Chabahar : Afghanistan-India-Iran: Chabahar Entente

SOURCE:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/27122018-afghanistan-india-iran-chabahar-entente-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29

Afghanistan-India-Iran: Chabahar Entente                           – Analysis

                               By

                   Ajit Kumar Singh

December 27, 2018

Iran's Chabahar Port at night. Photo Credit: Ksardar1359, Wikipedia Commons.

Mahmoud Saikal, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United Nations (UN), during a UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on The Situation in Afghanistan on December 17, 2018, welcomed the United States (US) move to exempt the Chabahar Port (also known as Shahid Beheshti Port) from its sanctions on Iran. Saikal stated that “we appreciate the collaboration and flexibility of our strategic partner, the United States to work with Afghanistan, Iran and India towards exempting the port from its Sanctions”.

On November 6, 2018, the US exempted India from imposition of certain sanctions with respect to the development of Chabahar Port in Iran. A day earlier, US Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo had announced that India and seven other countries could continue to import crude oil from Iran despite the sanctions on that country declaring, that the “U.S. will be granting these exemptions to China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey.”

Earlier on the same day, the US Department of Treasury stated in a Press Release that the US had fully re-imposed sanctions on the Iranian Regime. The release read,

…On May 8, 2018, the President ceased the United States’ participation in the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. That same day, the President issued National Security Presidential Memorandum–11, instructing the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury to begin taking steps to re-impose all U.S. sanctions lifted or waived in connection with the JCPOA… As of today [November 5], all U.S. sanctions lifted or waived in connection with the JCPOA are re-imposed and in full effect…

On January 16, 2016, after the US Secretary of State had confirmed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s verification that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, the US lifted nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the JCPOA.

Significantly, on May 23, 2016, during Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narnedra Modi’s visit to Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Iran had signed the Trilateral Agreement on Establishment of International Transport and Transit Corridor (also known as the Chabahar Agreement). A meeting of transport ministers of the three countries was held in New Delhi on September 28, 2016, during which they “exchanged views on the next steps for the implementation of the trilateral agreement”. Several developments occurred thereafter.

Significantly, on October 29, 2017, the first shipment of wheat from India to Afghanistan was flagged off, to be transhipped through the Chabahar Port in Iran. The shipment was part of the commitment made by the Government of India to supply 1.1 million tonnes of wheat for the people of Afghanistan on a grant basis. The shipment reached Chabahar Port on November 1, 2017, and later reached the Afghan city of Zaranj near the Iran-Afghanistan border on November 10 via road. The shipment paved the way for the operationalisation of the Chabahar port as an alternate, reliable and robust route for Afghanistan. 2000 metric tons of pulses from India to Afghanistan have also been shipped through this Port.

Later, on December 3, 2017, the inauguration of Phase-1 of the Shahid Beheshti Port at Chabahar. The total traffic at the Port is expected to grow gradually.

On March 21, 2018, the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) was informed that during Iranian President’s visit to New Delhi, India and Iran had reiterated their commitment for early and full operationalisation of the Port.

India and Iran have been in continuous contact with regard to the development of the Chabahar Port, in line with the Tehran Declaration (2001) and the New Delhi Declaration (2003). India’s Cabinet Committee on Security had approved India’s Ministry of External Affairs’ proposal regarding India’s participation in the Chabahar Port Project on October 18, 2014. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for operationalizing the Chabahar Project was signed on May 5, 2015. Later in May 2016, during PM Modi’s visit to Iran a commercial contract for the development and operation of the Chabahar Port between India Ports Global Private Ltd (IPGPL, a consortium of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Kandla Port Trust) and Iran’s Arya Banader was signed. The Lok Sabha was informed on March 15, 2017, that

…as per the contract India will construct two terminals (five berths) at Chabahar Port according to the specifications agreed under the Inter-Governmental MoU signed between India and Iran on 5 May 2015. This involves investment of an amount of nearly US Dollars 85 million for procurement of port equipment. Besides, India has agreed to provide US Dollars 150 million credit facility to Iran through Export-Import Bank of India (EXIM Bank) for Chabahar Port development.

The contract is for the period of 10 years.

According to the Indian Government’s assessment,

The Chabahar Port located in the Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran has provided India an alternative and reliable access route into Afghanistan utilizing India’s earlier investment in Zaranj-Delaram road built in Afghanistan, and also a reliable and more direct sea-road access route into the Central Asian Region. Chabahar Port’s location at the Arabian Sea means that it would be able to skirt any challenges posed by developments in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. The development of Chabahar port is also important because of the denial of direct land route access for transit and trade between India and Afghanistan [through Pakistan].

