Secular-Right India

Via Opinion Journal, MIT atmospheric science Professor Richard Lindzen opines:

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

Via Stratfor:

An explosion took place during evening prayers April 11 in Nishtar Park in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, where Barelvi Sunni worshippers had gathered to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed. At least 70 people were killed and scores more were wounded.

That this attack targeted a gathering of Barelvi -- who constitute the majority of Pakistan's Sunnis -- and that it occurred during the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed's birthday, Eid Milad-un-Nabi (or Mawlid, as it is referred to in the Middle East), indicates the likely perpetrators were extremist Deobandi and/or Ahl-i-Hadith militants. Followers of these groups strongly oppose such marabout-type practice, and reject all religious ideas and acts that were not practiced by the Prophet Mohammed and his companions.

This is the second attack in Pakistan targeting Barelvis; the first was the suicide bombing against the Bari Imam shrine in Islamabad in 2005. The timing and target will create a significant backlash against groups that share the views of the Taliban and al Qaeda, and could open up the mainstream Sunni versus Wahhabist fault line that divides the Pakistani Sunni community.

Via The Hindu, Canada labels LTTE a terrorist organization

Here's news for global warming panicmongers. The Telegraph reports that global warming stopped in 1998!

Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.

The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

This blogger has been away for a couple weeks -- traveling and working and not blogging at all.

Sorry about that.

But you know sometimes, as bloggers, we find ourselves reading and writing a great deal, therefore thinking we know what's going on. But, on reflection, this is much like placing one's ears on a cold steel rail -- listening for the distant murmur of oncoming trains -- and thinking we have a good window on the world.

One's really got to get away to regain perspective.

So, this blogger's been in the Middle East -- and thinking about Iraq and America and, of course, India. Thinking more than reading or writing.

You know, we had a train fire in 2002 that killed nearly 60 people and pogroms followed in Gujarat. In Iraq, suicide bombers seemingly take out more people daily and, yet, we do not see rioting in the streets of Baghdad. What does this say about the inner strength and patience of the Iraqi people -- and what does it say about our own?

In America, there's a huge political battle being waged over illegal immigration -- mainly from Mexico. The contours of this battle match our own challenge from similar migration out of Bangladesh. Americans are frustrated as Indians are -- and, yet, for all the walls we build on our frontiers (which we support, don't get us wrong), such migration can likely only be slowed, not stopped.

We ran into a man from Karachi on a flight from Dubai. He complained that Americans do not let direct flights originate in Pakistan for security reasons (surprise, surprise!) -- he tried to reason that North Indians have little in common with South Indians, that Indian Muslims are structurally deprived, and that trade with India would be bad for Pakistan. Wasn't a fun flight at all.

The Indo-US nuclear deal is likely in trouble. President Bush is very unpopular these days and is unlikely to get much of his agenda through the US Congress. The key thing to remember is this: given how the world is shaping, US will need India even more tomorrow than it needs us today. They might turn away the deal today, but will be back -- then, we should up the ante and demand a better deal. The current deal, which we've supported, would then be the minimum marker on what India would rightfully expect -- that would be just fine from our point of view.

Blogging resumes now. Our ears are back on the cold steel rail. Looking forward to our ongoing conversation.

April 9 marks the third anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The insurrection in Iraq persists unabated and the country is at the brink of civil war. The attacks on the Shi'ite majority of 60% continue each day. The civil turmoil conceals the ongoing political process, one that is noteworthy despite shortcomings. There were elections to a constituent assembly, the deliberations on drafting the constitution, the referendum on that constitution, subsequent general elections and the political maneuvers linked to cabinet formation. This is a political process at work. However, the prime shortcoming is that the post-election process is confined to the Green Zone. The vast majority of Iraqi citizens are not part and parcel of the process.

Law and order have deteriorated outside the Green Zone. The civil administration is under stress except for the Kurdish areas in the North. Armed gangs roam the streets and a person can be bumped off a fee to settle private scores. Suicide attacks on American military installations and Shi'ite civilians continue. Iraq is perched on a precipice.

