Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray, Dr. Shanthie Mariet D Souza and Mantraya
Cultivating poppies in Afghanistan for opium. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency.
Introduction
India’s geographical proximity with the ‘Golden Crescent’- the area comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, which is infamous for illicit production as well as transnational smuggling of drugs, is often cited as the reason for the rise in the drug trade that uses India as both a destination of narcotics as well as a transit point. According to the 2018 annual report of the International Narcotics Control board (INCB), India is rising as one of the major hubs for illicit drug trade.[1] The Trump administration has put India along with its other South Asian neighbours among the list of 21 countries that are major drug producing or transit nations.[2]However, over the years, even as the Afghan drug production has shown a marginal decrease, the drug cartels, organized criminals, smugglers, and peddlers across several countries have innovated in several ways to increase the consumer base in India.
The ‘nexus’ with the law enforcement agencies and politicians has facilitated the trade, whereas lax counter-narcotics strategies have thwarted state efforts to curb it.
The ‘Narco Economy’ of Afghanistan
In November 2018, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported a 20 percent decrease in the total area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan compared to 2017. The potential production of opium decreased by 29 percent in 2018 compared to 2017, while farm-gate prices hit an all-time low.’[3]
)
(Source: UNODC, November 2018
The decreases, in the northern and western regions of the country, were mostly attributed to the severe drought that affected Afghanistan. The intensity of the problem, however, continues to be grave, due to the sheer expanse of the land in which such cultivation is still carried out. The area under opium poppy cultivation in 2018 was 263,000 hectares compared to 328,000 hectares in 2017. The drug economy in 2018 is estimated to be US$60 million[4], which feeds generously the ongoing Taliban-led insurgency and a host of other players, including organized criminals, smugglers and terrorist groups.
The Land Route: Pakistan
On 28 July 2019, Indian Customs department seized 532 kilograms of heroin at the Attari Integrated Check Post on the Indo-Pakistan border. The heroin was concealed in 15 gunny bags of a rock salt consignment that was coming from Pakistan. The authorities described the seizure as “the biggest achievement in the annals of the Indian Customs history”[5].
(Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Drug Route, Source: UNODC, 2015)
Pakistan acts as an important trans-shipment point in the illicit drug trade from Afghanistan into India. Whereas several entry points exist on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border depending largely upon the source of narcotics within Afghanistan, most of the illicit heroin and opium enter India through the 550-kilometre Pakistan-Punjab border. Opium and poppy husk enter Punjab through Rajasthan. Rivers and streams along the Indo-Pakistan border are popular routes for smuggling drugs into the villages located along the border. Other modes of smuggling include sliding in drugs in plastic pipes through the barbed wire at the international border. Cross-border smuggling of drugs involves three kinds of players: (i) Drug dealers in the border region who provide the drugs, (ii) Agents like poor farmers, labourers, addicts etc. who transport the drug in small quantities and (iii) Mafia bosses in various parts of the country who distribute and sell them further within the country and outside.
The drug packets from the Pakistani side are picked up by the couriers on the Indian side who work in close coordination with their Pakistani counterparts.[6] Once the package is received on the Indian side, the courier waits for further instructions from the Indian handler before moving the contraband. The handler is in charge of ensuring that the drugs, now packed in small packets of one gram each does not run into a check-post. In Punjab, the drug peddlers have developed ‘Chitta’, a cocktail of heroin and other chemicals, which has become enormously popular with the addicts, for its low cost and effect. A pack of ‘Chitta’ weighing less than a gram costs Rupees 500. The smugglers use poor farmers, migrant labourers, drug addicts, and unemployed youth to transport drugs from border areas to cities and villages. On occasions, even policemen and local politicians were found to be part of this distribution network. More than a hundred Punjab police personnel have been arrested for smuggling or helping to smuggle drugs from border regions between 2014 and 2018.[7] Those arrested included two Deputy Superintendents of Police indicating the extent of the nexus between the smugglers and the law enforcement agencies
Following the ‘Drug trail’
From Punjab, drugs flow seamlessly into other states, taking advantage of the almost non-existent inspection mechanism on the inter-state borders. According to a media report, youths in Kashmir are getting hooked on to drugs from Afghanistan that flow into the state from Pakistan.On 26 November 2018, heroin worth Rupees 40 crore was recovered from Rajouri. The consignment bore Afghan labels which indicated that the drugs were smuggled into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) from Pakistan before it crossed borders and entered J&K.
Whereas the earlier smuggling route was through Punjab, since early 2018, the source of 80 percent of drugs seized in the state are from Pakistan.[8] According to officials, the Ramban-Banihal National Highway, one of the two road links between Kashmir and mainland India, has turned into a major route for the drug mafia that has connections to Pakistan-based smugglers. Here too, incidents of policemen facilitating the drug trade have started to emerge. In July 2019, four policemen were arrested from Jammu and Kupwara and heroin packets were seized from their possession.
