SOUTH ASIA

10 South Asia Times SOUTH ASIASouTh ASiA TimeS south asia rAhul gAndhi's 'operAtion CleAn-up' Amidst fAilure of Congress' ChAmChA politiCs

By vidya Bhushan rawat*

most of the mainstream media had declared Rahul Gandhi as Pappu as if it is a crime if somebody is called Pappu. The narrative spread by the Sangh Parivar went unresponded by senior leaders of the Congress, and today when the same Pappu is trying to organise the party, these leaders have started questioning him and Sonia Gandhi.

It is not the fault of Rahul Gandhi but of Congress culture. What we are witnessing in the form of ‘rebellion’ by and absolutely spineless and baseless leaders of the socalled G-23 is a reflection of a situation when you cannot keep ‘chamchas’ (sycophants) out of work for long.

Kanshiram in wrote a book called ‘Chamcha Age’. Baba Saheb Ambedkar warned against hero worship in politics. Punjab’s political crisis has given opportunity to Rahul Gandhi-bashers, many of whom were chamchas’, to target him. Meanwhile, the mainstream (it would be proper to call them Manu-stream) media has strangely become terribly ‘concerned’ about the Congress.

Indeed, all the channels and their C grade anchors have been told to humiliate the Gandhis day in and day out. In their ‘prime times’, they have BJP netas, Sangh Parivaris and their darbaris. There are some others who come in the name of ‘experts’; they just laugh and joke about the Gandhis.

The question is: If the Gandhis have lost everything and are nothing, why are the Sanghis so much concerned about them? Let the Congress go the way it wants to, why those whose perceptions and narratives are well known so much worried about the Gandhis?

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know it well that as long as Gandhis are there, they will face challenge. Hence their only aim is to humiliate them and berate them. The Congress’ opportunisic’ leaders are the best friends of the Sangh Parivar. In fact, a dirty reality of our political system, which makes Modi stronger, is that disdain and hatred in the political circle for the Gandhi family.

Perhaps each one of the G-23 and some others think they are ‘better’ than the Gandhis. It is the same people who during the heydays of the Congress would utter: “If madam asks us to clean the floor, we would be happily doing it’. The Congress is paying the price for promoting mediocres and rootless leaders whose only ideology has been to protect their business and family interests.

The problem with chamchas is that they cannot remain without work or patronage for long. Chamchas will do everything as long as you are in power. The Congress culture of chamchas was widely prevalent during the time of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. But at that time the party was strong and had brute majority, so the chamchas were ‘created’ as pressure groups within the party. They would be used by the Central leadership against the elected chief ministers if the High Command wanted to remove them.

When the UPA came to power, Sonia Gandhi accommodated the chamachas despite their defeats. Who can ignore that Shivraj Patil was made Home Minister despite his defeat in the Lok Sabha election? Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Salman Khursheed, Anand Sharma and others were taken in the Cabinet. They have neither any mass base, nor have they worked to strengthen the party. Most of them emerged from the Rajya Sabha, and due to their ‘legal competence’, they were in great ‘demand’.

In fact, the Congress needs to work on an internal document of the party and assess the work of UPA-II and its ministers. I can vouch that most of those talking about ‘transparency’ would be found guilty. A lot of non-issues became national issues because of the highly personalised forms of work by P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee.

Chidambaram’s policies were responsible for turning UPA into an oppressive regime, centralisation of power and virtual decimation of civil society organisations, while Pranab Mukherjee wanted the government to fail because of his lifelong desire of to become Prime Minister.

The party promoted Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Manish Tiwari, Sanjay Nirupam, Milind Deora and many others. The Delhi media felt that they are the ‘future’ of the Congress. The image of Rahul Gandhi was damaged by those enjoying power, because many of them felt that their own privileges would end if they accepted the working pattern of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

When in power, Sonia was surrounded by the old coterie and ‘trusted’ old loyalists. There wasn’t much focus on grassroots leaders but on managers. The Congress completely abandoned its ideology. Power brokers became top party leaders.

It is a well-known fact that Anna Hazare’s movement was RSS-supported. Industrialists sponsored the movement as they were upset with the Congress’ land acquisition bill. Anna neither had honesty nor ideology, and all those surrounding him actually got fully rewarded. Arvind Kejriwal now rules Delhi and eyeing for all those states where the Congress is in direct fight with BJP.

Actually, Anna’s movement created a situation where the Congress became the biggest villain on corruption. Meranwhile, the party’s image was dented by Sangh propaganda. Videos and blogs were released against Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Today, these propagandists crossed all limits of decency. They have reduced debates to gutter level.

