India’s Continuing War on Khalistan

Stifling the Sikh Diaspora

by Binoy Kampmark / October 23rd, 2024

It was never a good look.  Advertised as the world’s largest, complex and most colourful of democracies, India’s approach to certain dissidents, notably of a Sikh patriotic sensibility, has not quite matched its lofty standing.  The strength of a liberal democratic state can be measured by the extent it tolerates dissent and permits the rabble rousers to roam.

When it comes to the Sikhs outside India, located in such far-flung places as Canada and Australia, the patience of the Indian national security state was worn thin.  Concerned that the virus of Khalistan – the dream of an independent Sikh homeland – might be gathering strength in the ideological laboratories of the diaspora, surveillance, threats and assassinations have become a feature of India’s intelligence services, benignly named the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The case of Canada is particularly striking, given the audacious killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 last year by two-masked men just as he was about to leave the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia.  In September, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, told the House of Commons that Canada’s security services were investigating links between New Delhi and the murder.  Canadian officials, including the director of the CSIS, had travelled to New Delhi to put their case.  Pavan Kumari Rai, the Canadian chief of RAW, had been expelled and four Indian nationals charged in connection with the killing.

When it took place, the Modi government wondered why the Canadians were getting themselves into a tizz over the demise of a man deemed by Indian authorities to be a terrorist.  Trudeau was having none of the balletic sidestepping Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become so used to from foreign leaders.

Over the course of this year, matters have only worsened.  Since October 14, the pot has been boiling over.  Evidence had been presented by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) making a compelling case that agents of the Indian government had engaged in, and continued to engage in, activities described as a significant threat to public safety.

In a statement released on that day, Trudeau spoke of his country being one “rooted in the rule of law”.  Protection of its citizens was a “paramount” consideration. “That is why, when our law enforcement and intelligence services began pursuing credible allegations that agents of the Government of India were directly involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen […] we responded.”  Trudeau went on to explain that the evidence uncovered by the RCMP included “clandestine information gathering techniques, coercive behaviour targeting South Asian Canadians, and involvement in over a dozen threatening and violent acts, including murder.”

The response from New Delhi was one of unbridled indignation.  In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal claimed that Canada had “presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats.”

Trudeau, in turn, had hoped that the matter could have been handled “in a responsible way” that left the bilateral relationship between the two countries unblemished.  Indian officials, however, had snubbed Canadian efforts to assist in the investigation.  “It was clear that the Indian government’s approach was to criticise us and the integrity of our democracy.”  A series of tit for tat expulsions of top envoys from both countries has figured.

New Delhi’s global program against the Sikh separatist cause has also made its presence felt in the United States.  Last November, the US Department of Justice alleged that an Indian official, identified as CC-1, oversaw a plot to assassinate a Sikh US national, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York earlier in the year.  The DOJ, in an unsealed superseding indictment, alleged murder-for-hire charges against Nikhil Gupta, who had been recruited by CC-1.  (Gupta was subsequently arrested by the Czech authorities and deported back to the US.)

Gupta’s curriculum vitae, featuring narcotics and weapons trafficking, was that of a standard gopher in such an operation, while his target was described as “a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab”.  The plot was foiled largely through the intervention of an undercover official from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), who had been contacted by Gupta for assistance in contracting a gun for hire.  The going price for murder: $100,000.

On October 17, FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that CC-1, one Vikash Yadav, had “allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate a US citizen on American soil for exercising their First Amendment rights.”  The second unsealed superseding indictment notes Yadav’s prominent role: an employee of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Indian government, “which houses India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (‘RAW’).”  Charges include murder-for-hire conspiracy, murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Pannun has certainly been vocal about the Modi government.  When interviewed about his response to India’s banning of a CBC Fifth Estate documentary dealing with Nijjar’s killing, he offered a grim assessment: “India, no matter what it claims, is an authoritarian regime run by a fascist [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s BJP.”  India had operated as “an authoritarian state under the garb of democracy since 1947” and “usurped the religious identity of Sikhs in the Constitution and committed genocidal violence against Sikhs to suppress the movement for restoration of their religious identity and growing political dissent in the 1980s and 90s.”

The broader problem here remains how states – notably those with Sikh populations – have approached Modi’s transnational efforts to snuff out the Khalistan movement.  The mood in New Delhi is also one of discrimination.  While India has remained stroppy with Canada, the same cannot be said about its response to the United States.  Instead of dismissing allegations made by the DOJ with cold stiffness, the Ministry of External Affairs announced an inquiry indicating “that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge our national security interests as well, and relevant departments were already examining the issue.”  The United States, declared the India’s First Post, had “pursued the case through proper channels” while Canada had “indulged in mudslinging throughout.”

