Divide
And Rule, But For How Long?
By Jawed Naqvi
21 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
It
was colonial perfidy, or so our elders said. They said divide and rule
was a British way to pit Indian against Indian. That's how they created
Pakistan. That's what we were told. So the British were bad, evil people
who drove a wedge in our otherwise fabulously well-knit society. But
for their Machiavellian policies we would be one strong nation today,
a land of milk and honey. Whatever the merits of the maudlin claim,
if divide and rule worked then it works even now.
Before we consider how the
state has gently sought to subvert a Kashmiri death row convict's case
for clemency with an insidious campaign against his lawyer thus driving
a big wedge between the two, let's look at the big picture of this supposedly
colonial perfidy as it obtains in India today.
The original Machiavelli
from ancient India named Chanakaya is idolised by today's ruling elite.
The government has named two major roads in the heart of the diplomatic
enclave in Delhi— Chanakyapuri and Kautilya Marg— after
this ancient Brahmin of statecraft. His leitmotif rested on the four
key principles : "Saam, daam, dand, bhed". Join the foe, bribe
him, punish him, and not least divide his ranks. Didn't our colonial
rulers look like they were applying Chanakya's doctrine of divide and
rule on us? Far from being British in origins, divide and rule was essentially
a very Indian doctrine.
The Kashmir uprising against
unpopular Indian administrations was thus sought to be quelled by a
talented but vicious bard called Kuka Parrey. This former folk singer
was a dreaded man in Srinagar in the early 1990s. As the head of a private
militia, sponsored by the state of course, Parrey led an entire army
of "surrendered militants" to stamp out armed resistance.
Since officially his men were non-state actors, the opprobrium of human
rights violations would not stick easily on them. Or so it was thought.
Moreover they were cheaper and often more effective in hunting down
rebellious quarries.
Thus Kashmiris were set against
Kashmiris, till the day someone got even with the portly gun-toting
singer. He was killed by a bomb at a stadium. But surrendered militants
continue to play a hand in Kashmir's violent tryst with Indian rule.
Mohammed Afzal Guru, sentenced
to be executed anytime now, was himself a surrendered militant. And
thereby hangs a tale. Lawyers and human rights activists are seeking
to press the government to probe the nexus between Guru and his "official
handlers" prior to the attack on the Indian parliament in December
2001, and immediately after it.
Not all attempts to divide
and rule are successful. On the contrary they carry a kernel of further
devastation in their belly and the chances for such a calamity are never
dim. Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards not too long after
her strategists set up Sant Bhindranwale, a rabid Sikh preacher, as
a foil to the more moderate Akalis. It was Bhinranwale's sermons that
fuelled the bloody standoff between the state and the Sikhs.
Similarly, the Indian state
has tried but not quite succeeded in pitting tribal rebels in Assam
headed by ULFA with the state-sponsored SULFA. One is worse than the
other and there is no end to the brutal methods employed by both sides
to keep the pot of human rights abuses boiling.
There is no dearth of examples
to illustrate the widespread use of the supposedly colonial doctrine
of dividing the enemy, in this case the Indian people themselves, by
underhand methods.
In the coming days we are
going to hear a lot about the successes and failures of Selwa Judam,
a state-sponsored scheme to divide and arm the outrageously poor Dalits
and tribal peoples across the heartland of India. The mission here is
to use Dalits and tribesmen against their own groups know as Naxalites.
There's no space here to explain the essentially nefarious nature of
the Selwa Judam movement.
But the idea is to use people
against people for the benefit of the state. Whether it's a lesson learnt
from the Brahminised strategists or the British masters is beside the
point.
Divide and rule is also a
method used by investigators to crack terror cases. Part of the successful
admission to a London court by an alleged accomplice in the bizarre
plot to use liquids to blow up planes has been ascribed to this method.
In Delhi, Kashmiri Mohammed
Afzal Guru, was falsely informed by someone that his lawyer instead
of defending him at the High Court had in fact pleaded for him to be
put to death by a lethal injection. We do not know how Guru came to
that conclusion since he was not present during the proceedings at the
high court.
The lawyer, Colin Gonsalves,
is one of the highly ranked human rights legal brains in the country.
He took up Guru's case when nobody was coming forward to defend him.
He had defended Guru in the only way a good lawyer should. So how did
the message go to Afzal that Gonsalves had ruined his case by pleading
for his death. Was there a plot to remove Gonsalves from representing
Afzal at the Supreme Court because there was a fear that he would persuade
the court of his client's right to live?
The mysterious campaign against
Guru's only decent lawyer till then got so vicious that some of the
good people in the legal fraternity found themselves buying the story.
This divide-and-rule campaign must be a rare one of its kind to adversely
impact on a highly sensitive case. But let's leave it to Ram Jethmalani,
the senior lawyer credited with saving S.A.R. Geelani's life after he
too was sentenced to death, to say whether Gonsalves deserved to be
suspected by Afzal Guru at all.
"I watched with admiration
the manner in which you defended your client. It is all the more creditable
that you agreed to appear for him in the first instance and in the second
place you did an honorary job. It was a very unpopular cause and many
stalwarts had refused to represent him," Jethmalani wrote to Gonsalves
in an attempt to clear the air last week.
Jethmalani described the
claim that Gonsalves had pleaded for Afzal's death as "totally
and recklessly false".
"I remember your argument
that the provision of our criminal law which sanctions death by hanging
is a cruel and unusual punishment and is constitutionally impermissible.
If this argument had succeeded there was no provision left for executing
the death sentence. You were only suggesting to the court that there
are more humane methods of carrying out the death sentence and a lethal
injection is one of them. You never suggested to the court that your
client is guilty, but he should be given such an injection."
Who then misinformed Afzal
Guru inside the high security prison about his lawyer's petition at
the high court? Was it someone who didn't want Afzal to have a decent
lawyer at the Supreme Court? The finger of suspicion, according to human
rights activists, points to the state agencies involved. As Chanakya
had ordained, sowing the seed of discord in the enemy camp rarely fails
to bring its rewards. The one flaw in this thesis though is that despite
its duplicity British rule did end in India.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights