Kerry's Hyphenation of India and Pakistan Angers Indians

[Riaz Haq]

US Secretary of State John Kerry's current visit to India has aroused Indian media's anger with the Times of India  protesting that the secretary has "sought to draw parity between India and Pakistan".

In an article titled “Kerry’s soft line on Pakistan a sore subject,” Indian newspaper The Hindu complained: “Departing from his predecessor Hillary Clinton’s line of commiserating with the victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he opted to sympathize with the victims of the Uttarakhand flash floods instead.”

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For the last several years, Indian elites have been quite obsessed about de-hyphenating their country from Pakistan and fusing it with China by inventing such words as "Chindia". However, it's also clear from the Indian media reactions to Kerry's words that India's rivalry with Pakistan inflames far more passion in India than does India's self-proclaimed competition with China.

Robert Kaplan of Stratfor questions the Indian policy elite's obsession with hyphenation with China in a recent piece as follows:

Indian elites can be obsessed with China, even as Chinese elites think much less about India. This is normal. In an unequal rivalry, it is the lesser power that always demonstrates the greater degree of obsession. For instance, Greeks have always been more worried about Turks than Turks have been about Greeks.

China's inherent strength in relation to India is more than just a matter of its greater economic capacity, or its more efficient governmental authority.

Kaplan goes on to say the following about India-Pakistan hyphenation:

The best way to gauge the relatively restrained atmosphere of the India-China rivalry is to compare it to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan abut one another. India's highly populated Ganges River Valley is within 480 kilometers (300 miles) of Pakistan's highly populated Indus River Valley. There is an intimacy to India-Pakistan tensions that simply does not apply to those between India and China. That intimacy is inflamed by a religious element: Pakistan is the modern incarnation of all of the Muslim invasions that have assaulted Hindu northern India throughout history. And then there is the tangled story of the partition of the Asian subcontinent itself to consider -- India and Pakistan were both born in blood together.



It's a rarely acknowledged  fact in India that most Indians are far more obsessed with Pakistan than any other country. But the ruling dynasty's Rahul Gandhi, the man widely expected to be India's future prime minister, did confirm it, according to a news report by America's NPR Radio. "I actually feel we give too much time in our minds to Pakistan," said Rahul Gandhi at a leadership meeting of  the Indian National Congress in 2009.

The rise of the new media and  the emergence of the "Internet Hindus", a term coined by Indian journalist Sagarika Ghose, has removed all doubts about many Indians' Pakistan obsession. She says the “Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees". "They come swarming after you"  pouncing on any mention of Pakistan or Muslims.

Here's a video demolishing the Chindia myth:


Related Links:

Haq's Musings

India's Hostility Toward Pakistan

India-Pakistan Military Balance

BRIC, Chindia and the Indian "Miracle"

India's Twin Deficits and Soaring Imports From China

India Near Bottom on PISA and TIMSS Tests

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[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan's annual GDP rose to $252 billion (184.35 million pop times $1368 per capita) in fiscal 2012-13, according to Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 estimates based on 9 months data.

http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters_13/executive%20summary.pdf

By contrast, India's GDP for 2012-13 shrank in US $ terms to $1.84 trillion from $1.87 trillion a year earlier because the Indian rupee from 47.80 to 54. to a US dollar, according to Business Standard.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/rupee-fall-...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an India Times report on allegations of Indian intelligence orchestrating attacks on Indian Parliament and Mumbai hotels:

NEW DELHI: In what is certain to escalate the already vicious fight between the CBI and the IB over the IshratJahan "fake encounter case", a former home ministry officer has alleged that a member of the CBI-SIT team had accused incumbent governments of "orchestrating" the terror attack on Parliament and the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

R V S Mani, who as home ministry under-secretary signed the affidavits submitted in court in the alleged encounter case, has said that Satish Verma, until recently a part of the CBI-SIT probe team, told him that both the terror attacks were set up "with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation (sic)".