New Delhi also sees little reason to be concerned about the response of another ally, Australia, in terms of how the Sikh community is treated.  The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shown himself to be disgracefully timid before calls by Modi that he restrain the Khalistan movement in Australia. This, despite the quiet expulsion of Indian foreign agents in 2020 – up to four of them – for engaging in activities described by the domestic intelligence chief, Mike Burgess, as including the monitoring of India’s “diaspora community”.  “I don’t propose to get into those stories,” stated the Treasurer Jim Chalmers.  “We have a good relationship with India… It’s an important economic relationship.”

It’s precisely that sort of attitude that has certain parliamentarians worried.  Greens Senator David Shoebridge sums up the mood.  “Not only would’ve [it] been good to have an honest baseline for our relationship with India, but it would’ve also sent a message to the diaspora communities here that we’ve got your back.”

Not when matters of economy and trade are at stake. Modi may not have the saintly attributes of being able to walk on water, but he continues to prove adept in escaping condemnation for his sectarian vision of India that has, through activities of the RAW, been globalised in murderous fashion.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He letures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Multipolar World Order, Leading Role of Emerging Economies, and Western Debt: Key Takeaways from Putin’s BRICS Address

The Russian president’s speech in Kazan focused on the group’s financial integration and new development prospects

by RT / October 24th, 2024

 

President of Russia Vladimir Putin during an expanded meeting of BRICS leaders during the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan. ©  Sputnik / Stanislav Krasilnikov

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a meeting of leaders at the BRICS Summit in Kazan on Wednesday. In his speech, he focused on the growing role and prospects of the economic group, and warned about the risks to the global economy from Western sanctions and protectionist policies.

Putin also announced Russia’s initiatives within the BRICS framework, including the formation of a grain exchange and a new investment platform.

Here are the key takeaways from the president’s address.

Multipolar world order being formed

World trade and the global economy as a whole are undergoing significant changes, the Russian presient told the extended-format BRICS meeting. The center of business activity is gradually shifting towards developing markets, he added. “A multipolar model is being formed, which is launching a new wave of growth, primarily due to the countries of the Global South and East – and, naturally, the BRICS countries.”

Leading role of BRICS

The BRICS economies have been demonstrating “sufficient stability” due to responsible macroeconomic and fiscal government policies, the Russian leader said, noting accelerated growth rates are expected in the medium term. Putin cited preliminary estimates that average BRICS country economic growth in 2024-2025 will be 3.8%, compared to global figure of 3.2-3.3%.

The BRICS countries’ share of global GDP in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) will amount to 36.7% by the end of 2024 and will continue to expand, Putin predicted. Meanwhile, the share of the Group of Seven (G7) leading Western economies is projected to account for slightly above 30%.

“The trend for the BRICS’ leading role in the global economy will only strengthen,” Putin said, citing population growth, capital accumulation, urbanization, and increased labor productivity, accompanied by technological innovations as key factors.

West’s unilateral sanctions and debt burden

The Russian president warned of a potential new global crisis, citing the growing debt burden in developed countries, unilateral sanctions, and protectionist policies as key threats. “These factors are fragmenting international trade and foreign investment, particularly in developing nations,” Putin said.

He also pointed to high commodity price volatility and rising inflation, which are eroding incomes and corporate profits in many countries. Putin’s remarks also highlighted concerns over escalating geopolitical tensions and their impact on global economic stability.

New BRICS investment platform as a powerful tool

The Russian leader said that to fully realize the potential of the BRICS countries’ growing economies, the member states should intensify cooperation in areas such as technology, education, resources, trade and logistics, finance, and insurance, as well as increasing the volume of capital investment many times over.

“In this regard, we propose creating a new BRICS investment platform, which would become a powerful tool for supporting our national economies and would also provide financial resources to the countries of the Global South and East,” Putin said.

BRICS-based grain exchange

The Russian leader proposed a common BRICS grain exchange to protect trade between members from excessive price volatility. BRICS countries are “among the world’s largest producers of grain, vegetables, and oilseeds,” he noted. Such a bourse could be expanded to trade in other major commodities such as oil, gas and precious metals, Putin said.

The initiative is aimed at protecting national markets from negative external interference, speculation and attempts to cause artificial shortages of food products, according to Putin.

AI alliance of BRICS

Putin also proposed a BRICS AI alliance to regulate the technology and prevent its illegal deployment. “In Russia, the business community has adopted a code of ethics in this area, which our BRICS partners and other countries could join,” Putin noted.