The problem has assumed serious proportions in the state of Himachal Pradesh where 1622 cases of drug smuggling were registered in the first 6 months of 2019 and 789 people were arrested.[9] In Himachal Pradesh, one of the few Indian states where poppy is grown locally and legally, drug peddlers have specifically targeted school and college students with ‘Chitta’ packets. According to an estimate by a drug rehab and counselling centre in the state capital Shimla, 55-60 percent of youths of that city are addicted to drugs.[10]
Since 2015, Rann of Kutch in Gujarat too has emerged as a route for drug smuggling from Pakistan. On 21 May 2019, six Pakistani nationals were arrested and around 200 packets of heroin were seized in an operation by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence off Jakhau port in Kutch. Investigation revealed that the accused were carrying 336 packets of heroin and had dumped around 100 in the sea. On 28 July, a team of Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested two persons for allegedly carrying one kilogram of brown sugar, near Mandvi Koday of Kutch.[11] Police said the duo received the contraband from a fisherman in Kutch who found it on the shore. The fisherman handed over the contraband to his nephew who then tried to sell it in the black market. Although few details are available regarding the modus operandi of smugglers in the area, a 2015 report had referred to the active role of Thai-Pakistan drug syndicates[12] in narcotics smuggling off Gujarat coast. In April that year, Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy personnel had seized 230 kilograms of heroin from a boat and arrested eight Pakistani nationals. Previously on 31 December 2014, smugglers believed to belong to the same syndicate had set their own boat carrying drug afire resulting in the death of four crew Pakistani members, 365 kilometres off Porbandar.[13] The boat was initially suspected to be carrying terrorists on board.
The Maritime Route: Iran & Africa
Due to government regulation along the Indo-Pakistan border, especially the effort of the Border Security Force (BSF) and the local police that claimed to have choked the heroin supply lines into Punjab, drug dealers have been using alternate routes that pass-through Iran and Africa before finding their way to Punjab and Delhi. In July 2017, India’s National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) spotted a suspect vessel 380 kilometres off the coast of Gujarat and alerted the Coast Guard which pressed its ships and aircraft to intercept the Panama registered merchant ship, the Prince. When the vessel was brought to the port of Porbandar, sleuths recovered 1500 kilograms of heroin on board. Eight Indian crew members were arrested. The last port of call for Prince was Chabahar in Iran from where it had picked up the contraband of Afghan heroin meant for an Indian cartel. This, till date, remains the biggest single haul of narcotics in India.
According to new modus operandi, drug cartels are increasingly using the maritime route to bring heroin from Afghanistan to the Makran coast, where the coastlines of Pakistan and Iran meet. From there, the consignments are taken across the Indian Ocean to western markets via east Africa, where the coastline is inadequately policed. As the drugs head towards India from Africa, the African smugglers who have their bases in cities like Delhi become involved. Bulk consignments arrive in Delhi either by air or even postal services before being distributed further to other cities like Mumbai. While small quantities are usually transported by postal services, large quantities are transported by using a variety of illegal means like concealing drugs inside vehicles, furniture, bags or specially designed luggage to be aired to other countries. Smugglers also swallow drug capsules or specially designed packets or insert them into their body cavities surgically or otherwise to be transported via air. Drugs are also routed through Sri Lanka. In December 2018, Sri Lankan authorities seized 800 kilograms of cocaine worth Rupees 4,000 crore from an India-bound ship docked at the Colombo port. The ship had sailed from Ecuador.
Even as the consumer market in India is on a rise, a portion of drugs transiting India appear to be mainly bound for European countries, US, Canada, and West Africa. Fishing vessels are being used as mode of transport of drugs largely from India to Sri Lanka and its other neighbours.
Growing ‘Nexus’
The huge narco-economy with enormous potential to bring about financial windfall explains the involvement of a range of agents including unemployed youths, law enforcement personnel and politicians in the trade, particularly given the high corruption levels that permeates the state structures. As previously mentioned, the Afghan narco-economy in 2018 is estimated to be US$60 million. It increases by leaps and bounds as the contraband leaves the soil of Afghanistan and travels the distance. There is no estimate of drugs that enter the Indian market. However, according to a report in 2018, one gram of heroin costs more than Rupees 2500 in international border areas in India. As the drug reaches districts like Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Fazilka, the price is doubled. A gram of heroin costs Rupees 8000 in cities such as Ludhiana and Chandigarh. Reduced supply further leads to skyrocketing of prices. For instance, the cost of heroin in Mumbai went up from Rupees 2.9 million in 2016 to Rupees 9.8 million in 2017.[14] This translates to Rupees 9800 per gram. By 2019, however, in national capital Delhi, the asking price for a kilogram of heroin (from either Afghanistan or Myanmar) had reached Rupees 40 million, i.e. a staggering Rupees 40,000 per gram.[15] Not surprisingly, improvised drugs like ‘Chitta’ are becoming more popular and play a key part of the bourgeoning narco-economy.