Mani has said that Verma "...narrated that the 13.12. 2001(attack on Parliament) was followed by Pota (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) and 26/11 2008 (terrorists' siege of Mumbai) was followed by amendment to the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)."

The official has alleged Verma levelled the damaging charge while debunking IB's inputs labelling the three killed with Ishrat in the June 2004 encounter as Lashkar terrorists.

Contacted by TOI, Verma refused to comment. "I don't know what the complaint is, made when and to whom. Nor am I interested in knowing. I cannot speak to the media on such matters. Ask the CBI," said the Gujarat cadre IPS officer who after being relieved from the SIT is working as principal of the Junagadh Police Training College.

Mani, currently posted as deputy land and development officer in the urban development ministry, has written to his seniors that he retorted to Verma's comments telling the IPS officer that he was articulating the views of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

According to him, the charge was levelled by Verma in Gandhinagar on June 22 while questioning Mani about the two home ministry affidavits in the alleged encounter case.

In his letter to the joint secretary in the urban development ministry, Mani has accused Verma of "coercing" him into signing a statement that is at odds with facts as he knew them. He said Verma wanted him to sign a statement saying that the home ministry's first affidavit in the Ishrat case was drafted by two IB officers. "Knowing fully well that this would tantamount to falsely indicting of (sic) my seniors at the extant time, I declined to sign any statement."

Giving the context in which Verma allegedly levelled the serious charge against the government, Mani said the IPS officer, while questioning him, had raised doubts about the genuineness of IB's counter-terror intelligence. He disputed the veracity of the input on the antecedents of the three killed in June 2004 on the outskirts of Ahmedabad with Ishrat in the alleged encounter which has since become a polarizing issue while fuelling Congress's fight with Gujarat CM Narendra Modi....

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/shocking-govt-behind-parliamen...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's Australian survey summary about what Indians see as key threats and issues:

KEY FINDINGS
74% of Indians are optimistic about the prospects for India's economy
80-85% of Indians see shortages of energy, food and water as big threats to their country's security, while 94% consider Pakistan a threat, and 83% consider China a threat
95% of Indians support the democratic rights of fair trial, free expression and the right to vote
96% of Indians think corruption is holding India back

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/india-poll-2013#pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a BBC report on US Ambassador James Dobbins acknowledging validity of Pak allegations of India's anti-Pak activities in Afghanistan:

Pakistan's concerns over India's presence in Afghanistan are exaggerated but "not groundless", US Special Envoy James Dobbins has told the BBC.

Islamabad accuses Delhi of fomenting trouble on its western border through its consular presence in the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad.

India denies the charge and says it is working on trade and development.

India has spent $2bn on development projects in Afghanistan and has strong diplomatic and trade ties with Kabul.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Dobbins said the Indian presence in Afghan cities was minuscule and it was "perfectly reasonable" because of their economic and cultural ties.

'Somewhat exaggerated'
Mr Dobbins, US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, has recently returned from a trip to the region along with the Secretary of State John Kerry.

He said that Islamabad was also concerned about the issue of "cross-border militancy".

"The dominant infiltration of militants is from Pakistan into Afghanistan, but we recognise that there is some infiltration of hostile militants from the other direction as well. So Pakistan's concerns aren't groundless… They are simply, in our judgement, somewhat exaggerated," Mr Dobbins said.

In the past, US officials have expressed such sentiments in private, but this is the first time that a diplomat has said it openly.

Kabul has often blamed Pakistan-backed militants for violence in Afghanistan.

The US too has expressed its unhappiness over havens provided to these militants in Pakistan.

Mr Dobbins said the issue had been discussed at great length with Pakistan.

"We do remain concerned about the relative freedom with which Afghan insurgents can operate out of Pakistan," he said.

"We believe that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US need to collaborate much more closely to deal with this threat of cross-border infiltration."

He said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was "quite warm" to the idea of talking to the Taliban and had asked Pakistan to facilitate contact between the Afghan High Peace Council and the insurgents.