There might be four reasons for this.

For one, the Sunni Arab minority of 20% has always governed Iraq since the days of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th century. The Shi'ites have never ruled. The thought of democracy, of one person-one vote and majority rule is anathema to the vast majority of the Sunni population. The prospects of a Shi'ite administration governing them is something that will never be accepted by the ordinary Sunni citizen.

The United States is partly to blame for this. Their strategy to date, right or wrong, is perceived as undermining Sunni interests. A nation is based on a confessional or ethnic compact of sorts, one that the United States may have unwitting weakened by its repeated attacks on the Ba'ath. While certain Sunni legislators might have been bought into the political process, the vast majority of the Sunni civilians have not.

The insurrection has significant support in Sunni triangle. Rebels are housed in private residences, suicide lorries packed with explosives are parked in Sunni homes the previous night near the intended target, wounded militants are rushed for treatment by doctors who provide their services for free and many wounded are nursed in mosques. An insurrection can not be crushed if it enjoys such massive civilian support.

Two, significant segments of the Islamic world perceive the West as leading an offensive against their traditions, their culture and their religion. The clashes between immigrants and locals in Europe, the cartoon controversy, the Sydney riots, the responses in the aftermath of any terrorist attack be it in Bali, Istanbul, London, Madrid and New York, not to mention the dual policy towards Iran and Israel have widened the gap between the West and Islam. Fundamentalist youth in several countries volunteer to take on the Americans in Iraq. Chechens blow themselves up in Baghdad for the greater cause of Islam. The Iraqi insurrection is fueled by activists from different countries motivated by a hatred of the West.

Three, my sense and I could be wrong here, is that elements in the Sa'udi establishment and those of neighboring Persian Gulf emirates support the Sunni insurrection just as they had financed Saddam Hussain against Iran in the 1980s. The Sa'udis belong to the Wahhabi school of Islam that views the Shi'ites as Kufr - i.e. infidels. There is no love for them. The thought of a Shi'ite led administration in Iraq next to an already significant Shi'ite regime in Iran disturbs them. I suspect a flow of funds from the Gulf to finance the uprising in Iraq.

Four, let us not forget that the kingdoms of the Persian Gulf rest on a fragile political base. Their have their own Islamist political activists keen to establish a more purist Islam in their kingdoms and overthrow a royalty perceived to be un-Islamic, corrupt and allied to the United States. I would not be surprised if some in the elite circles of Riyadh prefer that such activists be tied down in a never-ending conflagration in Iraq rather than move to the Hejaz.

The outlook for a return to peace in Iraq is remote. The United States appears caught in quick-sand that it can not extricate itself from. Many an Islamist militant would wait it out for a change in guard in Washington in November, 2008. And until then, the embers would continue to burn and flame-up intermittently to the detriment of the ordinary citizen of Mesopotamia.

I had posted an article on Tibet in October. I now refer to Brigadier J.P. Dalvi, "Himalayan Blunder: The Angry Truth About India's Most Crushing Military Disaster". Orient Paperbacks: New Delhi. I refer to his paragraphs on Tibet and Krishna Menon.

In 1904, British India under Lord Curzon organized a military expedition to Tibet. The largely Indian troops under Colonel Younghusband entered Lhasa and forced Tibet to accede to the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty. Britain thereafter controlled Tibetan foreign policy. The Anglo-Chinese Treaty of 1906 confirmed the 1904 Treaty. Lord Curzon urged that London provide de-jure international recognition to Tibet as an independent state. The Home Government remained non-committal.

In 1910, Qing dynasty China invaded Tibet and forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in 1912 and drove out the Chinese garrisons. Tibet proclaimed its independence in 1913. In 1914, Britain entered into an understanding with China to divide Tibet into two regions i.e. Outer Tibet and Inner Tibet. Outer Tibet had an area of 471,700 square miles. China agreed not to send troops into Outer Tibet. Inner Tibet meanwhile was incorporated into neighboring Chinese provinces. In 1914, Britain entered into an agreement with Tibet not to recognize Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. In 1921, New Delhi informed China that it intended to deal directly with Tibet bypassing China.