The Congress leadership between 2011 and 2014 never tried to defend Sonia Gandhi and other leaders. Even today, when Rahul Gandhi is lampooned and attacked, there is not a single statement by the likes of Ghulam Nabi, Anand Sharma, Manish Tiwari or Shashi Tharoor defending him. The 2014 defeat of the Congress was made to look like a defeat of Rahul Gandhi, and that way the corrupt leaders saved their skin. By the time Rahul Gandhi tried to improve things, it was too late.

These so-called old guards thought that the party might return to power in 2019. But this failed, as the party was in a deep shambles, because those in power since the Indira Gandhi days were not ready to leave their position voluntarily. Rahul Gandhi campaigned, while the G-23 leaders were not speaking on anything except attacking the party leadership.

Today, we all know that BJP and its sponsored media have been let loose against the Gandhis. Each day, the media is waiting for an issue to come up with the Congress so that they have a full day to discuss the ‘future’ of the Congress or the Gandhis. The media does not have time to ask questions to the government as to how the Chinese transgressed our territory in Uttarakhand. It has no time to speak for the rights of the woman who lost her husband in Gorakhapur when the police raided the hotel he was staying in.

The media does not have time to ask questions to the ruling party because the only work it has been asked to do is to target, attack and smear Gandhis, and Congress netas have not been able to defend their leaders. Recently, Navika Kumar on Times Now abused Rahul Gandhi, yet we have not heard Congress leaders, with a few exceptions, in his defence.

It is election season and it is a well-known fact that BJP is poaching Congress leaders. Their aim is to weaken the Congress, and wherever they stand no chance, create other groups are activated to weaken the party.

Punjab’s farmers took the lead against the corporatesponsored farm laws. Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh is a serious leader, but his ways of governance are deeply feudal. He was never available to party MLAs, and that is why dissent

Contd. on pg 12

the tAlibAn’s rule threAtens whAt’s left of AfghAnistAn’s dAzzlingly diverse CulturAl history

By julian droogan** & malColm Choat*

despite cliched talk of a “graveyard of empires”, what we now call Afghanistan has for thousands of years been an important part of many sophisticated cultures.

Situated along the Silk Road — a tangle of Eurasian trade routes stretching back to the days of the Roman Empire — Afghanistan and its people have long served as a place of connection between Mediterranean, Persian, Indian and Chinese civilisations.

It has been home to Hellenistic cities populated by the successors of Alexander the Great, glittering Buddhist monasteries that served to transmit early Buddhism from India to far away China and Japan, and a series of Medieval Islamic kingdoms at the forefront of the literature and science of their day.

This dazzlingly diverse heritage is preserved in over 2,600 archaeological sites scattered across its rugged terrain, numerous regional museums and galleries, and, most famously, the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Refurbished in 2007, the museum holds a collection of over 80,000 artefacts from throughout the region.

All of this is now under renewed threat by Taliban forces, whose fanatical interpretation of Islam forbids representative imagery, and is particularly dismissive of anything it considers to be non-Islamic.

While remaining focused on the plight of the Afghan people, countries such as the US, UK, and Australia need to also start planning how they can reduce the coming assault on Afghanistan’s art, history and material culture.

a history oF destruCtion

Afghanistan’s archaeological sites were previously systematically looted and destroyed during the period of Soviet occupation and warlordism that followed.

In the 1980s, whole ancient sites were illegally excavated with artifacts sold off under cover of war. The Hellenistic Greek city of Ai-Khanoum, dating from the 4th century BCE to the mid-2nd century CE and discovered in the 1830s, was destroyed, including its Greek theatre, gymnasium and temple to Zeus.

During Afghanistan’s civil war in the early 1990s, items from the 12th century palace of Mas’ud III were looted and distributed through international black markets.

The National Museum in Kabul, established in 1919, was extensively damaged and looted in the period immediately following the end of communist rule in 1992.

The “Dead Seas Scrolls of Buddhism” — thousands of scrolls and fragments written on leaves, bark, parchment and copper containing Buddhist sermons and treatises from as early as the 2nd century AD — were smuggled out of Afghanistan and dispersed among various manuscript collections from 1994 to 2001. Some were looted from the Kabul museum, but most were found in caves in the region of Bamiyan in the 1990s.

From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban outlawed almost all forms of art while systematically looting and destroying libraries and museums, and persecuting anyone considered to be an expert or academic.

The Taliban were ruthless in their destruction, but also strategic. They saw Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic art and culture as a resource to be used and abused where possible to aid their international objectives.

Most infamously, during their final year in power they glorified in the demolition of the 6th century Bamiyan Buddhas while also decimating the already weakened collections of the National Museum.

Just two years earlier, in 1999, the Taliban Minister of Culture had assured the international community Afghanistan’s Buddhist heritage would be safe under his custodianship. In 2001, the Bayiman Buddhas were held hostage — and ultimately destroyed — while the Taliban demanded international recognition.

what does this mean For aFghanistan today?

