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Indian Press on Bangladesh, Cow as an Instrument of Conciliation, Afghan War and China-Pak Nexus: New Age Islam's Selection, 18 March 2021


By New Age Islam Edit Desk

18 March 2021

• Made For Each Other: Bangladesh Is Evolving into India’s Best Friend in the Neighbourhood

By Subir Bhaumik

• The Cow Cannot and Must Not Be Turned Into an ‘Instrument of Conciliation’

By N.C. Asthana

• Is US Repeating the Soviet Union’s Mistakes in Afghan War?

By Hizbullah Khan

• China-Pak Nexus In Ladakh

By G Parthasarathy

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Made For Each Other: Bangladesh Is Evolving into India’s Best Friend in the Neighbourhood

By Subir Bhaumik

March 18, 2021



As PM Modi packs his bags for a historic trip to Dhaka this month, he can look back with satisfaction at India’s signature bilateral relationship with Bangladesh, that some think constitutes the edifice of his neighbourhood outreach.



Bangladesh PM Hasina has delivered on all of India’s concerns, ranging from security to connectivity, while India has done its best to reciprocate. From prioritising Covid vaccine deliveries to Bangladesh to resolving the problem of enclaves through a comprehensive land boundary agreement, Delhi under PMs Manmohan and Modi has stood by its trusted ally.

Hasina warmed Indian hearts when her government not only invited Modi to be the honoured guest on its 50th Independence Day (March 26, when Pakistan’s brutal army began Operation Searchlight, a catch-and-kill sweep through erstwhile East Pakistan 50 years ago) but formally requested the UN to recognise the 1971 genocide and Pakistan to apologise for it.

For Indian diplomats, who want the Pakistan army’s India-hate hysteria tamed to deliver a meaningful peace process with Islamabad, focus on the 1971 genocide is timely. It also helps India domestically in conflict zones like Kashmir, where Islamist separatists raise pro-Pakistan slogans and demand merger.

The 1971 genocide, graphically displayed in Dhaka’s Liberation War Museum, raises the question that Kashmiri leaders have to ponder over and answer – if Bengali Muslims, who constituted nearly 60% of undivided Pakistan’s population, didn’t get justice and rights, what could the Muslims in Srinagar valley expect if they were to join Pakistan, where they would be a miniscule percentage of the country’s population.

This is not to argue the Kashmiris have got what they aspire for in India. But Kashmiri men are playing soccer for India and girls from the Srinagar valley are flying planes – and avenues for democratic protests continue to exist in the Indian system. ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s “Osomapto Atmojiboni” (Unfinished Memoirs) would be useful reading for all Kashmiris once it’s available in languages they understand.

The post-2009 crackdown on Northeast Indian separatists by the Hasina government has been the single most important factor leading to a huge drop in insurgency there – an 80% drop in rebel violence, according to the latest report of the Indian home ministry. Multi-modal transit between the Indian mainland and the country’s Northeast is increasingly becoming a reality, with new agreements and development of ‘connectivity infrastructure’ like the Feni river bridge opened virtually this month by Modi and Hasina.

Indian businessmen invested in Bangladesh’s garment industry are looking to expand their manufacturing to tiny Tripura, opening fresh vistas for industrialisation in the Northeast. Agartala, emerging as India’s third internet gateway due to the connect with Bangladesh’s internet backbone, now offers huge opportunity for growth of IT industry in the Northeast, where English and science education promises a locally available workforce that now drifts to Bengaluru or Hyderabad.

The Modi visit on March 26 will revive memories of Indian support to the Bangladesh independence war, while sheltering 10 million refugees with an economy very low on food security. It also helps register the fact of bipartisanship in India-Bangladesh relations from the Indian side – if not the other way round.

India and Bangladesh are destined to grow together. Seamless transport connectivity between India and Bangladesh has the potential to increase national income by as much as 17% in Bangladesh and 8% in India, says a new World Bank report.

The study, ‘Connecting to Thrive: Challenges and Opportunities of Transport Integration in Eastern South Asia’,  indicates a 297% increase in Bangladesh’s exports to India and 172% increase in India’s exports to Bangladesh if transport connectivity improves and both neighbours sign an FTA. Previous analyses had indicated that Bangladesh’s exports to India could increase by 182% and India’s exports to Bangladesh by 126% if that happened.