During World War 2, Tibet opened its own Foreign Affairs Bureau. It declared its neutrality when Japan invaded China. In 1947, a Tibetan trade delegation traveled overseas on Tibetan passports. Brigadier Dalvi quoted Jayaprakash Narayanan to mention "China has not exercised suzerainty, sovereignty or any other form of control over Tibet at any time from 1912 to 1950 when Chinese Communist Forces invaded the country." Jayaprakash Narayanan had attacked Nehru "The worldly-wise, who by their lack of courage and faith, block the progress of the human race not towards the moon but towards humanity itself. These persons have a myopic view and forget that nothing stands or can stand still in history - not even the Chinese Empire".

On October 7, 1950, the Red Army entered Tibet. K.M. Panikkar, the Indian ambassador to China and a left-wing ideologue, advised Nehru not to oppose the annexation of Tibet. Sardar Vallabhai Patel opposed this recommendation sending a letter to Nehru on November 7, 1950 urging that Nehru not recognize Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Brigadier Dalvi reproduces the letter which makes for painful reading giving the remarkable percipience of Patel. I quote Patel "Chinese irredentism and Communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the Western powers. The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national and historical claims".

Tibet appealed to the United Nations on November 23, 1950 for international assistance to oppose Chinese annexation. The Indian delegate to the United Nations opposed the inclusion of the question on the agenda. The issue was dropped on India's insistence. Sardar Vallabhai Patel died in December, 1950. The Red Army entered Lhasa only on September 9, 1951. The Tibetans revolted in 1959. The Chinese crushed the revolt and the Dalai Lama fled to India.

This assumed strategic significance. Tibet had exercised ecclesiastical authority over the North East Frontier Agency, Bhutan, Sikkim, parts of Nepal, Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia. China used this to lay claims to large tracts of land on India's northern frontiers and Mongolia's southern borders.

Brigadier Dalvi quoted Commandant General W.D.A Lentaigne, a distinguished British General with an impressive war record, that India could have forestalled the Chinese sequenced annexation of Tibet in 1950 and 1950. The General had predicted that China's next step would be to annex large tracks of land in Ladakh and the North East Frontier Agency. History proved him correct!

Brigadier Dalvi then describes Krishna Menon. Menon had studied at the London School of Economics. He obtained his Ph.D. in Glasgow. He was linked to influential British socialists such as Harold Laski and Bertrand Russell. Menon was closely associated with the far left of the Labor Party. In 1938 he toured Spain, then in the throes of civil war between the leftist Republicans and rightist Nationalists, arguing the case for the left.

Brigadier Dalvi mentions sources that described Menon as a Fabian Socialist or outright Communist. Menon had repeatedly advocated the case for the People's Republic of China at the United Nations in the late 1950s in the face of strenuous opposition from the Eisenhower administration. Indo-American relations plummeted to a new low.

US Secy of State, Condoleeza Rice, heads to Capitol Hill today to argue in favor of the US-India nuclear deal and address concerns from lawmakers. We will watch her testimony with interest.

Another article details the dealmaking behind the scenes. We credit Rice and Bush with the vision to reshape the world and the courage to move away from tired, old thinking. We credit the Indian negotiators for holding firm on its strategic program. This deal is good for India, the US, and the world.

Meanwhile, we are disappointed by some members of the India caucus who oppose this bill before the debate has even begun. These fair weather friends must be weeded out. Support on this bill must be the litmus-test of friendship with India.

It is difficult to summarize a complex sequence of events in a single post. There are many versions to a story. Each side has its own interpretation. The views below are expressed in my individual capacity. I have simplified the narrative in the interests of brevity.