He said he hoped that the talks could begin within the next three months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23598521

[Riaz Haq]

A crowd of Indian ruling Congress's "youth wing" attacked Pak High Commission building in New Delhi to protest against alleged killing of Indian soldiers in Kashmir. Here's a BBC report on Indian media's reaction to the latest round of LoC tensions in Kashmir:

Media in India are expressing mixed views on whether India should hold peace talks with Pakistan following the killing of five soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir.

India's army on Tuesday accused Pakistan over the incident, saying their troops had "entered the Indian area and ambushed" an army patrol in Poonch in the Jammu region.

A Pakistani military official, however, said "no fire took place" from their side.

The latest incident comes as the two sides are preparing for peace talks, the first since a new Pakistani government took office, to be held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The Hindustan Times, in its editorial, says that such "grave provocations have to be tempered with pragmatism. At the moment, to be very realistic, India's best bet is to talk to them and at least gauge what measures can be taken to avert such incidents in the future".

The Indian Express, on the other hand, feels that by cracking under pressure, the government has "put dialogue with Pakistan at risk".

The paper adds that "giving vent to aggression will only hurt at a juncture when the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is set to unleash a period of instability".

The Times of India, however, says the killings of five soldiers "needs to be condemned in the harshest terms" and the army must "beef up its preparedness and strengthen its tactics" at the border.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23628282

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an Economist magazine's piece on latest India-Pakistan spat:

These are far from the first killings along the disputed 740-kilometre (460-mile) frontier, much of it fenced and laid with mines, that separates Indian- from Pakistani-controlled land. As recently as January, the killing of two Indian soldiers—one of whom was beheaded—provoked intense public anger. Then, as now, the clash was followed by several days of exchanging rifle and mortar fire as both sides violated a ceasefire agreement signed in 2003.

Until this year, fatalities along the line of control had been steadily falling for a decade. The timing of the latest attack is noteworthy. The prime ministers of Pakistan and India are due to meet next month on the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York. The assailants perhaps hoped to prevent that meeting. Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan was elected in May promising friendlier relations across the border. During an earlier spell in charge, in 1999, he struck a bilateral deal with India, the Lahore Declaration.

Manmohan Singh, his Indian counterpart, is also keen on better relations. Anxious not to raise tensions after the latest attack, his government at first did not blame Pakistan’s army for it. A.K. Antony, the defence minister, called the assailants “terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan army uniform”. It took an uproar in the Indian parliament before he named the army directly.

Mr Singh himself kept silent for over a week, hoping that public anger would pass. Retired generals, who populate India’s television talk shows, along with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have shown no such restraint, lambasting both Pakistan and the Indian government. On August 12th a group of former soldiers and civil servants called on Mr Singh to refuse to meet Pakistan’s prime minister. Narendra Modi, the BJP’s de facto leader, accused Mr Singh of being “soft” on the neighbour. Perhaps all this is just what the attackers in Poonch wanted.

In Pakistan, the public reaction to the border incident has been muted. Even critics of Pakistan’s army do not think its soldiers were involved in the assault, instead blaming terrorists. Militants routinely wear army or police uniforms when attacking domestic targets. Much the same might happen along the border. Moreover, the belief is growing that the Pakistani army, long obsessed with a supposed India threat, now understands that home-grown militancy, as well as the instability that Afghanistan brings to Pakistan, are the more pressing issues.

A former Pakistani high commissioner to Delhi, Aziz Ahmed Khan, goes further. He claims that the army has been “on board” for years with the idea of normalising relations with India. It has no wish to strike Indians, or let militants do so, he says. Indian sceptics retort that some army connivance must be behind the latest attack. How else could the militants have crossed from and returned to Pakistan?

Even if the two prime ministers do meet, the violence reduces the chances that they will make much progress. Some advisers are urging Mr Sharif not to rush. India has a looming general election, due by May. The advisers have told Mr Sharif that Indian interlocutors cannot risk being seen to make concessions to Pakistan.