Fighting the Menace: Coordination deficit
According to India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), 27231, 31535 and 46959 cases were registered by various drug law enforcement agencies in the country during 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. Frequent arrests of Afghan and African nationals with drugs in various Indian cities often creates the impression of their large-scale involvement in the trade. However, according to the Indian Home Ministry, “99 percent of the 127180 persons arrested”[16]in these three years, are Indian nationals. It is safe to conclude that Indian mafia, smugglers, and agents dominate the trade within the country with only a minor participation of foreign nationals.
The NCB claims that steps taken by it has led to a reduction in the quantity smuggled Afghan drugs in India. However, the ground situation portrays a different picture. The fact that both central and state level efforts have remained uncoordinated and dissipated has aided the smugglers.
The state government in Punjab has struggled to deal with the drug problem in spite of its promise to wipe it out in few months. It is hard pressed for resources and the nexus of smugglers with the police and politicians are creating problems. However, the realization that the problem needs to be dealt with by inter-state cooperation has led Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to form a joint force to tackle the interstate network of drugs smugglers. Such mechanism, however, does not include the government of J&K, where efforts to tackle the menace remain minimal. According to a media report, the state-level de-addiction panel constituted by the Governor in March 2019 had not met even for a single occasion till July.[17] Both Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are moving towards strengthening legal mechanisms to arrest the chaos. Both are reportedly considering a legislation on the lines of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) to tackle the drug menace in their states.[18]
Realization that efforts of individual states will always be limited and affected by politics has led to calls for the establishment of a national agency to deal with the problem. In July 2019, for instance, state governments of Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh asked New Delhi to set up a specialised agency on the lines of National Investigation Agency (NIA) to against the drug mafia who run high profile rackets. The meeting which was also attended by official representatives from Delhi, J&K, and the union territory of Chandigarh also agreed to initiate a series of measures including joint operations at the inter-state borders, information sharing and implementation of the best practices of the participating States. The states also appeared to move towards strengthening the information sharing mechanism on drugs and drug dealers-smugglers, for a more effective crackdown against them. The implementation of all these measures would be crucial in controlling the menace.
Need for a Regional Counter-Narcotics Strategy
The decrease in opium cultivation in Afghanistan, mainly due to drought unfolds a false sense of promise. Both the area under cultivation and amount of production remains large enough to meet the demands of the increasing clientele. Worse still, shortage of supply merely leads to a rise in prices and not necessarily a dip in demand. Increase in the ability of the respective governments to act against the smugglers notwithstanding, the problem requires a bilateral /and regional collaboration to supplement the efforts of domestic agencies. This aspect is either absent or nascent. In April 2018, for instance, Indian and Afghan officials met in New Delhi for a day long bilateral meet to discuss issues related to drug trafficking and narcotics abuse. According to an issued press note, “the meeting discussed exchange of ideas, sharing of best practices and furthering areas of cooperation in the drug crime domain”[19]. No further meeting has taken place since then. The Indo-Pakistan counter-narcotics cooperation mechanism is largely non-functional due to the difficulty in the bilateral relationship. There is a need to reactivate such cooperation between countries on the smuggling routes. This is particularly important given the impact that this epidemic has on the youth of all three counties which are witnessing rising numbers of drug addiction. The drug trade continues to fuel the conflict in Afghanistan and facilitates linkages between organized crime and terrorist groups. Sharing of real time information as well as sharing of best practices are the need of the hour. In addition to interdiction and sharing information, a trilateral mechanism between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India can help curb the growing menace.
(Bibhu Prasad Routray is Director of Mantraya. Shanthie Mariet D’Souza is the President and Founder of Mantraya. Project Intern Vrinda Aravind contributed to this Special Report. This Special Report is published as part of Mantraya’s ongoing “Organised Crime and Illicit Trafficking”. Mantraya Special Reports are peer reviewed publications.)
It is a well-known security canon that if a militant movement has popular people’s support, it is near impossible to contain it, much less neutralise it. Only by winning the hearts and minds of the people can it be contained. If you fail to drive a wedge between the populace and the insurgent, the insurrectionary would win.
Bifurcating J&K: It will challenge the resilience of the Indian state.
20 AUG 2019
Manish Tewari MP and former union minister
By Balkanising the state of Jammu and Kashmir and reconfiguring its constitutional relationship with the Indian Union, the NDA/BJP government has entered into a grey area whose shades will challenge the resilience of the Indian state.