The word "Sri Lanka" is derived from the Sanskrit "the resplendent isle". The country has an area of 25,000 square miles and a reported population of 19 million. The country has not had a complete census since 1981. In that census, the Sinhalese constituted 72.9% of the population, the indigenous "Sri Lankan Tamils" constituted 12.6%, the Muslims (a separate ethnic group that largely speaks Tamil) constituted 7.4%, while the "Indian Tamils" (who were the descendents of indentured labor who had immigrated in the 1800s) constituted 5.6%.

Sri Lanka obtained its independence in 1948 - six months after the British withdrew from India. Inspired by Jinnah, the indigenous "Sri Lankan Tamils" had demanded weighted representation in the legislature in the immediate prelude to independence. The ethnic polarization had begun. Sri Lanka proceeded to strip the "Indian Tamils" of their citizenship in 1949. The then Government of Don Stephen Senanayake was unabashedly pro-American.

Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike campaigned on a platform of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in 1956. He won the elections and replaced English as the official language of the country with Sinhalese. Many "Sri Lankan Tamils" vociferously opposed the move and demanded parity of status between Sinhalese and Tamil. The parallels with East Pakistan in the 1950s were remarkable.

Assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959, Bandaranaike was eventually succeeded by his wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. In the Sino-Indian border dispute in 1962, she cautiously edged towards the Chinese position on the case. She managed to persuade India to take back half the island's "Indian Tamil" population. Lal Bahadur Shastri was only too keen to wean away Sri Lanka from the growing Chinese links in the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

1971 marked the Sinhalese youth insurrection driven by unemployment and landlessness. Mrs. Bandaranaike crushed the revolt and declared emergency. An estimated 20,000 Sinhalese youth had died. Pakistani ships and planes refueled in Colombo enroute to Dhaka in the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971. Sirimavo introduced affirmative action to encourage Sinhalese intake into the university system and Government jobs. This in turn precipitated the Tamil revolt.

Junius Richard Jayewardene won the elections in Sri Lanka in 1977. Indira Gandhi expressed concern at the pro-American tilt of Sri Lankan foreign policy in 1979. The United States had sought refueling facilities for its airforce and navy in Sri Lanka, had reportedly expressed interest in the strategic port of Trincomalee, and had requested to set up a Voice of America relay station to beam news to the Indian subcontinent. India viewed the VoA station as an intelligence gathering device. This alarmed Mrs. Gandhi all too aware of the rapprochement between the United States and China, the traditional close links between the United States and Pakistan, not to mention the coup in Bangladesh in 1975 that overthrew the pro-Indian Mujib-ur-Rahman.

The anti-Tamil pogroms in 1977, 1981 and 1983 had led to the death of many Tamils, arson attacks on Tamil businesses and the flight of Tamils from Sinhalese majority areas of the island. Tamil youth groups responded with bomb attacks, assassinations and murder of Sinhalese. Bank robberies financed Tamil militancy. Several traveled to Lebanon, Libya and Syria for training. Mrs. Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to out-flank the increasingly pro-American Jayewardene regime. She proceeded to support Tamil militancy to avoid the perceived encirclement of India by pro-American regimes. This had the added advantage of ensuring electoral support in Tamil Nadu that had been inflammed by events in Sri Lanka.

India armed, aided and abetted several Tamil groups in the early 1980s. The LTTE was the only group that chose to be independent of Indian influence. Its leadership had temporarily moved to India and had received some training. But it soon returned to the island unlike other militant groups.

Both the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers carried out mass murders of Tamil and Sinhalese villagers. There were acts of terrorism. Colombo gradually lost control of Jaffna. It turned to Israel for support which trained its military and adviced the arming of Muslim home guards to neutralize Tamil militancy in the island's east. The Muslim home guards attacked Tamil villages in the East and the LTTE responded with brutal murder of entire Muslim congregations at prayer. The situation had grown out of control.

Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi attempted to enforce a negotiated settlement on the island. Jayewardene acquiesced by agreeing to a land mark constitutional amendment in 1987 that recognized Tamil as an official language on par with Sinhalese. He devolved power to Tamil majority areas through the establishment of provincial councils. India in return had to enforce the cease-fire. India proceeded to disarm Tamil militant groups. It succeeded in all instances except with regards to the Tamil Tigers. The Tigers took on India with ferocity.