Access to Afghanistan has long been a sore issue between India and Pakistan, with Islamabad denying all transit across the land route, even for humanitarian supplies. For instance, Indian PM Narendra Modi during his visit to Afghanistan in December 2015, had promised 1.7 lakh tonnes of wheat to Kabul, which was facing an acute food shortage, but Pakistan denied permission deliver the Indian consignment across Pakistani territory. Most recently, on September 17, 2018, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi reportedly stated that that there was a need to first resolve technical and strategic issues linked with transit trade in the region. Not surprisingly, the military establishment in Pakistan has always opposed the Indian role in development of Chabahar Port. A week after the signing of the trilateral agreement on May 23, 2016, former defence secretary Lt-Gen (Retd.) Asif Yasin Malik, during a workshop on May 30, 2016, stated, “The alliance between India, Afghanistan and Iran is a security threat to Pakistan”. At the same event, Lt-Gen (Retd.) Nadeem Lodhi stressed that such a “formidable bloc” in the neighbourhood has “ominous and far-reaching implications” for Pakistan. In March 2018, Major General Asif Ghafoor, Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) – the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces – stated, “India has been busy in fomenting unrest through terrorism using Afghan soil,” and mentioned Kulbhushan Jadhav, an alleged Indian spy currently in Pakistan’s custody, as an example. Pakistan claims that Jadhav, an Indian national, was arrested in the Pakistani Province of Balochistan on charges of terrorism and spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

Pakistan is also worried that the development of the Chabahar Port will undermine the importance of its Gwadar Port, which is situated at a distance of approximately 72 kilometres from Chabahar. According to a September 15, 2003, report, an unnamed Pakistani official observed,

Pakistan is pinning huge hopes on the Gwadar Project as the transit point for goods from Russia and CARs [Central Asian Regions] bound for the Gulf and the East but Chabahar Port would inflict a huge financial setback for Pakistan.

Chabahar has already witnessed two major terror attacks since then. On December 14, 2010, at least 41 people were killed and another 90 injured in a suicide attack outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in Chabahar.   Jundallah (Soldiers of God), a Sunni militant group, that operates both in Iran and Pakistan, took responsibility for the attack. Most recently, on December 6, 2018, a suicide attack on a Police Station in Chabahar killed four persons and wounded 42. On December 8, 2018, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, without naming Pakistan, stated that Iran holds regional sponsors of terrorism and spy services accountable for the horrific incident. Reports now indicate that Ansar al-Furqan, a Sunni militant outfit, with close links to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), claimed responsibility for the attack.

A safe and secure Chabahar Port enormously serves the interests of India, Afghanistan and Iran. The facilities at the port as well as operational mechanism along the established transit route need to be strengthened further, and could be a critical factor in the geopolitical balance of the South-Central Asian region. 

*Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Chabahar Port India Takes Over Iran's Strategic Chabahar Port

SOURCE:
https://www.rferl.org/a/india-iran-afghanistan/29674982.html

India Takes Over Iran's Strategic Chabahar Port

Chabahar Port, Iran (file photo)

India has formally taken over operations at Iran's strategic Chabahar Port, a move that could have significant geopolitical ramifications in the region.

The port on the Indian Ocean, inaugurated last year, is being built largely by India and is expected to provide a key supply route for Afghanistan while allowing India to bypass rival Pakistan to trade with Central Asia.

Representatives from India, Iran, and Afghanistan met in Tehran to formally hand over control to state-owned India Ports Global Limited (IPGL).

An Iranian official was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying that IPGL had been granted the lease for "a temporary period of 18 months and a ten-year period afterwards."

The official added that IPGL’s management would include "loading and unloading, supplying equipment and marketing."

The U.S. State Department in November exempted the Chabahar Port project from sanctions in recognition of its importance to landlocked Afghanistan.

The effort to build up Afghanistan's economy is also aimed at reducing Kabul's dependence on foreign aid and putting a major dent in the illicit opium trade that has been a major source of revenue for the Taliban insurgency.

New Delhi has poured $2 billion into development in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban's government.