The Constitutional Grey: Beyond ignoring the letter and spirit of Article 3 and the repeal of Article 370, there are other constitutional issues that have also been disregarded. Before its accession, J&K was governed in terms of The Jammu & Kashmir Constitution Act promulgated in 1939. [https://ikashmir.net/historicaldocuments/65.html ] This arrangement continued until the state adopted its own Constitution. Para 7 of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on October 26, 1947 stated, “nothing in this Instrument shall be deemed to commit me in any way to acceptance of any future Constitution of India or to fetter my discretion to enter into arrangements with the Government of India under any such future Constitution.”
Though other princely states also signed similar covenants, given the prevailing state of hostilities with Pakistan, the situation in J&K was fraught with complexity. That is why a special mechanism was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on October 17, 1949, in the form of Article 370 to cement the relationship between the Indian Union and Jammu & Kashmir to move it beyond the Instrument of Accession.
Article 370 became all the more germane, for, on November 26, 1949, Rajpramukhs of all the other Princely States that had acceded to the Union of India signed and adopted the Constitution in its entirety, except the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.
To make J&K’s integration with India permanent, an elected Constituent Assembly was convened on October 31, 1951. It remained in session till November 17, 1956 wherein it adopted a Constitution that came into force on November 26, 1957. Article 3 of the said Constitution integrated the state inalienably into India by stating that J&K shall be an integral part of India.
Now, with the government having bifurcated the state into two, what happens to the Constitution of the undivided state of J&K? For, no one can abrogate that Constitution and it has no self-destruct provision in its 12 Parts and 147 Articles. Even the Parliament cannot rescind it, for it has been framed by an elected Constituent Assembly much like the Indian Constitution itself. If one was to argue that with the bifurcation, the Constitution has become a dead letter, it can equally be argued that then the relationship between India and J&K is now back to the terms of the Instrument of Accession, dehors the constitutional sophistry of 2019.
The Political Grey: Going all the way back to 1947, there is a sizeable section of people in Kashmir which has rooted for autonomy, self-rule, independence and merger with Pakistan. All these four strains are present in the body politic of Kashmir. They are intertwined and overlap and, therefore, the slogan of azadi means different things to different people. However, there are also the standard-bearers of the Indian Union in the vale of Kashmir, namely the National Conference and the Indian National Congress, stretching back, again, to Independence. Over a period of time, various other political outfits, like the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), founded in 1999, also joined this endeavour.
After the last round of intense militant activity in the mid-90s that saw the killings of leaders and cadres of mainstream political parties, they still persevered and between 1996 and 2019, over four Assembly elections and seven Parliament elections reaffirmed their faith in the Indian democratic system. The current bifurcation has completely cut the legs out from under the regional parties, namely the NC and the PDP. What was considered to be the political mainstream in Kashmir has effectively disappeared. It is ironical that three former Chief Ministers of J&K — Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, till recently an ally of the BJP — and their families are in incarceration. The repercussions of the negation of the political mainstream would be grave in the years to come
The Security Grey: It is a well-known security canon that if a militant movement has popular people’s support, it is near impossible to contain it, much less neutralise it. The most contemporary Counter-Insurgency Manual authored by General David Petraeus in 2006 and applied in Iraq and later Afghanistan is premised upon certain fundamental principles that go to the heart of COIN (counter-insurgency) operations. Simply translated, it means winning the hearts and minds of the people. If you fail to drive a wedge between the populace and the insurgent, the insurrectionary would win. In the long war against militancy in Punjab, the inflection point came when a popular government, even on a thin electoral base, was restored in 1992. Currently also, the government is negotiating to end the decades old insurgency with the Nagas underground. It is obtuseness to remove the political buffer between Delhi and Srinagar and administer Kashmir from New Delhi.
The Strategic Grey: Pakistan is back in the game not only in Kashmir, but also the region. The US needs Pakistan ever more if the US-Taliban deal has to succeed. Moreover, the Iranian issue is back on the front-burner. Pakistan will have a role to play in the US scheme of things. Whatever militant capacity the US-Taliban deal would free up will all come to Kashmir. Then, there is always the ISIS to fill in the vacuum if the demobilised Afghan fighters are unwilling to become guns for the Pakistani deep state. The government needed to apply the healing touch, rather than alienate them at this juncture.