India lacked a unified command and control structure in the island. The Indian military was caught between the politics of the Ministry of External Affairs, the state government of Tamil Nadu and India's Research and Analysis Wing. Wounded Tamil Tiger cadre were shipped to Tamil Nadu for medical treatment while simultaneously fighting India. The LTTE imported arms through Tamil Nadu to sustain its battle against Indian forces.

The presence of Indian troops in the island precipitated the second Sinhalese youth uprising between 1987 and 1989. The Australian Human Rights Commission had estimated that 60,000 Sinhalese youth died fighting the Jayewardene administration in protest at the perceived capitulation of the Government to India.

Jayewardene ended his two term limit in 1988. Premadasa succeeded him and promptly demanded the withdrawal of Indian forces. The LTTE entered into a strategic alliance with the Premadasa regime. Colombo and the Tamil Tigers declared a cease-fire. Colombo armed the Tigers to fight the IPKF. The LTTE imported weapons and ammunition through the port of Colombo.

Rajiv had lost the elections in 1989 and V.P. Singh agreed to the Premadasa demand to withdraw. The last Indian troops left the island in March, 1990. 1,000 Indian soldiers had died between 1987 and 1990 fighting the Tamil rebels in the island. The LTTE was to later boast that they had defeated the world's fourth most powerful military.

The LTTE resumed hostilities against Premadasa in June, 1990. The LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in the run-up to the 1991 Indian elections to forestall the return of the Indian military to the island. It assassinated Premadasa in 1993. This brought one chapter of the island's murky and bloodied politics to a close.

The LTTE and the Sri Lankan military continued to fight massive conventional battles in the late 1990s. 65,000 people are estimated to have died in the Tamil insurrection. The LTTE formed a naval wing, an incipient air wing, an illicit mercantile shipping wing and illicit real estate operations overseas to raise funds. India abandoned open intervention in the island's politics and opted for more subtle behind-the-scene maneuvers.

These are random thoughts of mine based on previous reading. I do not refer to any specific text per se.

The history of the Marxists in India has been one of repeated betrayal of the country. They have let India down time and again when it came to the clash of interests with the Soviet Union or China. Their political loyalties lay outside.

M.K. Gandhi broad-based the Indian National Congress to include the teeming masses belonging to all ethnic, caste and religious groups in the anti-colonial freedom struggle. To quote B.R. Nanda "From a three day Christmas week picnic of the upper-middle class in one of the principal cities of India, it became a mass organization with its roots in small towns and villages". The Indian Marxists never had this rural base. There's was an urbanized elite leadership.

Stalin entered into a pact with Hitler in 1939. The understanding reached between the two was for Germany to annex western Poland while the Soviets annex eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Finland. It was a territorial demarcation of war spoils between Europe's two most expansionist and authoritarian regimes. The Community Party of India then supported the independence struggle with a series of blitzkrieg trade union action, shut downs, gheraos, strikes and sabotage which crippled industrial activity. The railway workers, the sailors, the dockers and the textile workers belonging to the Marxist trade unions led the strikes. The intent was to weaken the colonial hold on the Indian economy and open a third front against Britain given that Stalin and Hilter had joined on an anti-western platform.

However, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. German troops had reached the outskirts of Moscow by December that year. The Soviet Union had suffered unparalleled destruction and did an immediate policy reversal to join the allied war effort. The Communist Party of India changed track in tandem. It decried the Indian freedom struggle as weakening the international struggle against fascism, a movement which the Marxists had initially allied with. The Communists pulled out of the freedom struggle. M.K. Gandhi had launched the Quit India Movement in the summer of 1942. The Communists turned informants and helped the colonial authorities to identify and imprison the entire leadership of the freedom struggle. The Indian Marxists supported the British in this crucial interlude given the new Soviet-British alliance against Hitler.

