Greater likelihood of major conflicts

 A worrying aspect of some extremely costly and threatening conflicts in recent times has been that they seem to be getting prolonged.

worrying aspect of some extremely costly and threatening conflicts in recent times has been that they seem to be getting prolonged. The added risk is that the more prolonged they are, there are increased chances of escalation and a wider conflict which would be even more threatening for world peace. In the case of the Gaza conflict, at least several efforts for achieving ceasefire and peace have been made (all such efforts have also included the release of Israeli hostages) and for a considerable stretch of time there were reports on an almost daily basis regarding the progress (or otherwise) of these efforts.

Qatar and Egypt in particular have been involved in these efforts but they have been seeking the cooperation of others too, particularly the USA, in their efforts. The USA also claimed to have taken the initiative for peace at times. Then, even more significantly, there have been UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Despite this nothing has been achieved and the extreme distress of the people of Gaza is nowhere near ending despite increasing worldwide concern. On the contrary, other fronts of this conflict, which have existed from the beginning, appear to show a worsening situation. In this context, there was much concern recently regarding the increased chance of a bigger conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah on the Lebanon front.

In addition there have been several reports regarding the increasing violence and aggression in the West Bank region also. While in Gaza at least peacemaking efforts have been seen somewhat frequently, even though without raising much hope, in the Russia-Ukraine conflict the visibility of any serious efforts is even less. Of course, a significant peace effort was made at a very early stage of the war which had raised hope of ending this war within two months or so. But this effort was sabotaged by powerful forces. After this, no serious and sincere effort involving both sides has been seen. This is extremely sad and worrying due to the high risks of escalation and widening of this particular war. As it is, it is proving to be the most costly on-going war in terms of loss of human lives. However, the even bigger danger is that this war has the highest chances of leading to a direct confrontation between USA/Nato and Russia.

These two sides have about 11,000 nuclear weapons with them. Any possibility of a direct confrontation is widely seen to be a very serious threat not just to world peace but even to world survival. Keeping in view all these factors, the prolonging of the Palestinian and Ukraine conflicts is deeply worrying. At the same time, several other serious conflicts, like the civil war in Sudan, which are relatively much easier to resolve, have also dragged on for a long time inflicting high costs, particularly in terms of displacement of people. An overview of all the conflicts in the world also reveals that early solutions are getting more elusive. The Global Peace Index (GPI) which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness, covering 99.7 per cent of the world’s population, can provide an overview of the existing situation.

Produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the GPI has been frequently mentioned as the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. Its 18th edition in 2024 has presented important data which show the rising incidence and costs of conflicts and wars. One of the most significant findings of the report is that many of the conditions that precede major conflicts are greater now than they have been since the end of the Second World War. This is in line with several warnings voiced by leading commentators regarding the possibilities of the Ukraine war or the Gaza conflict escalating into much wider wars.

In addition, the number of conflicts is also increasing in various parts of the world. As the GPI tells us, there are currently 56 active conflicts, the most since the end of World War II, with fewer conflicts being resolved, either militarily or through peace agreements. This is deeply worrying, as this means that wars now tend to drag on for longer periods and the capacity of the international community or the United Nations to end them soon has decreased. This also means that the distress suffered by people due to conflicts and wars has increased. The GPI tells us further that the number of conflicts that ended in a decisive victory fell from 49 per cent in the 1970s to nine per cent in the 2010s, while conflicts that ended through peace agreements fell from 23 per cent to four per cent over the same period. If only four per cent of the conflicts are now ending with peace agreements, this is surely bad news for the forces of peace.

What has gone wrong? This question should be discussed very widely and seriously by all those who are committed to world peace. The latest GPI tells us that conflicts are also becoming more internationalised, with as many as 92 countries now engaged in conflicts beyond their borders, the most since the inception of the GPI in 2008, complicating negotiation processes for a lasting peace and prolonging conflicts.

Trying to explain this worrying phenomenon, the GPI argues that the “internationalisation of conflict is driven by increased great power competition and the rise of middle level powers, who are becoming more active in their regions.” Further, GPI 2024 tells us that although the measures of militarisation had been improving for the first 16 years of the GPI, the trend has now reversed and in 2024, militarisation deteriorated in 108 countries. The combination of these factors, GPI argues, means that the likelihood of another major conflict is higher than at any time since the inception of the GPI.

This should be a wake-up call as this finding is based on a lot of data and information. While the GPI indicates disturbing trends at several levels, its findings relating to increased possibilities of a bigger conflict and the decreasing possibilities of peace agreements contributing to the end of conflicts are the most worrying. Clearly there is much greater urgency for strengthening all forces of peace. The peace movements all over the world should be stronger and there should be much greater continuity of many-sided activities with the aim of strengthening peace.

BHARAT DOGRA

Source: The Statesman, 24/07/24

Ignoring Red Lines: Violence Against Health Care in Conflict 2022

 A report titled “Ignoring Red Lines: Violence Against Health Care in Conflict 2022” was released recently by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC). It revealed that the incidence of violence against healthcare workers in Mali increased by more than two-fold in 2022 in comparison to the previous year, 2021. A staggering total of 46 such incidents were identified, highlighting the heightened risks faced by those on the front lines of medical services.

lobal Insights: A Wider Perspective on Violence in Conflict Zones

The SHCC’s report extended beyond Mali, documenting 1,989 attacks and threats against healthcare facilities and personnel across 32 countries and territories plagued by armed conflict and political instability in 2022. Among these nations, Ukraine and Myanmar reported the highest number of attacks on healthcare infrastructure and personnel, underscoring the dire situation faced by healthcare workers worldwide.