Other proposals

The president also spoke about increasing transport connectivity between BRICS countries, saying this could provide additional opportunities for growth and diversification of mutual trade.

“Such promising projects as the formation of a permanent BRICS logistics platform, preparation of a review of transport routes, opening of an electronic communications platform for transport, and establishment of a reinsurance pool are being discussed,” Putin said.

The issues related to the transition of the global economy to low-emission development models are very important, according to the Russian president. The BRICS contact group on climate and sustainable development is closely involved in this work and will continue to counteract attempts by some countries to use the climate agenda to eliminate competitors from the market, he said. “We consider the initiatives on the BRICS partnership on carbon markets and the climate research platform to be promising,” Putin concluded.

NATO Reacts to Türkiye’s Desire to Join BRICS

Ankara’s cooperation with the economic group does not contradict its membership in the US-led military bloc, according to NATO SG

by RT / October 24th, 2024

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte © Getty Images / Omar Havana

Türkiye has the right to cooperate with the BRICS economic group without undermining its status as a NATO member, the secretary-general of the US-led military bloc, Mark Rutte, has said.

The NATO chief made the remarks at a press conference in Estonia on Tuesday. Asked by the Estonian Public Broadcaster whether Ankara’s desire to become a member of BRICS, which the outlet described as a “Russia-dominated organization,” should be a cause for concern, Rutte stressed that Türkiye remains “a very important ally in the alliance” as it is “one of the best equipped military forces in NATO.” The country plays a “vital role in its part of the NATO geography,” he added.

“Obviously within the alliance, being a democracy, 32 countries, there will always be debates on this and that,” the secretary-general admitted. However, he insisted that Ankara has “the sovereign right” to work towards a BRICS membership and cooperate with its members.

“That might lead to debates now and then, bilaterally or within NATO. But that doesn’t mean that Türkiye is not [popular],” Rutte said. “NATO is very popular in Türkiye, and Türkiye is very popular in NATO,” he added, noting that he is convinced that this will remain the case.

NATO state’s president arrives at BRICS Summit

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is currently taking part in the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, where he is expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin to discuss bilateral ties, the Ukraine crisis, and the situation in the Middle East.

Last month, Ankara also announced that it had formally submitted an application to become a full-fledged BRICS member, making it the first NATO state to seek membership in the group.

However, Türkiye’s application has sparked concerns in Brussels. EU spokesman Peter Stano has stressed that Ankara, which has been an EU candidate country since 1999, must respect EU values and foreign policy preferences despite having the right to choose which international organizations to join.

Previously, Turkish officials told the Middle East Eye that while BRICS was not seen by Ankara as an alternative to NATO or the EU, “the stalled accession process to the European Union” had encouraged it to explore “other economic platforms.”
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The RT network now consists of three global news channels broadcasting in English, Spanish, andArabic. Read other articles by RT, or visit RT's website.

 AU CONTRAIRE

Soul Suicide in the Ballot Box as Palestinians Are Butchered

by Edward Curtin / October 24th, 2024

It’s been a long time but worth remembering, if you can, that when the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the whole world watched in horror.  The events of that day were repeated on television over and over and over again, to the point where they became afterimages lodged in people’s minds.

As a result, although the buildings were not brought down by the impact of planes (no plane hit Building 7) but by explosives planted in the buildings (see this and this, among extensive evidence), most people thought otherwise, just as they thought that the subsequent linked anthrax attacks were directed by Osama bin Laden when they were eventually proven to have originated from a U.S. military lab (thus an inside job), and, as a result of a massive Bush administration/corporate media propaganda campaign, most Americans supported the invasion of Afghanistan, the subsequent invasion of Iraq, and decades of endless wars that continue to this day, bringing us to the edge of nuclear war with Iran and Russia.

It is impossible to understand the United States’ full-fledged support today for Israel’s genocide in the Middle East without understanding this history. Israel’s genocide is the United States’ genocide; they cannot be separated.

All these wars involve the machinations of the neo-conservative clique that in 1997 formed the Project for the New American Century that ran George W. Bush’s administration and whose protégées have come to exert great control of the foreign policies of Democratic and Republican administrations since. It is not that they lacked power before this, as a study of American foreign policy as far back as the Lyndon Johnson administration and its non-response to Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty confirms.

Contrary to the widespread claims that Israel runs U.S. Middle East foreign policy, I think it is important to emphasize that the reverse is true.

It is convenient to claim the tail wags the dog, but it is false.

Israel’s war crimes are U.S. war crimes.  If the U.S. wanted to stop Israel’s genocide and expansion of war throughout the region, it could do so immediately, for Israel is totally reliant on U.S. support for its existence – as they like to say, “It’s existential.”

