The entry of the top level National Investigation Agency (NIA) into Kashmir has had a dramatic impact on a fraught situation drifting into an abyss. The NIA target was the extraordinary wealth amassed by the separatist Hurriyat leaders, and their next of kin. The trail led to money laundering and the financing of jihadi groups in the Valley. The start was Pakistan, and thence multiple routes, ending frequently at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, where the Hurriyat leadership were frequent visitors, taking with them heaps of cash.
The sums involved in hidden Hurriyat hoards are staggering. For instance, the veteran Syed Ali Shah Geelani and his sons and sons-in-law owned some of the valley’s swankiest apartment blocks, shopping malls, orchards, properties and the like. Sabbir Shah and the Mirwaz did much the same, while Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front owned the shops and commercial outlets in down town Srinagar, his holding amounting to the gargantuan sum of Rs 70 crore. The Italian Mafa or Latin American drug lords would whistle in admiration at the scale., would be happy and privileged to admit the Hurriyat leaders to their exclusive club of the good and great. Now under arrest, the good times for the Hurriyat are clearly over, the worst of times are beginning to unfold, as the mailed fist of the Indian state sets about its work.
Some of the Haj pilgrims to Islam’s holiest of holies were roped into the racket as runners; the trail was truly circuitous often passing through Nepal, Bangladesh, and smuggling dens within India itself. How come this enterprise had escaped the attention of the authorities in Delhi?
The stunning answer was that they were fully aware of its ramifications all along, that they went along with it in the hope of mollifying the Hurriyat leadership into some sort of political understanding acceptable to both parties.
The gob-smacking revelation was made on an Indian television channel by Ajai Sahni and retired Major General S.P. Sindhu. General Sindhu told of his service in Saudi Arabia, from where he dispatched detailed reports on the money laundering. Mr Sahni, a close associate of the late K.P.S Gill, the architect of the victory over Khalistani terrorism in Punjab, is one of India’s most respected security experts. Both he and General Sindhu pointed to the recent successes of the NIA as a primary cause of the turnaround in Kashmir.
As long as Indian policymakers mollycoddled the Hurriyat leadership, leaving jihadi terror groups free to enforce their writ across the countryside, rural folk were too frightened to talk. The moment NIA was given its head, was empowered to act as it saw fit and bring the guilty to book, the sources of information to the security forces multiplied. Terrorist sites, movements and personnel were identified permitting the counter-insurgency operatives to stay ahead of the game.
Ajai Sahni and General Sindhu welcomed the enabling measures of the NIA. These have brought an encouraging haul of terror operatives, some killed in armed encounters; others captured alive are singing like canaries.
Mr Sahni and General Sindhu warned that these development were merely the first effective steps in tackling and defeating jihadi terrorism. The copious documentary evidence in the hands of the NIA must be placed before the courts and the wheels of justice set in motion. Both men were critical of the general performance of the courts in the past. Dilatory procedures must be jettisoned and prompt justice instituted.
Both men cautioned against any slackening of the present efforts to return the Valley to normalcy. The loss of will have perilous consequences for the country.
Radical chic Rushdie predictably routine
The BBC’s decision to produce a radio play is based on novelist Salman Rusdie’s iconic work, Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker prize and the weightier Booker of Bookers. While claiming dubiously to being Indian, one has scarcely heard or read a positive sentiment on the country. Its warts are too well known to require retelling, but it does surely merit at least some passing praise, however tepid. There must surely be some praiseworthy Indian achievement, not least its survival, which was routinely dismissed as improbable by American and British doomsayers, irked that it chose to avoid Cold War entanglements and chart an autonomous course in international affairs.
The leaders of the speciously titled ‘free world’ sniffed contemptuously at India and cast their lot with Muslim Pakistan for reasons of realpolitik, foremost of which was currying favour with the oil-rich sheikhdoms of the Middle East.
Mr Rushdie, born in Bombay, migrated to Pakistan shortly after Partition. His bonafide passports, in order, were Pakistani and British, when he left Pakistan for higher studies in Britain.
Mr Rushdie has been a crusader against Indira Gandhi, hinting broadly in his fiction that she had murdered her husband. Prime Minister Gandhi sued Mr Rushdie for libel in a British court of law and won her case. Margaret Thatcher, as British prime minister, to her eternal credit afforded him the full protection of the state as a British citizen when under an Iranian fatwa death threat, despite his odious comparison of Britain and apartheid South Africa.
Mr Rushdie has complained of the ‘marginisation’ of India’s Muslims, a charge not without substance. But haven’t Muslim leaders made a significant contribution to this ‘marginalisation’ by their support for ‘triple talaq,’ which is banned even in Pakistan? Citizenship comes with rights and duties, does it not? You cannot cherry pick, as Muslim leaders in India are prone to do in public discussions of radio and television.
When the Muslim clergy turned out in force to protest at Mr Rushdie’s likely presence at a Jaipur Literary festival, the Congress government in Delhi denied him a visa. Consider again the case of Taslima Nasreen, the Bangladeshi novelist living in India as a refugee, who is denied permission to reside in Kolkata – her preferred choice – because of threats to set the city alight by Muslim mobs, instigated by their clergy.
Ms Nasreen a week or so ago, planned to visit the famous Ajanta and Ellora caves, but was prevented from entering the city of Aurangabad. She took the return flight to Mumbai. The Muslim mob baying for her blood at Aurangabad airport couldn’t have read her books, which are written in Bengali. Yet they found them anti-Islamic.
In some Muslim states blasphemy is punishable by death; in Pakistan mobs frequently carry out the sentences on the streets.
India is not an Islamic state. It has institutions of justice designed to uphold the rule of law. The record may be blemished, but such institutions exist, all the same. India has been attacked and is under attack from jihadi forces that are both domestic and foreign; Mumbai, which Mr Rushdie claims to love with all his passionate heart, was put to the sword in March 1993 and again on November 26, 2008. In between times it has endured bombings and deaths. The city’s fortitude in the face of such outrages calls for deep and unswerving admiration.
Mr Rushdie lives in New York, with never a word on Muslim ’marginalisation’ in the United States. Traducing America in these fraught times is risk-laden with possible expulsion. India is much the safer bet for crusaders like him.
A civilized document to savour
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote private letter to departing President Pranab Mukherjee, [a veteran member of the Congress party] which the latter, moved by its contents, has made public. It runs thus:
‘Pranab Da’ [an affectionate Bengali honorific of a younger person to one senior in years and not by ties of kinship, and male. Da is short for Brother. The female equivalent is Di or Didi]
‘Our political journeys took shape in different political parties. Our ideologies, at times, have been different. Our experiences are also varied. My administrative experience was from my state [Gujarat], whereas you have seen the expanse of our national polity and politics for decades. Yet, such is the strength of your intellect and wisdom that we were able to work together with synergy. The task before me was huge and challenging. In these times you have always been a father figure to me and a mentor to me. Your wisdom, guidance and personal warmth have given me greater confidence and strength.
‘You belong to a generation of leaders for whom politics was a means to selflessly give back to society. You stand as a great source of inspiration for the people of India. India will always be proud of you, a President who was a humble public servant and an exceptional leader. Your legacy will continue to guide us.’
Enough said.