Trends and Challenges: Understanding the Impact

According to the report, there was an overall increase in reported incidents of violence against healthcare in conflict zones in 2022 compared to 2021. While violence decreased in some regions like the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and Syria, it rose in countries across West and Central Africa, including Mali. This highlights the complex challenges faced by healthcare workers in regions grappling with ongoing conflicts and instability.

Mali’s Troubled Regions: Kidnappings and Looting

The Mopti region in Mali witnessed a distressing number of health worker kidnappings, with at least 26 healthcare professionals abducted in 11 incidents while traveling to or from work, non-profit bases, or remote areas to provide vital healthcare services. Additionally, regions such as Gao, Mopti, Sikasso, and Tombouctou experienced frequent looting of essential medicine supplies and equipment. Armed groups targeted health centers and communities, exacerbating the limited availability of healthcare services in these areas.

Consequences on Research and Activities

The impact of violence against health workers extends beyond immediate risks and physical harm. The SHCC report highlighted how international non-profit organizations suspended planned activities, including crucial research and health surveys aimed at identifying disease prevalence. The difficulties in conducting research and surveys due to violence not only hinder public health policies but also impede the provision of targeted healthcare services to vulnerable populations.

Teaching peace to humanity 

 

Why education is more than a way of being — it is an art of becoming

What is the priority of pedagogy for peace in the 21st century? Do we teach cultures and philosophies of peace at schools and universities around the world only to start new wars and conflicts? Is education for peace still a top priority in universities and colleges? And finally, does education help us to live a peaceful life and to bring peace around the world? These questions need to be in our awareness on a daily basis. Only then can we treat people, nature and most life itself in a more empathic manner.
In this light, education by definition is an ethical enterprise. In other words, education is more than a way of being; it is an art of becoming. It is not only a process of nurturing the human soul, as the ancient Greeks understood it through the notion of paideia, meaning the acquisition and transmission of excellence, but also what philosopher Bertrand Russell defines as “a certain outlook on life and the world.” The ancient Greeks understood paideia as the essence of culture and communication in a good society. The aim of paideia, Aristotle argues in Politics, is to enable members of a community to decide the political organisation of society. Therefore, we need to assess the paideic dimension of peacebuilding. This describes the ethical and spiritual foundations of tin or among societies.

Not just about security

As such, peacebuilding is not only about the security-sector reform of a society emerging from conflict; it is the medium- to long-term process of educating humanity with a special focus on the importance of promoting peace. In other words, in a world truly concerned about the happiness of future generations, peace and the process of taming violence in and among societies are continual, concrete, and the daily results of education as a learning process. In this process, the importance of autonomy and the nobility of spirit, which are primarily intellectual virtues, cannot be underestimated. Therefore, the main concern of education is to engender a certain character in human beings and to teach them the nobility of spirit and the moral common ground of actions. If that is the case, the aim of education is not solely an academic pursuit; it is a pursuit of moral wisdom.
Immanuel Kant, in his Lecture Notes on Pedagogy, says the aim of education “must be the moralisation of man”. The educational theory advocated by him is closely related to his belief in the moral progress of humanity which is a self-articulated and self-realised process of attaining intellectual maturity. However, Kant considers this self-educating process of humanity as a slow and gradual cosmopolitan process. “Our only hope,” affirms Kant, “is that each generation, provided with the knowledge of the foregoing one, is able, more and he process of rebuilding peace o bring about an education which shall develop man’s natural gifts in their due proportion and relation to their end, and thus advance the whole human race toward its destiny.”
There was a time when education was the highest task of human culture. However, in today’s world we have become dulled to what it means to be fully cultured or well-educated. Our modern world is without a vision of human society encompassing these two experiences. Likewise, peace, as a dominant idea for moral education in the past, has gradually experienced its isolation in the two fields of politics and international relations. As a consequence, the peacekeepers of today are diplomats and soldiers. Moreover, the peace education promoted today by institutions such as UNESCO and the UN General Assembly is far from being sufficient to prepare the future generations against war and violence.
As a matter of fact, teachers and educators teach values such as fairness, compassion, truth and freedom to Others, but they also confront these values while transmitting them in classrooms. Furthermore, every form of value education is the foundation for mutual evaluation of moral and social principles. To transmit moral, political and social values from one generation to another is not an ideological process. Schools and universitiSocialist German Workers’ Party. While Tagore invites us to consider the nature of education through a conscious relationship with nature and creativity, and as a path to bridge the gap between the educated and those who have not been educated, Nazi officers like Adolf Eichmann carried out mass murders while never permitting their consciousness to rise above the level of following rules and obeying orders.