All the news to the contrary is propaganda.  It is a sly game of responsibility ping-pong: shift the blame, keep the audience guessing as they hit their little hollow ball back and forth.

Control of the Middle East’s oil supplies and travel routes has been key to American foreign policy for a very long time.  Such geo-political control is linked to the United States’ endless war on Russia and the control of natural resources throughout the vast region (a look at a map is requisite), stretching from the Middle East to southwest Asia up through the Black and Caspian Seas through Ukraine into Russia.

In both cases, the attacks of September 11, 2001 and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians whose ultimate target is Iran (America’s key enemy in the region as far back as the CIA’s 1953 coup d’état against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh), savage wars of extermination have been promoted through decades of carefully orchestrated propaganda.  In the former case, through the mainstream corporate media’s magic of repetitive cinematic images, and in the latter, through their absence.  To be shown photos of many thousands of dead and mutilated Palestinian children does not serve the U.S./Zionist’s interests. Propaganda’s methods must be flexible. Show, conceal.

The September 11 attacks and the current genocide, each in its own way, have been justified and paid for with similar but different credit cards without spending limits, the so-called wars on terror waged on the visual credit card of planes hitting buildings preceded and followed by endless pictures of Osama bin Laden, and the genocide of Palestinians on the holocaust credit card minus images of slaughtered Palestinians or any awareness of the terrorist history of the Zionist’s century-long racial nationalist settler movement of “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians from their land.

To know this, one has to read books, but they have been replaced by cell phones, functional illiteracy being the norm, even for college graduates who are treated to four years of wokeness education and anti-intellectualism that reduces their thinking to mush and graduates them with sciolistic minds at best.  I am being kind.

The eradication of historical knowledge and the devaluation of the written word are key to ignorance of both issues.  Digital media and cell phones are the new books, all few hundred words on an issue conveying information that conveys ignorance.  Guy DeBord put it succinctly: “That which the spectacle ceases to speak of for three days no longer exists.”  Amnesia is the norm.

To which I might add: that which the mass media spectacle continues to speak of or show images of for many days exists, even if it doesn’t.  It exists in the minds of virtual people for whom images and headlines create reality.  The electronic media is not only addictive but hypnotically effective, producing cyber people divorced from the material world.  News and information have become a form of terrorism used to implode all mental defenses, similar to the floors at the World Trade Center that went down boom, boom, boom.

The war crimes of US/Israel are readily available for viewing outside the coverage of the corporate mainstream media. Most of the world views them, but these are the unreal people, the ones who don’t count as human beings.  These war crimes are massive, ruthless, and committed proudly and without an ounce of shame.  To face this fact is not acceptable.

Those who pretend ignorance of them are guilty of bad faith.

Those who support either Harris or Trump are guilty of bad faith twice over, acting as if either one does not support genocide or that genocide is a minor matter in the larger scheme of things.

Choosing “the lesser of two evils” is therefore an act of radical evil hiding behind the mask of civic duty.

That it is commonplace only confirms these words from the English playwright Harold Pinter’s extraordinary Nobel Address in 2005:

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El

Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Little has changed since 2005, except that these crimes have increased along with the propaganda denying them, together with vastly increased censorship – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Russia via Ukraine, etc. – all targets of U.S. bombs, just like Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, etc.  Now the U.S. has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and the voting public is all worked up over choosing between candidates supporting genocide and the massively expanded Israel attack on neighboring countries.  It is a frightening spectacle of moral indifference and stupidity as we await the Israel/U.S. bombing of Iran and Iran’s response.

Yet I ask myself and I ask you: Is there a connection between the voting public’s support for these war criminals and attention deficit disorder, amnesia, and dementia?

Or is this embrace of the demonic twins’ – US/Israel – foreign policy a sign of something far worse? A death wish?

Soul death?FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Edward Curtin writes and his work appears widely. He is the author of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. Read other articles by Edward, or visit Edward's website.

 

Our Revolutions Are for the Survival and Development of Human Civilisation

by Vijay Prashad / October 24th, 2024

Mereka Yang Terusir Dari Tanahnya (Those Chased Away from Their Land), 1960.
Credit: Amrus Natalsya, a member of the Indonesian revolutionary cultural organisation Lekra.

Next year is the seventieth anniversary of the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 and attended by heads of government and state from twenty-nine African and Asian countries. Indonesia’s President Sukarno (1901–1970), who had led the freedom movement in Indonesia against Dutch colonialism, opened the conference with a speech entitled ‘Let a New Asia and a New Africa be Born!’, in which he lamented that, while human technical and scientific progress had advanced, the politics of the world remained in a state of disarray. In the seventy years since then (roughly the global average life expectancy), much has been lost and much gained of what was called the Bandung Spirit. Humans have yet to harness the immense power they have in their hands.

