Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2006, pages 34, 37

The Subcontinent

As Taliban Re-emerge in Afghanistan, Musharraf and Karzai Visit White House

By M.M. Ali

IN AN OCT. 16 letter to the editor of The Washington Post, retired foreign service officer Edmund McWilliams challenged an Oct. 7 op-ed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld entitled “Afghanistan: Five Years Later.” The Afghanistan Rumsfeld had described “does not exist,” observed the former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan in 1988 and ’89. “The Taliban and their allies are stronger and exacting greater casualties among NATO (which is now in command there) and U.S. personnel than ever before.”

While Rumsfeld may refuse to agree, McWilliams’ assessment more or less tallies with recent press reports coming out from Afghanistan. Pakistan hotly denies Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s charge that it has not been doing enough to curb Taliban border crossings into Afghanistan. Islamabad instead blames instability and the Karzai regime’s weakness for the continued trouble along the border between the two countries.

Adding to the charges and counter-charges, an Oct. 17 Associated Press report  quoted British Army Gen. David Richards, now leading the NATO forces in Afghanistan, as attributing the Taliban’s resurgence to a premature withdrawal of troops in 2001. “The Taliban were defeated…and it looked all pretty hunky-dory,” Richards said, but “the task was not fully done.”

The current approach is to seek the help of tribal elders to identify and destroy Taliban fighters in the border area. As part of this strategy, British troops withdrew from the southern Helmand province, and NATO dropped 500-pound bombs on a known Taliban hideout in Helmand’s Khod Valley, sending a signal that it would tolerate no violence in the area.

The NATO-led coalition hopes that if the attempt to gain the support of elders in Helmand succeeds, the policy may be extended to other parts of Afghanistan. It is not clear, however, where the loyalties of the tribal chiefs lie—especially in the poppy planting season before winter sets in. After all, the vast fertile lands these tribal lords control have made them very wealthy.

Clearly, in order to consolidate his rule Karzai must fight on many fronts. Despite U.S. support, however, he so far has not been able to extend his control beyond the capital city of Kabul.

Musharraf’s U.S. Visit

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf began his 18-day mid-September visit to the United States with an address to the U.N. General Assembly, reassuring its members of his continued fight against terrorists. While in New York he met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and successfully pressed for a revival of bilateral talks to further the Confidence Building Measures between the two countries.

In Washington he met with President George W. Bush, who later invited both Musharraf and Karzai to dinner in an effort to cool down differences between the two leaders. The diplomacy through dining approach seems not to have been a complete success, however, since the two neighbors have continued to accuse each other of facilitating the Taliban’s resurgence.

Extending his stay in the U.S. in order to launch and promote his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, Musharraf created a furor when he told CBS’ “60-Minutes” on Sept. 17 that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan back “into the Stone Age” if it did not cooperate with the U.S. in fighting terrorism. With Armitage denying that he made the threat, Musharraf proceeded to duck all subsequent questions, saying he was “honor bound” not to discuss the book until it was released.

Perhaps Musharraf knew that was virtually all the publicity his book would get. The London Economist of Oct. 7-13 did not think much of it, for example, writing that “The Pakistani leader’s memoir may be a best-seller, but it does him little justice.” The book received a subdued response even among Musharraf’s supporters in Pakistan, and the opposition pooh-poohed it.

Caste System Continues to Cast Shadows in India

During its 10 years of rule in the 1990s, India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made several attempts to establish Hindutva (a country of Hindus only). Some states such as Tamilnadu, Rajastan and Madhya Pradesh passed legislation banning Hindus from converting to any other religion. For centuries, lower-caste Hindus like the Dalits (also known as untouchables) suffered perpetual indignity and racial discrimination.

According to an Oct. 14 BBC report, the 50th anniversary of the late Dalit leader Baba Sahib Ambedhkar’s death was commemorated in the city of Nagpur, in Maharashtra state, by thousands of Dalits converting to Buddhism and Christianity. To prevent further conversions, the state of Gujarat, where BJP still rules, has reclassified Buddhism as being part of Hinduism. However, a major effort is being made to physically move the Dalits into states where such legal restrictions do not exist. There has been speculation in the Indian press that BJP elements are likely to launch a counter-campaign against the conversions, and this could take an ugly turn. The problem, tightly woven into the Indian polity, is much deeper than such periodic conversions.

According to the official government count, there are around 167 million Dalits in India. These millions of people are kept outside the mainstream and forced to perform only menial jobs. Brahmans, who sit atop the caste arrangement, assign tasks to the lower groups, with Dalits at the bottom. Speaking to the BBC correspondent, Joseph D’Souza, president of the Dalit Freedom Network, explained: “It is important to understand that this is a cry for human dignity, it’s a cry for human worth.”

U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

Because the nuclear agreement signed between George Bush and Manmohan Singh was not ratified during the regular session of the Congress, it now will come up in the lame-duck session after the Nov. 7 elections. While the bill’s fate will largely depend on the outcome of those elections, in principle it has sufficient support in both parties. Republican Senators Jon Kyl and John Ensign, however, have expressed opposition to certain aspects of the bill, and may delay its passage.

Even some Indian parliamentarians have expressed opposition to the agreement, fearing that the bill as it now stands will allow the U.S. a free hand to snoop into India’s nuclear weapons program.

Prof. M.M. Ali is a specialist on South Asia based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

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