News that should be more prominent

Afghanistan now has a road in the western part of the country that links to an Iranian route to the coast. India built the road at a cost of $85 million in order to be able to trade with Afghanistan by sea and through Iran, thus avoiding the need to go through Pakistan--to-date the only viable access route to Afghanistan. India has a major vested interest in a free, prosperous Afghanistan, much more so than the U.S., because of historic (and well-founded) worries that Afghan radicalism will quickly transfer to northwest India through Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistan, being joined at the hip with Afghanistan thanks to the Durand Line monstrosity, cannot tolerate an independent Afghanistan or a close Indo-Afghan relationship for fear that India will seek to destabilize Pakistan from the west. Afghanistan for its part needs an alternate route to the coast to reduce its dependence on Pakistan. This is one of the reasons why India and Afghanistan have much to gain from a closer relationship with Iran, something the previous U.S. administration was loath to sanction because of their deep distaste for the Iranian regime. IMHO, Iran is the key to Afghanistan's future development. U.S. interests would be well-served if we recognize this. The Central Asian route being planned right now for U.S. military access is fine for the short- and medium-term, but this only connects you to the Caspian Sea and you also have to worry about numerous sources of instability, including the Russians and the Caucusus. A normalized relationship with Iran would be a Gordian Knot solution to Afghanistan--a country that one can safely say will persist as a concern for the long-term.

Bombay. Not Mumbai

The city was called both names for centuries; the Marathi-language locals called it Mumbai, English-speakers called it Bombay. Which came first is not easily determined. Some say that Bombay is the anglicized corruption of the pre-existing local name, Mumbai. However, the Portuguese, who arrived in the area before the British, called the city Bombaim. As the wikipedia entry on this subject points out, Bombaim probably derived from a Portuguese name meaning "good bay." In other words, I believe Bombay is the anglicized version of Bombaim and not Mumbai.

In 1996, the ruling, Hindu-nationalist, Shiv Sena state government renamed the city to Mumbai in the English version as well, as part of a rash of colonial rejection that swept India. This moronic "restoration" disease was responsible for such atrocities as changing Calcutta to Kolkata (the local Bengali name), Madras to Chennai (Tamil), and Bangalore to Bengaluru (Kannada). Substituting symbolism for competence, these state governments sought to restore their cultural "pride" as a step to solving all the nation's problems. Read here for more gory details about the loaded reasons for these name changes.

This "logic" has also extended from time to time to the idea of making Hindi the sole official language of India, an honor it shares with English. Unsurprisingly, several regional groups (including the Tamilians and Kannadigas) have rioted at this brazen attempt by the Hindi-speaking "Northies" to suppress regional cultures.

Wonder why I persist in calling it Bombay? The name India itself is derived from the Greek characterization of the area where the Indus river is located, which dates to at least the time of Alexander the Great. Try and remove all the "foreign" influences and what have you left?

Perhaps these Indian "nationalists" should redirect their energies to upgrading the country's police forces, like, I dunno, giving them some real guns instead of the World War I-era, .303 Enfield rifles that they carry, if they're lucky enough to have one. Seriously, these are collectibles:

The Mettle of Indian Security

Right on the heels of my last post that talked about the inept Indian security system and how, in my experience, metal detectors in India are little more than annoying obstacles that people simply walk around, the NY Times published this picture yesterday:

(The Times' caption:) Metal detectors beeped and the word 'stop' came on, but commuters at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station in Mumbai, ignored them. Some commuters even squeezed between the metal detectors in their rush to move in and out of the station.

This is not to say that the Indian government is incapable of wielding its formidable bureaucratic muscle to improve things on occasion. According to the AP, security at airports around the country has been stepped up following threats of airborne attacks:

Several extra layers of security were set up and some passengers' bags were scanned for explosives.
"Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks," said Brij Lal, a senior police official organizing security at the airport in the northern city of Lucknow.
Nirmala Sharma, a passenger who flew from New Delhi to Lucknow, said her bags were checked a half dozen times and she went through a metal detector three times. "Sometimes it seemed tedious, but it seems to be the need of the hour," she said.

Indian airport security always seemed pretty good to me, actually. But, six-stage checks sure sound good. If only they could move one of those stages of security to other parts of the country, things might have a chance of improving.

If you read that last AP article I linked to, the remarkable thing isn't the newly overly convoluted security checks, but the discussion of how Indian officials are interrogating the lone captured terrorist:

Meanwhile, police officers said they were trying to get as much detail as possible from Kasab.
"A terrorist of this sort is never cooperative. We have to extract information," said Deven Bharti, the head of the Mumbai crime branch.
Indian police are known to use interrogation methods that would be regarded as torture in the West, including questioning suspects drugged with "truth serum."
Bharti provided no details on interrogation techniques, but said "truth serum" would probably be used next week. He did not specify what drug would be used.

As the Times (the British one) points out about the drawbacks of "truth serum":

The method was widely used by Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War, before it emerged that the drugs used – typically the barbiturate sodium pentothal – may induce hallucinations, delusions and psychotic manifestation.

The point being, of course, not that the interrogators were concerned for their subjects' well-being, but that these drugs are more effective at causing verbal diarrhea where the person speaks any gibberish that comes to their minds than tell the truth.

Those who criticize the Indians for using these drugs are missing the larger issue: the interrogators are merely seeking to confirm what they have already "extracted' from the terrorist through torture.