The Promethean fire wielded against the people of Africa and Asia in their anti-colonial struggles and against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created fear. ‘The life of man’, Sukarno said, ‘is corroded and made bitter by fear. Fear of the future, fear of the hydrogen bomb, fear of ideologies’. This fear, Sukarno warned, is more dangerous than weaponry because it drives humans ‘to act foolishly, to act thoughtlessly, to act dangerously’. Yet, he continued, ‘we must not be guided by these fears, because fear is an acid which etches man’s actions into curious patterns. Be guided by hopes and determination, be guided by ideals, and yes, be guided by dreams!’.

I Made Djirna (Indonesia), Totem Totem, 2021.

The agenda that emerged from the Bandung Conference was clear:

1. To end colonialism and to democratise the international political system, including the United Nations.
2. To dismantle the neocolonial economic structure, which promoted the dependency of the formerly colonised world.
3. To overhaul the social and cultural systems that promoted wretched hierarchies – especially racism – and to build a world society of mutual understanding and international solidarity.

From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, the Bandung Spirit defined the struggles of the Third World Project and made great gains, such as delegitimising colonialism and racism as well as attempting to build the New International Economic Order. But in the vortex of the debt crisis of the 1980s and with the eventual collapse of the USSR, that project died. This collapse can be dated to the International Meeting on Cooperation and Development, which was held in Cancún, Mexico, in October 1981 to discuss the Brandt Report. The meeting failed to produce any substantial commitments and was followed, in August 1982, by Mexico’s default on its external debts.

In 2005, fifty years after the Bandung Conference, representatives of eighty-nine countries gathered in Indonesia for the Asian-African Summit of 2005, where they drafted the Declaration of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership, but the meeting did not gain much visibility, nor was it taken seriously by the ‘international community’. Indonesia had recently emerged out of a ghastly coup regime that ran the country from 1965 to 1998, and then from 1998 it floundered on the rocks of neoliberal policies, including a deepened relationship with the United States. The Indonesian government that hosted the 2005 conference included the forces that had participated in the bloody coup of 1965 against Sukarno. It was not a propitious way to commemorate the original conference, nor to imagine a new agenda for the Global South. Two years prior, the United States had entered a major, illegal war against Iraq, having already invaded Afghanistan, and it appeared at that time that US unipolarity would remain unchallenged indefinitely. Indonesia and the other powers of the Global South were not prepared to challenge the United States. That is why the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership announced at the 2005 summit was merely a hollow echo of the principles of the original Bandung Project, without much emendation, and therefore without any enthusiasm.

Much has changed since both 1955 and 2005. In order to understand the character of these changes, we turn to one of China’s most important left intellectuals, Wang Hui, who is himself a product of the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and the Bandung Spirit. In our latest dossier, , Wang Hui reflects on the importance of reading the history of China and the Global South from their own dynamics, and not in relation to the West as the default point of reference. One hundred and seven years after the October Revolution in the Tsarist empire, seventy-five years after the Chinese Revolution, and nearly seventy years after Bandung, as China and other large states of the Global South position themselves as major powers in the world, Wang Hui’s analysis helps us dive beneath the surface level of events and produce an in-depth theoretical explanation for the rise of China and the Global South.

Three points from Wang Hui’s theoretically rich text are of particular interest to this discussion of a world that seeks a new Bandung:

1. Revolutions in the periphery. Wang Hui writes that the modern world emerged from two different class-oriented cycles of revolutions. The first, the bourgeois liberal revolutionary cycle, began in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789, and the second, the proletarian, anti-colonial, socialist revolutionary cycle, was sparked by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The second cycle, which drew inspiration more from the In these ‘realms of hunger’, the revolutions formed part of a long process of defeating feudal inheritances, building productive forces, and trying as rapidly as possible to birth a socialist society. Meanwhile, no revolutions took place in the realms of full bellies.
2. New concepts for the periphery. Wang Hui looks carefully at the way words are used to describe the Chinese revolutionary process and finds that some that are ‘borrowed’ from the experiences of other countries (Europe’s political history, Marxism, the October Revolution, etc.) are nevertheless developed based on the historical unfolding of China’s own revolution. This is exactly what occurred in other revolutionary experiences, whether in Cuba or in Vietnam. Even those concepts that were borrowed, he points out, are not transplanted without being transformed; they go through, as Wang Hui notes, an act of ‘political displacement’. The Chinese revolutionary process borrowed terms such as ‘people’s war’ and ‘Soviet’, but the actual history of the Chinese people’s war and of the Jiangxi Soviet (1931–1934) is no mirror image of the events which those terms originally described. It is in these experiences, rooted in a different cultural world and sometimes in a different time, that the concepts can be enriched and metamorphosed.
3. The post-metropolitan era. Wang Hui argues that we are not merely in a post-colonial period, but a post-metropolitan era. This post-metropolitan condition refers to the fact that the former ‘peasant nations’ are now slowly becoming the focal point of world development, growth, and culture. It is China and the Global South, Wang Hui notes, that are ‘the epochal forces that propelled’ this transition. Yet, the transition is incomplete. The West’s control over finance, resources, science, and technology has weakened, but its control over information and military power has not. That military force, a ghostly presence, threatens the world with great destruction to maintain the influence and power of the metropolitan or core countries.