SOURCE:
http://www.indictoday.com/thoughts/how-the-ghost-of-1857-haunted-the-british-in-india/

How The Ghost Of 1857 Haunted The British In India

BY

 Aneesh Gokhale

August 13, 2018

The backbone of the British Empire was the army it created in India. It had one of the best cavalry and armed soldiers amongst all its colonies comprising of Indian and British soldiers. The British Army ensured that the subjects and the slaves lived in constant fear and retribution. Hence, the 1857 ‘War of Independence’ and the 1946 naval ratings  uprisings gave a jolt and rattled the empire to the core.

“The British Indian Army is the only instrument in the hands of the British Government to maintain internal peace and quell external aggression.” Umer Hayat Khan (1929)

On 1857, a shot rang out at the Barrackpore cantonment in what is today Bengal. It was the spark that lit a fire that had been simmering under the surface for quite some time.

The East India Company (EIC) had painstakingly built its empire in India, gaining victory in various battles across the country. In the process it had also laid the foundations of the modern Indian army. Indian sepoys had been drafted into British style battalions and regiments, which in 1857, to the horror of the EIC, had risen against them. The reasons were varied, with the beef and pork cartridge paper just being the trigger, not the main reason. This work doesn’t intend to explore questions such as ‘was it really a national uprising?’ or ‘was it haphazard or well co-ordinated?’ Or ‘how would India have fared as a nation if the British had left?’  Instead, the author opines on how threatened did the British Empire feel owing to the events of 1857.

In 1857, the power of the East India Company lay solely in its soldiers. It had captured territory after territory either by destroying big rival armies – like that of Daulatrao Scindia and Bajirao II or it had completely defanged Rajas and princely states by stationing soldiers to ‘protect’ thee new found allies; the Mughal emperor himself for example. Thus, when the 1857 uprising happened for the British it felt like their strongest arm had reached for their throat. A good measure of how dangerous a threat is perceived to be is to analyse the quantum and quality of the resources used to counter it. The British viewed the 1857 threat very, very seriously and the same can be concluded from  two facts:

a.  The caliber and experience of military officers sent to India to quell the 1857 Uprising.

b.  The brutality adopted to crush the uprising.

The local British officers alone were not considered sufficient to quell the uprising of Nana Sahib, Tatya Tope and at a later stage, Rani Laxmibai. To defeat her alone, and secure Bundelkhand, General Hugh Rose was sent from England. He came and took over the Central India Field Force at Mhow (Madhya Pradesh). Previously, he had served in various battles in the Crimean War and in Syria. When he arrived in India, he already had a military career of over thirty five years! Another important British Officer in the fray was General Wheeler, who had served in the Afghan War and the Sikh War in recent years.

As to the brutality unleashed in suppressing the Uprising, there was no limit. More than a million were killed in the Ganga – Jamuna doab. Dozens were hanged or shot dead and the death count in Delhi alone went to a lakh. Delhi was considered the epicenter of the War of Independence of 1857 by the Britishers and in order to crush the Uprising and create fear they even toyed with the idea of flattening the city to the grounds. Complete annihilation of a micro civilization was the retribution for fighting for Independence.  Many buildings were indeed razed and the Mughal aristocracy brutally annihilated. Why indeed go to this extent of brutality if their rule over India was not seriously threatened? At no other point in India’s freedom struggle was such annihilation repeated on this scale.

Lord Canning called it “A storm which would have otherwise swept over us in one great wave”, alluding to help given to the British by Indian princes which saved the day.

Administrative changes:

The first and major change was to transfer control of India from the East India Company to the British Government at London. The EIC had more or less put India in its pocket by 1818. Sindh (1843) and Punjab (1849) were the only major regions to be annexed later. It had done so via some excellent military commanders such as General Lake and General Wellesley. Still, the events of 1857 compelled a change of management. An even more monumental change took place in the military structure. At the time, the Indian Army consisted of three separate “Presidency” armies – Bombay , Bengal and Madras. They would be united into the current “Indian Army” much later, in 1903.

As of 1857, the Bengal army was the largest, drawing from Bengal, Bihar, Awadh, and others. It also led the revolt against the British. The administrative response was to come up with a ‘martial race’ theory. Those who had supported the British were ‘martial race’, those who had not, were not. The British cited hardiness, mountainous terrain as reasons, but the coincidence with 1857 is hard to miss!

It goes without saying that the Bengal regiments were by and large disbanded. The focus of the army almost overnight shifted to the Punjab and other provinces.  In 1858, over eighty percent of the troops in the Bengal Army were being recruited from the Punjab!

How important was the army from the British stand point?