Indo-Pak Strategery

The madness of the terror attacks in Bombay has focused the world's attention on South Asia for the moment. India's first reaction, predictably, was to blame Pakistan instead of taking coherent action to take out the terrorists who were still alive and murdering people. Naval-gazing is just beginning, with the consensus so far pointing fingers at a completely inept Indian security apparatus. Helpful intel insiders are clambering over themselves to point out that they had warned so-and-so that this was going to happen, as if that would have mattered when India's anti-terror capacity is non-existent. Here's a revealing bit:

The information was relayed to domestic security authorities, but it was unclear whether the government acted on the intelligence.
The Taj Mahal hotel, scene of much of the bloodshed, had tightened security with metal detectors and other measures in the weeks before the attacks, after being warned of a possible threat.
But the precautions "could not have stopped what took place," Ratan Tata, chairman of the company that owns the hotel, told CNN. "They (the gunmen) didn't come through that entrance. They came from somewhere in the back."

There you go: "tightened security" means that they didn't even think of covering every damn entrance. In fact, having experienced India's security measures first-hand, I bet that the metal detector (I doubt there was more than one) in the front was active for no more than a day before people simply ignored it and walked around it. India has vowed before to take a comprehensive look at gaps in [insert security need] and prevent [insert crisis name] from ever happening again. I think Mark Tully gets it exactly right when he says about what will likely happen this time: '...will India wake up? If the past is anything to go by the answer has to be "no". '

The U.S. and other major powers are worried about an Indian military response against Pakistan and the likely resultant nuclear conflagration. Secretary Rice and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm Mullen are headed to the region to calm India and pressure Pakistan to help with the investigation. Marc Ambinder helpfully calls the region "A Second Middle East":

It's the Middle East with nuclear weapons on both sides. If soft power doesn't work, do you despose the Pakistani government and take possession of their nuclear program? Let them have a nuclear exchange and hope that it somehow does not spread? The next steps for the US aren't clear. President Obama might appoint an envoy to the region, empowered to engage in shuttle diplomacy a la Richard Holbrooke, Geroge Tenet or Dennis Ross.

Which brings us to how the Obama administration thinks it needs to deal with the region. I think it is a mistake for them to put too much emphasis on solving the Kashmir issue in order to normalize Indo-Pak relations. By comparison, I believe it is much more straightforward to solve the Israel-Palestine border issue than to sort out the messy ethno-religious tangles that bog down the Afghan-Pak-N. Indian region. IMHO, it is probably better to look at a region-wide (to include Central Asia) economic strategy of increasing trade and reducing barriers to investment as a means to achieving the political end goals. Natural gas pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan? Check. Central Asian hydropower to India and Pakistan? Check. Joint Tourism initiatives in Kashmir? Demilitarized borders? Infrastructure projects? Removing tariffs on cross-border trade?

History shows the way. For centuries, Afghanistan and Central Asia (and Iran) were most closely linked to the Indo-Pak region in terms of cultural and economic ties. There is still more that these regions have in common than not. Just figure out where India's Bollywood movies are most popular (outside India).

David Frum Can't Google

Frum is ordinarily one of the more reasonable opinionators over at National Review, which, these days, is a bit like praising the designated driver at a frat keg party. But, ol' Frumps decided to burnish his anti-liberal credentials a bit this week by posting this gem, modestly titled, "The International Case Against Obama":

From a regular correspondent, a young Indian national doing graduate studies in the United Kingdom:

An Obama presidency will embolden terrorists. I admit that this administration made too many inexcusable errors, but Obama will only offer palliative prescriptions, not permanent cure to the problem. If his presidency is a peaceful one, it will be so not because he has gone after the terrorists, but because he has conceded. That's really not leadership.

Recently, an Indian newspaper asked Obama what he knew about India. His ignorance was startling. Other than Gandhi, he couldn't mention a single name. I can almost imagine the day when Pakistan strikes India, and Obama asks Indians to follow the example of Gandhi and sit still. McCain at least recognises the importance of democracy.

The chief, and probably, only, merit of this post is that it brings to attention an important topic (at least for India-watchers): what would a President Obama's policies toward the Indian subcontinent look like? Would he continue Bush's unprecedented expansion of cooperation with India? How would he deal with the thorny India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir?

Leaving aside the tortured "logic" of this young graduate student's missive, what this piece accomplishes is to painfully expose dear Frumpy's complete ignorance of India matters, something that should be clear to even a casual India-observer. However Obama may view India, ignorance is not the problem. A simple Google search on "Obama India" would have revealed a wealth of information on the candidate's positions to Frumpelstiltskin.

First, Obama (and McCain) voted for the recent U.S.-India nuclear agreement, one of Bush's most significant foreign policy achievements. Hardly a "Gandhian" peace dove-y view; controversial to be sure, even in India, but not quite "anti-India." Second, Obama criticized U.S. assistance to Pakistan on the grounds that it was being used not to fight terrorists but to arm against India; a nuanced position that is obviously more "pro-India" than even this administration who accepted, maybe unwillingly, the tacit compromise when funding Pakistan. Third, Obama has been the most plain-spoken of the candidates in asserting a willingness to take out high profile terrorists in Pakistan if that government does not do so itself. Obama has been criticized for saying that, and this position certainly did not make him any friends in Pakistan, but I have a hard time visualizing hawkish Indians being dismayed at this stance.

Now, my point is not to defend Obama about his India views, just to say that Frumpsky does not know what the hell he's talking about. To be sure, Obama has some positions related to India that concern some people there. For example, his constant railing against outsourcing (read software and call center jobs) and his generally protectionist stances on trade. There are many others; if you'd like to know more, do your own damn Google search (and tell the Frumpster what you found).