The International Grey: India’s whole case for the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Northern Territories rests on the Instrument of Accession, an Article of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution and the two resolutions of Parliament. Article 4 of the J&K Constitution states: “The territory of the State shall comprise all the territories which on the fifteenth day of August, 1947, were under the sovereignty or suzerainty of the Ruler of the State.” The two resolutions of 1994 and 2012 state that the only unfinished business of Partition are those parts of J&K illegally occupied by Pakistan and ceded to China. With the dismemberment of the original state of J&K, that claim becomes a non sequitur. For, in both bilateral and multilateral negotiations, India would not be able to say that we are wanting control over the original state of J&K as acceded to India on October 27, 1947, by Maharaja Hari Singh, for that state no longer exists. This unravelling of J&K has weakened our case in the chanceries and conference rooms of the world.
That is why I told the Home Minister in the Lok Sabha on August 6 that between black and white, there are fifty shades of grey in Jammu & Kashmir.
Maharaja Hari Singh acceded J&K to India but was expelled two years after the accession. He breathed his last in exile BY Shakti S. Chandel
Maharaja Hari Singh took over the reins of J&K on September 23, 1925
Maharaja Hari Singh and Vallabhbhai Patel in Delhi on April 20, 1948
Nehru and Maharaja Hari Singh in May, 1948.
Pt Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah
The Royal couple : Maharani Tara Devi and Maharaja Hari Singh
June 20, 1949. It was the day when the government of independent India chose to exile the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, who had acceded his state to India on October 26, 1947. The Jawaharlal Nehru-led government in Delhi, under the influence of Governor General Lord Mountbatten, did not accept the accession in full measure — it was accepted on the condition that the final accession would be decided by the people of Jammu & Kashmir by plebiscite. Maharaja Hari Singh had merged the state with India without any condition — none could have been attached as conditional accession was not warranted by the 1947 Act of Independence passed by the British Parliament. However, the strings of plebiscite attached by the Indian government now came in the hands of Sheikh Abdullah, who got himself appointed as the Prime Minister of J&K. He wanted to be the absolute head of the state if the Indian government wanted his favour for winning the plebiscite. So he bargained with Nehru and sought the exile of Maharaja Hari Singh from J&K. Both Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel succumbed to this man's design, according to Looking Back, an autobiography of Mehr Chand Mahajan, the Prime Minister of Maharaja Hari Singh and the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India.
In 1857, the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was exiled to Rangoon for resisting a foreign power. In that case, a native was exiled by a foreign, occupying force — the Britishers. In the case of Maharaja Hari Singh, it was done by his own country's rulers in Delhi for no fault of his. Patel assured him that his stay outside the state would be a 'temporary phase' and he would return after a settlement with regard to the plebiscite was finalised. After signing a proclamation appointing his 18-year-old son, Yuvraj Karan Singh, as the Regent of Jammu and Kashmir, the Maharaja took a train to Bombay on June 20, 1949, and started living there. As events unfolded, the plebiscite never took place and only the ashes of the exiled ruler returned to Jammu in 1961.
April 26, 1961. The news of Maharaja Hari Singh's passing away was broken by the All India Radio on April 26, 1961, plunging the region and the Dogras into a state of shock and confusion. Shock, because he was loved across caste lines in the region; and confusion since they did not know where they should go for mourning. There was no one in the palace. Yuvraj Karan Singh and his wife were on a trip to Europe, and the Maharani was in Kasauli. The mourners marched to the residence of Pandit Prem Nath Dogra of Praja Parishad, hoping he would be able to guide them. No one knows how the decision was taken, but the mourners ended up forming a surreal funeral procession, which had neither the dead, nor the family of the deceased. The procession proceeded to the funeral grounds by the banks of Tawi, where the funeral rites were performed. No smoke came out of any hearth that evening as a sign of love and respect for the departed soul. However, the state government refused to share the grief of the Dogras. The radio station played songs and the state flag continued to flutter. This was provocative, and the demonstrating youth reacted. They marched to the civil secretariat and attempted to bring down the flag to half-mast, but the police responded by firing at them.
Maharaja and the Great Game
The Dogra rulers had survived the intrigues of the Lahore Durbar, and theirs was the only dynasty to emerge out of the decay and destruction of the local kingdoms. Eventually, the Dogras succeeded in extending the boundaries of their state deep into northern areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, Ladakh, Trans-Karakoram Tract and Aksai Chin. By the time Maharaja Hari Singh took over the reins of the state on September 23, 1925, much had changed and much remained mired in the political games of the nineteenth century that came to be known as the ‘Great Game’. Most of his life was spent battling those forces, in addition to the newly emerging threat of communalism in the subcontinent.
In hindsight, the history of the post-1947 subcontinent can’t be fully appreciated without critically examining the Maharaja’s role. So far it has never been adequately narrated. Even those who have made such attempts have judged him rather harshly through the eyes of other prominent forces of the time, without applying the test of objectivity and credibility to the sources from where they drew their arguments. Apart from not being fair to the Maharaja, historians have also been guilty of unfairly condemning the state forces for their role in the 1947-48 war with Pakistan. “Setting the record straight on both these counts was my stated purpose of writing the book Maharaja Hari Singh: The Troubled Years,” says author Prof. Harbans Singh.
