Pakistan: When Enemy No. 1 Becomes Martyr No.1, The War is Lost

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

What is to be made of a society, people and country whose political leadership erupts in anger and weaves bizarre conspiracy theories because its self-declared ‘enemy no. 1’ is eliminated in a drone attack by a country which has not only accorded it the status of a ‘major non-NATO ally’, but is the largest aid giver, and one of the largest trading partners, source of remittances and arms supplier? The words ‘strategic confusion’, ‘policy disarray’, ‘social schizophrenia’ and ‘national Stockholm Syndrome’ immediately come to mind. The drone attack on November 1, 2013, that killed Hakimullah Mehsud, Emir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has resulted in total reversal of roles with the USA being designated as Pakistan's ‘enemy no. 1’ by top political and religious leaders in Pakistan, and Mehsud, who is responsible for the killings of thousands of Pakistani civilians and security force officials, being labelled as a ‘martyr’.

While the Pakistan Army has so far refrained from any comment on the drone attack on Hakimullah, there has been an almost hysterical reaction from the political and religious leadership which is not just willing to take on the US and NATO by threatening to block the Ground Lines of Communications (GLOCs) – some quarters are even demanding that Pakistan Air Force be ordered to shoot down the drones – but is also leaning over backwards with entreaties and pleas to the Taliban to spare them from any retaliatory terror attacks to avenge the killing of Hakimullah. There is a desperate effort underway to convince the Taliban that the Pakistan government had nothing whatsoever to do with the US attack and is genuine in its desire to enter into negotiations and dialogue with the Taliban leadership without any pre-conditions. In fact, according to some reports, which haven’t as yet been denied, the Pakistani authorities were offering major political and economic concessions to the Taliban (virtually conceding an autonomous Emirate with Dubai-like privileges for local people of FATA) to woo them to the negotiating table.

Not only is the US being accused of deliberately sabotaging the ‘peace talks’ that the Pakistan government was set to start with the Pakistani Taliban, some leaders like Imran Khan and the Jamaat Islami chief Munawar Hasan have even gone to the extent of insinuating, if not outrightly blaming, the US of being behind the major terror attacks – bombing of the Church in Peshawar, the Kissa-Khwani bazaar bombing in Peshawar and the killing of the GOC, 17 Infantry Division in Swat – which followed the All Parties Conference that decided on opening a dialogue with the Taliban. Clearly, in the minds of the Pakistani political and religious leadership it is not just that the fear of the Taliban that over-rides any fear of the US, but also their loathing for the Americans which far outweighs any such sentiment that they might harbour for the depredations and devastation caused by the Taliban.

The genuflection of the civilian establishment of Pakistan (which claims the complete backing of the military establishment in this) before the Taliban betrays, at one level, the sheer defeatism with which the Pakistani authorities are approaching the Taliban for peace negotiations. But there is also a political angle to the whole thing. The anti-US tirade of the Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali (whose wife and kids incidentally are US citizens!) has stolen the thunder from Imran Khan who has for long positioned himself as the anti-American and pro-Taliban champion in Pakistani politics. At the same time, there are reports in the Pakistani media that Nisar was unleashed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who wanted to avoid Taliban retaliation in the Punjab. Apparently, Nawaz Sharif had received intelligence reports that over a 100 Taliban suicide bombers had been placed in Punjab and were waiting to strike as soon as they received orders. Nawaz Sharif was therefore indulging in a dissemble to defuse this threat by taking a strident anti-US position to assuage the Taliban and dissuade them from another devastating terror bombing campaign.

Politics and the pusillanimity of the politicians aside, and notwithstanding the negative impact this has on forging the elusive national consensus on how to tackle the terrorist challenge, there are other serious questions that arise from the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud. The compound that Hakimullah was targeted in bears remarkable similarity to the Abottabad compound that Osama bin Laden lived in when he was killed by US Special Forces. Not only did both these structures stick out like a sore thumb, they were also located right under the nose of the Pakistani military establishment – Osama bin Laden lived near the Pakistan Military Academy and Hakimullah a stone’s throw away from the Miranshah military fort of the Pakistan Army. And yet, either out of complicity or sheer incompetence, the all-powerful Pakistan Army and its infamous but powerful intelligence agencies (ISI and Military Intelligence) were neither able to locate the world’s most wanted terrorist nor Pakistan’s ‘enemy no.1’. Even more interestingly, he was living in an area which is dominated by the ‘good Taliban’ – a.k.a. ‘strategic assets’ of the Pakistan Army – namely, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and the Haqqani Network, without any let or hindrance. This means that either the area was an undeclared ‘safe zone’ in which all combatants could live without molesting each other, or else it puts a lie into the fictitious distinction between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Another possibility is that the Pakistan Army was deliberately not targeting the TTP chieftain for some sinister reason.

In all likelihood, the Americans got a fix on Hakimullah, who they were hunting ever since the bombing of the CIA base in Khost in 2009 and the botched Times Square bombing in New York by the idiot bomber Faisal Shehzad in 2010, after they captured his right-hand man Latifullah Mehsud in Logar, Afghanistan early October last. Apparently, the Americans had given enough hints to the Pakistanis even before Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington in late October that they had Hakimullah in their sight and were going to take him out regardless of Pakistani reservations on drone attacks. For the Pakistanis to now accuse the Americans of sabotaging the peace talks at the eleventh hour is somewhat disingenuous.

