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The following article appeared on the website of the Chinese communist party’s official mouthpiece “People’s Daily Online” reiterating China’s official claim on Tibet under the title “Tell you a true Tibet Story”. Well its a nice story all right but to think that there is any truth in it at all would be ridiculous.It is actually an excerpt from a propoganda book published by the so called “information” office of the state council of the PRC titled “Tibet- its ownership and human rights situation”. If this is the best the Chinese can do then they really need to brush up on their imperialism.

First a brief backgrounder. Tibet was historically a mountainous nomad country tucked away towards the south-west frontier of China. There was little political contact between either country till the mid-13th century when they both came under Mongol domination and then after the disintegration of the Mongol empire into four different factions after the death of Mongke Khan the Eastern part of the Mongol Empire which included Mongolia proper, Sinkiang, Tibet, China proper, Manchuria and Korea came under the rule of Genghis Khan’s grandson Khubilai Khan.

Read the rest…

The Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor in an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN to be telecast at 8:30pm IST(GMT + 5.5) tonight has gone on record saying that India can be held equally to blame of intruding into Chinese territory!

“The Chinese have a different perception of the Line Of Actual Control as do we – when they come up to their perception we call it an incursion, likewise they do.”

His shocking statement that India can be equally blamed for intruding into Chinese territory is based on a presumed logic that since the two sides have not agreed on a mutual Line of Actual Control both sides can accuse each other of intruding into their territories.

Infact the Army chief by making such a statement has exposed his ignorance of the history of the India-China border issue and also gives the impression that he is completely ignorant of the proceedings of the nearly 11 rounds of border talks that have been taking place since the last two and a half decades which coincided with much of his Army career.

He doesn’t seem to realise that technically India and China do not share a border. The entire length of the India-China border as it is today is actually the borders of occupied Tibet and Chinese Turkestan both forcibly incorporated into Chinese territory in the years immediately after the Maoists seized power from the nationalists in China in 1949. And the entire historical Chinese claim to these two territories is based on the premise that they were both part of Chinese territory during the Yuan dynasty of Kublai Khan.The so called “Middle Kingdom” hypothesis. The only fly in the ointment is that Kublai Khan was a Mongol vassal for much of his rule and thus it is more correct to say that Mongolia has more historical claim to China, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan rather than China has a claim on Inner Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet.

The wily Chinese get around this by peddling the fiction that Kublai Khan became a “Chinese emperor” after the death of Mongke Khan and his subsequent defeating of his younger brother Arik Boke who had succeeded Mongke as Khan of the Mongol empire. That is absolute nonsense because after defeating Arik Boke, Kublai Khan had declared himself as the Khan of the Mongol empire the only problem was that the rest of the Golden family refused to recognise him as such. On the other hand Kublai Khan like a lot of other pragmatic conquerors in history also adopted some local Chinese titles and symbols to make himself more acceptable to the Chinese masses and cement his rule over the part of the empire directly under him [1] and by the time the Yuan dynasty was overthrown a century later by the indigenous Ming dynasty Tibet and Chinese turkestan did not form a part of their realm.

In short while the Chinese refuse to recognise the McMohan line terming it as a product of British imperialism their entire claim on Chinese Turkestan and Tibet which brings them to that Border line in the first place is itself a product of their past allegiance to Mongol imperialism which they cleverly disguise as the “Middle Kingdom” for consumption by gullibles!

Gen Kapoor has also conveniently sidestepped the fact that the Line of Actual Control remains undefined because the Chinese side inspite of nearly two decades of border talks have refused to exchange maps of the Western and eastern sectors with India while India’s own claim line is crystal clear for all including the Chinese side to see. It is therefore the responsibility of the Chinese side as a claimant to submit maps clarifying their own stand on where they think the Border in their opinion must run. India as a status quo power which has since the last 100 years adhered to the McMohan line cannot be held “equally responsible” in anyway for incidents on the border.

Gen Kapoor has clearly overstepped his brief in this case and this is not the first time, recently he held forth on the sixth pay commission on foreign soil disregarding all established norms that domestic politics stops at the water’s edge.The Government should either rein him in or relieve him of his responsibilities immediately if he continues to undermine the Indian position with his hollow moral grandstanding and continuous whining.That seems to be a long shot considering that the rest of the current government is no better in this regard.

It is also sad that Karan Thapar who has a reputation of being a “tough” interviewer who wouldn’t let even a bat escape on a dark moonless night gave a free pass to Gen Kapoor and did not challenge him with the fact that it was China which was being the obstacle in clearly demarcating the Line of Actual Control and India’s position in that regard is clear that it adheres to the McMohan line. Thapar would surely have pounced on any bureaucrat or politician if he had said such a thing. That he didn’t in the case of Gen Kapoor proves Pragmatic’s position that the Indian media and the public are in awe of the institution of the Armed forces and do not want to question them too closely for fear of offending them. This has to change. The Armed Forces like the rest of the state establishment should be held as much accountable to the Nation’s interest like anyone else.

