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When parallel lines meet

There was a time when events in India and Pakistan almost duplicated each other.

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Keki Daruwalla
Poet and Novelist

There was a time when events in India and Pakistan almost duplicated each other. To just take a random example, the fall of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi came together. Of course, Indira Gandhi’s fall was at the hustings and poor Bhutto’s came at the end of a rope, with the executioner, Tara Masih, looking on. At the moment, though, one is looking at the parallelisms churned out on the political field by the US and our mercurial friends in ‘Bharatvarsh’.

Take the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller who, on behalf of the justice department, conducted the investigation into allegations of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections. The investigation was also supposed to look into any coordination between Trump’s election campaign and the Russians. This investigation was started just a week after the sacking of FBI Director James Comey, who was also looking into these allegations. Mueller’s report has been handed over to Attorney General William Barr, a Republican. At the moment, only a summation by Barr is available to the public. He has stated that ‘while the report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him’. Pretty ambivalent. Meanwhile, the Russian collusion has been branded as ‘conspiracy porn’ by pro-Trumpists. It may be noted that Mueller has not recommended any further indictment.

Trump has gone into the offensive. Those who alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, have been branded by the President as ‘treasonous’ and guilty of ‘evil’ deeds. Let us take a sample of the people indicted by Mueller — the list goes to 34. First is George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, who made false statements to the FBI. He pleaded guilty and was awarded 14 days in prison. False statements to the FBI are an offence. Here in India, Aseemanand confesses before a Magistrate under Section 164, CrPC, but goes scot-free.

Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, is charged with making false statements to the FBI and the department of justice. He pleaded guilty in 2017. Third is ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, who gets two months for lying to the Congress and three years for paying hush money to two women (for you know what), thus violating the campaign finance law.  Fourth comes Roger Stone, a Trump campaign adviser, for revealing WikiLeaks’ future releases of the Democratic Party’s emails. Paul Monfort, former campaign manager, goes down on 25 charges of conspiracy, to launder money, to ‘acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal’. He has been sentenced to 90 months. Charges have been brought against Russian military officers who hacked the Hillary Clinton campaign. Despite all this, presidential supporters say he has been ‘vindicated, exonerated, exculpated’. They are rejoicing. 

 The parallel between the rejoicing witnessed on the Mueller report, and at the acquittal of the accused in the Samjhauta Express bomb blast case, is striking. ‘The accused were framed’ say the supporters of the accused; an entire community was branded as terrorists. The acquittal has been timed perfectly for the hustings. India, of course, is a free country. You can do what you like, as long as a strong political lobby is behind you.

On February 18, 2007, near Panipat, blasts ripped through two coaches of the Samjhauta Express, which was chugging its way to Attari, killing 68 persons, probably all Muslims — both from Pakistan and India. Brilliant police thinking slotted Lashkar-e-Taiba in the square reserved for the accused. The thinking among the thoughtless police was that, of course, only Muslims could be terrorists. There were other cases of the same sort, in Malegaon, Mecca Masjid blast and others. One Naba Kumar Sarkar, alias Aseemanand, said to be a diehard RSS worker, confessed to the blast before a Magistrate. Of the 200- odd witnesses, no one could identify the accused, and they were let off. 

Incidentally, the Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan was summoned to the foreign office in Islamabad to face a protest over the acquittals. In the Mecca Masjid blast case, again, Naba Kumar Sarkar as accused was acquitted in April 2018.

President Trump sacked FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, for his handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, which was considered a big deal in the US electoral battle. Allegations, the ballast of politics — where would politics be without allegations, all the fun would be lost — flew fast and thick between the parties. Issues were raised regarding interference by a ‘sitting President into an existing investigation’. Comey should have been sacked for coming out with his statement that the FBI would investigate more emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private server. This was less than two weeks before the 2016 elections and cost her dearly. Trump fired him for not refusing to end the Russian investigation, meaning the connection between the election campaign and Russia.

And our parallel? Why the midnight sacking of Alok Verma, the Director of the CBI?

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