The beginning of the Maharaja’s rule coincided with the rise of Mahatma Gandhi as a mass leader in India and the beginning of the awakening among the rural masses. Maharaja Hari Singh introduced many administrative and judicial reforms. At the very first durbar of 1925, he had declared: “Justice is my religion.” He stuck to this secular vision in letter and spirit all his life. He selected the ablest and experienced luminaries from British India as his prime ministers. He set up a responsible government with full provincial autonomy, and a Board of Judicial Advisors with the ruler as the constitutional head. The finances of the State were governed on modern principles. He promoted diverse cultural activities of the state and patronised performing artistes.
Secular outlook
Maharaja Hari Singh had worked hard for improving the lot of the Kashmiri Muslims. He made primary education compulsory for all subjects. Liberal stipends and scholarships were offered to Muslim students as an incentive for higher education. Sadly, the state had not taken sufficient measures to create a vibrant economic scene where jobs were created and these educated young men could have found opportunities. Therefore, if Sheikh Abdullah was a disgruntled schoolteacher after receiving a post-graduate degree in science, there was some reason for his resentment. The disgruntled thus found other channels to express their frustration. In a society that is largely uneducated and religious, the parables and words of saints come in handy to inspire as well as rouse. Since Sheikh Abdullah was adept at scriptures, he quickly succeeded in building a large following.
Then the developments of 1947 and the question of accession appeared. The position of Jammu and Kashmir was quite difficult, situated as it was in contiguity to India and Pakistan as also to Afghanistan, Tibet and Russia. The state had several ethnic groups. The situation, therefore, required to be dealt with tact and foresight. The Maharaja waited in vain for the turmoil of the communal frenzy in neighbouring Punjab to settle down. And before that happened, Pakistan invaded Kashmir—resulting in hurried accession of the state to India.
Sidelined
After taking over as the Prime Minister, Sheikh Abdullah started usurping all powers, ignoring the existence of the Maharaja. He started issuing a series of statements intended to humiliate and malign the Maharaja, and painted him as unpatriotic. In order to avoid embarrassment, the Maharaja wrote to Patel on May 6, 1949, and proposed that the Government of India find a suitable position in Delhi where his services could be utilised in a befitting manner, but there was no response. Under pressure from Sheikh Abdullah, the Maharaja was called to Delhi and was asked to desist from returning to the state, and was finally exiled. Thus, the Maharaja was banished from his own land, which had neither the sanction of law nor of political morality.
On June 20, 1949, the three members of the Dogra dynasty embarked upon their lonely journeys: the Maharaja took a train to Bombay; the Maharani took the road to Kasauli, and the newly appointed Regent, Yuvraj Karan Singh, flew to Srinagar to work with Sheikh Abdullah! This caused a strain on the relationship of the father and the son;
the Maharaja mollified only after Yuvraj Karan Singh dismissed Sheikh Abdullah from the office in 1953 and put him in jail, where he was to spend 11 years.
In the last phase of his life, the Maharaja lived a forlorn life, with no complaint or grudge against anyone. Only his passion for horses and the turf of Mumbai kept him going!
Clashes between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may indicate a deeper strategic divide between the two
August 14, 2019
Infighting among the Arab coalition in Yemen is starting to resemble a civil war within a civil war. Disagreements between Saudi Arabia, the coalition leader, and junior partner the United Arab Emirates in Yemen is nothing new, and in some ways last weekend’s events looked like only the latest in the tussle between them: Two UAE-backed entities, the Southern Transitional Council and its military wing, the Security Belt, attacked Yemeni government forces, which are supported by Saudi Arabia and led from afar by exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, in the southern port city of Aden. The militias seized the presidential palace and several military bases
What’s different about this round of infighting is the context. In May, the United Nations brokered a cease-fire that required rebel Houthi troops to withdraw from the key port city of Hodeida, though airstrikes by the Arab coalition on Houthi targets there in June called into question the U.N.’s assertion that the withdrawal had been completed. Four days before these strikes, a Yemeni official claimed that the UAE was plotting a military coup against Hadi. It was a credible claim even at the time, given the STC’s threat to overthrow Hadi last October, and one that was further validated by the STC’s seizure of the presidential palace in Aden last weekend.
Then, beginning in June, the UAE started to slowly leave the country. Emirati forces made what the UAE described as a “strategic” withdrawal from Hodeida – ostensibly as part of the U.N.-led peace process that prompted the Houthis’ partial exit – and “tactical” retreats from other cities, including Aden. By July 2, some sources were reporting as much as an 80 percent drawdown in UAE forces from in and around Hodeida, a full withdrawal from Marib, and an ongoing tactical withdrawal from Aden. Emirati sources also reported that the UAE had scaled back its presence in Assab, Eritrea, by 75 percent. (Assab is where the UAE trains soldiers and launches airstrikes on Yemen.) Around July 6, control over the Emirati forces’ headquarters in Mocha had been transferred to Saudi Arabia.
