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c m y k c m y k

10 JULY 2010

Endgame in Kabul

THE ASIAN AGE

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New Delhi Saturday 10 July 20106

Editorial

AGETHE

SOCCER FANS SHOULD

TAKE CUE FROM ARGIES

Sir, My respect for Argenti-nas soccer fans increased

manifold seeing the way theyreceived their national foot-ball team. Coach DiegoMaradona and his teamreceived a warm welcomefrom thousands of fans whoturned out to greet themdespite the sides World Cupquarter-final elimination.Fans, dressed in the blue andwhite shirts of the nationalteam, held up banners pro-claiming Argentina! andDiego, Diego. In the quar-ter-finals, while Germanydominated every sector of thefield, Argentina paled in com-parison and Messi left thetournament without a singlegoal. In spite of facing a 0-4loss against Germany, thepeople of Argentina still sup-port their team and coachMaradona. Soccer fans ofother countries should take acue from this.SUBHASHMITTALVia email

BANDH WAS CALLED TO

GET POLITICAL MILEAGE

Sir, The BJP is buoyed byfeedback that it has succeededin connecting with the publicacross the nation for the firsttime since 2004 after years offutile struggle to free itselffrom its India Shining bag-gage. The hefty rise in theprices of essential commodi-ties is a source of worry forall, but a Bharat Bandh is notthe solution. It only adds tothe woes of the harried citi-zens, particularly the poor,whose cause the Oppositionparties were supposedly fight-ing. Price rise is not at thecore of the protest, which hasbrought together parties as

disparate ideologically as theBJP and the Left. They wantto derive the maximum politi-cal mileage out of the publicsentiment against the rise infuel prices. It is here that theOppositions hypocrisy standsout.

J. SESHAGIRI

Mysore, Karnataka

OCTOPUS ORACLE & ITS

UNMATCHED RECORD

Sir, Germanys now world-famous oracle octopus hasmaintained his perfect record.The psychic creature hascorrectly predicted all six ofGermanys World Cup games.Amid drama broadcast live onnational television in Ger-many it chose Spain, causinganguish to German fans. TheGermans, who have been veryaggressive throughout thetournament, looked lacklustrein the semi-finals. Spain dom-inated Germany throughoutthe match and they deservedto win. The Germans will nowplay Uruguay for the thirdposition. The octopus haspredicted that Germany willdefeat Uruguay. Now,whether Paul, the octopus,would be proven rightremains to be seen.TUSHARKANOJIA

Via email

letters

The object of educationis to prepare the youngto educate themselvesthroughout their lives.

Robert M. Hutchins

Within yourself deliverancemust be searched for,because each manmakes his own prison.

Edwin Arnold

MIND

POWER

Dont let food rot,improve granariesTHE RAIN gods bounty could turn catastrophic in states likePunjab, Haryana and Himachal which are the nations granaries.We have seen earlier how even in good weather tonnes of food-grain lying in the open have been destroyed by natural elements,as well as rats and insects; thus one need not be surprised at thedevastation caused by a few days of heavy monsoon showers. Sta-tistics about the extent of crops destroyed vary, but some monthsago, according to one estimate obtained through the Right toInformation Act, improper storage and negligence had led to14,000 tonnes of rice, wheat and paddy becoming totally unfit forthe distribution system. It is also evident that the government hadfailed to take any action to fix responsibility for such largescaledestruction despite an assurance given to Parliament by theagriculture minister in August last year. The minister had thentold Parliament that a team would be constituted to probe the mat-ter and corrective action taken. But nothing was done, and therewas not even a hint of an apology from the minister for not deliv-ering on a promise made to Parliament. According to another esti-mate, foodgrain stocks worth a mind-boggling Rs 50,000 croreshave been destroyed over the past few years due to negligence and