The British Indian Army was a very important part of the British Empire. Not only external , but even internal security problems were regularly handled by the army.  In just three years – 1899 to 1901 – it had been called upon sixty eight times to solve problems facing the British Empire from within India. The British Empire liberally used its armed forces on civilian populations – such as at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre or the bombing of the North West Frontier Province in 1940s. Both times to crush the freedom struggle.

So long as they controlled the army , the British empire felt secure. Even the Quit India movement had been suppressed by using the army.  When it came to the question of devolving power to Indians , via the Cripps Mission of 1942 , the British Government insisted that the Army should not be let out of British hands. They would not tolerate an Indian here. The army protected the subcontinent from a Russian invasion and had at an earlier juncture given England strategic depth in the important region of Afghanistan.

 Ghosts of 1857:

The British rattled as they were by the happenings of 1857, sought to downplay it in various ways by calling it a rag tag mutiny or by ensuring that no public dissemination about the Uprising happened amongst the subjects. When Savarkar’s book on War of  Independence of 1857 was to be published – it was banned! This was a good fifty years after the event, and the book was banned even prior publication! Perhaps the British feared a repeat of the events fifty years past? Any suggestion to have the slightest civilian control over the army was quickly dispatched to the dustbin. The British created Provincial Governments and Constituent Assemblies, but Defense and budgeting of defense always remained a military concern.

Any person trying a repeat of 1857 was dealt with severely. For example , soldiers of the Garhwal rifles refused to board buses that were being sent to quell Khuda-e-Khitmatgars protesting at Qissa Qahani Bazar, Peshawar.  It was the first time since 1857 that army units had done such a thing – and the repurcussions were harsh. There was a belief that the Civil Disobedience movement had perhaps affected the Army. Apparently, the British government was more scared of army units turning nationalist than peaceful nationalist movements themselves!  The fate of the Indian National Army was also similar.  It is unfortunate, that with the British themselves repeatedly saying that 1857 was nearly the end for them and getting spooked with anything remotely resembling 1857 appeared on the horizon, Gandhiji and others stuck to the view “How can we ever hope to rid the British by force of arms? We are poor, uneducated, unarmed people – we can never fight the British.”

Congress Party as a safety valve:

The genesis of the Congress party is an interesting story.  It generally doesn’t find mention in popular memory when we talk of the grand old party.  The only recollections, if any, people will have are a few paragraphs from the school textbook.  But the Indian National Congress was established precisely to act as a buffer against a 1857 like event (which as we have seen, was an earth shattering event).  It is a fact that Allan Octavian Hume and Lord Dufferin played a central role in establishing the Congress party.  AO Hume himself called it “a safety valve for the escape of great and growing forces”. What were these great and growing forces? Hume was alluding to a possible armed uprising. Creating Indian National Congress put an Indian buffer between them and the British.

1946 and the effect of Netaji 
Subhash Chandra Bose

“I am not too keen to start talking about a period  after which British rule would have ceased in India. I feel that day is very remote.” –Lord Linlithgow , 1939.

“ This is the first occasion an anti British politician has acquired a hold over substantial number of men in the Indian Army and the consequences are quite in incalculable” – Lord Wavell , 1944

It is interesting to note that the Cripps Mission (1942), which came up with a plan to devolve power substantially to Indians, insisted on keeping Defense with the British! Even as late as 1946, the importance of the army had not been lost on the British Empire. In those few years, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose raised the Azad Hind Fauj (INA) – drawn up from Indian PoWs of the World War and volunteers from Singapore and Malay islands, who were mostly Tamils. The INA proceeded to evict British rule from many parts of South East Asia and also won Andaman and Nicobar islands. They then proceeded towards Imphal and Kohima – where twenty thousand soldiers of the INA were martyred fighting British armies. But for the British Government, these were Indian soldiers fighting against their own government! Trials followed – the famous Red Fort trial of the INA. Bose had intended to cause a 1857 like event by entering Bengal via the north east. Sadly, that was not to be. But his aim of inspiring men against the empire was fulfilled by the Red Fort trials.

The trial directly led to the mutiny by the Indian Naval ratings at Bombay and Karachi. Soon it spread elsewhere to the Signallers and other departments. It spread to Calcutta and Pune. At its height in February 1946 it involved 78 ships , twenty shore establishments and twenty thousand sailors. There was extreme panic in London and Delhi. The legs of the Empire had given way ! Subhash Chandra Bose was triumphant finally.