In the longer term, Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington, who has just written a book about India and Pakistan, is gloomy about the relationship. He predicts decades of trouble—“a series of crises punctuated by apathy”—whatever the good intentions of elected leaders. Islamists in Pakistan and recalcitrant bureaucrats on both sides have, in effect, a veto over peace efforts....

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21583654-more-violence-along-lin...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a story about India's obsession to overtake China:

India's rupee crisis has muted its obsession with overtaking China and with growth halving in recent years, international focus has been drawn to the development challenges in Asia's third biggest economy.

Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, and this week he wrote in The New York Times that since Indian independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32, and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold. In recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth rate to around 8% per year, before it fell back over the last two years.

He however acknowledged China's superior capacity to deliver public services and said that almost one in every 5 males and one in every 3 females are illiterate while less than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of schooling.

China's public spending on health is at 2.7% of GDP (gross domestic product) while India's is at 1.2%.

Sen says the inadequacies in education and health require more democracy not less, rather than moving closer to China's authoritarian system.

Jagdish Bhagwati, the other well-known Indian emigrant economist who is professor of law and economics at Columbia University, is a bitter rival of Sen's and they are each 79 years old.

Bhagwati, is best known for his work on trade and has been critical of Amartya Sen's model of growth, which he says has actually hurt the poor in India by not really supporting the market reforms in 1991 and pushing for a Food Security Bill which would create inflation.

India has a notorious reputation for bureaucratic red tape and Prof Bhagwati has no confidence in the political system delivering a significant improvement in public services.

Last month, 23 children, aged between four and 12, died after eating a lunch of lentils, potatoes and rice cooked at the school in a poverty-stricken village.

Forensic tests showed the meal was contaminated with monocrotophos, a lethal pesticide banned in many countries.

The infrastructure deficit was highlighted last year when there were huge electricity blackouts, affecting 600m people.

Arvind Subramanian, an Indian national, who is based at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, wrote:

[In Lord Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi, an underling of the British Empire heatedly warns his supercilious boss that Mahatma Gandhi’s impending protest march to the sea poses a far greater threat than the Raj realizes: “Salt, sir, is a symbol.” This elicits the memorable sneering put-down from the boss (played by Sir John Gielgud): “Don’t patronize me, Charles.”]

Subramanian asked: is power, or rather the power sector, today’s salt - - emblematic of both the pessimistic outlook and promise of India?...

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1026439.shtml

[Riaz Haq]

United States President Barack Obama telephoned Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday to inform him about his decision to visit India as chief guest of the Indian Republic Day.
Chinese President Xi Jinping had planned to visit Pakistan in September this year just before he had paid his maiden visit to India but had to cancel the trip at the eleventh hour because of volatile political situation in Pakistan.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang had made India the destination of his first foreign visit in May 2013 but had proceeded straight to Pakistan after concluding his India visit.
Nawaz Sharif expectedly adopted the me-too approach and asked Obama to visit Pakistan also but Obama did not make any commitment. Sample the quote of the Pakistan Prime Minister's Office: "The President (Obama) also assured the Prime Minister (Sharif) that he would undertake a visit to Pakistan at an early date, as soon as the situation normalizes in the country."
And if Japan promised $35 billion investment in India for the next five years when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Japan in August-September, China too has committed to invest $45.6 billion for economic corridor in Pakistan over the next six years when Sharif recently visited China.
The political message emanating from this is clear: the world is still hyphenating India with Pakistan.
Pakistan may be going through the self-destruct mode with myriads of problems. Top foreign leaders may be avoiding visiting Pakistan for security reasons and political instability and top cricket playing countries may have refused to play cricket in Pakistan for the same reasons.
And yet the fact is that the world is still cajoling Pakistan. The world is careful not to annoy Pakistan while improving relations with India. Why? The world is not much interested in forging trade and economic ties with Pakistan, a $250 billion economy, but deeply conscious of Pakistan's highly strategic location and Pakistan's biggest USP of being the only Islamic nation armed with a nuclear bomb.
One must notice a subtle new trend with regard to Pakistan over the years. When it comes to important foreign officials visiting Pakistan the number of security and intelligence officials is far more than the number of presidents or prime ministers or ministers visiting Pakistan. The reason is obvious. Foreign officials visit Pakistan largely to discuss their own country's safety and security, at risk mainly because of Pakistan's numerous sins of omission and commission.
That's why one would hardly hear about Pakistan attending major world summits like G20, G8 Plus, ASEAN, EAS (East Asia Summit) or BIMSTEC etc simply because Pakistan is not a member. Leaders of Pakistan have been so uni-focal on needling India by raising and nurturing terror machines for decades that they did not realise how much the world has changed and progressed in the past two decades.
For decades, the Pakistani military has indoctrinated its politicians as well as the masses as to how India is the biggest threat to the survival of their nation. What has been happening in Pakistan for the last one decade is absolutely different. Terrorist and fundamentalist outfits, flourishing in Pakistan, have emerged as the biggest threat to Pakistan.
More people have been killed in Pakistan by home-grown terrorists than in all the India-Pakistan wars till date. This is a fact which is now being acknowledged even by the powerful Pakistan Army also.
Against this backdrop, it should be embarrassing for India to be bracketed with a country like Pakistan. But the diplomatic heft which Pakistan had till about 2001-02 is no longer there.
Therefore, Nawaz Sharif may have urged Obama to raise the Kashmir issue with India during his January visit but in the heart of his hearts Sharif would know full well that nothing much is going to happen on this front...

