The South Asia Politics, News, and Analysis Thread

The ruling Communist Party of China has issued a stern warning to neighboring India, with which it is engaged in a bitter border dispute that has recently seen Chinese live-fire drills and media speculation of extensive Indian military casualties denied by both sides.

After accusing Indian troops of crossing over the disputed Sikkim border last month, Chinese Communist Party outlet Global Times published a commentary Tuesday urging restraint by both belligerents, but warning that China was prepared to engage India in a battle for the contested land. The piece chalked up the conflict to a greater competition for economic and political dominance between the two leading Asian powers and said that Beijing would amass troops and armaments at the border in anticipation for what could turn into an all-out war.

“China doesn’t recognize the land under the actual control of India is Indian territory. Bilateral border negotiations are still ongoing, but the atmosphere for negotiations has been poisoned by India,” Global Times’ op-ed read.

“China doesn’t advocate and tries hard to avoid a military clash with India, but China doesn’t fear going to war to safeguard sovereignty either, and will make itself ready for a long-term confrontation.”

The recent Sino-India border strife has been called the most serious since a 1962 battle that saw about 2,000 killed, most of them Indian soldiers, and a minor expansion of China’s borders. Over half a century later, tensions were stirred again June 16 when China accused Indian troops of crossing a mutually agreed boundary separating the far western Chinese region of Tibet and the far eastern Indian state of Sikkim, which China only recognized as belonging to India in 2003. New Delhi has accused Beijing of compromising the security of India and neighboring Bhutan by expanding Chinese infrastructure close to the border. Both sides have refused to stand down, and recent Chinese military moves have raised fears that the situation could soon escalate.

China’s armed forces have held a series of drills in Tibet involving tank training, mortar fire and missiles being launched not far from where Indian troops have been stationed. After China’s most recent maneuver Sunday, media outlets in China and Pakistan, another bitter rival of India, began proliferating reports that Chinese rockets had killed up to 158 Indian soldiers and wounded more. Sources in both Beijing and New Delhi swiftly attacked the reports, which still appeared on Pakistan’s Dunya TV website as of Tuesday morning. Communist Party outlets People’s Daily and Global Times called the accounts “groundless,” and India’s foreign ministry shared similar sentiments Tuesday.

“Such reports are utterly baseless, malicious and mischievous. No cognizance should be taken of them by responsible media,” Ministry of Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, according to The Economic Times of India.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has continued to criticize India’s military advance, with spokesperson Lu Kang claiming foreign diplomats in Beijing felt “shocked and confounded” by India’s actions and had expressed their concern to the Chinese government. Lu urged New Delhi to “take prompt measures to withdraw its personnel who have illegally crossed the boundary back to India’s side, so as to avoid further escalation of the situation.”

Nancy Hatch Dupree, an American writer and historian who arrived in Afghanistan in 1962 and devoted decades of her life to preserving the country’s heritage during some of its darkest times, died in Kabul on Sunday. She was 89.

Her death was announced by the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University.

Weakened by a leg injury and a failing heart and lungs, but resistant to returning to the United States for treatment, Mrs. Dupree had been focusing on what would become her final project: cataloging thousands of photos, some from the early years she and her archaeologist husband, Louis Dupree, spent traveling Afghanistan — she writing guidebooks, he excavating its ancient past.

Mrs. Dupree wrote five books, and more than 100 articles and pamphlets, on Afghanistan. Her legacy, which she often described as the completion of her husband’s vision, is an academic oasis: the Afghanistan Center, a state-of-the-art research hub that houses more than 100,000 items of primary and secondary sources.

Mrs. Dupree bore witness to decades of history, but perhaps the greatest dangers she overcame were during the period of Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001.

Omara Khan Massoudi, the former director of Afghanistan’s National Museum, who knew Mrs. Dupree for 43 years, recalled her making trips to Kabul during those years. The Taliban set out to destroy cultural artifacts as un-Islamic; Mrs. Dupree helped install 32 metal doors in the museum’s galleries to protect what had survived.

“There is a line which I learned from her, and I added it in the calendar when I was the head of the National Museum, and we later inscribed it on a stone at the museum,” Mr. Massoudi said. “The line reads: A nation stays alive if its culture stays alive.”

President Ashraf Ghani, who knew the couple for decades, first crossing paths with them as a young scholar of anthropology, called Mrs. Dupree “a great servant of Afghan history and culture.” Hugo Llorens, the top United States diplomat to Kabul, said that “her love for this country and dedication to its culture and history will be forever remembered.”

A Pakistani anti-corruption court on Thursday indicted ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter over allegations linked to ownership of London properties, opening a trial that could see the former leader jailed.

The Sharifs have called the corruption proceedings against them a conspiracy, hinting at intervention by the powerful military, but opponents have hailed it as a rare example of the rich and powerful being held accountable.

Sharif, 67, resigned in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office over an undeclared source of income, but the veteran leader maintains his grip on the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

Sharif said there was no precedent for indicting someone in his absence. “I hope I will get justice,” he told reporters in London in remarks broadcast by local Geo TV, adding that he would travel home to attend the next court hearing.

Judge Bashir Ahmad of the court that tries cases registered and investigated by an anti-graft body, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), indicted Sharif, his daughter Maryam Sharif and her husband, Muhammad Safdar. They all pleaded not guilty.

Maryam and Safdar were present in court, but Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, sent a representative while he tends to his wife as she undergoes cancer treatment in Britain.

Maryam said in the court that the charges were unfounded and baseless.