Effect of Red Fort trials:

The treatment of the INA severely divided the British Indian Army. A large number of soldiers believed that the INA had been dealt with rather harshly. Contrast this with the hundred percent faith put in them to quell the Quit India movement of 1942. In a report prepared by the British Intelligence officer O’Brien, it is mentioned that the Indian soldiers of the Royal Indian Navy, Royal Indian Air Force, Signalers, Ancillaries and many others could no longer be counted upon. This was April 1946. An exit plan was hastily drawn up. It had been just seven years since Linlithgow had said “I do not see the end of British rule”. What changed? The stance of the British Indian Army!

Thus, we see that it was the Army that was the backbone of British rule in India. This backbone nearly broke in 1857 and all efforts of the British, henceforth, were to prevent a recurrence. The Congress Party was established as a ‘safety valve’ and soldiers kept loyal by recruiting from certain castes and classes only. It obviously did the job, because as late as 1939 the Viceroy was confident of holding on to India forever! But when this foundation wobbled heavily in 1946, British rule became untenable. This is not to say that other freedom fighters were not brave or sincere. They definitely were , and their nationalism and sacrifice is inspiring indeed. But as far as India getting freedom is concerned , it was the activities in the Defense department that proved most crucial. The book “ Bose – An Indian Samurai” by Maj Gen GD Bakshi gives a brilliant exposition of this and is a must read book for anyone wanting to understand our freedom struggle from nationalistic lens.

In the words of Lt Gen S.K Sinha

“ There was considerable sympathy for the INA within the Army. It is true that fears of another 1857 had begun to haunt the British in 1946”

References :

  [A] Punjabisation in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan– Syed Hussain Shahid  Suhrawardy        
CLICK/GOOGLE   
http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/48674/WP24_Shaheed_Hussain.pdf     


 [B]         

Contribution of the Armed Forces to the Freedom Movement in India – Gen VK Singh 
  CLICK/GOOGLE 
 http://indianstrategicknowledgeonline.com/web/Contribution%20of%20the%20Armed%20Forces%20230109.pdf )
                          
  [C]
         Bose , An Indian Samurai – Maj Gen (Dr) GD                                 Bakshi 1857 

   [D] 
          War of Independence – VD Savarkar

   [E]
           Last Mughal – William Dalrymple

Aneesh Gokhale

PROJECT SARASWATI Playing With Zero and Ancient History (R)

SOURCE:
http://www.indictoday.com/thoughts/playing-with-zero-and-ancient-history/



                  PROJECT SARASWATI

Playing With Zero and Ancient History 

by

 Subhash Kak

Mathematical and physical arguments are easier to check for basic errors than those in the social sciences and history. You may not divide by zero, because if you did then you could show, for example, that 2 = 3 (because 2/0 = 3/0); likewise, any system that delivers more work than the energy it takes in is a logically impossible perpetual motion machine.

Authors in the social sciences sometimes get carried away by ideas that are unfalsifiable or logically inconsistent and since these ideas are repeated in the echo chambers of the academia, it can take a generation or two, or even longer, to realize this.

Here I wish to speak of just one matter of ancient history concerning languages of India and Europe that are far apart geographically but belong to the same family. Recently, people have begun to use ancient DNA to see how India was populated by outside migrants and settlers.

It is quite fair to assume that people traveled in different directions in the ancient world but to effectively assume that a small number of migrants were able to change the language of India makes little sense, especially if this is proposed to have occurred as recently as 2000 BCE or thereabouts.

Why? Because we have literary evidence from India that speaks of continuity going back to about as early as 4th millennium BCE and these texts remember no other region but north and northwest India. We have astronomical references, datable geological events, king lists and lists of rishis that span several thousand years. One may dismiss one or two of these as myth, but one can’t do so if the pieces are independent and connected with facts on the ground. Here’s a summary:

1. Astronomical events in the Ṛgveda and later books are consistent and provide references to events that occurred in late 4th millennium BCE and subsequently in third and second millennia BCE. This is not only in terms of solstice and equinox information but also the very listing of the nakṣatras, which has a spread of several thousand years.

2. The memory of the Sarasvati River flowing once from the mountain to the sea, which was true latest around 1900 BCE and perhaps a thousand years prior.

3. When the Greeks came to India, they wrote about an Indian tradition of king-lists that went back several thousand years.

4. The acknowledgement in later books such as the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa that the Vedic people had moved beyond to the region west and northwest of India across the Himalayas to what is called Uttara Kuru, which is Bactria and the region of the Central Asian steppes and West Asia.

