Mayhem in Guwahati

The streets of Guwahati, especially near my home turned into battlegrounds last Friday. The combatants were Adivasi students vs local residents and the police. The issue was supposedly one of those demonstrations to call for the Scheduled Tribe status for the adivasis, most of whom had migrated from states in Central India to work in the newly set up tea gardens of Assam. These demonstrations are a regular fixture, and I have been caught in a few of them myself. At best, they cause traffic snarls and at worst a day long shutdown of business, a non governmental curfew. Which is why everyone has been caught off guard by this particular orgy of violence.

From what the newspapers reported of this incident, the sequence of events seemed simple enough to follow- permission was sought and received from the authorities to conduct a demonstration near the assembly complex. The authorities figured a crowd of 300 people, sitting a relay hunger strike and going back peacefully in the evening. They did not figure that 5000 people would be there, some of them armed with bows and arrows, drunk and prepped for violence. The marchers burned vehicles and shops, beat up people and created mayhem on their way to the state assembly. The police, initially 50 men strong collected their wits at the last moment and beat back the protestors with teargas and lathis. The locals meanwhile were incensed by destruction of their property and turned on the marchers in full fury, where they were aided and abetted by the police. The official toll was 1 killed and 200 wounded, while unofficial figures point to something like 15 dead and about 500 injured. The mob violence was flashed on national TV, and the image of a 15 year old girl stripped naked and chased for half a kilometre has been one of the most horrifying images seared into the Assamese psyche, since the images of the Nellie massacre in 1983.

What provoked this? Lets look at beyond the eye for an eye tooth for a tooth mindset. Most of the injured were women and children, and it would take a leap of imagination to imagine them as drunks running amok. What is plausible is that the damage were done by paid goons, who made themselves scarce after doing the damage, leaving the main body to bear the brunt. Who would be their paymasters? Politicians are the obvious answer, and they could be in the ruling side, or in the opposition. The truth is most likely to be obfuscated under commissions of inquiry, while another new dimension is going to be added to Assam’s already volatile, and sometimes bloody mix of minority and tribal conflict. Cry, my beloved country.

Pakocracy

For about a month or so, Pakistan has been boiling.It's not that it was peaceful before; there has been violence associated with the Pakistani society ever since it was born. The latest spell of violence involves the convoluted games played put from the drawing rooms of Lahore to the mean streets of Karachi. Perverz Musharraf, already beleaguered by the rise of the Taliban in western Pakistan and a assertive judiciary led by Iftikar Chaudhury is fighting the only way he knows- hit first and hit hard. The first step was turning back the exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif who is a potential rival with his large support base. Sharif was not allowed to get out of the airport, and though there was widespread international and internal condemnation, Musharraf stuck to his guns.

The declaration of Emergency was the second step. This was imposed three weeks ago, before the Supreme Court of Pakistan was to hear a challenge against Musharraf's reelection as president while retaining the post of the army chief. 5 judges were imprisoned and a rubber stamp court proclaimed Musharraf's appointment as president. Pakistan has also been kicked out of the Commonwealth, and though think tanks in the US are making noises, Dubya is not going to drop him anytime soon. Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto is preparing herself for a the upcoming elections by focussing on radio and TV as mediums instead of the traditional rallies, owing to threats on her life.

Whatever happens in Pakistan will affect India the most. Everybody knows why this is ,and most people agree that democracy is the best thing that should happen to Pakistan. But is Western style democracy really such a great thing? Just check out Afghanistan and Iraq- that brand of democracy has miserably failed.The situation on Afghanistan is deteriorating, and Iraq's situation is worse than ever. The problem is that these societies have their unique systems, and the brand of democracy goes against the very fabric of society. There can be no one size fits all solution, and what works in Western Europe or the US does not work in Asia. India seems to be an exception, though if we dig deep we would see some tweaking being done to the original model here as well.

