When leaders fail, tragedy follows

Abnormal situations are the tests of leadership. In Kashmir the situation has been abnormal for a long time and no leadership came up that could meet it with imagination. Hopes were kindled a year ago when elections in Kashmir saw the highest turnout in its history and eventually Omar Abdullah became the youngest chief minister in that history.

He quickly became the biggest disappointment as well in Kashmir’s history. Astonishingly the Chief Minister continued to live in Delhi for months on the plea that his family was settled there and his kids were going to school there. With that kind of mentality, it was no wonder that the law-and-order situation in ever-explosive Kashmir deteriorated and the Chief Minister seemed to have no clue as to what to do. Speaking articulately on national television appeared to be his way of handling crises.

Actually the last election was a historical opportunity for Kashmir to turn a new leaf towards peace and progress. Orders by separatist groups to boycott the election were largely ignored by people. Prominent among the voters were young people. It was suddenly there for everyone to see that a new generation had come of age who had seen only violence and unrest and who did not share the political, communal emotionalism of the earlier generation. They longed for peace and opportunities to catch up with other young people in the rest of India and the world.

That new generation was let down by all the political groupings. While Omar Abdullah exhibited both his inexperience and his tendency to take his position for granted because of his heredity and wealth, other political leaders were just as self-obsessed. The main opposition leader, Mehbooba Mufti, is one of the most negative personalities in politics. In power she offered nothing; out of power she agrees with nothing. Other group leaders have small private constituencies to nurture and don’t seem interested in looking at the larger picture.

In the current situation of hightened tension and civilian deaths, the very emergence of a new class called “stone pelters” should have opened the eyes of these leaders as well as the authorities in Srinagar and Delhi. These are not the usual terrorists, suicide bombers and foreign agents. These are the local boys of local families who are angered that, in the name of security, the security forces are killing unarmed boys and girls. This was a time for political leaders to get together in a show of solidarity for the sake of peace. But the Abdullahs and the Muftis and the faction leaders do not have the leadership to understand that.

Do the big leaders in Delhi have that quality? The Prime Minister visited Kashmir recently. That was another good opportunity to announce a policy shift or two that would have reassured the ordinary citizens. The opportunity was missed. All that Delhi could think of was a march by the army and an exhortation from Home Minister Chidambaram to parents in Srinagar to keep their boys home.

In the case of the Naxals, Chidambaram has shifted from his earlier move to use military force against the rebels to accepting the importance of local economic-social development as part of the required solution. In the case of Kashmir, it is time to devise ways that would encourage at least new-generation Kashmiris to think that India and Indians are on their side. The current sentiment of locals looking upon India as an unwanted presence is no compliment to Delhi or to the dynasties that have been ruling Kashmir. In the northeastern states, they still see India as a foreign country.

The priority that Delhi gives to cultivating the US abroad and the likes of DMK and Trinamool at home may be inevitable. But to deny high priority to people’s welfare in important border states is to reinforce their sense of alienation. That is Pakistan’s work, not ours.

Turkey beckons, not just Orhan Pamukh

With our Government keeping all its oranges and papayas in the American basket, we lose sight of big things happening elsewhere. Big things have been happening in Turkey with implications for the Arab-Israeli imbroglio, for the European Union's fundamentals, for America's global strategy, for the general idea of religion in politics – in short, for the whole world. Is India anywhere in this picture? If it is, our Government is keeping it a secret.

In some ways Turkey is a wonder of history. It is the only Islamic country that was constitutionally de-Islamised by Kemal Ataturk, president from 1923 to 38. It was also the only Muslim state to recognise Israel, under American influence of course, and even sign a military treaty with it. Turks, who are non-Arab like Iranians, ruled all Arab lands including holy cities like Mecca and Medina under the Ottoman Empire (which once extended from Spain to the Hindu Kush).

Winds of change began in Turkey after Ataturk's CHP party lost power in the 1980s because of corruption. The mildly Islamic AK party then came to power, first with the help of other parties and, from 2002, on its own. Its leader, Erdogan, is now in his second term as Prime Minister. He is charismatic not only because he was a member of the Turkish national football team, but also because he launched far-reaching economic reforms and various programmes to build schools and hospitals.

