The BJP’s idea of India gives heart to the religious caboodle in Pakistan, and in turn fortifies what they would like their idea of Pakistan to be. —Reuters/File photo
A potentially sinister event has prompted this column. It is my sense from a few visits to Pakistan beginning with 1997 that a large number of Pakistanis prefer the rightwing religious revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rule India. On the other hand, they are wary of the Congress. This tendency, I gather, is more pronounced within the Pakistani bureaucracy and the military. I know of Pakistani diplomats and officials who would be privately praying for the BJP to win the April-May elections in India.
To some extent this is true also of some of the journalists I have interacted with from different parts of Pakistan. They include those that claim to work for peace and dialogue between the two countries. The BJP has sold them the myth that it can alone solve the Kashmir dispute, not the Congress or anyone else.
There is a counter grouse among Pakistanis. Many of them feel, and they are probably spot on, that the bulk of the Indian establishment, including that media which works with the establishment, has a subcutaneous liking for the military in preference to civilian governments in Islamabad, and, in recent days, for General Pervez Musharraf in particular. This was reflected in some ways in the standing ovation the former army chief received recently at the end of a televised interaction he had with the movers and shakers of Delhi. And who was the one person Musharraf wanted to meet in Delhi but couldn’t? It was none other than his favourite BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee.
DAWN.COM | Columnists | Congress created Pakistan, Pakistan created the BJP?.
Story Via : FPJ
by Chris Battle
Talk to some in the national and homeland security environment, and they will tell you — perhaps a bit defensively but usually with a false sense of authority — that they cannot leverage the powerful tools of New Media because to do so might threaten their internal security. Others simply give you a puzzled look, as if you are asking them whether they go online and share pictures of their families with anonymous college kids. Meanwhile, the world of communications and intelligence — not to mention history’s most deadly generation of terrorists — is passing them by.
Al Qaeda’s propaganda and recruiting capability has obtained an almost mythical status. The group communicates worldwide via the Internet with a miniscule budget and deprived of the complex IT infrastructure available to the United States. There is no question that its brazen acts of violence and its new brand of terrorism that seeks not to negotiate but simply to kill has placed al Qaeda at the top of the list of terrorist threats. But while the national security apparatus in the United States has acknowledged the new operational tactics put into play by al Qaeda, there is a disconcerting lack of recognition of the group’s unprecedented use of intelligence, communications and propaganda. This is a critical failure given that the real power of any terrorist act is not the act itself but the capability to transform that act into a powerful message to advance an agenda. Read more…
Categories: Indo-Pak, Ploitics, Religion Tags: CIA, India, ISI, Media, Mumbia, Pakistan, Peace, Politics, Terror, War
“Mulk khud hi chalta rehay ga” (approximate translation: the country doesn’t need our contribution to thrive) is a sentence many Pakistanis are prone to saying. I confess that till a few years ago, I myself was confident of this misleading notion. Misleading and dangerous – especially in today’s volatile climate. As Pakistanis, it is imperative that we come to terms with the fact that no heavenly Manna will alleviate our country’s plight. The job rests squarely on our own shoulders; with the destiny of a whole nation tethered to our will and to the execution of that will. And so as the clock ticks and the prophets of doom raise a foreboding murmur from East to West, it is high time for us to learn some crucial lessons. Lessons without which our collective slumber will only deepen:
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Jeremy R. Hammond
Foreign Policy Journal
December 21, 2008
What’s clear now, as further developments have come to light, is that there are also elements within India, both in the criminal underworld and the government, that are perfectly willing to see the role in the Mumbai attacks of an even larger shadowy international criminal network whitewashed; a network with links to numerous moneyed interests, including trafficking in drugs and arms, and to numerous intelligence agencies, including the ISI, the CIA, and India’s own RAW. Read more…
All Things Considered, December 19, 2008 · (via NPR)
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were divided after achieving independence from Britain in 1947, and their relations have been marked by mutual mistrust. Several years of peacemaking were derailed last month when militants, who India alleges were backed by Pakistan, launched attacks in Mumbai, killing more than 160 people.
A new generation of Indians and Pakistanis are now dealing with that fragile relationship. Many of them, like Sonia Faleiro, a 31-year-old Indian novelist and journalist, and Pakistani filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar, 37, who lives in New York, have traveled to each other’s countries, but say they understand why mistrust persists. Read more…