Looking for moral leadership

Building peace and transcending regional and global conflicts cannot be left entirely to the action and volition of political leaders. What is necessary herewith is not political governance, but moral leadership. Moreover, moral leadership cannot prevail by instrumental reason, namely, to work with the elements as means to an end. What we need here is a massive pedagogical enterprise as a mode of “cultivation” of humanity. The effort to peacebuilding is, therefore, accompanied with a freedom from prejudice, exclusion and domination. An essential part of a definition and practice of a culture of peace is through education of non-violence that develops the quest for mutual understanding. This raises questions concerning the value of civic upbringing, as an individual process and as a process that a community goes through. Here education is not about learning facts, but to cultivate one’s judgment in order to be able to distinguish between the mediocre and the spiritually noble. If this is how things are in the context of the political, then education is not about repeating and imitating the already inherited values that are collectively accepted, but also es are not supposed to be ideological institutions where individuals learn to become loyal and obedient. Here resides the difference between Tagore’s Santiniketan and Hitler’s National If this is how things are in the context of the political, then education is not about repeating and imitating the already inherited values that are collectively accepted, but also about being able to create new values and norms in an autonomous way. It is certainly not ideological, but philosophical since it is exploration of constantly new questionings and a reactivation of the process of thinking. Such a process is an effective strategy for peacebuilding in today’s world where pedagogy for peace is not something that is currently articulated and practised by the mainstream politicians, practitioners and researchers of international relations.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace, Jindal Global University, Sonipat.

Source: The Hindu, 6-01-2017

Good policing can’t do much without a social transformation

The person acquitted after 14 years because there was no evidence against him in the Lajpat Nagar blast case brings out the importance of the findings of the People’s Tribunal on Acquitted Innocents in terrorism cases. The tribunal, led by former Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah, has talked about the “special nature of wrongfulness in terror prosecutions” and has suggested the government make erring police persons “criminally liable for the malicious acts done by them in their official capacity”. The tribunal went on to say: “In testimony after testimony, we heard of illegal and wrongful detention, torture in police custody, forced confessions extracted under duress, long incarceration, repeated denial of bail, to be acquitted finally years after their arrest.’’ This, in a nutshell, reveals the face of our criminal justice system. Not much remedy is in sight because of prevalent attitudes, such as the one aired by a Union minister who recently instructed the people to believe the police on everything that the law-enforcers do.

Repeated lapses in the delivery of criminal justice in matters of terrorism charges are not to be seen in isolation because they have prejudices and social conflicts built into them. It is not surprising that the Muslims form a large proportion of undertrials in India, higher than perhaps any other community, languishing in jail year after year, according to the data of the National Crimes Record Bureau. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes do not fall far behind them. All the data in existence show that it is some communities’ constant neglect and marginalisation which lead to prejudices being formed against them, an undertaking in which the moral majority plays no small part and co-opts the police in the exercise. The data from the National Human Rights Commission too support this.

The question of good policing is relevant mostly to the way it deals with ordinary crime in urban areas, or it affords protection to women and the elderly. But things such as detention without trial, extra-judicial murders, custodial killings, arrests without evidence, etc have much more to do with matters other than policing. In those cases the police are compelled to act because of social pressures; orders, sometimes illegal, from the government; class, caste or community divisions in society; plain party politics, etc. In those cases a police officer, even of high levels, is virtually powerless though he might be conscientious. Hence improvement in criminal justice means much more than uplifting the police system and the magistracy. It means a gamut of changes that lead to empowerment and a redistribution of assets and social power.

Source: Hindustan Times, 14-12-2016

It is our responsibility to fight the indifference and darkness around us

To explain what I am trying to say, let me share two heart-rending stories.

In the first, at the beginning of the week, a woman leaves her home in Gurgaon for her workplace. To board the Metro she enters the MG Road station from gate number two. She is surrounded by a sea of humanity. CCTV cameras keep an eye on every corner of the station and so do the soldiers of the Central Industrial Security Force. Suddenly a stalker attacks her with a knife.

In the presence of hundreds of people, the assailant stabs her 30 times. The woman cries out for help. She tries to escape and writhes in pain, but no one comes forward to help her. The attacker keeps stabbing her till she dies.

Hailing from a remote place in the North-East to make a living by doing odd jobs in Delhi, neither the woman nor her loved ones would have thought she would meet such a tragic end in the national capital.

The second story is from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Sarita Kumari, a junior engineer with the state government, is burnt alive after being tied to a chair in a house opposite her home. All that the police recover from the spot is her ashes and some burnt bones. With a lot of difficulty, on the basis of her slippers, Sarita Kumari’s mother manages to recognise that the victim of the barbaric act was her daughter. Like the woman from the North-East, Sarita could not have dreamt that she would meet such a violent fate despite having a government job in a large town in Bihar.

These heart-rending stories leave behind a number of questions since the person attacking the women wasn’t the demonic Ravan. In the past, there was just one Ravan, but now there are thousands of Ravans among us.

Those crying themselves hoarse about similar issues for political gains don’t express any sympathy for women, child and Dalit victims of such barbaric acts. Do you remember the “rape” on the Bulandshahar highway? The tears in the eyes of the victims haven’t yet dried, but the deluge of public sympathy for them that swelled up at that time for political reasons has already dried up.

Why am I diverting your attention from all the festive cheer a day after Diwali? Because there cannot be a better time to discuss such issues. Diwali is the festival that celebrates the victory of truth over falsehoods, of justice over injustice, and of light over darkness. Thousands of years ago, when the class-system was at its zenith, two princes of Ayodhya joined hands with the oppressed and the tribals to take on the most powerful emperor in the world and defeated him.

Of course, everybody knows that Diwali was first celebrated when Ram and Lakshman returned to Ayodhya after defeating Ravan. People were happy about the ushering in of Ramrajya. After South Africa, Gandhi, too, fell back on the pipedream of a Ramrajya. By linking Swarajya with Ramrajya, the Mahatma stimulated the interest in among Indians and worked miracles. Gandhi didn’t realise that one day Ramrajya would turn into a political slogan and evolve into a farce. The manner in which politicians in independent India have distorted the traditions of Indian politics has led to a number of challenges that are staring Indian society in the face. The two stories narrated above, and the Bulandshahar incident, are examples of such tendencies.