Dia al-Azzawi (Iraq), Sabra and Shatila Massacre, 1982–83.

The journey to a new Bandung has already begun, but it will take time to germinate. Eventually, when we have properly understood the post-metropolitan world, we will be able to develop a new development theory and a new approach to international relations. The gun will not be the first instrument picked up to settle disputes.

In 2016, Hawa Gamodi, a Libyan poet and editor of a children’s magazine, wrote about what poetry can do in the place of carnage:

The world has become a graveyard
But the sun rises
The breeze caresses a girl’s cheek
The sea does not forsake its blue
The swallows tell me of my childhood
Hidden beneath their wings
And somewhere a boy foretastes a kiss from his lover’s lips

These are beautiful images of the other side of devastation, pictures painted in words by a poet who has seen the bombs fall and guns fire at ghosts but kill children. ‘I am writing you’, she continues, ‘my resistance to the ruin / I paint a glorious world / Illuminated by a poem / That they await’.

In some ways, that is the best way to describe these newsletters (of which we have published 348 since 1 March 2018): resistance to the ruin.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, andThe Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

Caught in the web: Surveillance, data protection and AI in Pakistan

Despite repeated promises and drafts, Pakistan’s inability to pass a comprehensive data protection law has left citizens vulnerable to scams, data breaches, and unchecked surveillance.

Sindhu Abbasi

Published October 22, 2024
DAWN

Some weeks ago, a LinkedIn user shared a video about a man in Lahore whose CNIC had been used to post bail for different people in separate cases. The man told a Vlogger that he had gone to a xerox shop to get his CNIC photocopied. Sometime later, he discovered that his ID was being used by various persons. “I have been tracing where my ID has been used for a year, and moved court too,” he said.

Cases like these are not uncommon in Pakistan. Some days, you receive marketing messages from businesses you have never shopped from; other times, you get calls from criminals pretending to be bank employees, trying to scam you by threatening you with your bank details, which they somehow have access to.

There is an entire website that allows users to enter a phone number and reveal someone’s CNIC details. The website, after reportedly being brought to the attention of Dr Umar Saif — then caretaker minister for Information Technology and Telecom — it was blocked in Pakistan, but it can still be accessed using a VPN. Such is the response of a country whose IT Minister constantly justifies regressive legislation and policies with arguments about “cyber-attacks” and internet safety, while billions are spent on internet monitoring and blocking mechanisms.
Where’s the law?

At times, even the most harmless tweet you post will be reported by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and you’ll receive a notification from X. However, the authorities appear to neither have the time nor interest in approaching Facebook or tracking down criminals who openly sell Pakistan’s Nadra and SIM data in public groups and pages, many using their real profiles.

What’s even more troubling is that despite widespread data theft and blackmail due to data misuse or alteration, Pakistan does not have a data protection law. Farhatullah Babar, a former PPP senator, told this author in 2019 that when Peca was being passed, they had asked the PML-N to legislate a law on data protection concurrently. “How can a cybercrime law be passed without a data protection bill?” he had said. “The PML-N promised us they would pass the bill soon after Peca.”

The party never did. A data protection bill is crucial, not just for legal framework but for safeguarding an individual’s data. It demands law enforcement to take responsibility, ensuring our private information is never tampered with or leaked.

More than three drafts of the data protection bill have been prepared over the years. Back in 2016, the draft on the IT ministry’s website included private companies but left out government departments. Fast forward to 2022, under the PTI government, the cabinet approved another draft — still excluding government agencies and had vague definitions regarding data holders, processors, and their responsibilities, experts noted.

The lack of concrete progress on the data protection bill — an essential cornerstone of cyber legislation — has raised many eyebrows, especially given a barrage of other overreaching cyber laws. Many have questioned why these drafts repeatedly exclude government entities, even though departments like Nadra hold massive troves of citizen data, which have already been leaked online multiple times.