Throughout these withdrawals, Emirati officials repeatedly issued statements insisting that the military would continue to participate in the Arab coalition and would honor its commitment to countering Iranian influence on the Arabian Peninsula. Three Western diplomats, speaking to Reuters, said the UAE’s withdrawals were in fact related to escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran that began when four tankers were attacked in an Emirati port in May. That the UAE would want to bring troops home to protect its coasts seemed credible.
But in early July reports surfaced that Emirati forces were redeploying to Yemen. In early August, the Emirati foreign affairs minister confirmed as much. If the UAE is indeed redeploying, it might suggest that the earlier withdrawals were, in fact, tactical. But details on any such redeployment are scant, and other reports suggest the withdrawal is continuing – painting a rather muddled picture of the UAE’s position in Yemen.
A Narrowing Strategy
What is certain, however, is that the UAE’s perception of the war in Yemen – and of its winnability – has changed. The UAE is no longer comfortable expending all the resources it’s contributed to the war, especially as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz threaten the country’s maritime trade. This makes the UAE’s interest in controlling Yemen’s southern coast all the more pressing.
The recent infighting in Aden thus takes on greater significance. The UAE appears willing to scale back its presence across much of the country, including in combating the Houthis, even as it doubles down on its control over southern Yemen.
Hence the meeting, purportedly on maritime issues, between Emirati and Iranian officials in July. Officially, the two countries discussed fishermen’s rights to cross into each other’s waters for commercial purposes. But the timing of the meeting – on the heels of the reports that UAE forces were redeploying and just a week and a half before the STC attack on the Saudi-backed Yemeni government – makes the official version highly suspect.
It’s possible that the UAE and Iran reached a tacit agreement to leave each other alone in Yemen. Their territorial interests are complementary; Iran-backed Houthis are now concentrated north of Hodeida, with their seat of power in Sanaa, while the UAE is interested in securing possessions in the south. If the UAE is to redirect its forces away from hotly contested arenas like Hodeida to the south, it wouldn’t threaten the Houthis; in fact, there would be fewer Emirati forces available to fight them.
The UAE has other reasons to reconsider its commitment to the war in Yemen. Following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the American public became much more interested in Saudi Arabia’s behavior on the world stage, particularly in Riyadh’s role in the Yemen civil war. Both chambers of the U.S. Congress have passed legislation to curtail U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in the war. President Donald Trump has vetoed some of these bills, but the dissension is there. The U.S. is less willing to turn a blind eye to the conflict, making a difficult war much harder for the Saudi-led Arab coalition to fight.
That leaves Saudi Arabia with Houthi forces at its southern doorstep, threatening its airports with Iranian-supplied missiles, and with less Emirati ground support. Throughout the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has relied on the UAE’s ground forces, which it supports from the air – a strategy that limits Saudi casualties and, therefore, the Saudi public’s opposition to the war. If the UAE pulls back to the south, Saudi Arabia will be forced to either commit more ground forces to a quagmire of a war or to reach some kind of accommodation with the Houthis. Iran’s goal in supporting the Houthis all along has been to tie Saudi Arabia down; forcing the Saudis into this position would benefit Tehran, too.
The obvious problem with this theory is that the STC is no friend of Iran. Even after taking Aden, its leader even said the STC was committed to Saudi Arabia. Still, it would be easier for the UAE and its allies to make these kinds of commitments from a position of power – namely, consolidated control of the south. The UAE needs to be playing on its own terms, which at this point probably includes pushing for a political settlement that will relieve the demands on its manpower and resources to a war that seems, at best, to be a stalemate. And what better time to push for a settlement than now, since the UAE has control over Yemen’s southern coast and the surrounding maritime routes.
What Happens Next?
The UAE’s withdrawals and redeployments, its meeting with Tehran, and the infighting in Aden make it more likely that a political resolution to the war in Yemen will divide the country in two. To manage discontent with the war on the home front, it’s more likely Saudi Arabia will need to reach an agreement with the Houthis. But even if they reach a political settlement, Saudi Arabia will not be able to divert its attention from its southern border, constraining what it can do in the rest of the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence. An enduring Houthi presence in northern Yemen is not the most powerful stick in the world, but it’s one that Riyadh knows that Tehran could use to poke it in the eye at inopportune moments. (It also makes it less likely that half of one of our 2019 forecasts – that Iran’s position in Syria and Yemen will weaken – will come true.)