The news agency ANI reported that Surajpal Amu, a state-level media coordinator of the BJP, told a rally Sunday: “We will reward the ones beheading [Padukone and Bhansali] with Rs 10 crore, and also take care of their family’s needs.” A crore signifies 10 million rupees.

Amu repeated the statement to the Indian Express. Video from the rally also showed Amu saying, “There's no need to discuss making cuts to the film. We won't allow it to play in theaters at all.”

An official from the BJP condemned Amu and said the party was considering taking legal action against him.

“It’s absolutely appalling. What have we gotten ourselves into? And where have we reached as a nation?” said the actress Padukone, who plays the leading role of Queen Padmavati and who recently appeared in “XXX: Return of Xander Cage” alongside Vin Diesel.

“We have regressed,” she added. “The only people we are answerable to is the censor board, and I know and I believe that nothing can stop the release of this film.”

A member of the Rajput Karni Sena group, Mahipal Singh Makrana, responded in a self-made video, saying, “Rajputs never raise a hand on women, but if need be, we will do to Deepika what Lakshman did to Surpanakha,” referring to a Hindu epic in which a man cuts off a woman's nose. The group has also vandalized cinemas, burned posters and threatened to break the legs of actor Ranveer Singh, who plays villainous Muslim invader Alauddin Khilji.

Members of the Rajput Karni Sena, a group associated with the warrior Rajput caste, claim it misrepresents history by depicting a love affair between the queen and a Muslim invader. The group is further upset that the queen's midriff is exposed in a song sequence. They have called for a nationwide strike and backed the death threats against star Deepika Padukone and the film's director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

But Bhansali insists that the plot has no such love scene. And the movie trailer pays ample homage to Rajput bravery and their role in resisting Muslim armies.

The group is further upset that the queen's midriff is exposed in a song sequence

Pakistan’s government on Saturday called on the army to help clear a sit-in by Islamist hard-liners blockading the capital after police clashed with activists and religious protests spread to other cities.

Dozens of people were injured in Saturday’s clashes, including many police, according to reports from hospitals. Protesters said four of their activists had been killed, but police said there had been no deaths.

By nightfall, protests spread to other main cities with activists brandishing sticks and attacking cars in some areas.

New demonstrators had joined the camp in Faizabad, just outside Islamabad, in a stand-off with police.

Private TV stations were ordered off the air, with only state-run television broadcasting.

Activists from Tehreek-e-Labaik, a new hard-line Islamist political party, have blockaded the main road into the capital for two weeks, accusing the law minister of blasphemy against Islam and demanding his dismissal and arrest.

"We are in our thousands. We will not leave. We will fight until end," Tehreek-e-Labaik party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters by telephone from the scene.

Tehreek-e-Labaik is one of two new ultra-religious political movements that have risen up in recent months and seem set to play a major role in elections that must be held by summer next year, though they are unlikely to win a majority.

Chaos and "conspiracy"

Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters in a message on Saturday night that the government had "requisitioned" the military assistance "for law and order duty according to the constitution".

The ruling party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July and is facing a corruption trial - has a fraught history with the military, which in 1999 launched a coup to oust Sharif from an earlier term.

Earlier in the day, Iqbal said the protests were part of a conspiracy to weaken the government, which is now run by Sharif’s allies under a new prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

"There are attempts to create a chaos in (the) country," Iqbal said on state-run Pakistan TV.

"I have to say with regret that a political party that is giving its message to people based on a very sacred belief is being used in the conspiracy that is aimed at spreading anarchy in the country," Iqbal added, without saying who he considered responsible.

Pakistan’s army chief on Saturday called on the civilian government to end the protest while "avoiding violence from both sides". Opposition leader Imran Khan called for early elections, saying the "incompetent and dithering" administration had allowed a breakdown of governance.

The clashes began on Saturday when police launched an operation involving some 4,000 officers to disperse around 1,000 activists and break up their camp, police official Saood Tirmizi told Reuters.

Television footage showed a police vehicle on fire, heavy curtains of smoke and fires burning in the streets as officers in heavy riot gear advanced. Protesters, some wearing gas masks, fought back in scattered battles across empty highways and surrounding neighbourhoods.

The protesters have paralysed daily life in the capital, and have defied court orders to disband.

Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the law minister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral law that changed a religious oath proclaiming Mohammad the last prophet of Islam to the words "I believe", a change the party says amounts to blasphemy.

The government put the issue down to a clerical error and swiftly changed the language back.

Tehreek-e-Laibak was born out of a protest movement lionizing Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws.

The party won a surprisingly strong 7.6 percent of the vote in a by-election in Peshawar last month.

More join protests

The government had tried to negotiate an end to the sit-in, fearing violence during a crackdown similar to 2007, when clashes between authorities and supporters of a radical Islamabad mosque led to the deaths of more than 100 people. Despite the police crackdown, the protesters were largely still in place by nightfall and Tehreek-e-Labaik leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a prominent cleric, remained at the site, party activist Mohammad Shafiq Ameeni said.

Four protesters had died in the police crackdown, he added.

By late afternoon, Tehreek-e-Labaik supporters were coming out on the streets in other Pakistani cities in support.

Police fired tear gas in Karachi, the southern port that is Pakistan’s largest city, to try to disperse about 500 demonstrators near the airport.

Outside the northwestern city of Peshawar, about 300 protesters blocked the motorway to Islamabad and started attacking vehicles with stones and sticks.

In the eastern city of Lahore, party supporters blocked three roads into the city.

(Reuters)