Above all, he distanced Turkey from Israel, becoming an instant hero of the Arab world. An Arab editor even compared him to the legendary Gamal Abdel Nasser, the nationalist icon of Egyptians and all Arabs. At first Turks were confused by this newfound friendship; traditionally Turkey had looked down upon Arabs. But the Israeli attack on Turkey's aid ship to the Gaza Strip in May changed everything. Israel's solitary Muslim backer is now its sworn adversary.

A major fallout of this development is that Turkey has become, for the first time in its history, a player in West Asian affairs. It reinforced that position by becoming an interlocutor, along with Brazil, in Iran's nuclear argument with the West. The result is that the importance of traditional ringleaders like Egypt and Saudi Arabia has decreased.

That worries America. For one thing, its client state of Israel has lost the only friend it had in the neighbourhood. For another, its old-time ally, Turkey, is turning eastward, setting aside its long-term ambition to join the European Union. Objections to its membership of the EU, primarily from Germany and France, have offended public opinion as well as the political parties of Turkey.

These historical shifts may take firm shape after next year's elections. For all his populism, Erdogan cannot be sure of victory. Ataturk's CHP has found a fresh lease of life with the election last month of a new leader. This former civil servant, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is so clean and sage-like that he is known as “Gandhi-Kemal”.

That alone should inspire India to get closer to Turkey. The new Kemal has mentioned India and China as two countries Turkey should focus on. Besides, Turkey's best known writer, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamukh, will be a natural if unofficial brand ambassador for India given his friendship with our own quiet young novelist Kiran Desai. Turkey's economic potential is yet another attraction.

All that aside, it is a great country. They are a friendly people and there is no city in the world – in beauty, historical richness, variety and colourfulness – as Istanbul. Of the country's 60 million population, 15 million live in this astonishing city. But don't venture into the streets when a football match is ending. The crowds spilling out of the stadium have a tendency to take over all streets. Turks are crazy about football.

Most dangerous region? Look west

We think that the Indian subcontinent is the world's most unstable region, given the dominance of religion, the Pakistan army's jealousy-tinged hatred of India and the rise of hatemongers like Narendra Modi. But take a trip westward and we'll see that no part of the world is more dangerously unstable than the Arab region with Israel plonked in the centre of it thanks to the success of British machinations in 1948.

It will remain so despite Israel's current talk of "easing" the blockade of the Gaza Strip. On the ground nothing will change. It is important for Indian public opinion to be aware of the realities if only because India's own policies have been shifting in recent years. Traditionally our sympathies have been with the Palestinians, a people driven out of their homeland. After the BJP came to power the balance tilted in favour of Israel because the BJP admired Israel’s fundamentally anti-Muslim stance. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Israel edged its way into approvals by the Congress as well, especially through defence deals. Even when some of these deals look good, we should not lose sight of the fact that Israel is a one-issue state, the issue being the establishment of an enlarged and invincible Jewish state whatever the world thinks.

The harshest demonstration of this mental fixation was the wholesale invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Israel's Prime Minister at the time was Menachem Begin and the Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, the country’s bestknown fundamentalist hardliners. They contemptuously ignored all international conventions. So excessive was their use of force and so widespread the atrocities that, for the first time, Israeli citizens themselves criticised their government's actions.

The irony was that Lebanon was not a party to Israel's fight against Palestinians. Its fault was that it shared its southern border with Israel. This meant that Palestinian activists set up some camps in Lebanon as they did in other bordering countries. Israel said its intention was only to wipe out these camps with a military putsch 25 miles into Lebanese territory. In the event they went all the way to Beirut, the capital, and the valleys and mountains to the east and north. Civilian areas were bombarded including a hospital for geriatrics and mentally afflicted patients. Only the verdant expanse of the American University of Beirut was spared.