The Taliban are again claiming Afghanistan’s heritage will be safe under their rule.

Statements have been released instructing fighters to protect and preserve historical sites, halt the plundering of archaeological digs, and forbid the selling of antiquities on the black market. Guards have been posted at the National Museum to prevent looting.

However, this initial charm offensive could just be the opening move in a longer strategy in which Afghanistan’s history and heritage will be once again held hostage. Priceless cultural treasures may be threatened with destruction.

Archaeologists and curators responsible for preserving Afghanistan’s national heritage were caught off-guard by the Taliban’s rapid advance. Many are now seeking to flee the country or are going into hiding.

The loss of these experts and custodians of Afghanistan’s rich heritage will mean there is nobody to protect its material past from neglect or looting. Nor will future generations of young Afghans be able to learn about their past from fellow citizens who have dedicated their lives to preserving it.

australia’s part to play in stopping illegal trade

Looted antiquities make up a lucrative international black market. There is a proven connection between these back markets and international terrorist groups such as the Islamic State.

As has been seen in Iraq and Syria, the looting and sale of the archaeological heritage of Afghanistan could be used to fund international terrorism.

Markets for illegally looted artefacts only exist while international collectors — including museums and galleries — continue to acquire stolen antiquities.

Afghanistan remains, first and foremost, a humanitarian tragedy and we must do what we can to assist the Afghan people.

But now is also the time for Australia and other liberal democracies to put in place stronger legal safeguards to prevent the trafficking of antiquities, in particular much stronger border security and customs measures for the detection and ending of this illicit trade. ** The writer is Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University *The writer is Professor of History, Macquarie University

Source- The Conversation, Sept. 15, 2021 (Under Creative Commons Licence)

reAlity bites for imrAn KhAn’s ‘new pAKistAn’

By shuja nawaz*

imran Khan became Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2018 after defeating entrenched dynastic political parties that had been alternating in government for decades. His Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had not been a strong force on the national scene but promised a ‘tsunami’ of change to produce a ‘New Pakistan’. It is struggling to fulfill that promise.

As Khan enters the second half of his five-year term, the situation does not augur well — partly because of the intrinsic weaknesses of his own government, and partly because of external factors that are hurting the economy. PTI retains a majority in the National Assembly but does not control the Senate, hindering Khan’s ability to fully enact his legislative agenda. Even though he faces a fractured and somewhat discredited opposition, an uncertain economy and turmoil in Afghanistan will affect his ability to manage Pakistan and prepare for a fresh election.

The PTI took office with a coalition of partners of various hues. Some had reportedly been persuaded by the military’s powerful InterServices Intelligence agency to drop their affiliation with the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz group and either run as independents or join the PTI. Others were opportunists who have jumped from one party to another over the course of their careers. This fractured PTI government found it hard to speak with one voice and offer a coherent vision for improving governance. Yet it muddled through, aided by an equally divided opposition that failed to mount a unified challenge.

A serious economic crisis exacerbated by COVID-19 forced Khan to seek external assistance, including from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — an institution he had criticised throughout his political career as a hegemon — and from both China and Saudi Arabia. In 2019–20, Pakistan’s economic growth rate dropped into negative territory at –0.4 per cent. It is now rising at 2–4 per cent, but this is still well below the 7 per cent or more needed to stay ahead of its population growth.

The IMF’s Pakistan program is in abeyance with its 6th and 7th reviews being folded into one. A key element will be Pakistan’s continuing poor fiscal situation and inability to increase revenues to fund its growth-oriented budget. Many see the expansive budget as a break with the austerity of the past and a first shot in the attempt to win the next election by increasing spending. It is also constructed on some questionable assumptions about increasing revenues on the back of a drop in global energy prices. If increased growth rates can be maintained and visible spending on development projects woos potential voters there is a possibility of an early election.

International experts do not have such a positive view of the country’s economic prospects despite some glimmers of hope. Pakistan expects to get some shortterm breathing room from an allocation in August of some US$2.8 billion Special Drawing Rights with the increase in the IMF’s capital base.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves also rose, aided by a surge in remittances. The constraints on air travel are slowing the flow of illegal currency, forcing people to use the new and improved official systems of the State Bank of Pakistan. It is estimated that remittances in 2022 will be around US$31 billion, though a slowdown is already evident. Foreign exchange reserves are around US$20 billion, although most of them are on call. COVID-19 also did not have the same devastating effect as it did in neighbouring India.

But foreign direct investment has dropped. And Pakistan remains on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force that monitors illegal money movements and terrorist financing — despite having addressed 26 of the 27 issues that put it on that list. Pakistan had successfully come off that list in 2015, and no doubt could do it again, but it fears that political reasons may be behind a push to keep it on the grey list. The next few months will indicate the likely outcome.