In the 19th century some scholars came up with the idea that the Indo-European languages were spread by the invasion of the Aryans by horse-riding warriors to India about 1500 BCE. This theory has been debunked time and time again but it takes on new forms. In a new incarnation known as the “Steppe Hypothesis,” horse-riding pastoralists from the Black and Caspian Seas migrated west into Europe and east into Central Asia and India around 3000 BCE. This has also been debunked by a new genetic study.

It is most amusing that population theories take India to be a vast empty space, a big zero. Doing so may make a sensational news story for a day or two but it cannot square with hard facts. Even if we forget the texts, we have the archaeological evidence related to the nearly 10,000-year-old Sindhu-Sarasvati Tradition that shows India to have been the most densely populated region of the ancient world.

The density of the population makes it impossible to come up with a model where people from the sparsely populated steppes or the Iranian highlands will be able to change the language of the region.

A widely spoken language of a region is like an attraction basin in a complex system. The theory of complex systems tells us that after any small perturbations the system returns to its old state. Even if one could think of a process that suddenly made a lot of people in the steppes decide to ride thousands of miles into the hot, baking plains of north India, they would, in a generation or two, lose their language unless they lived in small enclaves as isolated groups. If they did not even bring their women, as is claimed in one bizarre theory, their language, if different from the host language, would not survive a single generation.

Further ascribing successful replacement of language to superior technology of the chariot or the advantage of horsemanship does not change the argument.

Now it is quite possible that a large movement of people into India prior to 3000 or 4000 BCE, when the population of the Harappan settlements was not as large as it came to be later on, may have brought about change of the language. But this time-span is not convenient to many for whom the central issue appears to be the ownership of the Vedic literature and, even more importantly, its sciences.

Migration at such an early period will also have to explain why the injection of a large new population with a different language did not change the basic nature of the Sindhu-Sarasvati cultural tradition. And where did these people come from?

If one takes ancient India to be effectively zero in population and uses ancient DNA only from regions outside of it, one can “explain” anything about later populations. This is a circular argument that is impossible to sustain in the light of the remembered history of the region.

Ancient bones hide as much as they reveal and they may not be representative of the populations of the region. This is especially true of India where most have traditionally cremated the dead. The samples we have could very much be setting up equations of the kind 2/0 = 3/0.

ARMED FORCES TRIBUNALS : Disempowering The Soldier (R)

SOURCE:
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2018/columnists/disempowering-the-soldier.html






By curtailing the effectiveness of the Armed Forces Tribunals, the Government is destroying the military justice system which is a disservice to serving and retired personnel

              Disempowering The Soldier

                          Deepak Sinha

Friday, 30 November 2018 

With election fever having gripped major parts of the country, television coverage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi hitting the poll trail is common, as also his constant reference to the so-called “surgical strikes” in his speeches. It is obvious that through his words of sympathy and support for the sacrifice and efforts of the military, he is intent on furthering his reputation as a firm and pro-active leader. But despite semantics and bombast, his Government continues with unabated ferocity in its agenda to disempower and dismember the military. Among a host of other issues, take the case of the Armed Forces Tribunals (AFT), another important institution that has been in the line of fire by this Government over the past year.

It was just about a decade ago when the Parliament, in its wisdom, transformed the military justice system by enacting the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007, in order to address the serious lacunae in the existing system where justice was dispensed within the military. As per its website, it provided for the “adjudication or trial of disputes and complaints with respect to commission, appointments, enrolments and conditions of service in respect of persons subject to the Army Act, 1950, The Navy Act, 1957 and the Air Force Act, 1950.”

More importantly, it also provided for “appeals arising out of orders, findings or sentences of courts — martial held under the said Acts and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” In addition, it also adjudicates cases pertaining to military veterans and their heirs in issues relating to service matters. The AFT also has a distinct advantage since appeals against its findings can be made directly to the Supreme Court, thereby speeding up the judicial process for the affected individuals and the Government.

The critical role played by the AFT can best be understood in context of the fact that the Armed Forces being hierarchical organisations steeped in tradition, demand unquestionable loyalty and implicit obedience to orders from its rank and file. In this paternalistic and excessively conservative environment if, for any reason, an individual finds himself on the wrong side of the track, be it with regard to personnel or disciplinary issues, his superior officer becomes the prosecutor, jury and judge — all rolled in one.