How will we secure freedom from these?

It is a fact that we are among the fastest growing economies in the world and our literacy is bringing economic benefits closer to the people. On the flip side, the growing urbanisation and indiscriminate use of technology hasn’t just made us citizens of the global village, it has also made us move away from human values to a large extent.

In a land where helping the helpless is considered a religious duty, a woman is stabbed more than 30 times at a Metro station in Gurgaon.

Instead of attempting to save the victim, people began making videos.

These days the propensity to make videos of victims of accidents or violence, instead to trying to save them, is growing. By doing this, they commit two kinds of crimes. First, they contribute to the creation of an insensitive society. While doing this they forget that tomorrow if they became victims of mishaps or violence, they would be treated in the same manner. Second, by posting these videos with sensational text on social media, they accumulate “likes” for themselves. But they don’t know that they are going from being spectators to becoming a spectacle themselves.

At times, it is tough to differentiate between the wordplay and dishonesty of intellectuals.

One hopes your homes would still be lit with the lamps and fairy lights that you bought for Diwali. It is likely you may be surrounded by the mess and dust created by the crackers last night. Don’t you think that today, fighting society’s indifference and darkness isn’t just the responsibility of Dashrath’s son but also yours? Just cleaning up your home and neighbourhood won’t do. You also have to uproot the demonic tendencies mushrooming around you.

Shashi Shekhar is editor in chief, Hindustan.

Source: Hindustan Times, 31-10-2016

Managing the Cauvery dispute

Judicial intervention often resolves questions that the executive finds too sensitive to handle. By directing the Centre to constitute a Cauvery Management Board within four weeks, the Supreme Court has created space for the water-sharing dispute to be handled in a scientific and responsible manner by a legally constituted technical body. The board, assisted by a regulation committee, is the mechanism prescribed by the Tribunal in its final order for implementing its award. It will be a technical body consisting of irrigation engineers and agronomists, and will have independent members as well as representatives of the basin States. It can formulate the manner in which water should be shared in a season of distress. The court’s intervention also exposes the helplessness of governments at the Centre in handling inter-State issues. It is part of a long historical pattern. It was at the instance of the Supreme Court that theCauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was formed more than a quarter century ago; and again, it required court orders to pave the way for an interim award to be passed in 1991, and for it to be notified in the Gazette of India later. It took another order for the Tribunal’s final award of 2007 to be notified in 2013, six years later. The court has done a significant service in nudging the Centre to provide a legal and technical framework for the equitable distribution of water.

This is not the first attempt to create an institutional mechanism. In 2013, the Centre notified the formation of a ‘Supervisory Committee’ consisting of the Secretary, Union Water Resources Ministry, as chairman, and the Chief Secretaries of the basin States as members. That the latest decision of the Supervisory Committee, which directed the release of 3,000 cusecs of water for 10 days to Tamil Nadu, did not find favour with either State shows the difficulties involved in managing inter-State disputes even through an institutional mechanism. The Supreme Court, too, has intervened to double the quantum of water to be released. All this shows that apart from permanent mechanisms, technical panels and seasonal adjudication, a spirit of accommodation is required among the basin States. Also needed is a clearer appreciation of the fact that the entire water yield in the Cauvery basin is not enough to provide for the requirements of both States. It is time for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to take a hard look at their agricultural economies: the area under cultivation, the number of crops per year and the water-intensive nature of the crops. Unless these are adjusted to suit the water availability, such disputes will keep surfacing.

Keywords: Cauvery dispute, Cauvery water issue, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu

Source: The Hindu, 22-09-2016

Sharing without caring

Emotions often trump reason. The Cauvery water dispute is turning out to be less about water and irrigation and more about linguistic chauvinism and regional identity. Nothing else can explain the mindless violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Supreme Court order asking the former to release water to the latter, keeping in view the distress situation in both States in a season of deficit rainfall. Many of the acts of violence have been perpetuated in the two States by chauvinistic, fringe organisations that have little to do with the farming community or its interests. It is clear that there is insufficient water in Karnataka’s reservoirs to meet the full irrigation needs of both States. The point of the Supreme Court order was to make the States share their distress and not to magically fulfil the needs of farmers on both sides. But political parties and some media houses, especially regional language television channels, have sought to portray the issue as one that pits the people of one State against that of the other. Indeed, the two major national parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, have taken different stands in the two States on this issue. No party or State government appears to believe it can afford to be seen as taking even so much as a conciliatory step toward defusing the crisis. On some previous occasions when Karnataka released water in a distress year the State government did so quietly so as to not give chauvinistic elements any opportunity to inflame passions.

Cauvery is an inter-State dispute, but this is no reason to turn the issue into a raging controversy that draws the peoples of the two States into confrontation. That Tamil-speaking people settled in Karnataka for generations are made to feel insecure, and business establishments run by entrepreneurs tracing their familial ties to Karnataka are targeted in Tamil Nadu are indications of how the water dispute goes beyond the interests of the people and becomes mixed up with the emotive issue of linguistic identity. Ideally, as stipulated by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, the technicalities of water-sharing should be left to the Cauvery Management Board, which is to monitor the water flows with the help of the Cauvery Regulation Committee and the respective State authorities. If Cauvery is not to be made a plaything in the hands of chauvinists, the governments of the two States as well as at the Centre need to send out a strong signal to the marauding mobsters that violence, in whatever name, will be put down strongly by the security forces. As laid down by the CWDT, the issue of water-sharing should be left in the hands of technical experts, and not politicians who are hostage to the emotions of a parochial fringe.