Relations with the United States will be crucial here, especially as Afghanistan has already come under Taliban control after the United States scrambled for the exit. This creates domestic problems for the Biden administration, and it may continue to blame Pakistan for supporting the Taliban. If the United States and other Western powers withhold diplomatic recognition and economic aid from a Talibandominated government, Pakistan will face a tough choice.

Should Imran Khan recognise the Taliban government and risk becoming an international pariah again? Russia, China and the Arab states may yet give it political cover for recognition of Taliban rule in Kabul. The first test of tacit US support for Pakistan will come in late September or early October with the completion of the IMF review. If the IMF approves continuation of its program for Pakistan, we should assume that the United States gave weight to Pakistan’s help with the Taliban negotiations and the US exit from Kabul. Or that the other Western powers supported it, even if the US was lukewarm or against it.

In November 2022, Khan will need to select a successor to his patron and partner in running Pakistan, army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. He appears to have built a close relationship with and dependence on a contender for the post — the current Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed. There is also the possibility of another, perhaps shorter, extension for Bajwa. If that happens then Hameed and other senior contenders will retire before the third Bajwa term expires.

But Pakistan’s fickle politics may alter that landscape, especially if the economy heads south. General Bajwa will also be shuffling the deck of the army’s top brass this October as some generals retire. What happens in the next six months may determine the future leadership of the army and the prospects for re-election of Imran Khan. *Shuja Nawaz is Distinguised Fellow in the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. His latest book is The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

Source- eastasiaforum.org, 6 September 2021.

rAhul gAndhi's 'operAtion CleAn-up' Amidst fAilure...

Contd. Froms pg 10

against him grew. The Captain knew what language the ruling BJP and its media love. Hence he began speaking that language.

It is not surprising that many of the Congress leaders, including Manish Tiwari, have raised the bogey of ‘border state’ and impact of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What is disturbing is, we don’t hear any of these leaders speaking on the incursion in Ladakh and Uttarakhand and seek a response from the government.

Navjot Singh Siddhu’s idiotic act provided the opposition a much bigger breather. As chief of the Punjab Congress, Siddhu was responsible for the ouster of the Captain, yet he remained sulking when Charanjeet Singh Channi was made the chief minister. Siddhu wanted everything so fast that he forgot that political acumen is not like the dialogues that he speaks in the Kapil Sharma Show. Siddhu should have the curtsy to work harder.

Amrinder Singh’s open flirtation with BJP has been exposed. During the last elections, he asked people to vote for him as it was his last tenure (he is already 80). But now he does not want to leave. The Congress appointed Charanjeet Singh Channi as chief minister and made the party's agenda clear to the people.

With Kanhaiya Kumar joining and Jignesh Mevani supporting the Congress, Rahul Gandhi seems to be interested in bringing in more people from outside in the Congress to strengthen it ideologically to take on BJP, while least bothering about those who are damaging the party from within.

Perhaps the Gandhis know it well that it is time to clean up the party, as majority of those raising issues are in fact weakening the party from within, as they have rarely spoken to the party workers on issues concerning the party.

As for Kanhaiya KumarJignesh Mewani, Rahul Gandhi appears to have made the right choice at the moment. Both of them may not have mass following, but they show political maturity. The Congress needs to get more such young voices into the party and give them an opportunity to lead.

If these youngsters, who have dynamism, work cohesively and with discipline, the future will be theirs, but if they continue to be in a hurry to grab the ‘opportunity’, not only the party but their own identity will be in crisis, as it has happened with Siddhu.

The Punjab crisis may have been blown out of proportion by the opponents of Gandhis, but it seems that they are now working to clean up the party. They must continue to cleanse the party before it becomes difficult to handle. Despite all the shortcomings and past sins, the Congress needs to survive for the good for democracy and for the people of India.

BJP knows it well that it can handle every other party and regional groups, but only the Congress has the capacity to be its real challenge. No alliance in India will be possible against Hindutva or BJP without the lead position of the Congress. Mamata Banerjee is trying to enter Goa and the North-East, while Arvind Kejriwal is trying his hand in Punjab, Goa, Gujarat and Uttarakhand. This will not help anyone except BJP.

BJP has used the narrative against Gandhis and the Congress in such a way that most of the regional kshatrapas including Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and now Amarinder Singh feel that Congress is their main ‘opponent’. This is the biggest irony of our democracy.

In the meantime, one can hope that the Congress will be able to put its house in order. It needs a cohesive party under the Gandhis, which can take BJP head on. At a time when the Congress is opening up and taking a correct ideological stand, it needs to be strengthened. The Congress’ ‘operation clean up’ must continue so that the party grows stronger and has leaders who are able to fight on the street and work with the masses, and not through TV channels. *Human rights defender. Facebook: https://www. facebook.com/vbrawat. Twitter: @freetohumanity

Source- counterview.net, October 01, 2021