Source: 1. Genghis Khan and the making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.

The History of the Indian subcontinent is long, brimming with lessons for the diligent. Sifting through myth and legend, a military mind may note:

• The unending demonstration of a dynasty’s rise in the ability to govern, followed by degeneracy and decline.

• The inability (or reluctance) to convert excellent theoretical knowledge into usable military technology.

• Insularity from new means and methods of defence from abroad, while achieving great things in other spheres.

The Indus Valley civilization, it transpires from the main archaeological findings, boasted of civic amenities and social norms of a high order, and an enviable agricultural system. Yet that civilization huddled into isolated fortress communities, and that spelt its doom at the hands of Trans-Caucasian Aryan invaders.

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Pakistan as India’s “Buffer” state is the incredible theory dreamed up by yet another member of the current Indian “intellectual” elite. it seems to be the norm among them to make up their mind first on any given topic and then cherry pick only those facts that fit their theory. This op-ed titled “Let’s wish them well” by Jaithirth Rao over the weekend continues in that hallowed tradition.

He writes

“My support for partition and for the continuance of a strong Pakistan stems from what I would call a practical sense of realpolitik. Pakistan is the buffer state that India needs to protect us from the hot-spots of Afghanistan and Persia (aka Iran). Less than three hundred years ago, we were invaded by Persians (led by Nadir Shah) and Afghans (led by Ahmed Shah Abdali). Both of these were in the nature of predatory raids. They did not result in conquests. But they did succeed in finishing off the glorious Moghul Empire and in causing considerable human and economic damage. It has been noted that a substantial portion of Afghan GDP derived from raids on India! Now as then, raids, unrest and related tensions are real dangers to us.

But let us breathe a sigh of relief. If today a Nadir Shah or an Abdali were to try to invade us, he would have to first defeat the legions of General Musharraf. In effect, the Pakistani army will protect us from the assembled forces beyond the Khyber. This is the kind of “outsourcing of our defence” that should really warm our hearts. Herein lies the overriding need for us to support the continuance of a strong Pakistani state and an effective Pakistani army.”

Sounds incredible and to be fair he actually seems to believe it himself for some reason. Read the rest…

If there is one trait that sets apart a Briton from the rest of the human species then it must definitely be an head still frozen in the permafrost of that last ice age that might somehow explain their chilling insensitivity to appreciate and respect the point of view and sensibilities of others.

One hundred and fifty years after the Indian soldiers in their employ in the armies of the East India Company along with a large part of the Indian population revolted against them for precisely that reason the Brits seem to have not yet learnt their lesson and now their descendants have arrived in India to “commemorate” the “bravery” of their ancestors by being exactly just as haughty and insensitive as their forefathers had been.

That rebellion happened exactly one hundred years after the Battle of Plassey gave the British East India Company a foothold in the eastern region of India in what is now the country of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.From there over a period of several decades they steadily expanded their hold over the rest of the country on the backs of mostly Indian soldiers led by an exclusively White class of officers.

Denied promotions and avenues of career growth, routinely discriminated against, humiliated daily and forced to fight against and commit atrocities against their own people by the British over a period of a hundred years finally got too much to bear for the Indian soldiers and finally they had had enough. They raised the banner of revolt in the summer of 1857 when they felt that the Brits had gone too far this time and for six months fought valiantly and nearly brought an end to the British rule in India.

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Now that the ASI and the “eminent historians” brigade has declared that Lord Rama and all the characters in the Ramayana are but figment of some poet’s imagination. What about the other great epic Mahabharata and all the characters in them?

If the Ramayana is a chronicle of Lord Rama, then Mahabharata is a chronicle of Emperor Bharata and his successors.Now we can safely bet that the ASI and the “eminent historians” have a similar opinion about the other great Indian epic the Mahabharata- The chronicle of the saga of Emperor Bharata and his successors. Which means that according to them it could be just a figment of another poet’s imagination who even inserted himself into the middle of the whole plot !!??

But it is a fallacy to think that this is a mere religious matter concerning a particular religious flavor/ community and get into an irrelevant Myth vs Science debate. Even otherwise non-religious, and so called rational Indians have a huge stake in this issue as we shall now see.

The significance of Emperor Bharata is that it is from his name that the name of this country is derived. Deny him as fiction especially with zero research like the ASI and our “eminent historians” or even other supposedly rational Indians are wont to do and you have some serious issues at hand. Not the least about the very validity of this nation as a civilization construct. We need to keep in mind that since the time of Emperor Bharata the people of this country have regarded this inverted triangular piece of real estate bounded by the Himalayas and central Asian steppes to the north and the great seas to the south, the extent and bounds of his ancient empire as Bharatavarsha.