With elections due in West Bengal and BJP making a determined bid to gain power, Modi is expected to deal with expectations of a payback. Signing the Teesta water sharing treaty, working out similar agreements for other common rivers, definite measures to address the trade imbalance and an end to border firings – India’s many friends in Bangladesh would look to Modi for definite assurance and action on these issues.

Much behind-the-scenes work is already on over how to address some of these issues, but more effort may be needed. India has a dynamic high commissioner in Dhaka after a while and a foreign secretary who has been our envoy there. Bangladesh has a top diplomat in Delhi who knows India from his previous postings to the country, and a foreign policy establishment which values India for support on issues as far-ranging as vaccines for anti-Covid immunisation to tackling the Rohingya issue.

Despite the occasional hiccups caused by the social media savvy lunatic fringe of religious fundamentalists on both sides, the India-Bangladesh marriage is set to get more intense and rewarding.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/made-for-each-other-bangladesh-is-evolving-into-indias-best-friend-in-the-neighbourhood/

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The Cow Cannot and Must Not Be Turned Into an ‘Instrument of Conciliation’

By N.C. Asthana

18 March 2021

In a recent article in The Hindu titled ‘Cow and Conciliation’, a serving Muslim Indian Police Service officer, Najmul Hoda, says that “a theological denunciation of cow slaughter is an imperative for peace and self-preservation of Muslims”.

His argument is wrong. It is also highly objectionable on several counts.

To say that the “self-preservation of Muslims” hinges on their “denunciation of cow slaughter” is akin to issuing an outright threat. It means that unless Muslims shun beef  and denounce cow slaughter from a theological perspective in order to propitiate the religious sentiments of Hindus, communal peace will never prevail and they, as a community, shall forever be imperilled.

In other words, Hoda would like Muslims to ‘concede’ that if Hindus worship the cow and do not eat its meat, then from a philosophical and theological perspective, as well as from the vantage point of rule of law and constitutional rights, this belief must transcend all other beliefs and views.

Further, that all Muslims who think Islam permits the consumption of beef must realise this is a fallacy or a product of their ignorance of ‘true Islam’, as defined by the likes of Hoda.

In any case, if they do not oblige, they should realise the physical safety of the entire community shall be in danger.

In a multicultural society, respecting the sentiments of others is laudable but respect cannot come with the threat of mass violence on an entire community. Communal harmony and peace must not be maintained at gunpoint.

Hoda’s threat presumes that all the horrors that Muslims in India are suffering at the hands of Muslim haters are because they eat beef and that there is no other reason.

Do Hindu-Muslim relations hinge only upon beef? Does peace and the preservation of a community in a country supposedly governed by a constitution and rule of law hinge on food preference? Does Hoda mean to tell the nation that the animosity against Muslims, which has been growing exponentially since the past few years, is solely because some of them eat beef? Is it possible for a senior police officer to be out-of-touch with the harsh realities of today’s India?

Hindu-Muslim relations are an extremely complex affair having their roots in many things – including history, culture, religion, relative societal and economic power equations, etc. Finally, there is the role of politics and politicians. Yet, shunning beef has been projected as the single-widow solution to all the woes of Indian Muslims.

Unfortunately, real life is not as simple as imagined by such propagandists of the majoritarian narrative.

Does he mean to say that if those Muslims who do eat beef resolve to stop eating it one fine day, it will be guaranteed that, in view of this magnanimous gesture of theirs, India’s entire 18-20 crore strong community will no longer be tormented by Muslim bashers any more on social media, over TV ads, in markets, on trains, near temples, everywhere?

Will they cease to be derided as ‘traitors’, ‘un-patriotic’ or ‘not Indian enough’ after that? Will they no longer be “recognised by their clothes” thereafter? Will their social exclusion and marginalisation become a thing of the past?

Does he mean to say that thenceforth, there shall never be any communal violence at all? Incidentally, I do not think that anybody has a case that the Delhi riots of February 2020 had anything to do with beef.

Does Najmul Hoda mean to say that thenceforth the police shall no longer discriminate against Muslims and not bungle the investigation of cases related to communal violence? Does he mean to say that thenceforth the police shall stop implicating Muslims in false criminal cases on charges of terrorism? Does he mean to say that thenceforth, the police shall not remain a mute spectator as rioters backed by Hindutva organisations go on the rampage, targeting Muslim households and looting them, as they shamelessly did in Mandsaur some time back?

Does he mean to say that thenceforth, if a problem like COVID-19 strikes again, it shall not be unjustly blamed on the Muslims, as none other than three high courts were obliged to conclude? All such incidents have been witnessed in recent past and they had nothing to do with beef.

In fact, it can be argued that the kind of threat (or at best, condescending, paternalistic advice) Hoda holds out has an ulterior motive. The sinister design is that, through this, Muslim bashers can absolve themselves of any legal or moral responsibility for violent acts in the future. When violence is perpetrated on the Muslims hereafter, they can wash their hands off it claiming that none of this would have happened if Muslims had denounced the eating of beef.

I do not think there is any need to indulge in a theological debate on whether Islam approves of eating beef or not. As for what the prophet maintained on it, debatable interpretations are given by different scholars. Citing the Hadis Sahih-al-Muslim # 2486 and Sahih-al-Bukhari #3126, Allama Anwar Shah Kashmiri (in Faiz-ul-Bari vol. 3, p. 459) holds that he approved of partaking it. On the other hand, Maulana Abdul Hayy (in Majmua-ul-Fatawa, p. 407) says that it is possible that he himself did not eat it but he gave it to his wives to eat, and that Allah knows best.

Even in Hinduism, different schools of Vedanta, such as Dwaita and Adwaita for example, both cite different hymns from the same Vedas in their support.  Theological matters are always liable to be interpreted in a myriad contrasting ways and debated endlessly. Why stir a hornet’s nest by unnecessarily trying to reinterpret something in a certain way knowing well that there shall never be unanimity on this?

The fundamental question is why and under what authority should someone seek a theological denunciation of beef eating? In fact, this pointless exercise makes the intentions of its advocates suspect.

In July 2017, the Supreme Court suspended the environment ministry’s notification ‘Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017’ under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, which had banned the trade of cattle for slaughter, giving relief to the multi-billion dollar beef and leather industries that employ millions of poor workers.

It would be inherently illogical if we were to continue slaughtering cattle for export, while denying our own poor people the right to sell it and eat it.

India’s communal problems are not merely on account of what some people prefer to eat or not eat. If we are really keen to make India what our parents in 1947 had so fondly wanted it to be then, we must address those complex, unsavoury issues; and resist the concerted, unholy efforts to fan the communal flames.

Such blatantly defeatist and myopic advice, coming from a serving Muslim IPS officer, gives the majoritarian narrative an opportunity to typecast Muslims as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and then justify persecution of the latter.

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N.C. Asthana, a retired IPS officer, has been DGP Kerala and a long-time ADG CRPF and BSF. He is a vegetarian and amongst his 48 books, two are on Hindu philosophy.

https://thewire.in/communalism/muslims-beef-eating-cow-conciliation

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Is US Repeating the Soviet Union’s Mistakes in Afghan War?

By Hizbullah Khan

18 Mar 2021

Under the 2020 Doha agreement, the Trump administration pledged to withdraw all US troops by May from Afghanistan, and the Biden administration is also considering a full withdrawal, which could repeat past catastrophes.

Withdrawing US forces immediately could ensure the collapse of the Afghan government, trigger a civil war, turn Afghanistan into a playground for terrorist groups, and the terrorists in turn could plot vengeful attacks such as 9/11 in the future against the US.

Like Soviet Era, US’s Present Dealings With Taliban May Lead to Collapse of Afghan Govt

Afghanistan’s current situation is not very different from 1988 when the Soviet soldiers were leaving. The Taliban’s founders, the Mujahideen of the 1980s, were rebelling to remove Soviet troops and refused to take part in the peace process. Later, when the Soviet proclaimed a withdrawal, the Mujahideen believed they had defeated the superpower, and thought the Kabul government would fall directly after the foreign troops’ exit.

On the other hand, the Taliban signed a deal with the US and called for the US to withdraw its all soldiers in exchange for commitments by the Taliban to reduce violence, and end ties with the al-Qaeda. But the Taliban has entirely violated its promises — mounted violence enormously such as the Mujahideen did during the Soviet withdrawal, started the targeted killings of Afghan intelligentsia, and have constantly met with the al-Qaida during their negotiations with the US.

Like the Mujahideen, some Taliban also announced they would continue the war against the Afghan government after dealing with the US.

For instance, the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev announced to pull out of all Soviet combat troops by the end of 1988, and called Afghan leader Dr Najibullah to Moscow in late 1986 to reach a settlement with the conflicted groups.

In 1987, Najibullah declared a National Reconciliation Policy, invited the leadership of the Mujahideen, offered them positions at the central government, and assured to remove Soviet troops from their areas if they made peace.

Exit of Soviet Troops in 1988 Changed Insurgency Into Civil War

The Mujahideen leadership rejected the government's proposal and pledged to sustain jihad until the entire withdrawal of Soviet troops and the end of the communist regime. Earlier proclamations of the departure have failed the reconciliation plan and immensely motivated the Mujahideen for triumph.

Within the ferocious nine-year war, roughly one million civilians were killed, 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops, and 14,500 Soviet soldiers, but peace was not achieved.

Emergence of the Taliban & Unleashing of Global Terrorism

Amidst the disarray of civil war, the Taliban emerged in 1994, began fighting against the Mujahideen, and captured Kabul in 1996. Instantaneously, terrorism spread in the world after the Taliban gave hospitality to al-Qaeda leadership.

After the 9/11 incident, the US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban regime with the support of the Northern Alliance within three months, and a democratic government was installed under the leadership of Hamid Karzai.

Moreover, peace talks were initiated between the US and the Taliban in 2018 after 17 years of conflict, with 139,000 Afghans and roughly 2,400 US soldiers fatalities between 2001 and 2018.

Trump’s Mistakes in Afghanistan

The Taliban quickly started celebrating the war victory, such as the Mujahideen celebrated after Gorbachev's declaration and claimed that the US was on the verge of defeat.

Therefore, the Taliban began the spring offensive with the name of Al-Fath, which means ‘victory’.

For the Taliban, the ‘withdrawal of troops’ is the US's defeat; the US officials have repeatedly been giving the deadline of the withdrawal, repeating the Soviet missteps, providing them with a narrative of victory against the US, and encouraging the Taliban that they can recapture the country as the Mujahideen seized it after the Soviet exit.

US Failure to Hold the Afghan Taliban Accountable

Even during the negotiations, the US has failed to hold the Taliban accountable for their constant violation of the agreement. After the exit of the US, the Taliban will definitely follow the course of their elders, the Mujahideen, to attempt to repeat history to collapse the Afghan government and reverse the US gains.

Soviet Lessons for the US

The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 left a pivotal lesson for the US. The full extraction of US troops, guaranteed to the Taliban under the agreement, could create the same catastrophic situation as the world saw after the withdrawal of the Soviet, and the country once again will become a terrorist sanctuary.

Biden should not repeat Soviet mistakes and halt the withdrawal, so as not to lose the US gains of the last two decades in Afghanistan.

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/soviet-union-troops-afghan-war-united-states-afghanistan-peace-process-troops-exit-taliban-terrorism#read-more

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China-Pak Nexus in Ladakh

By G Parthasarathy

Mar 18, 2021

WHILE India has confronted difficult security challenges in J&K in the past, it has never faced a security situation when it was confronted by tensions across its borders in Ladakh and J&K with both Pakistan and China. The past year has seen the usual tensions, infiltration and exchanges and fire across the International Border and the LoC in J&K. But what really shook the world was the massive and well-planned Chinese incursion from Tibet into the UT of Ladakh from across the Depsang Plains. If left unchallenged, this incursion would have cleared the way for a Chinese move northwards towards India’s strategic air base of Daulat Beg Oldie. This air base is adjacent to China’s Aksai Chin region, which India regards as its territory.

