Obama visit, the Indian government thumbed its nose at the international community by ordering the deportation of an American scholar who has been a regular visitor to Kashmir. Professor Richard Shapiro, who was denied entry by the immigration authorities in New Delhi, is the head of the Department of Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He is also the life partner of Angana Chatterji, who is the Co-convener of the International Peoples Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Reports say since July 2006, Prof Shapiro regularly travelled to Kashmir, and interacted with various human rights defenders, scholars, youth, to bear witness and learn from their experiences. He has evidently been conscientious in not violating the conditions of his tourist visa. He also helped form a Jewish-Muslim Friendship Circle. Kashmir was until 1990 a beautiful mosaic of syncretic culture under the overarching influence of Sufi Islam. A hard-line Islam blowing in from Pakistan together with Kashmirs Indian-run torture chambers are pushing the region towards an as yet untested brand of extremism. Mr Riedel knows what that implies for the region all the way to Afghanistan and beyond.
There is a solution, however, to the problem, he wrote recently. The cease-fire line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Line of Control, would become the agreed international border between the two countries. At the same time, it would become a permeable border for Kashmiris, who could move back and forth easily. Both countries currencies would be valid on both sides of the line. The two parts of Kashmir, Pakistani Azad Kashmir and Indian Kashmir and Jammu, would handle local issues like tourism, sports, and the environment in joint shared institutions along the lines of how Ireland and Ulster work together now on all Northern Ireland issues.
His ideas may find favour with the Indian establishment or they may not. Pakistan supported it once, but does it hold the same views today? While we debate the many options or non-options for a final resolution of the Kashmir issue, a frightening variant of the Adarsh housing scam may be wreaking havoc in the Valley. The state government admitted in 2003 that close to 3,000 had gone missing in Kashmir. Human rights groups say the figure is much higher. Is there a need to probe the scandal and to bring the guilty to justice as democracies are mandated to do? Or is the Indian army too much of a holy cow to be trifled with with or without its share of grievous scandals?