Their doubts were confirmed when the 2023 draft, during the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government, covered this gap but cleverly included data localisation clauses. The reason for the constant delays by Pakistan, it turns out, was that the state seeks unfettered access to the data of everyone living in Pakistan, as well as Pakistanis abroad. The social media rules, established in 2020, also called for data localisation. The focus appeared to be more on gaining access to data than on ensuring its protection.

Rights activists have repeatedly raised alarm over the murkiness in these drafts and rules, mirroring the ambiguity found in other cyber legislation. They offer little detail on how implementation will take place. Notably, the last two drafts include clauses requiring data holders and processors to hand over information to the government upon request — without outlining any formal process, such as a warrant or court order.

“Telecom companies operating in Pakistan are running a mass surveillance system which “enables interception of data and records of telecom customers” without any regulatory mechanism or legal procedures, on the orders of the PTA, a July 2 Dawn report stated.

The details came to the fore following a petition on surveillance of citizens, after several audio clips and private conversations of political figures were shared on X. “According to the judgement, authored by Justice Babar Sattar, the court was told that telecom companies had been asked to “finance, import, and install” the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) at a designated place (referred to as ‘surveillance centre’) for the use of designated agencies. The identity of these agencies, however, was not revealed to the court.

It is not just politicians that our state listens to through digital means. The first real debate over privacy and data protection sparked in 2012 when the PTA ordered telecom companies to end late-night call packages and reportedly used transcripts of a private phone conversation between two people as the justification for its decision in court.

The PTA faced severe backlash as experts questioned its authority to intercept private phone calls between ordinary citizens, let alone use them as evidence in court.

Although no political party has introduced legislation that is in line with international best practices, the PML-N increasingly uses arguments co-opted by rights groups and experts. Recent laws, particularly since Peca, have prioritised surveillance over the fundamental digital rights and safety of Pakistani citizens.

While ordinary people around the world are more likely to encounter scams and phishing attempts than sophisticated hacking, these issues can be effectively addressed through legislative, policing, and judicial reforms. But because Pakistan wants unfettered access to surveil its residents, it won’t even pass a bill that ensures protection against scams and crimes.

Even on a purely technical level, the surveillance policies and technologies in place defy basic internet security rules and best practices. The notion that surveillance can operate as it did in the analog era of the ‘90s — where tapping a phone was straightforward — is dangerously outdated. For in the modern internet infrastructure, anything digital is connected to the wider network, and if you poke holes in a department’s network security, you are opening the door for attacks from other hackers for everyone.
AI use by Punjab, Sindh governments

This year, the Sindh government said it would start using AI technology on toll plazas that will capture and verify number plates and faces in real-time. “Officials have said that the system would enable effective monitoring of entry and exit points and ensure security through the integration of advanced technologies such as facial and number plate recognition at 40 toll plazas, including 18 in Karachi. They said that the project also aimed at enhancing security responses and seamlessly integrating with the existing command and control centre at the Central Police Office (CPO),” a report in Dawn from June stated.

In a press release issued in February, the Punjab government also announced that it was using an “Artificial Intelligence based Facial Recognition System [that] automatically captures pictures and compares them with the data compiled including 16 million records and pictures from the driving licences branch, 1.8 million records from the Crime Record Branch, 1.3 million from the Punjab Khidmat Marakaz, and 300,000 records of accused individuals and criminals from Punjab prisons”. Various recent press releases by the Punjab police show they continue to use this technology.

The announcement came months after the Punjab IT Board, along with the police IT wing, said it had created an “AI-powered ’Face Trace System … to track criminals”. “The system is aimed at enhancing accountability, reliability, and efficiency in tracing and apprehending suspects and wanted criminals,” it added

But AI companies using facial recognition, and predictive policing algorithms have been under increasing criticism in the West. From algorithms locking out captains working for an international ride-hailing company in India because the facial recognition was trained on primarily white faces and features, to an algorithm declaring an old man dead, the use of AI technologies, particularly for facial recognition and biometrics, have come under severe criticism. Ample research shows the facial recognition simply does not work properly on black, brown, or non-white faces.

In Western countries, this has resulted in the targeting of oppressed communities, as predictive algorithms used for criminal arrests are often trained on biased historical data — such as anti-black bias within the US policing system. This has led to targeting of black people in the US and UK. In Buenos Aires, clerical errors led to wrongful identification and arrests by facial recognition software; a stark reminder that even the most sophisticated technology is just one human mistake away from ruining someone’s life.