If the Chinese chose to thereafter, proceed further northwards, they would reach the strategic Karakoram Pass, while also moving closer to the Siachen region claimed by Pakistan. Pakistan, however, had found that Indian forces had taken control of the Siachen Glacier in the 1980s. India and Pakistan had agreed in 1949 that beyond the Shyok river and Khor, the LoC proceeds ‘north to the glaciers’. While the Chinese have agreed to withdraw eastwards from the Pangong Tso, they have refused to withdraw from positions they occupied in 2020 in the Depsang Plains, where they blocked the area to entry by Indian forces. Control of the Depsang Plains provides China with an open road to the Daulat Beg Oldie airfield. It secures access to the Karakoram Pass that links Ladakh to the Aksai Chin region.

Pakistan is, however, very generous when it comes to the delineation of its border with China. The Shaksgam Valley in J&K was ceded to China by Pakistan in 1963, when they signed a boundary agreement to give an entirely new shape to their northern borders. Article 6 of the Boundary Agreement avers that ‘the two parties have agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, on the boundary, as described in Article 2 of the present agreement, so as to sign a formal border agreement.’ The agreement laid the foundation for constructing the Karakoram highway, built by Chinese and Pakistani engineers, in the 1970s. This highway links China’s Xinjiang province with PoK. It constitutes the basis for China to co-opt Pakistan militarily in its dealings with India.

Half a century later, one finds a growing Chinese economic and military presence alongside the Karakoram highway. The way is being cleared for a Chinese military presence across the PoK for transportation of Chinese goods, services and personnel across Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea Port of Gwadar in Balochistan, which has been built by China. It is only a matter of time before China takes control of the port from a bankrupt Pakistan, which is unable to repay its debts. This would not be different from how China has taken control of the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka. Pakistan’s military, obsessed with seizing Indian territory, cannot be expected to look beyond its territorial ambitions in India.

China’s experiences in Ladakh over the past year would hopefully have persuaded Beijing that India is not a pushover, militarily. Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s statement averring: ‘The two sides need to help each other to succeed, instead of undercutting each other. We should intensify cooperation instead of harbouring suspicions’, sounded reassuring. It was, however, hardly credible. Chinese sincerity will, however, be tested and called into question, unless it moves back to positions it occupied before April 2020. Given past Chinese behaviour, India can expect very little movement by China on this score.

China will also hopefully learn that undermining India’s close relations with its South Asian neighbours by cultivating, financing and favouring political leaders and political parties known to be anti-India, can hardly work over the long term. Despite its efforts, China has been snubbed by Sri Lanka’s political leadership that has seen through its crude efforts to deny India a role in developing port facilities, whether in Jaffna or in Colombo. Taking over Hambantota Port by drawing Sri Lanka into a debt trap, China has sent a signal across the shores of the Indian Ocean that its interests are anything but altruistic. Astute analysts in Pakistan are also evaluating the implications of the growing debt they are accumulating, because of Chinese infrastructure projects for CPEC. Given Pakistan’s constant shortage of foreign exchange, it is not in a position to import defence equipment from the US, Europe or even Russia. China, will, therefore, inevitably remain the almost exclusive supplier of arms to Pakistan.

Developments in Ladakh have now set the stage for an even closer collaboration between China and Pakistan in undermining India’s security. Pakistan’s recent offer of a ceasefire in J&K is a welcome development, as long as infiltration across the LoC effectively ends. It does not, however, mean that China and Pakistan are not colluding in fulfilling their territorial ambitions. India would be well advised to keep track of how China and Pakistan are proceeding in fulfilling their territorial ambitions. The highly regarded president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, recently noted: ‘China is bordered by 14 countries, four of which are nuclear armed and five of which harbour unresolved territorial disputes with Beijing. These include an aging, but wealthy Japan, a rising and nationalistic India, a revanchist Russia, a technologically powerful South Korea, and a dynamic and determined Vietnam. All these countries have national identities that resist subordination to China, or its interests. And the United States maintains a constant forward-deployed military presence in the region’.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/china-pak-nexus-in-ladakh-226724

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