M.K. Gandhi and the Congress hierarchy were behind bars between 1942 and 1945. The Congress had convincingly won the 1937 elections while the Muslim League had suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Congress in all Muslim majority provinces of pre-partition India except East Bengal. While the Congress leadership had been imprisoned, Jinnah was free to organize the Muslim League and strengthen its holds over sections of the Muslim population of British India. The fortunes of the League rose between 1942 and 1945. The Marxists meanwhile supported the ideological case for partition arguing that the Muslim population was entitled to self-determination. This was interesting given the Soviet Union's own suppression of Muslims in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Stalin had deported the Chechens and Tartars to Siberia en-masse!

The British partitioned India in 1947. Pakistan immediately expelled its Marxists who fled to India!

Nehru, a self-proclaimed socialist, did not oppose Communist China's annexation of Tibet in 1950. Tibet had an area of 471,700 square miles. China was then fighting the United States in the Korean war and Nehru could have easily retained the colonial-era Indian military presence in Lhasa and consolidated it further in order to ensure Tibetan independence. Furthermore, Nehru supported Peking's cause in the United Nations. China responded by annexing the 15,000 square mile Aksai Chin in what remained of Indian-held Kashmir in 1957. Pakistan had earlier annexed Baltistan, Gilgit, Hunza and Muzafarabad that had an area of 32,000 square miles.

The Nehru administration was not even aware of that development in Aksai Chin while his Marxist Minister of Defence, Krishna Menon continued to support China in international fora such as the United Nations. Taiwan then occupied China's seat at the Security Council. The Indian Marxists later defended Chinese actions in Aksai Chin pointing out that enclave's historical links with Chinese-held East Turkestan, now called Xinjiang.

China invaded the North East Frontier Agency with an area of 32,000 square miles in 1962 and then quite as suddenly withdrew its troops. The road to Assam was open and Nehruvian India lay prostrate. The Indian Marxists defended Chinese actions on the alleged grounds that NEFA had historical links with Tibet. Not one of them questioned China's initial hold on East Turkestan and Tibet on historical grounds to begin with. China had no valid territorial claim on either under modern international law. China detonated the nuclear device in October, 1964. The Indian Marxists welcomed that step as part of the global war against international imperialism! Yet, when India exploded its second nuclear device in May, 1998, the Indian Marxists opposed that as an unnecessary belligerence.

The Indian Marxists have repeatedly let India down. They do not have Indian national interests at heart. They currently control the Departments of History in major Indian universities such as JNU. With that platform, they are able to twist the past to suit their nebulous aims in the present. I refer here to Habib Irfan, Harbans Mukhia, K.N. Panikkar, R.S. Sharma, Romila Thapar and Sarvapalli Gopal. Other individuals such as Arundhati Roy, Barkha Datta, Brinda Karat, Mani Shankhar Aiyer, N. Ram and Praful Bidwai in India, and Meera Nanda, Sarmila Bose, Sugato Bose and Sumantro Bose overseas continue to occupy the intellectual and media space in a disproportionate manner. They leverage this vantage point to weaken India!

The blog had covered incipient Sino-Japanese tensions in a previous post. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi had defied China on several issues.

Cabinet spokesman, Shinzo Abe is increasingly viewed as the front runner to succeed Koizumi in September this year. Mr. Abe accused China today of destabilizing Asia with its military expenditure. He reported that Chinese military budget had registered a two-digit annual growth in the past 18 years. He blamed China for having a democracy and human rights deficit and denied the existence of the rule of law in that country. This was a harsh attack on China. Mr. Abe urged that the foreign ministers of Australia, India, Japan and the United States convene each year given shared threat perceptions and democratic values.

Another candidate in the run-up to replace Koizumi is Taro Aso, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Not to be outdone, he reiterated that China's military build-up was a threat to Asia. The Japanese Defence Agency had released a study last month on Chinese military expenditure. It had expressed concern of the allegedly under-reported increases in Chinese defence expenditure estimated at US$ 28 billion by the World Bank in 2003.

A major point of contention between China and Japan has been Prime Minister Koizumi's symbolic visits to the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine that honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead each year. China had sharply reacted to such visits alleging that Japan had not renounced its history of aggression directed at China during World War 2.