“Human rights experts are increasingly questioning whether some of these technologies, notably live facial recognition in public spaces, can ever be deployed in ways that do not violate the right to privacy and other human rights, such as freedom of peaceful assembly,” a Privacy International report stated.

Deploying facial recognition technologies on such a large scale without a comprehensive data protection law — one that clearly defines how this data is captured, verified, and used in policing and judicial processes — poses a grave threat to fundamental human rights. Government departments in Pakistan routinely face cyber attacks and hacking, despite the PTA’s claims of increased cybersecurity. In May earlier this year, the Islamabad Safe City Authority’s online system was knocked down by hacker(s) leading to a shutdown. Such data, if accessed by international hackers, can and has been used for stealing financial information and robbing people of their money.

There have also been reports of intimate images of individuals in their cars being leaked, allegedly from the Safe City project. Others have received traffic challans based on faulty data from CCTV and similar technologies installed at traffic checkpoints.

A week ago, an AI regulation bill was introduced in the Senate, but like other cyber laws, it seems more focused on controlling the public use of AI tools, rather than addressing how the state itself employs this technology. According to an analysis of the bill by the Digital Rights Foundation, it fails to distinguish between user-centric AI models, such as ChatGPT, and large-scale systems used by governments in Punjab and Sindh.
Going back to basics

Technology and social media have empowered individuals to earn a living and champion free speech. However, they have simultaneously amplified hate speech, revenge porn, and disinformation. While the spotlight often falls on the more visible consequences — like AI chatbots mimicking human speech or manipulated videos and audio — the deeper issue lies in the structural and political challenges that underpin human rights violations in the digital realm. These systemic problems are often overlooked in favour of sensationalised, surface-level concerns.

Laws targeting the “output” of technology or social media may be within reach for Western democracies, which already have functioning accountability systems. However, countries like Pakistan must address the underlying, on-the-ground issues that enable cybercrime in the first place.

Before introducing any new legislation, Pakistan must first enact a data protection law that aligns with international standards, striking a balance between an individual’s right over their data and the ease of doing business. According to various privacy-related advocacy groups around the world, the root of most cyber crimes, threats, and blackmail ultimately traces back to the exploitation of personal data. There can be no advocacy against surveillance in the digital age without advocating for a data protection law. But not the kind proposed by the PML-N government, which focuses on forcing organisations to store Pakistanis’ data locally.

“Government hacking can be far more privacy intrusive than any other surveillance technique, permitting to remotely and secretly access personal devices and the data stored on them as well as to conduct novel forms of real-time surveillance, for example, by turning on microphones, cameras, or GPS-based locator technology. Hacking also allows governments to manipulate data on devices, including corrupting, planting or deleting data, or recovering data that has been deleted, all while erasing any trace of the intrusion,” states the 2022 Privacy International’s response to a UN High Commissioner report on human rights.

Pakistan needs a law that first defines personal data in line with international best practices such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Such a bill should guarantee individuals the right to their own data and transparency over how private companies, marketing agencies, and government departments use it. It must also protect users from the unauthorised sale of metadata and sensitive digital details, such as IP addresses, phone numbers, and banking information, without explicit consent.

One of the most critical rights is the right to be forgotten. Under the GDPR, individuals can request their data be deleted by data holders, like telecom companies, after discontinuing services or under specific conditions. This isn’t just a matter of user privacy — it helps companies manage storage capacities and prevents the exploitation of personal information. Without such protections, businesses could profit from selling user data to third parties at steep prices. Indeed, there have been reports of dozens of lists of phone numbers and data of subscribers allegedly leaked by employees of telcos in Pakistan.

Like free speech, data privacy also has limitations. The state might want to use this data for nabbing criminals and other security-related reasons. However, any country with a functioning democracy cannot allow its state or law enforcement unfettered access without a bill that ensures a person’s basic human rights. Passing cybercrime and social media legislation without a data protection law is similar to passing policing bills without giving a person the right to a just trial.

The 2023 draft largely addressed these concerns, but then included clauses allowing the state to demand data from any private organisation without a warrant or court order, and asking international and local companies to store all data that deals with Pakistanis within the country, defeating the entire purpose and concept of data privacy andsecurity.

Across the globe, the concept of “techno-solutionism” is facing growing scrutiny. This ideology proposes technology as a quick fix for complex governance challenges, only to introduce further complications when these tech solutions backfire — often due to their failure to scale effectively. For Pakistan, it is time to go back to the basics: focus on democracy, accountability, and fundamental rights of its citizens, then craft regulations that prioritise individual privacy, not mass surveillance of the populace.

Header Image: This is an AI image generated via Shutterstock

The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher, leveraging her background as a computer engineer to report on cybercrime, disinformation, and human