A visitor to Beirut today can still see, a quarter century later, civilian buildings in rubble, walls bearing shell marks -- and new Palestinian camps even in the Beka Valley on the road to Damascus. Several parts of this extraordinarily beautiful city have been rebuilt, some areas modernised. The streets are bustling, hotels full, traffic delightfully maddening, favourite fastfood-kebab joints like Bar-Bar doing roaring business. But an air of unease persists. The popular prime minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated only five years ago. And Israel is led again by the most extremist hardliner alive today, Benjamin Netanyahu. There's nothing that cannot happen because (a) Israel's objective includes Greater Israel with weak Arab government around and (b) it is supported by military-industrial lobbies that have a vested interest in recurring wars.

American weapons not yet used in combat are always tested in Israel's wars (nowadays also in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) In the war against Lebanon, cluster bombs, phospherous bombs and perhaps the vacuum bomb were used although the enemy was patently weak. Small wonder that the powerful American arms industry lobbies as vehemently for Israel as the no less powerful Jewish lobby does. Add to this the Israeli mindset. Army boss Gen. Eitan justified the war on Lebanon by saying: "Since I have built and excellent war apparatus, I must make use of it." Sharon said that since the last war was in 1973, a whole generation of Israeli soldiers had no experience of battle and needed to be given it.

These are the vested interests that keep West Asia on the boil and make the world a dangerous place for all of us.

‘Sri Lankan Model’ is no model

If it takes a thief to catch a thief, can we say it requires terrorism to defeat terrorism? That is the theory Mahenda Rajapakse put into practice in Sri Lanka. Because he succeeded in crushing Prabhakaran’s LTTE, the “Sri Lankan Model” is now attracting the attention of other governments that face internal insurrections.

Perhaps the most notable example is the not widely publicised visit Burma’s military dictator Than Shwe paid to Colombo recently. Than Shwe rarely travels outside his country, yet he was impressed by the “victory against terrorism” in Sri Lanka. He went there to see if he could employ some of the techniques against the ethnic groups that have been fighting the Rangoon government for long.

Thailand faces a Muslim rebellion in its southernmost areas. But Prime Minister Abhisit Vijjajiva is facing a threat from political opponents in Bangkok itself and there is serious talk of a possible civil war in the country. The tactics Sri Lanka used against the LTTE won’t work against the political opponents or the Muslims in the South because the circumstances are vastly different. Even so, he found time to exchange notes with Lankan leaders.

Bangladesh sent a military delegation to Colombo to see what lessons it could learn from the “war for peace” Sri Lanka fought. For all we know, P.Chidambaram himself must have secretly wished that he could do in Dandewada what Rajapakse did in Elam territory.

But, thank God, he can’t. What Rajapakse did, no democratic country can do. His military operations elicited serious charges of war crimes by Western governments. Besides, the campaign against the LTTE was part of a larger political agenda that would perhaps suit Burma, but not others.

For one thing, Rajapakse only defeated Prabhakaran’s LTTE, not solved the wider cause of Lankan Tamils, an integral part of Lankan polity. Prabhakaran was a cruel extremist who eliminated several Tamil leaders and his own eventual elimination was welcomed by large sections of Tamils themselves. But Rajapakse did not have the wisdom to see Prabhakaran as separate from the Tamils of his country whose claims for fairplay were, and remain, legitimate.

Secondly, Rajapakse’s basic agenda is different. A glance at the power structure is enough to bring this out. He as President directly handles defence,finance, planning and a dozen other portfolios. Brother Gotapaya functions as defence secretary with direct control of the armed forces, immigration and urban development. Brother Basil is Economics Development Minister. Brother Chamel has resigned as minister and assumed the office of Speaker of the House. Son Namal has been elected to Parliament. The Constitution is being amended to make presidential powers virtually absolute. This is the real Sri Lanka Model. Who will dare follow it, other than Burma?

There is another model not far away. This is Indonesia’s “Detachment 88”, a 400-strong elite special operations unit of the police that functions as the country’s counter-terrorism squad. That it is a police, not a military, unit is itself indicative of the government’s thinking. The Indonesian military is still associated with the long dictatorship years and the present democratic leadership wanted to avoid any stigma arising from that history.