The Pakistani society is largely feudal and driven by tribal loyalties.This society is conservative, and intensely religious. Concepts like equality of sexes, female suffrage and all men having equal rights are not accepted easily......they were not accepted until the beginning of the last century in Europe and US. The rest of the world is going to take some more time to adopt these ideas, however noble they may sound. As I see it, there is a need for reform in Pakistan. The civil society must lead this. Already they have the leadership of the law community- notice how the demonstrations of the lawyers across the country, supported by people in response to Justice Chaudhury's dismissal and subsequent house arrest resembled the Indian freedom movement.Something like that could happen in Pakistan too, though the world was a lot simpler in 1900s.

As for Musharraf, if her plays his cards right, he could remain the President for some years, without being the army head. Then again, he could be booted out soon, for Allah is definitely not on his side, and with Army gone America could loose patience. But even if he stays, his powers will definitely shrink.

The Enigma of Saddam

It has been quite some time since Saddam was hanged.December 26,2006 to be exact.Saddam Hussein,or more fully ,Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was and will continue to be alongside Osama bin Laden the symbols of Islamic opposition to the West for a long time to come.Ironic,since he was avowedly secular and had hardly any truck with al Quaeda.His story will be cited as a classic case of a Frankensteinian monster which turned upon its creator,the US in this case.

As a young man Saddam along with the Ba'ath Party was involved in a plot to assasinate Gen Quasim in 1959 who had led a military junta in overthrowing King Faisal II.This was backed by the US.During the Iran Iraq war Saddam used chemical weapons supplied by west German companies while availing financial and military aid from France and the US ,to name a few.Billions of dollars were also dangled as bait to prevent him from joining the Soviet side by the US.

This honeymoon ended only during the first Gulf war when US realized that its interests would suffer if Kuwait came under Iraq.This was in 1991.Under harsh UN sanctions since upto the invasion and consequent toppling of his regime in 2003,the Iraqi society was fragmented and splintered along secterian and ethnic lines.This was manifested in increasing lawlessness,secterian cleansing,private Shiite and Sunni militias and restless Kurds.Meanwhile without any trace of WMDs,the ostensible reason of the invasion or links of the toppled regime with al Quaeda,the view in the Arab street that invasion was an attack on Islam and the Great Satan along with the accursed Jews were hell bent on looting Iraq of her oil,was gaining ground.The situation was compounded by Israel's botched attack on Lebanon and its apparent bruising by Hezbollah.But that is another story.

The trial of Saddam Hussein after his capture by American forces in 2003 was probably the most followed war crime trials after the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis.These trials,and the mrthod of conducting them have raised questions and criticisms of fairplay.Assasination of defence lawyers,removal of the presiding judge midway and the shennanigans of Saddam in the courtroom added up to the challenges.Opinion about his fate was sharply divided in a country which was technically a democracy but practically presented a picture of utter chaos.Saddam had no chance of escaping the verdict of death sentence,but the manner of his hanging and the haste in which the Iraqis went about it certainly had an impression of vendatta.

Saddam Hussein may already have become a matyr.When he was in detention messages attributed to him telling his country to resist the 'invaders' almost invariably led to a spike in violence.In this new war where the battle is fought in cyberspace as much as in the real world the videos of his hanging ,helpfully taken by an Iraqi official and circulated over the Internet were one of the most heavily viewed on sites like Google Video and YouTube.These videos no doubt will be used during sermons in madrassas from UK to Indonesia and the terrorist training camps of South Wazaristan and Afghanistan to further brainwash suicide bombers who would bomb buses and trains in the hopes of entering paradise.And the circle would continue.On the other hand proponents would say that if kept imprisoned Saddam would be the inspiration behind a rash of hijacking and terror acts and his statements ,his mere presence would have kept the pot boiling.The situation was complex and demanded complex solution.Nothing like you-are-with us-or-them type,typical of Bush Jr.

And now with the body count of American combatants about to cross 3000 since major combat was declared ended Dubya decides to increase force levels by more than 20000,a move which many commentators are saying as akin to providing more cannon fodder.America has wrecked the situation very badly,and it seems Vietnam was a walk in the park compared to Iraq.And most likely,at the time I am typing this a suicide bomber has exploded his bomb or Sunnis are gunning down Shias in some part of Iraq,with the US soldiers caught ,and dying in the crossfire along with the common people.