While this provides for a quick dispensation of justice, undoubtedly extremely important in certain circumstances, it may not necessarily be unbiased or provide for an impartial or just resolution of the issue. The establishment of the AFT, thus, provided for an extremely important element in the military justice system. It gave all ranks an opportunity to approach an independent authority if they felt that they had not received justice at the hands of their superior officers for whatever reason.

Besides the principal Bench in New Delhi, the AFT has regional benches in 10 other cities across the country. While Delhi, Lucknow and Chandigarh have three Benches each, all other centres have a Bench each, a total of 17 Benches. Each Bench comprises of a judicial member and an administrative member. The judicial members are retired High Court judges and administrative members are retired members of the Armed Forces who have held the rank of Major General/ equivalent or above for a period of three years or more.

It demands no great intelligence to conclude that the judicial member is appointed based on his experience and knowledge of law and functioning of the criminal justice system. The administrative member is selected based on his long and distinguished service in the military and knowledge in associated matters.

However, over the past year while members have retired at regular intervals on completion of the laid down tenures, new appointments have not been forthcoming with a result that presently, of the authorised 35 members for 17 Benches, there are a total of only seven judicial members and eight administrative members presently nominated to the AFT. This implies that the Armed Forces Tribunals is presently functioning at less than 40 per cent of its strength.

Another five members, including three administrative members, will retire by May 2019, which would make the Armed Forces Tribunals virtually non-functional, if new members are not appointed. For all intents and purposes, circumstances leading to the prevailing state of affairs cannot be attributed to the lack of suitably-qualified judges or service officers. But it clearly points towards a deliberate attempt by the appointing authority and the Ministry of Defence to nullify their effectiveness at the cost of servicemen and veterans alike.

It is a matter of public record that there have been numerous occasions on which the various Benches of the AFT have ruled against the stand of the Ministry, thereby causing much embarrassment and humiliation to the Ministry. As per reports in the media as on date, the Ministry of Defence has a total of over 7,000 appeals against judgements of the AFT pending in the Supreme Court.

Obviously, the Defence Secretary finds himself in an unenviable position and can hardly be happy with this state of affairs, especially given the fact that he is a member of the selection committee that appoints members to the Armed Forces Tribunals. This attempt to curtail the effectiveness of the AFT could, therefore, well be because of this, which makes it a clear case of conflict of interest. Incidentally, a petition is under consideration of the Punjab and Haryana High Court since 2012 on this very issue and the need to place the AFT under the Ministry of Law instead.

However, a more disturbing reason could be that the Government’s attempt to introduce new rules through the Finance Bill 2017 were stalled when it was stayed by the Supreme Court in its judgment of February 9, 2018, in the matter of Kudrat Sandhu versus the Union of India.

As per the new rules, the appointment of administrative members was to be no longer restricted to the military, but was also open to others with at least 20 years of public service in such fields as economics and finance. Clearly, expecting non-military members to be conversant with military traditions and customs, procedures and conditions of service was not only impracticable, to say the least, but also made no sense. Obviously, this was nothing but a brazen and unashamed attempt to add to the sinecures available for retiring bureaucrats, which given their bent of mind, would result in the Ministry of Defence getting things their way from their own erstwhile colleagues.

Whether the Armed Forces Tribunals has been brought to its knees by the deliberate actions of unconscionable bureaucrats or utter lack of empathy of politicians is of little concern. The truth is, by curtailing the effectiveness of the Armed Forces Tribunals, the Government is destroying the military justice system which is a disservice to serving and retired personnel. Moreover, it is denying them justice that is their due, given that they have no other legal recourse available.

(The writer is a military veteran, a Consultant with the Observer Research Foundation and Visiting Senior Fellow with The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai)

Stepped up US military posture in the Gulf threatens Indian hopes for Iran's Chabahar Port (r)

SOURCE:
https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2018/12/stepped-up-us-military-posture-in-gulf.html




Stepped up US military posture in the Gulf threatens Indian hopes for Iran's        Chabahar Port

•                      James M. Dorsey

The arrival of the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier group in the Gulf to deter Iran from further testing ballistic missiles is likely to dampen Indian hopes that the Trump administration’s exemption of the port of Chabahar from sanctions against the Islamic republic would help it tighten economic relations with Central Asia and further regional integration.

The group’s presence in the Gulf, the first by a US aircraft carrier in eight months, came amid mounting tension between the United States and Iran following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program and the imposition of harsh sanctions against the Islamic republic. It raised the spectre of a potential military conflagration.

