The Way of the Knife: The Untold Story of USA’s Secret War by Mark Mazzetti; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.499; 379 pp

“No longer a traditional espionage service devoted to stealing the secrets of foreign governments, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has become a killing machine, an organisation consumed with manhunting… Prior to the attacks of September 11 (on the New York World Trade Centre), the Pentagon did very little human spying, and the CIA was not permitted to kill. In the years since, each has done a great deal of both, and a military intelligence complex has emerged to carry out the American way of war.”

These chilling words from the prologue sum up what Mark Mazzetti, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and national security correspondent of the New York Times, has to say in this fascinating and intensively researched book. The metamorphosis of the CIA began during the presidency of George Bush Jr. (2001-2009). Surprisingly, despite his liberal credentials and professed respect for human rights and international law, President Barack Obama has expanded the role of the CIA and Pentagon by authorising the use of remote-controlled Predator drones (unmanned aircraft) to track and strike at suspected enemies and terrorists.

As recounted by the author, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attack on WTC, Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of M16, the British intelligence service, was shown a live demonstration of drone capability at the Counter Terrorism Centre of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. On a large screen in front of him was a white Mitsubishi truck driving along a road in Afghanistan. “Several minutes went by as the Mitsubishi was framed by the crosshairs at the centre of the video monitor, until a missile blast washed the entire screen in white. Seconds later, the picture clarified to show the wreckage of the truck, twisted and burning.” Dearlove’s reaction was typically British. “It almost isn’t sporting, is it?” he said with a wry smile.

Since then, drone attacks have been used with deadly effect in Afghanistan and Pakistan, enraging the people of these countries. “The parameters of America’s dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan in post 9/11 had been set: The United States insisted on the right to wage a secret war inside Pakistan and Islamabad extracted money in return,” notes the author. Inevitably, much of the consideration paid was secreted by the military regime under Gen. Musharraf, and subsequently by President Zardari and perhaps his military chief, Gen. Kayani, as well.

Success of drone attacks depends on good intelligence. If the intelligence is faulty, “collateral damage” — a euphemism for the killing of innocent civilians who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time — is inevitable. The increase in drone strikes and ensuing collateral damage, have become commonplace in Pakistan, provoking strong opposition within the country. In fact, in one of his first declarations of intent on assuming the office of prime minister on May 28, Nawaz Sharif promised to halt drone strikes within Pakistan’s borders.

However, that’s for public consumption. In reality according to Mazzetti, the Pakistan army has been quite happy with the Americans flushing out Al Qaeda and sundry other terrorists who have begun posing a major threat to the stability of the Pakistan establishment. Most terrorists targeted by the CIA/Pentagon are Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens and from other Central Asian countries which were once part of the Soviet Union. Therefore American help in liquidating them and dollops of cash that doesn’t have to be accounted for, suits Islamabad very well.

Mazzetti devotes a long stretch of the book to the history of remote-controlled armed drone warfare, the stealthy weapons of high-tech combat. He points out that America’s first successful drone attack was in Yemen. With the assent of Yemen’s President Ali Saleh, the masterminds of the 2000 terrorist bombing of the Naval destroyer USS Cole in which 17 US sailors were killed, were taken out by a drone attack, following the US Congress authorising President Bush to carry out “targeted killings outside a declared war zone”. The drone method is much simpler, with no awkward questions to be answered. Until 9/11, the CIA modus operandi was to capture alleged terrorists and interrogate them, often using third degree methods like waterboarding.

This prompted the Congress and human rights groups to raise objections. But after the twin towers attack on September 11, 2001, “thorny questions about assassination, covert action, and the proper use of the CIA in hunting America’s enemies were quickly swept aside’’. Within weeks, the CIA began conducting dozens of drone strikes in Afghanistan. America has found in the armed Predator, the ultimate weapon for a secret war. It’s a deadly weapon that kills easily and quietly, unbound by the normal rules of accountability in combat. Armed drones allow American presidents to order strikes on remote villages and desert camps, where journalists and independent monitoring groups are unlikely to visit.

Surprisingly, while the title suggests an exposé of the morally reprehensible — even if not strictly illegal — operations of the military-intelligence complex, by the end of the book, Mazzetti almost justifies the use of drone warfare. Tanks and planes did that in the first half of the last century, followed by nuclear warheads and ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). Drones discharge a similar role in the “remote controlled age”, he writes.