Keywords: Cauvery water dispute, Karanataka protest, Jayalalithaa, Siddaramaiah, Tamil Nadu protests

Source: The Hindu, 14-09-2016

The ABC of radicalisation

There is data to show that relatively better-off people are likely to take to terrorism.

Young Nibras Islam couldn’t contain his excitement after shaking hands with Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor. Without wasting much time, he announced it on social media. The quiet teenager was an enthusiastic football player in Turkish Hope School in Dhaka, where many of the elite families of Bangladesh send their children. Islam went to Malaysia for higher studies, but returned home a few months later. Then he disappeared.

When Islam appeared in public next, he was leading a group of over half a dozen gun-toting youngsters into Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan neighbourhood, which many of those terrorists used to visit occasionally until a few months ago.

According to investigators, Islam was directing the group as they went about murdering people, mostly by slashing throats of those who couldn’t recite verses from the Quran.

Except for probably a couple of madrasa students from Bogra, the rest of the attackers were all English-speaking elite from Dhaka who studied in some of the finest English medium schools, frequented the Gulshan café, listened to pop music and longed to meet celebrities.

Why the surprise?

The fact that the Dhaka attackers were mostly from privileged backgrounds is not surprising at all. There is enough data available in various academic studies to show that more educated, and relatively better off, people are more likely to take to terrorism than their poorer compatriots. That statistic is a stark warning to Indian law enforcement agencies that, of late, they might be searching mostly in the wrong places for potential terrorists — in poor Muslim ghettos and among the weakest of them.

Economist Alan Krueger of Princeton University who has done pioneering terrorism studies, argues in his book, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, that to understand who joins terrorist organisations “instead of asking who has a low salary and few opportunities, we should ask: who holds strong political views and is confident enough to try to impose an extremist vision by violent means?”

Prof Krueger points out that most terrorists are not so desperately poor that they have nothing to live for: “Instead, they are people who care so fervently about a cause that they are willing to die for it.”

Look at South Asia. While the region has had innumerable insurgencies, only few have produced suicide terrorism, the highest form of sacrifice for the aggrieved mind.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka produced almost 200 suicide bombers. Many recruits were beneficiaries of secular education. Among the suicide attackers were a few Christians, no Muslims, and the rest were Hindus. Religion was not a mobilising factor — an extreme sense of grievance against the Sri Lankan establishment was. In contrast, the Kashmir militancy did not witness suicide attacks until 1999, when a local boy drove a car packed with explosives into the 15 Corps headquarters. However, a vast majority of the suicide terrorists were from across the border.

There is a commonality between the two insurgencies. In both Sri Lanka and Kashmir it was a generation of educated youth who began armed movements in response to their perceived grievances.

The more educated are more susceptible to disappointment with the prevailing situation. And their outrage would be far higher too, compared to their contemporaries who are less educated.

This is a reality very visible within Indian insurgencies too, but our security and political establishment is not willing to accept that fact. Because the moment you accept that grievances of an educated and relatively better off person are the root cause of such a perverted response, then there is more pressure on you to initiate steps to address those grievances.

In the Kashmir Valley the new wave of local militants, primarily from four districts of South Kashmir — Pulwama, Anantnag, Kulgam and Shopian — are mostly from middle class families and have had a good education.

Not different is the story of the Islamic State sympathisers intercepted by the Indian agencies in the early phase of their operations. They were mostly educated and relatively affluent. Cuddalore-born, Singapore passport-holder Haja Fakkrudeen, who went to Syria, and his friend Gul Mohamed Maracachi Maraicar, who is in jail, fall into this subset.

Not very different is the story of Bengaluru resident Muhammed Abdul Ahad, a U.S.-educated computer professional who took his wife and children along to join the IS, but was intercepted at the Syrian border.

The stories of numerous others tracked by Indian agencies across the country as the IS fervour gripped West Asia a couple of years ago are similar.

Signs of trouble

However, of late there is a different narrative emerging, which is both disconcerting and portends trouble. This May in Delhi, and a few days ago in Hyderabad, the local police had to let off many of the so-called suspects they had arrested as IS sympathisers. Such irresponsible arrests by the security establishment will only add to the grievances that fuel modern-day terrorism.

If available data point towards the educated lot taking to terrorism much before their poor cousins, then India’s Central and State governments have a lot of steps to take, from reining in ministers given to making polarising statements as well as countering blatantly communal leaders across political parties. But addressing these real reasons to contain terrorism is to challenge the modern-day political playbook.

josy.joseph@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: Holey Artisan Bakery, Nibras Islam, Islamic terrorism, terrorism in Kashmir, LLTE Sri Lanka

Source: The Hindu, 8-07-2016

India ranked 141 in global peace index, Syria least peaceful

India was on Wednesday ranked 141 on a Global Peace Index -- making it less peaceful than countries like Burundi, Serbia and Burkina Faso -- with violence taking a 680-billion dollor toll on its economy in 2015.

In a ranking of 163 countries, compiled by global think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), Syria has been named the least peaceful, followed by South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

On the other hand, Iceland was ranked as the world’s most peaceful country, followed by Denmark and Austria.