http://m.firstpost.com/world/jinping-obama-heres-world-still-hyphen...

[Riaz Haq]

BBC News - Why is #India media facing a backlash in #Nepal? #GoHomeIndianMedia http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-32579561 …

One biting (Nepalese) cartoon showed a (Indian) TV reporter in the pocket of a gleeful Indian soldier posing with a box screaming Aid for Nepal.

"The shrillness, jingoism, exaggerations, boorishness and sometimes mistakes in coverage have rankled the host community," Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of the highly respected Himal magazine, tells me.
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Indian media's overdependence on access-based journalism means that a disproportionate amount of coverage often ends up on eulogising how their government and its agencies handle crises - there was similar criticism of the media's coverage by flood-affected people in the Kashmir Valley last year.

Some channels also pretty openly identify themselves with the ruling government and the bias is amply reflected in the coverage.
"The mainly social media backlash in Nepal does point to an irritation of local people with the way their tragedy has been covered by India," says Kanak Mani Dixit. "It is possibly time now for India's news channel to introspect and give some due respect to the host country."

There are mounting worries at home over the declining quality of Indian media and what many call the "tabloidization of news". Also, more disturbingly, as Prannoy Roy, chief of India's leading NDTV news channel worries, "Why is India becoming 'no country for honest journalism'?"

[Riaz Haq]

#Udhampur attacker is from #India Occupied #Kashmir, not from #Pakistan | http://geo.tv https://shar.es/1t6f4E via @sharethis

ISLAMABAD: The young man arrested from Udhampur for his involvement in an attack on a convoy of Indian security forces is a resident of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

Senior journalist and anchor for Geo News programme ‘Capital Talk’ Hamid Mir said the young man was a resident of a Ghat village located in Kulgam district of IOK near the Jhelum River.

The senior journalist also revealed that the attacker had worked as a bus conductor and was known popularly in the area as ‘jhalla’ (mad person).

According to Hamid Mir nine relatives of the attacker are among the fifteen people arrested from the village. The attacker’s immediate family has fled the village.

Sources told Hamid Mir that the second attacker, Nauman, who was killed is also a resident of IOK and that the plan of attack was made in Ghat village. Indian media had claimed that this second attacker was also Pakistani, belonging to Bahawalpur.

Indian media had labeled the attacker as “Kasab II” after the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Indian Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh also claimed the identity of the captured individual to be Mohammad Naveed Yakub aka Usman, resident of Faisalabad in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) dismissed Indian allegations stating that Usman is not Pakistani.