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B.Raman’s new book “The Kaoboys of the R&AW” is his personal memoir of the 27 years he spent as an intelligence agent in the services of the IB and the R&AW between 1967 and 1994.

Billed as the first such memoir from an authoritative source from the usually super secretive organisation. The Book doesn’t disappoint.

It gives an insight into the internal workings of the R&AW, and the intelligence profession in general, the professional rivalries and intrigues within, the challenges and hazards faced by someone in this profession and the successes and failures of the organisation in its nearly 40 years of existence since its founding in 1968 under the leadership of Mr Rameshwar Nath Kao.

The book also deals in length on some of the most tumultous events that happened in the country’s recent past starting from the beginnings and growth of the insurgency in the North-East in the 50s and 60s, to the 1971 war, the Emergency, the subsequent fall and rise again of Indira Gandhi, the Khalistani movement, operation bluestar, the assassination of Indira Gandhi,  the Bofors controversy, the Srilankan IPKF fiasco, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the beginnings of the Pakistani sponsored jihadi terrorism in the kashmir valley and other parts of the country.

The author bills the R&AW operations in support of the 1971 war effort as one of the earliest successes of the organisation. But he laments the way the newly independent country of Bangladesh finally ended up- a cesspool of religious fundamentalism and also continuing to be a base for anti-India terrorist organisations operating in the North-East.

On the origins of Khalistani terrorism, the author traces it to the frustration and disappointment of many Sikh migrants towards the “hands-off” policy followed by Nehru and the Indian embassies abroad who refused to intervene with the host governments on their behalf to allay the hardships they were facing in the foreign lands inspite of repeated pleas from them. This resulted in some of them forming organisations such as the “Sikh Home Rule Movement” and the “United Sikh Appeal”. thereafter he says over time one thing led to another and with the continuing apathy of the Indian govt towards the concerns of the Indian citizens and People of Indian origin abroad, and following active aiding and abettment from foreign agencies such as the ISI and the CIA in the 70s and 80s the Khalistani movement was born.

The author has many more such examples of India’s “enlightened” foreign policy. He mentions how in the 1950s the Chinese were busy training the Nagas and other North-East militants while at the same time Nehru and the Indian diplomats were championing Communist China’s cause in the International fora. And also how the Indian embassy in Rangoon turned a blind eye to the Chinese aerial survey of the Indo-Burmese border and which helped the PLA plan an attack on the Indian position in the NEFA from the Burmese side in the 1962 war. He also has strong criticism of the so called “Joint Anti-terror inititative” with Pakistan announced in late last year in Havana giving examples of the experiences of Pakistani perfidy in the past on many similar such initiatives.

But one of the biggest barbs of them all is reserved for the US State Dept. He gives many examples of its strident anti-India and pro-Pakistani tilt and how it has consistently over the decades white washed and ignored Pakistan’s sins even in the face of overwhelming evidence of its neck deep involvement in terrorist activities.

The book has two complete chapters dedicated to the analysis of the circumstances that led to the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. The author blames it on the Indiscipline, the rampant corruption and politicisation that had seeped into the security detail of the Prime Minister. He says that some of those in the security detail where even involved in smuggling of white goods from foreign countries they had visited. He also mentions one such incident where Indira Gandhi herself had taken note of this and tried to put an end to it but to no avail.

An interesting aspect of this book is its treatment of the craft of intelligence as it exists in the real world. unfortunately here there doesn’t seem to be any cool gadgets, super cars, breathtaking locales or blonde bombshells. It is a seemingly tough profession which involves building one’s sources carefully over a period of time, collecting information and then joining those dots and making sense of them in good time before its too late. In short a thankless profession where one’s successes are unknown but failures become huge scandals. And added to that one has to deal with indiscreet wives and politicians who might unwittingly spill the beans.

The author is quite straightforward in his analysis of the positive and negative aspects of the R&AW close to its 40th Birthday. He calls the organisation as weak in its capacity to collect, analyse and assess intelligence, weak in HUMINT but strong in TECHINT, strong in investigation and crisis management but weak in their prevention, obsessed with secrecy, having an antiquated recruitment policy, and being burderned with the ills of careerism as opposed to professionalism in its ranks.

On the whole the book is a great read which sheds some light into the secretive world of Indian intelligence. On the other hand one of the weak points of the book if any is that it assumes that the reader is well versed with the post-independence history of India. therefore unless one is familiar with atleast the timeline of India’s post-independence history one is bound to feel lost especially when the book sometimes jumps back and forth between different events which were happening at the same time or were somehow impacting each other.