the absence of proper storage facilities.It is nothing less than a shame that in spite of its impressivetechnological and scientific advancement, India has still not beenable to devise a scientific way to store foodgrain or to handle itsdistribution in all kinds of weather. There is talk now of sending adelegation to China to examine how that country, which too isplagued by the problem of floods and overflowing rivers, handlesthis problem. The Food Corporation of India is mandated to main-tain a satisfactory level of operational and buffer stocks of food-grain to ensure national food security. Should it not be heldresponsible for such wanton destruction of the countrys foodwealth? How can any democracy, or any country which considersitself civilised, condone destruction of Rs 50,000 crores of food ina few years? And what kind of food security are we talking aboutwhen India ranks 66th out of 88 countries in global hunger index:a country where one child in four goes to bed hungry? The FCIsefforts, such as they are, appear grossly inadequate, even in themuch-heralded public-private partnership initiative to build stor-age capacity for which the government, inexplicably, reducedfunds in the 11th Five-Year Plan.

There is talk of a Food Security Bill being introduced in thecoming Monsoon Session of Parliament. This will work only ifthe implementing authority is made accountable for ensuring thatfood reaches every Indian at a reasonable price. It is dishearteningthat till now both the Government of India as well as its agricul-ture minister have shown a dog-in-the-manger attitude when it

comes to providing the poor with food. Do they really prefer tosee the grain rot rather than give it away to starving people in theirown country? Punjabs agriculture minister had requested theCentre, specifically agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, to distrib-ute the rotting grain lying in the open free to the poor, but he wastotally ignored. There is a lot that the government can do if it isreally interested in not letting the grain that cannot be stored forwant of capacity simply rot in the open for one, it can stillintroduce a food-for-work programme under the National RuralEmployment Guarantee Scheme.

PAWARS LOVE FOR

CRICKET IS EVIDENT

Sir, After taking over asInternational CricketCouncil president, Unionfood and agriculture min-ister Sharad Pawar isneck deep in cricket.Instead of asking PrimeMinister ManmohanSingh to reduce his work-load, he should quit theUnion Cabinet. Heshould devote his entiretime to cricket, whichseems to be his first love.Since the governmentplans to bring a nationalfood security law, thepublic distribution sys-tem requires effectiveplugging of loopholes anda full-time minister isrequired to implementthe ambitious pro-gramme. Given the crisisin agriculture, this min-istry needs a dynamicminister.

J.S. ACHARYAHyderabad

HEREANDNOW

BySudhirTailang

THESE ARE testing times inAfghanistan: Both for theUnited States and for India,although for entirely differentreasons. The war, as everyAfghan watcher knows, is goingbadly for the US and NorthAtlantic Treaty Organisation(Nato) forces. June was theworst month for foreign troopsin that country with 102 combatdeaths, which is the highest level

of monthly casualties since thebeginning of the war. Also, theAfghan war by end June hadofficially become Americaslongest war in history, longerthan even Vietnam.

General Petraeus takes chargeat a bad time. His predecessor,General Stanley McChrystal,was sacked unceremoniously ata time when it is believed thatWashington bigwigs are lookingto political solutions that wouldexclude Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai and make dodgydeals with the enemy to forgepeace.

If anybody is exulting, it isPakistans military establ-ishment. The Afghanistanendgame is going their way andthe hope is that the summer of2010 will demonstrate thisconclusively. If that happens,they would have effected aremarkable turnaround. For,nine years ago, the Pakistanimilitary establishment was inthe dog house. It had beenthreatened with extinction,humiliated and told to get lostfrom Afghanistan.

Today, the jihadi protgs ofthe Pakistan Army, the Talibanas well as fighters led by theelusive Jalaluddin Haqqani, are

calling the shots. The Pathantribes of Pakistans frontieragencies are also back in action.Fighters from Waziristan in thesouth to Bajaur and Swat in thenorth regularly cross over togive battle to Nato troops inAfghanistan. This is like the oldtimes of the Soviet jihad. Today,Pakistani security experts andretired military officers areopenly saying that the US has

lost the war in Afghanistan. Onecommentator on a Pakistanitelevision programme gleefullyproclaimed: We will bury Indiaand the US in Afghanistan.