India has moved up two position, from 141st last year, but the study said the country’s peace score has “deteriorated” over the past year -- which means the slight rise in ranking could be due to worse performance of others.

The report said that in the last decade, India’s position deteriorated when it came to peace “by 5 % largely due to deteriorations in the indicators measuring UN peacekeeping funding and the level of political terror”.

Within South Asia, Bhutan was ranked best (13th overall rank), while India was fifth followed by Pakistan at sixth (overall 153rd) and Afghanistan at sixth place (global 160th).

The report said, “India’s scores for ongoing domestic and international conflict and militarisation have deteriorated slightly. The country remains vulnerable to acts of terror and security threats at its shared border with Pakistan.

“As such, the number of deaths caused by externally organised terror strikes has risen over the year.”

At the same time, Sri Lanka saw the greatest upswing in its score in the region and the report attributed the country’s increased peacefulness to “better relations with neighbouring countries, particularly India”.

The GPI 2016 ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.

It further said that “violence impacted India’s economy by USD 679.80 billion in 2016, 9 % of India’s GDP, or USD 525 per person”.

The economic impact of violence on the global economy touched USD 13.6 trillion or 13.3 % of gross world product. The amount is also equivalent to 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment, it added.

According to the report, world became a less peaceful in 2016, mainly on account of increased terrorism and higher levels of political instability.

Rankings of 81 countries have improved but deterioration in another 79 outweighed these gains.

IEP Founder and Executive Chairman Steve Killelea said increasing internationalisation of internal conflicts has coincided with UN peacekeeping funding reaching record highs in 2016.

However, peace building and peacekeeping spending remains proportionately small compared to the economic impact of violence, representing just two % of global losses from armed conflict, he noted.

“In 2015, violence containment expenditure in India totalled USD 679.8 billion PPP, an increase of 7 % from 2008. At 9 % of GDP this was ranked 65th in the world,” Killelea said.

As per the report, addressing the global disparity in peace and achieving an overall 10 % decrease in the economic impact of violence would produce a peace dividend of USD 1.36 trillion. This is approximately equivalent to the size of world food exports.

Source: Hindustan Times, 10-06-2016

Fighting terrorism with the big boys

India isn’t a serious target for al-Qaeda and now ISIS despite appearing on their imaginary maps. But instead of being thankful for this situation, a number of Indian journalists and policymakers seem anxious that the country be recognised as a victim of globalised terrorism, and so an ally of the Europeans and Americans fighting against it.

Indian columnists and television anchors have vied with each other to draw a connection between the recent Paris attacks and those in Mumbai seven years previously. They have, of course, been right to do so since the earlier attacks served as precedent for a novel form of militancy — one in which a whole city could be paralysed by the coordinated, yet random, killing of people held captive in places of entertainment and public passage. Even the blasts of 1993 had made Mumbai an experimental site of militancy, for they were the first serial bombings of a city and targeted not specific places or people but the metropolis as a whole. Featured as it is in Hollywood films as well as best-selling novels, Mumbai is India’s only globally iconic city and so provides an appropriate setting for terrorism. In fact, such attacks even contribute to the city’s glamour by adding the Leopold Café to every tourist’s list of must-see places in Mumbai.

Mumbai is not Paris

Faisal Devji

Despite its role as an easily accessible and internationally recognised site for terrorist innovation, however, Mumbai doesn’t belong in the same group as Paris, London, Madrid or New York as targets of al-Qaeda and now Islamic State (ISIS) terrorism. India isn’t a serious target for these groups despite appearing on their imaginary maps like so many other places. But instead of being thankful for this situation, a number of Indian journalists and policymakers seem anxious that the country be recognised as a victim of globalised terrorism, and so an ally of the Europeans and Americans fighting against it. This longing to join the all-white club of terrorism’s leading enemies can even be seen as a perversion of the older desire that India take her place among the great powers. Indeed, the British Prime Minister’s recent speech introducing his Indian counterpart to a largely Gujarati audience at Wembley Stadium made precisely this link.

Shared threat of terror

Shifting uncomfortably between craven supplication and post-colonial paternalism, David Cameronpromised Britain’s help in making India a permanent member of the UN Security Council. But he also claimed that in addition to possessing virtues like democracy in common, the two countries also shared terrorism as a threat to their existence. This is of course false, as apart from murdering British or Indian citizens, such attacks can at most threaten only the electoral prospects of governments unable to prevent them. By mentioning the shared threat of terrorism, Mr. Cameron was in effect appealing to what he may have imagined was an anti-Muslim audience of Hindus, though they seemed rather taken aback by his insinuation. Narendra Modi, too, ignored his host’s dog whistle politics and explicitly included Muslims in his description of India’s dynamism.

David Cameron’s invocation of terrorism in Wembley was disingenuous since in common with the British press, he rarely includes India in any discussion of militancy. Whatever his motives, correct about Mr. Cameron’s stance is the recognition that however novel and destructive its manifestation there, Islamic militancy in India continues to be defined by politically conventional causes rather than global ones. Involved in a bombing campaign some half a dozen years ago, the Indian Mujahideen, for example, were obsessed with avenging what they saw as the persecution of Muslims in their country, but had no vision of a future outside the Indian nation state. The Kashmiri militants of the 1990s, for their part, wanted autonomy, independence or a union with Pakistan and were never interested in caliphates or battles outside India. Similarly, Pakistan-sponsored groups are focussed on the conflict between the two states rather than some global war.