Detachment 88 has to deal with Indonesia’s resident terrorists who are Wahabi-influenced Muslim fundamentalists. The unit is tough with them when required, but treats them now correctly, now sympathetically, never in harsh ways. Suspects are openly prosecuted. Members of the D-88 act also as spiritual counsellors, eating with the arrested men, praying with them. Muslim religious teachers are brought in for discussions on the Koran and Islam. The aim is to de-radicalise the suspects. Interestingly, anti-terrorist squads from Thailand and even Pakistan have attended training camps in D-88’s centre in central Java.

The choice is clear. It is not between the Sri Lankan model and the Indonesian model. It is between family dictatorship and democracy.

And football produces gods

Not all the misplaced genius of the Lalit Modis and the Sharad Pawars of our land can generate the drama and passion football inspires. India is a net loser in becoming a cricket-only country. On the one hand, it destroys the spirit of cricket itself by turning it into a crass money machine. On the other, it leads to the neglect of glorious games like hockey and football.

Cricket covers but a few countries; football is universal. Cricket is colonial; football is democratic. Cricket, especially today’s commercialised format, is an artificial creation; football is utterly natural. Cricket needs cheer leaders; football doesn’t. Cricket corrupts; football enlivens. Cricket produces heroes; football makes gods – like Pele, Maradona, Zidane, Kaka, Messi, Drogba..

And so be it. Football is the true people’s game, the anywhere–anyhow game. You don’t need expensive equipment to kick a ball around. In the slums of the world kids play football without shoes and without a proper ball. From one such slum emerged today’s highest paid footballer, Samuel Eto’o of Camaroon (who earns $ 13 million a year). Football is a great leveller.

Not that football does not have its unpleasant side. A whiff of corruption hit FIFA, the all-powerful governing body of the game, in 2001-2. A case reached the Swiss courts, but was eventually dropped. Ever since, FIFA’s bosses have been extra careful about keeping their hands clean. At the other end of the scale, beer-guzzling “football hooligans” were a phenomenon in Europe until recently, going literally wild in their enthusiasm.

Money is the engine of international football as well. Some clubs, like Chelsea and Barcelona, are immensely rich. The clubs buy and sell players. Barcelona paid Valencia $ 48 million to buy Spanish star David Villa; Real Madrid paid as much as $ 132 million to buy Christiano Ronaldo. As usual TV rights and corporate sponsors are the principal fund providers. In the 2006 World Cup, the TV audience was estimated at 26 billion, that is, 26 times he population of India. No wonder that sponsorships alone added up to $ 875 million; FIFA’s profit that year was an impressive $ 1.8 billion.

Figures like that help us understand why Lalit Modi and the BCCI itself went salivating at the prospect of minting money with “club” cricket. But they reckoned without that powerful institution that sustains the integrity of football – the Coach. The best coaches are dictators, but dictators who are admired for their dictatorship. For they are professional to the core. The bosses may think money, but the players under the command of coaches think football. Meritocracy reigns supreme.

Those who play politics with cricket must think about this. All sports in India is an extension of politics. That is why we flop except in individual events (as distinct from team sports) – in tennis, chess, shooting, boxing. In football we are nowhere in the picture. Which is astonishing when we think of Africa’s rise.

The average African footballer trained in the most primitive conditions. We were miles ahead with clubs like Mohan Bagan and East Bengal and playing fields like the Cooperage. But we never produced a magician – like Eusebio of Mozambique who scored four out of five goals for Portugal against North Korea for a 5-3 win in 1966, one of the most thrilling games in football history. Almost all European clubs today are performing well because of the Africans they have recruited. With natural talent, speed and footwork skills that are unique to them, Africans have made football their own.

For a month from now in South Africa, the self-confidence and newfound pride of Africans will enliven the spectators’ stands as well as the field. They have a typical style of enjoying football, not the hooligan style, but singing and dancing with spontaneous rhythm. An African team may not go home with the trophy, but this year’s World Cup will be one of the most exciting ever. And deservedly so.