It
is interesting that the Government of India and the Government of
Jammu and Kashmir have not only accorded permission to a Zubin Mehta
concert in Srinagar but are putting the state machinery at the beck and
call of a command performance orchestrated by the German Ambassador in
New Delhi.
Herr Michael Steiner has an interesting past and
present. It would have been useful if the policy pundits in New Delhi
had done some sleuthing of their own rather than depended on their
flatfoot department where intelligence is an oxymoron.
Herr
Steiner is not the average diplomat. Shooting into prominence in Prague
in 1989 as a junior diplomat who helped East Germans across the wall of
the then West German embassy in what was notionally still a Soviet
satellite state, Czechoslovakia. It is indeed interesting to note how a
junior diplomat in a Foreign Ministry known for its hierarchy and
Prussian values of "Gehorsam "and "Ordnungssinn" obedience and a sense
of order in plain English gave so much leeway to a junior diplomat when
instructions were available literally a hop, step and jump away in Bonn,
the then West German capital.
His career graph clearly marks
him out as special not only as an individual but the policies that he
has espoused for Germany and more importantly Western European foreign
policy whose engine lays in Berlin not Brussels, London or Paris.
Mr.
Steiner subsequently was deputy to Carl Bildt, the first high
representative of the United Nations in Bosnia. In 2000, according to
the New York Times, he outraged a Belgian diplomat by suggesting at a
private gathering that ''we might walk into your country again'' if a
Belgian minister did not shape up.
According to the same NYT
story, in 1999, he tried to force his way past security guards into a
Rio conference without wearing his credentials, and was forced to the
floor.
The NYT adds that in 2001, he was "involved" in a bizarre
contretemps over the leaking of a cable that described his blunt
conversation with the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who
appeared to admit responsibility for earlier terrorist acts. The memo,
written by the German ambassador in Washington at the time, Jürgen
Chrobog, included other details of a conversation between Mr. Schroder,
the then German President and President Bush.
It should not be
forgotten that it was the same Herr Steiner who orchestrated the end of
the isolation of Mr. Narendra Modi, the Gauleiter of Hindu
Fundamentalism amongst the countries of the European Union. Mr. Steiner
surreptitiously invited Gauleiter Modi to the German Embassy in January
2013 for a coven where all the other European worthies dipped their
flags to the German Eagle.
He is reported to have been key to
getting his then boss, the German President to agree to the deployment
of German troops in Afghanistan. This allegedly, in the face of
opposition from the then Green Foreign Minister, Mr. Joschka Fischer in
the German Coalition government. Steiner served as Special
Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan for the German Ministry of
Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2012 from where he came to New Delhi as
ambassador.
German interest in what is now known as the AF Pak
region is not new. From the Treaty of Gandomak in 1879 and the Treaty of
the Durand Line in 1893 the good Kaiser gave Calcutta, Delhi, Simla and
London many sleepless nights. There are too many stories to recount
here about the sparring that went on in the area between Imperial
Germany and Imperial India under the British crown. German Industry then
as Krupp and now as a clutch of armament manufacturers was not a
disinterested participant in the great game. It would be useful if the
pundits in Delhi visited the India office in London and reread the
Viceroy's dispatches. If that is arduous, they could perhaps start with
reading Hopkirk.
The Germans hosting the Munich security
conference each year have been hosting the Afghans, Pakistanis, Iranians
and Indians not only to Bavarian beer and Brotzeit but also have been
taking readings on their involvement in the area.
According to
Der Spiegel, Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), in 2006 was intercepting and reading
SPIEGEL reporter Susanne Koelbl's e-mail correspondence with Afghan
Commerce Minister Amin Farhang. The BND leadership as early as 2005 had
unofficial negotiations with certain representatives of the Taliban in
Zurich. In November 2010, Steiner's Bavarian and BND connections were
once again visible. Commentator, Ahmed Rashid, stated that secret talks
were held with Taliban's Syed Tayyab Agha, long-term aide to Mullah
Muhammad Omar. Also present was a prince from Qatar's ruling family,
whom the Taliban had asked to be present.
In late 2008, the BND
was allegedly using employees of the German Agro Action
(Welthungerhilfe) to obtain counterinsurgency intelligence. Agro Aid
warned that this would endanger NGOs "neutrality. Hopefully, New Delhi
is keeping its eyes and ears open on Germany's new found interest in
Kashmir University, development, et al.
Any one following German policies in the area should be aware, it is a forward policy.
The
US will leave in 2014 but according to Ulrich Kirsch, the head of the
German Armed Forces Association -- the Bundeswehrverband, German combat
troops should remain in Afghanistan for many years to come. The new
cockpit of this century is this area where China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan
and India meet and vie for influence.
Mr. Zubin Mehta is also
an interesting choice for Herr Steiner to invite to Kashmir. It is
amazing how New Delhi has bought the orchestral composition written by
the foreign policy wunderkind of Berlin.
Mr. Mehta's programme
in Srinagar we are told is to feature the music of Beethoven, Haydn and
Tchaikovsky. It will be interesting to see if Wagner is the last minute
inclusion with Gotterdammerung.
The Hurriyat conference and
civil society in Kashmir have missed the plot. It is New Delhi that
should be fingering the worry beads. New Delhi is playing second fiddle.
Ooops, sorry, second violin.
(The author is a Delhi based analyst) |
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