Iran has been in the news over its reported nuclear program. On March 31, 17,000 elite revolutionary guards began naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Iran tested the Fajr-3 missile that day. The missile is intended to avoid radar and hit several targets with multiple war heads. Iran tested a second missile on April 2 firing a high speed torpedo intended to deter surface and submarine threats to its shipping. The new torpedo, the "hoot" is reported to have a speed of 223 miles per hour. It is reportedly as quick as the world's fastest submarine missile - the Russian made Shkval developed in 1995 - in fact three to four times faster than a normal torpedo. Teheran announced that it would test another missile today and more tomorrow.

Iran already possesses the ballistic Shahab 3 missile that can hit targets within a range of 1,200 miles. This includes Israel. Shahab 3 is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran has invested in a nascent space program. It is still unclear whether these steps represent genuine advances in military technology or are mere gestures of defiance. They are likely however to provoke the United States whose Naval Fifth Fleet is based in the Persian Gulf.

Associated Press had an insightful article on the freedom to choose one's religion in the Middle East and North Africa . Unlike India, Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, almost all states in the Middle East and North Africa criminalize Christian missionary activity. Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey are the only three countries in the region that permit an individual to convert from Islam to any other religion.

Lebanon is a secular state that once had a Christian majority. The Christian population appears to have now declined to 35% due to an exodus. Muslim religious authorities forbid the change of religion in Lebanon and will not legalize a marriage between a Christian man and a Muslim woman. The reverse is allowed since the Prophet Mohammed had 12 wives, one of whom was a Christian. Muslim Lebanese women travel to Cyprus to marry a non-Muslim man and register this marriage upon their return to Lebanon.

The Shari'ah considers the conversion of any Muslim as apostasy that is punishable by death. According to Palestinian law, Muslim women who seek to divorce their husbands who convert to Christianity have only to report the matter to a Palestinian court to have the marriage nullified. Muslim women who wish to divorce the husbands in Jordan who converted to Christianity can report the matter to court and the courts will convict the man of apostasy. A Muslim man who adopted Christianity in 2004 was convicted, fired from his job and had his marriage annulled.

The law of Israel forbids organized Christian missionary activity amongst Jews.

Sa'udi law forbids conversion from Islam and does not permit the public practice of any religion but Islam within the kingdom. Missionaries are not allowed entry and the law forbids the construction of churches in Sa'udi Arabia. Riyadh has a different scale of compensation for those murdered depending on the religion of the victim. Families of Muslim male victims are entitled to maximum compensation under the law while the families of Hindu women victims are paid the least - a fraction of the compensation received by a Muslim male's family.

In May, 2005, a Muslim who converted to Christianity in Egypt was charged for contempt for religion, a charge that entails a jail sentence of 5 years. The man however has not been charged and remains in indefinite custody. A court convicted a Shi'ite Muslim who adopted Christianity in Kuwait but did not punish him since the criminal court did not spell out a punishment. Sudan enforces the death penalty for Muslims who convert to Christianity. A Sudanese Muslim who allegedly converted in Khartoum but denied it upon arrest remains in prison and has been tortured according the United States Department of State.

The case of Abdul Rahman, the 41year old Afghan who converted to Islam and was referred to an Afghan court for possible execution hit the world headlines in the last fortnight. Even Amin Farhang, the Afghan Economic Minister who had lived in Germany for 22 years before returning to Kabul had defended possible prosecution arguing that Afghanistan can not switch suddenly from one extreme to the other" and the added that the right to convert was impossible in a land that continues to uphold the Islamic punishment for apostasy.

Afghanistan was forced to release Abdul Rahman given the avalanche of international criticism. As Bush had remarked on March 22, "It is deeply troubling, that a country we helped liberate would hold a person to account because they chose a particular religion over another". Or as the New York Times put it, "If Afghanistan wants to return to the Taleban days, it can do so without the help of the United States". The Anglican Archbishop of Canada had mentioned "I'm absolutely horrified to think that this kind of fanatical literalism would be applied to this time and age". The Milan-based newspaper - Corriere dell Serra - added that "western states helping Afghanistan should launch a movement to reform Islam there".

