July/August 1995, pgs. 36, 120

The Subcontinent

India's Ruling Congress Party Slides Toward Fatal Breakup

By M.M. Ali

Dissident Congress party stalwarts Arjun Singh and N.D. Tiwari have finally announced formation of a separate Congress party in opposition to the one that is presided over by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The Congress party has split before, but this time the breakup has serious ramifications. The Indian National Congress is the party of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru that led the country to freedom from the British yoke in 1947 and for over 45 years ran the government without any formidable opposition. However, the charisma that accompanied its earlier rule has waned since the assassination first of Indira Gandhi and then of her son Rajiv Gandhi, although there are efforts being made to resuscitate the spirit by inviting in Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv, or her children.

The 1991 murder of Rajiv Gandhi right in the midst of an election campaign created a sudden void that had to be filled in a hurry. Arjun Singh and N.D. Tiwari from the powerful state of Uttar Pradesh and Sharad Pawar from Maharashtra were the principal contenders for Congress leadership. To avoid political blood-letting, P.V. Narasimha Rao, a retired politician from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, was called to fill in on an interim basis. Rao managed to keep the Congress in power, and in the process he changed his mind about the interim basis of his rule. Even today he is in no mood to relinquish power. Instead, he systematically removed Arjun and Tiwari from the Congress and dispatched Pawar back to Maharashtra from Delhi.

Objective analysts, however, feel that the glory days of Congress are over. Instead, with general elections due next year, the '90s have created organized and strong opposition political parties that are ready and capable of assuming power.

In the words of the mass circulation bi-weekly magazine India Today of June 15: "It was just a matter of time before the war of nerves between Narasimha Rao and the Arjun Singh­N.D. Tiwari combine reached a flash point. And when it finally did, amid high drama on May 19, the Congress party had been split again, transforming what was so long a clash between loyalists and rebels into a knockdown-and-drag-out fight for the takeover of the Congress—or whatever is left of it."

The divisions within the Congress high-command were very well known. It was hoped that someone from the Nehru family, perhaps Sonia Gandhi, would step in to mend the fences. That has not happened and is not likely to happen soon. Aging egos on both sides of the breach are showing no signs of shrinkage. The split has the potential of openly dividing the Congress between the strong Hindi-belt north and equally strong non-Hindi south.

With Arjun-Tiwari and Rao unrelenting, Sharad Pawar sees an opportunity for himself to emerge as a senior compromise leader. His last-minute futile efforts to stave off the May 19 break by reaching out to Sonia were calculated and timely. Whether he draws any dividend from it, especially after his election defeat in Bombay, will depend upon at what stage Rao calls it quits. The truth is that Congress has taken a suicidal path. No wonder the new, activist American ambassador, Frank Wisner, already has started talking with the BJP leadership.

Karachi Violence and Bhutto­Altaf Hussain Stalemate Continue

Even the senior-most Pakistani officials are willing to concede that there is a breakdown of law and order in Karachi. What they are not prepared to concede is that little or nothing is being done to find a solution to the problem, which is essentially political in nature. Military, paramilitary, ranger or police actions only add to the number of daily dead. Distrust increases and the ordinary citizen is losing confidence in the state machinery.

It is sad to hear that public policy is programmed according to the political time-clock. Unfortunately, elections in Pakistan are two years away.

Karachi is vital to Pakistan. It is the country's only major port city and has a population of over 2 million. Most Karachi residents are children of the Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India after 1947, some with little more than the clothes they were wearing, after Hindu-Muslim riots that took some half-million lives that year. Most made a deliberate choice to opt for Muslim Pakistan, including its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and its first prime minister, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, over Hindu India. It is in this context that one hears caustic remarks like, "There are two kinds of Pakistani citizens, one by the accident of birth and the other by choice." It is insane, however, to quibble over the relative patriotism of one group over the other. In spite of the bitter experience of 1971, when, as a result of such thinking, Pakistan was severed and East Pakistan became Bangladesh, a climate of distrust again has been created and such narrow thinking again has become common. An example is the talk by well-meaning but thoughtless persons about an "Islamic State of Punjab."

The ordinary citizen is losing confidence in the state machinery.

Initially the late General Zia Ul Haq helped create the Mohajir (migrant) Qaumi (national) Mahaz (front), better known as MQM in Karachi, as a counter-balance to the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP), now headed by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, that was a major political force in the province of Sindh, of which Karachi is a part. Pakistan assisted the United States in a big way in ousting the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. In the process, however, large quantities of arms and drugs spread into Pakistan's cities and countryside, especially into the port of Karachi.

Cultural differences, language differences and geographic differences already were creating misgivings within the country. Political and economic frustrations, particularly in urban centers, and the availability of Kalashnikovs on every street corner introduced new tensions into the explosive environment. Arms dealers and drug barons hired young and educated but unemployed men to kidnap moneyed people for ransom. There were big payoffs in the nefarious game. Even some of the politicians got into it. There are reports that police protected the outlaws in many cases. Lawlessness degenerated into armed confrontations between rival political groups. Today, neighborhoods of Karachi are battlegrounds where civilians are targeted by the law-and-order elements and the police are targeted by the civilians.

MQM leader Altaf Husain now lives in London, with several criminal charges pending against him at home. He controls the loyalties of the Mohajir population of Karachi. Neither former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif nor present Prime Minister Bhutto have been able to break Altaf Husain's hold. Benazir Bhutto refuses to talk to Altaf Husain unless he returns home to answer the charges. He, however, will not return unless the charges are dropped. As the stalemate continues, the streets of Karachi bleed.

Pakistan's King of Cricket Weds a Jewish Princess

Imran Khan, the handsome 42-year-old former captain of the Pakistan cricket team that bagged the World Cup under his leadership, has married Jemima (now Haiqa) Goldsmith, the 21-year-old daughter of Sir James Goldsmith, reportedly the sixth richest man in England. The wedding has made waves in England, India and Pakistan. The media is abuzz with all kinds of descriptions and speculations.

Imran is not the first Muslim to marry a Jewish girl, nor will he be the last. Islam permits its men to marry women of the Book: Jewish, Christian and Muslim followers of religions that are based on what Islam considers the divinely revealed Torah, Bible and Qur'an, respectively. Jemima converted to Islam, although she did not have to. She has defended her decision to marry Imran as based upon "sheer love" and her decision to embrace Islam as based upon "pure conviction." The British press is focused on the jet-set glitz, Indian journalists are projecting the secular aspects, and the Pakistani media is speculating on how the marriage will affect Imran's political future.

Public attention in Pakistan has focused on Imran's recent statements on Pakistani politics amidst emergence of the Taliban as a new political force in the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Imran's political mentor is Lt. Gen. Hameed Gul, a former director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the agency used by the United States to funnel military assistance to the Afghan mujahideen fighting the former Soviet Union. General Gul, who has distanced himself from both Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's two major political leaders, has been exploiting the popularity of Imran to present Pakistanis with a third option.

Hameed Gul has formed a new political party, and Imran Khan has gone out and married a Jewish princess. How much has Imran damaged his political prospects? If you ask the Muslim orthodoxy, a whole lot. If you ask the moderates, somewhat. The power brokers in each group are evaluating the issue in accordance with the advantages they would draw from his candidacy. Imran knows that the creator of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and his prime minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, both married outside of their Islamic religion. However, Imran is neither Jinnah nor Liaqat. Given the general political frustration among Pakistanis, Imran may be willing to take his chances that they still will look to him for a breath of fresh political air. Or while Hameed Gul may be politically serious, Imran Khan may not be. It's a sign of Pakistan's political bewilderment that no one knows.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC.