Politics Of Terror: Pakistan Vs India!

The Pakistan government has been steadfastly honest about its skewed international diplomacy in relation to its neighbor India—keeps offering the bait of peace and talks, and reciprocates with military attacks and terror strikes the moment the offers take shape. When a round of bilateral talks starts or ends positively it gets invariably neutralized by some kind of ridiculous and controversial statements or actions on the Pakistan front. When a Pakistan President or Prime Minister or Minister visits India in a most amiable atmosphere Pakistan sponsored terrorists deliver a strike or the Pakistan army does something nasty on the Line of Control (LoC). Cricket has always been an integral part of Pak diplomacy too. Banking on the cricket crazy millions in both countries this politics works faster and more effectively. After a long gap since 2008 the Pak cricket team came to India in December-Jan, 2012-13 for a short ODI Series and fans were delighted. But on January 6, the day of the last match, Pakistan army masterminded a brutal attack on the Indian side of the LoC.

On March 9, 2013 Prime Minister of Pakistan paid a personal visit to a Muslim shrine in Jaipur and had lunch with the Indian Foreign Minister. Just four days later Pakistan militants launched a major terror attack on a CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) camp in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir—a state ravaged by politics of terror over the decades. The tortured state where democracy is never allowed to bloom continued to reel under violence with regular murders of political leaders and in recent times murders of village headmen who dared to talk about democratic norms. But for three years the state was spared of major terror attacks. After the hanging of Afzal Guru another round of terror politics began taking advantage of the tension created due only to the rule of the militants there. Pakistan link to the attack was proved again with the arrest of two more terrorists.Ironically, the terrorists came dressed as cricketers with their sports kits.

The very next day, that is 14^th March, Pakistan did the unthinkable taking full advantage of the terror politics. The Pakistan Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the hanging of Guru and asking for the body of the hanged terrorist for proper burial there. The political storm that ensued in India was only to be expected as opposition political parties demanded to know when the Government of India would assert itself and how long it was going to be tolerant and silent. The immediate casualty was the cancellation of the forthcoming bilateral Hockey Test Series between the two neighbors as the Government of India had to take some action. Yes, sports relations always suffer first due to politics.

The vested interests in Pakistan never want normal relations established between the two neighbors and whenever some positive signs emerge they promptly crush it off. These vested interests are represented by the militants of various hues and colors including the Taliban. Problem is they have taken a vicious hold on Pakistan with its ‘democratic’ government too weak to get out of it and the army becoming indistinguishable from the militants. Some very solid hopes surfaced in 2011 when Pakistan decided to give Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India, but as usual, the implementation part is yet to happen. A false sense of hope prevails over the people who want peace and good neighborly relations. 

India Vs Pakistan—a malignant match that never ends. Does the future hold the key? Maybe…maybe not.

Crimes Against Women: Death For Rapist-Murderer Now Official!

After a lot of differences and brainstorming over the past four days finally the Union Cabinet approved the Anti-Rape Bill last evening in New Delhi. The Government of India thus wants to replace the Criminal Offenses (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated in February 2013 with the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2013. Now the challenge before the government would be to make the Bill into a Law by getting it passed in the Indian Parliament by 22^nd March 2013, because Parliament goes into a recess for a month then and by the time it resumes the session the Ordinance would lapse, that is, on April 4. Before that the government will have to overcome the opposition storm in an all-party meet on Monday.

The approved Bill recommends death penalty for rapist-murderers and also in cases where the rapist leaves the victim in a persistent vegetative state. The Bill also revises the earlier proposal of life imprisonment to rapists and mandates that the rapist will now have to spend the ‘rest of his natural life’ in jail.  Acid attacks, stalking, voyeurism and inappropriate touch or gestures or remarks will all become criminal offenses. While acid attacks would attract punishment of not less than 10 years imprisonment sustained stalking and repeated offenses of voyeurism or inappropriate touch or gestures or remarks would be made non-bailable.

The Ordinance replaced ‘rape’ with ‘sexual assault’, but thanks to protesting women activist groups the Bill dropped this proposal thus retaining ‘rape’ and making it gender specific crime instead of the proposed gender neutrality. Crime against women is the all-pervasive social malady and this is most gender specific and most gender sensitive where the perpetrator is always the male and the victim is always woman. Therefore this step of the Bill is very welcome. Of course, child abuse in another big concern that is gender neutral, but this problem has to be addressed separately.

One of the very positive and most needed provisions in the Bill is to make it mandatory to all government and private hospitals to provide free medical care to all women victims of any form of sexual attacks. The hospitals would not have to wait for police verification and their refusal to give free treatment would be a criminal offense too attracting at least one year imprisonment. This step could be termed revolutionary considering the practical difficulties experienced in such cases in India.

The most debated provision of the Bill is that of reducing the age for consensual sex from 18 to 16, the basic objective being to avoid calling all teen sex under 18 as ‘statutory rape’ and maybe also to take into account the changing times. But this provision is set to attract vehement opposition as several political parties, mostly in the feudal north, have already voiced their concern and objections. The Bill also promises to consider reducing the age for juvenile criminals from 18 to 16 which would be most welcome and timely. However the Bill prefers to be silent on the issues of marital rape. 

For a country dominated by males over the centuries what is happening is really unique, and all the credit goes to the Young India Movement for Change that shook India after the horrific Delhi Gangrape. It is now up to the political will of the country for making history in the Indian Parliament.

Cricket: Australian Woes Washed Away For A Day In Mohali Test!

Incessant rains washed out the entire first day’s play of the third Test match between India and Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Mohali today. For the depleted Australian team thanks to the unprecedented decision of the team management to punish four players for indiscipline the rains seemed to have wiped off their woes—for a day at least. But at the same time trailing 0-2 they needed to win this contest desperately to stay alive in the Series and losing one full day makes it all the difficult for them to press for a favorable result within four days or even three depending on the pitch and field conditions. For victorious India too the loss of a day means they have to try harder to seal the Series with an all-time record of winning against Australia by 3-0 or even 4-0.

Brad Haddin was flown in on Monday to replace the injured keeper Wade and that made a team of 12 giving them an option to make one change. And they took the option by dropping all-rounder Glen Maxwell despite a good Test debut to utilize their all available specialist bowlers—the pace trio of Siddle, Starc and Henriques with two specialist spinners, Lyon and Doherty. Sort of optimizing the best available resources to hope for a favorable result.   Tough going indeed for a team that occupied the top spot in world cricket for so many years. For India, it will be a new opening pair in years and all the youngsters in Team India must be praying for play to begin tomorrow.

For the moment it is wait and watch.

Turbulent Times! 

Meanwhile too many things happening on the political, economic and other fronts in India. The Indian Parliament presented the Railway Budget and the General Budget for 2013-14 where the opposition political parties failed to find enough populist measures for making more than enough noise. But then, all the skeletons rolled out of the cupboard to make the goings-on as difficult as usual. Things got harder with Italy ignoring India on the marines issue, terror coming back to Jammu and Kashmir after three years in the wake of the hanging of Afzal Guru, Pakistan today passing a resolution in Parliament to condemn the hanging and demanding the body back, the male-dominated India struggling to draft an anti-rape bill that will ensure safety of the females and at the local level the Maharashtra Assembly budget session had also begun on Monday with the worst drought in 40 years ravaging the state. It has been an engulfing potpourri of crisis and commotion, and this poor writer being in the media has been caught in the accompanying hard work hardly finding any time to do justice in these pages!