Yet, the ethical questions Way of the Knife raises apart, there is a more fundamental question the book poses. With combating terrorism having emerged as the topmost national priority of not only the US, but India and Pakistan as well, how best to go about it? There is the Israeli way, as the film Munich depicts tellingly — the way of the Mossad, Israel’s highly effective secret service.

After identifying those who planned the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics of 1972, Mossad agents hunted them down relentlessly, one by one, in different countries, legalities be damned. Israel had no drone capabilities and went about the job in its own way — gathering intelligence and then going for the kill, by bullets or explosives.

There’s a good case for India’s RAW and IB agents hunting down those who planned the terrorist attack on Mumbai, in the same way. One of the chief conspirators, David Headley, has been caught and will surely spend the rest of his life in prison. But what about the others?

Rahul Singh

Modernisation paradox

Pedagogy for Religion — Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal by Parna Sengupta; Orient Blackswan; Price: Rs.645; 211 pp

The mid-nineteenth century was a period of great ferment in India. The British had supplanted the Mughals as rulers of much of the subcontinent, and in the changed environment, new forms of knowledge and its dissemination were challenging time-honoured traditions.

Spearheading the spread of ‘modern’ education were the colonial state, European Christian missionaries (of various denominations), and Indian elites. These three sets of actors shared a common appreciation of modern, ‘scientific’ knowledge, but each had its own separate political and cultural agenda. How these multiple, often conflicting, agendas played themselves out on the Indian stage, and what their inter-play meant for different segments of the Indian population who took to modern education, is what this well-researched and thoroughly engaging book is about. It addresses this broad issue by focusing on the Bengal Province, one of the first experimental grounds of new or ‘modern’ pedagogies.

The arrival of western education in the non-white world is generally seen as the advent of ‘the age of reason’, which, in turn, led to rapid erosion in the hold of religion over the native population. Today western education is regarded a ‘civilising’ as well as a secularising force. But this commonsensical notion had little to commend it in the 19th century Indian context, observes Sengupta.

According to the author, the modernisation of education in Bengal was engineered by a number of actors deeply committed to one or other religion, with most of them regarding this phenomenon as an opportunity to disseminate their own religious beliefs within the Bengali populace. In fact, it was widely believed that modern education, while doing away with ‘superstition’ in the name of religion, was a cover for proselytisation and spread of Christianity variously interpreted by different sets of actors. In particular, European Christian organisations, engaged in civilising the natives as part of their missionary agenda hoped that western education would destroy heathen gods and religions.

On closer examination of documents in English and Bengali, Sengupta discovers that the outcome of their propaganda and proselytisation was quite the opposite; it reinforced native religious identities.

Bengali Hindu elites or bhadralok did not lag far behind Christian missionaries in embracing modern education and setting up westernised schools. Many of them, notes Sengupta, were exclusively for the bhadralok themselves, thus leaving out the vast majority of Bengalis — low caste and tribal people, and Muslims. The cultural milieu of their schools, too, was rooted in upper caste Hindu tradition, which, in turn, was seen as synonymous with the Bengali or Indian identity. The modern education they propagated was designed to spread and reinforce bhadralok culture, thereby legitimising their supremacy within the caste system and in Bengali society.

Muslims formed almost half the population of pre-partition Bengal. Most of them were converts from the lower caste and tribal populations, and the majority were peasants and landless labour, lagging far behind Hindus in terms of modern education. From the late 19th century onwards, the ashraf or Muslim elites initiated efforts towards promoting modern education within the community. But, as in the case of Hindus these endeavours were designed to reinforce ashraf hegemony within the Muslim identity.

As Sengupta cogently argues, the modernist education movement in India did not, contrary to popular belief, attack or even undermine religion. In some ways, it actually strengthened the hold of traditional elites. At the same time, it led to the homogenisation of religious traditions. Scores of schools began to spread contemporary knowledge together with orthodox, scripturalist versions of religion which, till then, had been limited to a small section of elites. In all three cases — Christian, Hindu and Muslim — this had major political implications, serving to construct an image of monolithic religious communities, led and controlled by their elites, whose authority was tightened with these new interpretations of religion.

Yoginder Sikand