Last, this would portend a deepened rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Going its own way in Yemen is a sign that, where its interests diverge with Saudi Arabia, the UAE will be willing to pursue them regardless of what Riyadh wants. The two are still aligned on some issues – not least their shared fear of Iran – but this will represent another point of tension, and possible division, between the Gulf’s two monarchies.
The Arab sheikhs who instigated the US-Iran standoff have heard the African proverb, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers’. But they chose to ignore it. The assumption in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was that President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy would frighten Tehran and life would be back to normal very soon with a weakened Iran bludgeoned into submission.
On the contrary, the gyre of the US-Iran standoff is only widening by the day. What was thought to be a localised affair is acquiring international dimensions. America’s Arab allies no longer have a say in the mutation of the US-Iran standoff.
The Saudi and Emirati role narrows down to bankrolling the Anglo-American project on Iran and to allow the western bases on their territories to be used as launching pads for belligerent acts aimed at provoking the leadership in Tehran into retaliatory moves. In sum, there is growing danger that theymight get sucked into a conflict situation in a near future.
The Gulf states lack “strategic depth” vis-a-vis Iran and are sure to find themselves on the frontline of any military conflagration. Conceivably, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE bargained for such an eventuality.
.It is possible to discern amidst the welter of interpretations given to the “partial”pullout of the UAE forces from Yemen, Abu Dhabi’s calculation that safeguarding homeland security comes first, way above any imperial agenda. That sobering thought may also have prompted the UAE to make some overtures most recently toward Tehran
The UAE has taken a nuanced stance that no country could be held responsible for the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf in June. Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said“clear and convincing evidence” is needed regarding the attacks that targeted four vessels off the UAE coast, including two Saudi oil tankers. In essence he distanced the UAE from the US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s finding that the attacks on oil tankers were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”.
Significantly, Al-Nahyan made the remark at a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Moscow in late June, which from all indications focused on the efforts to bring the war in Yemen to an end and on a possible Russian initiative to moderate UAE’s tensions with Iran. (Interestingly, within the week after Al-Nahyan’s visit in late June, Moscow also hosted the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Conference and the UN special envoy on Yemen.)
It is entirely conceivable that Russia is doing what it can behind the scenes to lower the tensions between Iran and the UAE and in the Persian Gulf region as a whole. Moscow has lately rebooted its proposal for a collective security system for the Persian Gulf. In fact, on July 29, the Russian concept of collective security in the Persian Gulf has been distributed as an official document approved by the UN.
The Russian document envisages an initiative group to prepare an international conference on security and cooperation in the Persian Gulf, which would later lead to establishing an organisation on security and cooperation in this region. China has welcomed the Russian initiative and offered to contribute to its success — “We would also like to boost cooperation, coordination and communication with all the corresponding parties.”
Clearly, the Russian proposal flies in the face of the Anglo-American project to create a western naval armada led by the US to take control of the 19000 nautical miles in and around the Strait of Hormuz that will put the West effectively as the moderator of the world oil market — with all the implications that go with it for international politics — and literally reduce the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries to de facto pumping stations. For that reason, the Russian initiative will not fly. Simply put, the US and Britain will resent Russia butting in.
However, there are other straws in the wind. TheIran-UAE joint meetingto address littoral security cooperation in Tehran on July 30 is a tell-tale sign that the Persian Gulf states may have begun to realise that the endemic insecurities of the region ultimately require a regional solution. Iran has welcomed the Emirati overture and sees in it a “slight shift” in policy.
The big question is how far the UAE can get away with an independent foreign policy toward Iran. The West traditionally dictates the bottom line and that cannot change fundamentally unless the Arab regimes in the region give way to representative rule.
This is where the real tragedy lies. The big powers — be it the US or Russia — are largely guided by their own mercantilist interests and are stakeholders in the autocratic regimes in the region, which they find easily amenable to manipulation. A century ago, when an Arab Revolt appeared in the region, Britain had engineered it to roll back the Ottoman Empire. Today, there is no such possibility. The dismal ending of the Arab Spring in Egypt was to the advantage and utter delight of both the US and Russia.
Having said that, the situation is not altogether bleak. The western powers and Russia fiercely competing to secure lucrative arms sales running into tens of billions of dollars annually. This can be turned into opportunity.
Similarly, China’s appearance on the scene opens seamless possibilities for the Gulf states. The recent visit by the UAE Crown Prince to China underscores the Arab ingenuity to test the frontiers of strategic autonomy even in such difficult conditions. The fact of the matter is that the UAE has openly defied American pressure and is positioning itself as a hub of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and, furthermore, has become the first country in the Persian Gulf to introduce the 5G technology from China. (See my blog Belt and Road takes a leap forward to the Gulf.)