American intelligenceagencies and its military arefully aware of the PakistanArmys close links with theAfghan Taliban and fighters likeJalaluddin Haqqani. New YorkTimes correspondent DavidSanger, in his book The

Inheritance, has written how USmilitary intelligence overheardGeneral Ashfaq Kayanireferring to Maulavi JalaluddinHaqqani as a strategic asset.Two weeks later, Indiasembassy in Kabul was bombedby Haqqanis men acting incollusion with the Inter-ServicesIntelligence. All this is old hatby now. Yet, Gen. Kayanirefuses to attack northWaziristan where Haqqani andhis men are based. The US withall its cash incentives and dronedisincentives can do little aboutit.

The problem is that with Gen.McChrystals exit and the entryof Gen. Petraeus, the US mightbe on the verge of making a dealwith Pakistans generals onAfghanistan. Gen. Petraeus is

somewhat of a politicalgeneral and had turned themilitary tide in Iraq not throughany new war fighting strategybut through politicalmanipulations. Gen. Petraeus isfully aware of the PakistanArmys links with the Talibanand people like Haqqani. Only,thus far he has chosen to bediplomatic about the wholething. Gen. Petraeus knows thattoday, it is Gen. Kayani who hasthem in a meat grinder and onlyhe can stop the fighters shootingat US soldiers in Afghanistan. Adeal with the enemy would havemany supporters in Washington,who believe the Afghan war is alost cause.

This leaves India in a difficultposition. For, any such deal

would have to address thePakistan Armys main demandof being allowed to dominateAfghanistan. Gen. Kayani wasthe first Pakistan Army Chief toopenly declare that theirlegitimate aim was to securestrategic depth in Afghanistan.We want a strategic depth inAfghanistan but do not want tocontrol it, he had declared at apress conference in Februarythis year.

He was clearly addressing theAmericans and had added thatPakistans strategic paradigmneeds to be fully realised,meaning that India had to bekept out or restrained inAfghanistan. He had warned thatan environment hostile toPakistan could strain its battleagainst militancy andextremism. In other words,Kayani wants to regain what hisArmy had lost in 2001:dominance in Afghanistan.

Such a denouement iscompletely unacceptable toIndia. Indias new ambassadorto Kabul, GautamMukhopadhaya, who must havehad an inkling of what isbrewing in Af-Pak, had warnedof preciselt such a scenario in arecent paper published by the

Washington thinktank CarnegieEndowment for InternationalPeace. India, he wrote, does notsee the Afghan problem as aderivative of India-Pakistanproblems that has to beaddressed from that angle (asPakistan tries to project it). Itconsiders it a serious violationof the norms of inter-stateconduct that Afghanistan shouldbe made to pay the price forPakistans bilateral problemswith India in the form ofdestabilisation and a desire forstrategic depth, or thatPakistani state institutionsshould use terrorism to fight aproxy war against India in Indiaor a third country. Nor does itbelieve that the Pakistanimilitary will sever its links with

or fully cooperate with thecoalition over the AfghanTaliban, even if India were toreduce troops across Pakistanseastern border, and views anycooperation by Pakistan in thisregard as selective and aimedonly at securing concessionsfrom India. India also does notaccept that Pakistan should berewarded for its cooperationwith the coalition by politicalconcessions from India, when itis, in fact, the Talibans primebacker. Given these almostdiametrically opposed impulses,interests, strategies, andpositions, it is difficult to seehow Indian and Pakistanipositions on Afghanistan can bereconciled.

Now that Mr Mukhopadhaya isin Kabul, he will have to faceconsiderable pressure toreconcile the very contradictionshe has written about. His successor failure will not onlydetermine the history of Indiasrelations with Afghanistan butalso that of the Afghan people,who have experienced thePakistani scourge once before.

INDRANIL BANERJIE is adefence and security analyst

based in New Delhi

Indranil Banerjie