Naturally, there are and will always be Indians who gravitate towards global forms of jihad, but they don’t form a coherent group, and seem to be put to the kind of menial tasks that Indians and other Asians tend to do in West Asia more generally. Then there are those who appear to live vicarious lives asjihadis, like the mild-mannered, young professional in Bengaluru who was discovered some months ago to be running the most bloodthirsty web forum dedicated to the war in Syria. He, too, seemed to have no interest in attacking India, and like so many of those attracted by ISIS, was more concerned with the threat supposedly posed by the Shia and other sectarian minorities. If anything, then, global forms ofjihad become popular in India for reasons having to do with internal cleavages within Islam rather than some undying enmity towards Hinduism or Christianity.

Sectarianism as trigger

The importance of sectarian violence may even signal the coming apart of Islam itself as a category, one that in any case only dates from the 19th century. For Islam is a term that appears a couple of times in the Koran, and for most of Muslim history does not seem to have named any kind of singular or unified entity like a religious system but instead a set of attitudes or practices. Hastened by political and economic problems in different parts of the world, the unmaking of Islam gives rise not only to unprecedented levels of sectarian conflict, but to atheism, conversion to other religions and new forms of Muslim devotion as well. This is the bigger picture within which the issues tearing apart Muslim communities as well as bringing them together in new forms need to be placed. Sectarianism then may well be the entry-point for global forms of Muslim militancy in India.

Globalised forms of militancy have only taken root where the state is failing, as in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq, or where it is despotic, as in Saudi Arabia and Syria. A third case involves European countries, where neoliberalism has reduced the state and its politics to a kind of management, and that too one often delegated and outsourced to the bureaucracy or private sector. The European Union for instance, while it is indubitably a political entity, is unprecedented in that apart from a currency, it lacks every other sign of sovereignty, and has therefore to be managed by central banks rather than governed by representative institutions. In this situation, “culture” often comes to take the place of old-fashioned politics as a site of contestation, something that at the domestic level produces both Muslim identity politics and the opposite demand for a secular national culture, as well as the famous “clash of civilizations” at the international one.

While India is not immune to the politics of culture, the state continues to dominate social relations there in such a way as to define, if not produce, all forms of resistance as well. But by the same token, it limits such resistance so that Islamic militancy in India remains conventional and bizarrely even “nationalist”. Yet, while the procedures of anti-Muslim violence generally remain visceral, low-tech and highly traditional in their confinement to the riot form, that of anti-Hindu violence now relies upon bombs and other remote-controlled means of killing at a distance. And while this pattern of high-tech violence might result from the lack of popular support as much as the disparity of numbers and power involved, it also indicates the way in which Muslim forms of terrorism appear to be gravitating towards those deployed by globally dispersed jihadis. And yet they remain tied to the nation-state, which thus becomes both the cause and cure of militant Islam in India.

(Faisal Devji is Reader in Indian History and Fellow of St. Antony’s College in the University of Oxford.)

Keywords: Al-Qaeda, Paris Terror Attacks, Islamic State, IS, Mumbai terror attacks, 26/11, terrorism, Narendra Modi in UK

Source: The Hindu, 30-11-2015

Idea of Bombay, making of Mumbai

The most hopeful human stories and the most polarising conflicts have played out vividly in this city by the sea. On the seventh anniversary of 26/11, a personal history of Mumbai

People like me, people who came of age in the eighties in middle-class urban India, grew up in a different India. We were something of an in-between generation. Our grandparents lived through the transition from colony to nation; our parents grew up in the years of nation building. We grew up taking independence and a certain degree of development for granted, without having all the gadgets, the conveniences, the consumer goods, and the general first world-ness that the young of today were born into.

We also grew up with messages of unity in diversity surrounding us. We were all one, despite our religious and cultural differences, advertisements and pre-movie short films (and when TVs came into our homes, Doordarshan) told us. ‘Ek, Anek’, as a particularly cute animated short put it.

Peter Griffin

And while even our young minds knew there was an element of propaganda here, we chose to believe in it, or at least to subscribe to the notion that that was the way things should be.

To stripling me, Bombay pretty much exemplified this. After living in Visakhapatnam, Secunderabad and Madras, none of them small towns by any means, I was now in a true metropolis. The neighbourhood where we lived, the kids in my school, the markets, the buses, the trains, most of all the trains: all of this city teemed with diversity; it was like living in a Films Division short.

I grew up, with more friends whose families had come here from various parts of India — one, two, maybe three generations ago — than those who could claim centuries of city-born ancestry. Quite natural in a city that did not really exist as a city before hunks of its hills were toppled into the gaps between islands to make new land. We celebrated each other’s holidays and high days with gusto, visiting each other, sending across sweets and savouries to each other to better share the joy.

When you visited relatives back in the ‘native place’ during the summer holidays — in this city of migrants, everyone seemed to be from somewhere else — your Bombayness was acknowledged with gentle proscriptions along the lines of ‘you can’t do X here; this is not Bombay.’

The way it was

Don’t get me wrong. It is not that the city was immune to communal and religious divides, that caste and class lines did not exist — it would be beyond childishly naive to suggest that — it was just that it felt like we were living in a country that was trying to rise beyond those schisms and, more important, in a great city that was leading the way in that effort, a city that had always been a pioneer in progressive thought. (Remember the Quit India movement? Remember where it was launched?) In Bombay, one could believe, the place you were born in, the god you bowed to, the language you spoke, the food you ate, none of these would stop you from making it as long as you were willing to work hard.