Another point is that even though it is supposedly a memoir. The Book doesn’t give much insight into the personal life of the author himself. One never gets to see the real person behind the dark glasses and the trenchcoat.The author himself admits as much in the beginning of the book itself when he says that he was throughout his career known as someone who didn’t show much emotion but was merely concerned with the work at hand.

One issue that has dominated the headlines since the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the Shia-Sunni divide. Just what is this divide really? and what are its origins, causes and implications for today’s world?

The following article stands out because of its thorough and incisive analysis of the subject. Another intriguing part about this article is that it traces this divide to the ancient family rivalries in Arabia dating back to pre-islamic times rather than just ideological differences.

Those who are intimately familiar with Islamic thinking and historical Arab politics argue that the Shia-Sunni split should be understood as a sociopolitical development that is associated with the early formation of the city state in Arabia before and immediately after the arise of Islam.

In fact, those who objectively trace the evolution of the Shia-Sunni split point out two fascinating aspects that often stand out. These do not revolve around how a clannish struggle for power and influence evolved gradually and persistently into political aspirations expressed in religious beliefs.

Rather, these two aspects are linked to the fact that unchallenged myths often emerge as powerful force and, accordingly, are often treated as reality. The first aspect is the blind acceptance of certain myths by intellectuals, including reporters, both in the West and in Muslim dominated countries, and how they subsequently have failed to formulate a reasonable knowledge-driven outlook to comprehend this historical development. The second aspect is the never-ending utility, for politicians, of employing this split as a means to optimally serve their political aspirations and consolidation of power. In this regard, an attempt is made in this paper to briefly deconstruct the most widely held myths.

The article begins by framing the evolution of the Shia – Sunni split into five general stages. These stages briefly capture the most significant factors including tribal, political, and religious which have shaped the nature of the division in Islam and ultimately changed the course of action in Islamic polity. The outline offers a better understanding of the progression of the split across centuries. More importantly, the presentation, at each stage and collectively, helps to deconstruct the preceding myths without underestimating the historical value attached to the emergence of the division or compromising the integrity of its key actors.

Read the complete article

Today, is the 76th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. They were hanged on March 23, 1931 on flimsy, cooked up charges by the British colonial rulers. While they were interred in Lahore Jail during the period of their sham trial they were severely tortured and illtreated. While on the contrary whenever the Congress leaders were “jailed”, they were treated like royalty by the same foreign rulers. One wonders whether it was because the Congress was nothing but a British Weapon of Mass Delusion(WMD) aimed at fooling the Indian people.

Unfortunately, We are a country with a very severe problem of short term public memory. So as of today the only importance of this day for our people and our media is because the Indian Crikit team is on the verge of being eliminated from the World Cup Crikit.

Update- The Men in Blue just did it.

While their Comrades across the border are busy butchering innocent villagers, killing Policemen and assaulting an Union minister in the very hall of the Indian Parliament itself. The Maoist thugs in neighbouring Nepal in true Communist style have broken every one of the treaties they had signed with great fanfare a few months ago and are now single mindedly aiming to undermine the current interim government and seize full political power for themselves.

The End Game: Maoists fail to Abide by the Peace agreement

“The mere absence of war is not peace”, said J. F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. This statement is relevant to Nepal’s context today. Despite repeated assurances from the Maoists that they have retracted from violent politics, the reality is vastly different. Clearly, the Maoist have made a travesty out of the peace process and arms management. It has become obvious that the elections to the Constituent Assembly cannot be held in the stipulated time frame for mid June. This unfortunate circumstance is mainly due to the failure of the government to confine Maoist to peacetime politics. This failure consequently led to the rapid deterioration of law and order. The ramification of the postponement of the elections is immense – a fluid political vacuum.

This is very much on expected lines. The standard communist practice is to consider every peace treaty as a mere timeout to regroup and rearm for the next round. In my post on the very next day this treaty was signed i had said.

The key ingredient necessary for this accord to succeed is to make sure that the Maoists are disarmed. As long as they are armed, they are dangerous and can renege on any ‘agreement’ signed on a ‘piece of paper’ any time they wish. It is absolutely imperative for the Nepal govt and the international community to make sure that all the arms are taken away from the Maoist groups and they are disbanded as a fighting force.

This observation had been made keeping in mind the treacherous history of the Communist movement. From the undermining of the Alexander Kerensky’s interim government in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1917 to the backstabbing of the Nationalist Chinese government distracted by the Japanese invasion of China in 1930’s by the Chinese Communists to the Communist North attacking South Korea first in 1950 to the efforts by the Vietnamese Communists to undermine South Vietnam in the 1950’s, the whole history is there for those who care to learn from it.

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