The deployment for a period of two months coincided with a suicide attack on a Revolutionary Guards headquarters in Chabahar that killed two people and wounded 40 others.

Saudi and Iranian media reported that Ansar al-Furqan, a shadowy Iranian Sunni jihadi group that Iran claims is supported by the kingdom as well as the United States and Israel, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Saudi pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat asserted that the attack “reflects the anger harboured by the (city’s Baloch) minority against the government.” The paper said the Iranian government had expelled thousands of Baloch families from Chabahar and replaced them with Persians in a bid to change its demography. It asserted that Iran was granting nationality to Afghan Shiites who had fought in Syria and Iraq and was moving them to Chabahar.

The paper went on to say that “anti-regime Baloch movements have recently intensified their operations against Tehran in an attempt to deter it from carrying out its plan to expel and marginalize the Baloch from their ancestral regions.”

Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of the US’s confrontational approach towards Iran, has pumped large amounts of money into militant, ultraconservative Sunni Muslim anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian religious seminaries along the border between the Pakistani province of Balochistan and the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan that is home to Chabahar, according to militants.

The funding was designed to create the building blocks for a potential covert effort to destabilize Iran by stirring unrest among its ethnic minorities.

The deployment was, according to US officials in response to Iran’s test-firing of a ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads. The US sanctions are in part designed to force Iran to drop its development of ballistic missiles. Iranian officials insist the missiles program is defensive in nature. 

“We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The spectre of increased military tension in the Gulf with the arrival of the aircraft carrier group and of potentially Saudi and US-backed political violence in Iran, and a troubling security situation in Afghanistan threatened to diminish the impact of Washington’s granting Indian investment in Chabahar an exemption from its economic sanctions against Iran.

Indian and Iranian officials fear that the United States’ stepped up military posture and heightened tensions could undermine their efforts to turn Chabahar, which sits at the top of the Arabian Sea, into a hub for trade between India and Central Asia rendering the US waiver worthless.

The officials have their hopes pinned on efforts to engineer a peace process in Afghanistan. US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad alongside representatives of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan met this week with the Taliban. The talks are intended to negotiate an end to Afghanistan’s 17-year old war.

An Afghan government delegation, in what diplomats saw as a sign of progress, hovered in the corridors but did not take part in the meeting because of the Taliban’s insistence that it will only talk to the United States. Talks with the Taliban have so far stalled because of the group’s insistence on a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan.

US officials said the aircraft carrier group, beyond seeking to deter Iran, would also support the US war effort in Afghanistan where the United States has ramped up airstrikes in an effort to press the Taliban into peace talks.

The talks were an opportunity, particularly for Saudi Arabia, whose utility as an ally is being questioned by the US Congress in the wake of the October 2 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and Pakistan, which the United States accuses of supporting the Taliban, to demonstrate their utility.

US President Donald J. Trump asked Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan in a letter earlier this month to help bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

While Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an interest in using their close ties to the Taliban to help forge an end to the Afghan war, its not immediately clear that they want to see reduced tensions facilitate the emergence of Chabahar as an Indian-backed hub.

A Saudi think tank, the Arabian Gulf Centre for Iranian Studies (AGCIS) renamed the International Institute of Iranian Studies that is believed to be backed by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, argued in a study last year that Chabahar posed “a direct threat to the Arab Gulf states” that called for “immediate counter measures.”

Written by Mohammed Hassan Husseinbor, identified as an Iranian political researcher, the study warned that Chabahar posed a threat because it would enable Iran to increase greater market share in India for its oil exports at the expense of Saudi Arabia, raise foreign investment in the Islamic republic, increase government revenues, and allow Iran to project power in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Noting the vast expanses of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, Mr. Husseinbor went on to say that “it would be a formidable challenge, if not impossible, for the Iranian government to protect such long distances and secure Chabahar in the face of widespread Baluch opposition, particularly if this opposition is supported by Iran’s regional adversaries and world powers.”

Similarly, Pakistan is heavily invested in Gwadar, the Chinese-backed port in Balochistan that is a crown jewel of the US$45 billion plus China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a pillar of the People’s Republic’s Belt and Road initiative. Gwadar is a mere 70 kilometres up the coast from Chabahar.

"Pakistan sees India as an existential threat and the idea of India being in any way present on Pakistan's western flank in Afghanistan will always raise alarm bells in Islamabad," said South Asia scholar Michael Kugelman.

If the arrival of the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier group in the Gulf heralds heightened tension, Pakistan may have less reason to worry.