That changed in 1992. The demolition of the faraway Babri Masjid that December brought riots to Bombay. For those of us who lived here through those times, there was a chill in the air far colder than the city’s puny winters could ever bring. Men shaved off their beards lest they be mistaken for Muslims. Nominal Christians who weren’t the most regular of churchgoers made sure their crosses were visible. Nameplates that had names easily identified as being from the ‘wrong’ community were taken down, leaving behind clean rectangles on otherwise weathered walls and doors. The first mentions of vegetarian housing societies came up. People talked softer in trains and buses for a while. Those riots, the ones that followed in January 1993, and then the bomb blasts that March, they killed many innocents. And they also delivered a mortal wound to Bombay’s belief in its invulnerability from the small-mindedness lesser towns and cities were plagued by. When the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition that came to power in the next state elections renamed the city Mumbai, it was just a literal ending to the idea of Bombay; that city had already become something else.

Through flood and fire

(Melting pot: “Bombay was all about differences coming together and somehow working.” Picture shows a stretch at Dharavi. Photo: AP)

Mumbai is still a resilient city. As we sprang back from the riots of 1992 and 1993, so did we recover, quickly, from the cloudburst and floods of 2005. We survived the body blows of the multiple blasts that ripped apart local trains in 2006. We got through the full frontal terror attacks of 2008, the seventh sad anniversary of which we mark this week. Yes, even then, we stopped what we were doing and stayed home and watched our televisions, but we were soon back at work, a little quieter, a little more thoughtful, a lot more fearful, but what does one do, livings must be earned. Each time, we went back. We regained our swagger and our style.

Mumbai, like Bombay, has no time to spare, where distances are measured in minutes and hours, not kilometres. It is still a place that rewards hard work, where fortunes can be made from humble beginnings.

Mumbai is a more crowded city than Bombay ever was, but that was inevitable; gold-paved streets are magnetic, but an island only has so much space in which to grow. And this has meant that we pay ludicrous prices for the cubes of air we call our homes, that we spend precious hours just getting to and from our places of work, that our open spaces are threatened, that builders can buy politicians and bureaucrats will conspire. (For me, it’s meant that my family had to move out of the city, to its little sister across the creek. Once it was called New Bombay, then the municipal signboards welcoming you to the city were blackened with tar, and a new name was painted over it in rough letters: Navi Mumbai. That name become official too. Just history repeating itself in a different geography.)

Mumbai is still safer for women, for children, for the aged, than most other cities are. It is still a home to the arts and culture and sport and entertainment and all the fine things that are worth working hard for, the better to appreciate and enjoy them.

We live more comfortable lives, certainly, than most of India. We can take our electricity for granted most of the time. And though we panic about the water levels in our lakes, we somehow make it through each year until the monsoons arrive. Our air is far from clean, but the sea breeze bails us out most days, blowing away some of the smog.

And yes, we are richer. And yes, we have so much that more developed countries have, the big brands and the High Streets, the glass towers and the luxury cars. Heck, we may not be Shanghai yet, but we have our very own suspension bridge.

But in the Mumbai of today, it has become okay to talk of the Other.

Bigotry is now legitimate; it no longer speaks in whispers, it is loud, it shrieks on our streets, shuts down shops, and sometimes the whole city. It does not want you to live in its buildings, it does not want you to cook your way, dress your way.

In this unsentimental city, hurt sentiments take centre-stage more often these days. (And we, the media, cannot absolve ourselves from blame for providing a steady stream of the publicity to the publicity-seeking hurt sentiment that comes our way.)

Again, don’t get me wrong. Just as it was not a total free thinker’s paradise when my generation was growing up, it certainly is not hell in which we find ourselves in our middle age. Things are undoubtedly and demonstrably worse in other parts of India and, yes, the world.

We will survive

“Mumbai, like Bombay, has no time to spare… It is still a place that rewards hard work, where fortunes can be made from humble beginnings.”

Mumbai still is, and regularly proves itself to be, more progressive in its thinking than most places. In Mumbai, hard work still rules, and good ideas can still find a home. In Mumbai, you can still say what you believe, and be sure that no one will try to kill you if what you say offends them… reasonably sure, that is. I can still casually call the city Bombay, as an old friend can do, without more than the odd idiot on Twitter scolding me. Perhaps one day louts-for-hire may gherao this newspaper’s office if their paymaster’s delicate feelings are hurt by something we say, but this newspaper will still come out the next day, and its journalists will still walk the streets unafraid.

But here’s the thing. Today, liberal voices are more hushed; free speech advocates now censor themselves. This can only be a bad thing in a city founded on free movement: of people, of goods, of money, of ideas.

Bombay was all about differences coming together and somehow working. Bombay celebrated its differences, made the most of them and like some medieval alchemist, it conjured up success and growth. One couldn’t expect any less from a city that was imagined up out of seven islands and lots of swamp and sea.

But maybe that’s a lot of poetic tosh, born of too much brainwashing by the Films Division in one’s formative years.

Perhaps the Idea of Bombay began to die before the name did. And perhaps now, while it still gasps for breath, it’s really past hope and we should let that idea go. That would make me sad.

There’s a part of me, though, that doesn’t want to believe that: the part of me that still calls the city Bombay, as if using that name would conjure it back into existence. Who knows? Maybe there are enough of us, and if we all think about it really, really hard…

(Email: peter.griffin@thehindu.co.in)

Keywords: Mumbai, human interest