I largely rely on Robert Eric Frykenburg, "Elite Formation in Nineteenth Century South India: An Interpretative Analysis" in "International Association of Tamil Research Proceedings," First International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies: Malaysia 1968. I will confine myself to the material dealing with the time period from the 6th century CE to the 17th century CE. I have simplified the subject in the interests of brevity.

Frykenburg explains that "centuries of ceaseless contact, collisions and pressures between increasing numbers of groups" helped define South Indian society. The nuclear areas of human settlement and land control date back to the Pallava-Chola period. South India had highly organized villages.

There were three types of villages. They were inter-linked and inter-dependent. One produced the agricultural surplus, the other sponsored learning and culture while the third was centered on industry and commerce. "Representative" territorial assemblies called the "Periya-Nadu" controlled dense clusters of agricultural villages dominated by the elite agrarian castes. These included the Vellalars, Mudaliars, Kammas, Reddys, Nairs and Vokkaligas depending on the region. There were the privileged and tax-free Brahman-dominated agraharams that served as sanctuaries of piety and learning. These were largely located in Kanchipuram, Madurai, Tanjore, Tirupati and Uduppi. The third category was the mercantile villages of the great trading guilds of early medieval South India. This included the Ayyavole of Karnataka, the Manigramam of Tamil Nadu and Chettinad.

"Primitive" peoples occupied the largely forested areas outside these "nuclear areas". There was a "continual tension between the barbarian darkness of the forest and the cultural enlightenment of each settled region". The Periya Nadu villages absorbed the forested terrain over the centuries and integrated the jungle peoples. These communities were relegated to the mass of untouchables that comprises 15% of South Indian society today.

The events of the 13th century CE shook this order. Pandyan warriors, allied to the Sinhalese, defeated the Chola Empire. Muslim incursions from the Delhi Sultanate led to the southern movement of Telugu refugees and the establishment of the Vijayanagara Empire. The Reddy warriors and the Niyogi Brahmans formed the new elite. A section of the Chola Vellalar immigrated to Jaffna to establish a militaristic kingdom there in 1215 CE permanently displacing the Sinhalese of northern Sri Lankan in the process.

The subsequent defeat of the Vijayanagar Empire at the battle of Talikota in 1565 CE led to the emergence of Telugu ruled enclaves such as the Nayaks of Tanjore - whose aristocracy later headed the last ruling dynasty of the Sinhalese kingdom of Kandy in the 1700s CE. Other Telugu administered enclaves included Mysore, Madurai and Ramnad. Meanwhile, the Sultans of Bijapur and Golconda that had replaced Vijayanagara hired Muslims nobles from the wider Islamic world to fill the highest ranks of their kingdoms. They failed to address the shortage of Muslim administrators and foot soldiers.

The Sultans increasingly turned to the Marathas to make up for the severe manpower deficiency. The Desastha Brahmans became the elite cadre of fiscal and local administrators while the Maratha warriors served as light and irregular cavalry in the Sultanates of the Deccan. This contributed to the swift replacement of the Sultanates in the 17th century by the Maratha Confederacy under Chhatrapati Shivaji. It led to the influx of Marathas into the indigenous elite of South India. The Maratha Naiks replaced the Telugu rulers in the kingdoms of Madurai and Tanjore.

The Portuguese appeared on the scene with the annexation of Goa in the 1500s CE. The trade route from the Gangetic plains to the sea - and the wider world beyond financially superseded the land route to Persia. The Marathas controlled the route to Goa and prospered with the economic boom. The Rajputs situated on the overland route to Iran declined due to the lack of transit revenue.

The "Dravidian" history of South India is therefore a multi-faceted one. Numerous forces and events beyond the borders shaped it. This rich, inter-connected and fascinating history influenced the elite formation of the nineteenth century which I reserve for another post.