From the shrillness of the Pakistani protests, it would appear as though the ‘peace talks’ with the Taliban had reached a conclusion. The fact, however, is otherwise. These talks had not even started. Some initial contacts had been made and some tentative understanding reached on the back channel between intermediaries of the Taliban and the government. A delegation of Ulema was purportedly going to go to Miranshah to hand a formal invitation for talks to the Taliban. In other words, there was no real dialogue underway at the time Hakimullah was killed. Everything else – the Taliban accepting the invitation for talks, the terms and conditions under which the talks would proceed, what solution, if any, these talks would throw up, whether this would be a lasting solution acceptable to all ‘stakeholders’, and whether any or all of the sides would stick to their side of the bargain or renege on it – was all pretty much in the realm of speculation.

What now remains to be seen is the impact that Hakimullah’s killing will have on the TTP and the Islamist insurgency that it is spearheading in Pakistan. The hope among some security analysts in Pakistan is that Hakimullah’s death will deal a body blow to the TTP and could deepen the divisions within its ranks. Hakimullah was seen as a ruthless and charismatic commander who was also a brilliant planner of attacks. Replacing him, according to these analysts, will not be easy. Even more difficult will be to find a replacement who is able to lead all the other commanders. But if the past record of the TTP is anything to go by, then this optimism is likely to be belied.

Every successive commander starting from Nek Muhammed to Abdullah Mehsud to Baitullah Mehsud to Hakimullah Mehsud had taken the insurgency to a higher level. While there have been differences between faction leaders and operational commanders of the TTP (including the occasional internecine warfare), by and large the commanders stuck together in pursuit of their larger objective of taking over the Pakistani state, supporting the Al Qaeda and Taliban and fighting the ISAF and Pakistan Army. It is unlikely that this dynamic will undergo a major change with the death of Hakimullah. It is possible that the TTP might agree to enter into a dialogue for reasons of gaining some tactical space; but it would be stretching incredulity to think that such a dialogue would lead to lasting peace and re-establish the writ of the Pakistani state in the territories over which the Taliban hold sway.

Instead of putting the TTP on the defensive, the killing of Hakimullah coupled with the cringing appeals from the Pakistan government and political leadership to not break off the talks, has given a huge advantage to the TTP to arm twist the Pakistani state into making concessions even before they deign to enter into ‘peace talks’. There is also a possibility that the TTP decides to first launch a campaign of terror to further force the Pakistani state on its knees before they decide to enter into talks, which again will be on their and not the Pakistani state’s terms. In either case, the weak-kneed response of the Pakistani state and its desperate desire to win the peace without fighting the war is only going to strengthen the hand of the TTP and its affiliates. While there could be a tussle for the crown of the next TTP chief, whether this struggle for power will prove devastating for the Pakistani Taliban is something that will be closely watched. The fact that the TTP and its affiliates accept the leadership of the Afghan Taliban (Mullah Omar) could prevent differences over leadership from spinning out of control. What is more, as an umbrella organisation, the TTP gives enough operational autonomy and space to all its commanders. This factor will also limit the potential of the leadership fight to destroy the TTP from within. To be sure, the Pakistani agencies will work overtime to sow dissensions between the various commanders. But over the years, the TTP appears to have developed the capacity and even structures to effectively counter these tactics. The next TTP chief could also divide responsibilities in a way to satisfy all the contending commanders and give them additional territories to control.

Hakimullah’s death is therefore not likely to deal a body blow to the TTP. If Pakistan wishes to reclaim the territories it has ceded to the Taliban, then it will have to use military force and combine it with a political and ideological narrative that weans away the support, both open and tacit, that is currently available to the Islamists in Pakistan. But this will require a complete overhaul of the national mindset, something that will require clarity of thought and time, neither of which is available. Simply put, the Pakistani state has neither the capacity nor the willingness to undertake the reforms that will enable it to defeat the Taliban. Meanwhile, regardless of the song and dance made by the Pakistanis about the drone attacks, it is clear that this remains perhaps the most potent and effective weapon in the arsenal of the US to target terrorist networks, and is therefore not going to be given up anytime soon. Pakistan will just have to learn to live with this awesome weapon, which incidentally is the only weapon system that really scares the Taliban terror groups, which is also the reason why they insist on stopping drone strikes if the Pakistani state wants negotiations. While the opposition of the Taliban to drones is entirely borne out of an instinct for self-preservation, it would seem the opposition of the Pakistani – Punjabis really – is the result of their instinct for self-destruction. 

The Neighbour from Hell - Some Common Myths about India-Pakistan Relations

“Phir ek baar kiya, to dekhna” is not effective policy

Ambassador PP Shukla 

(Joint Director, VIF)

As tensions rise between India and Pakistan, the usual arguments are being repeated on both sides of a serious divide in India on how to deal with that country. The reason we are unable to get the relationship right is that the country and the public discourse is in the grip of some fallacies that we have adopted unquestioningly, particularly at the official level. What follows is an attempt at busting some of the myths. This is important because it is these errors that are leaving us lurching from one failed start to another.

A hard line response will strengthen their hardliners

It is commonly argued that if India were – hypothetically – to adopt a firm line in responding to Pakistani provocations, that would only play into the hands of the military and the terror networks supported by the military. A bit of history will be useful here. The Pakistan army first took power in 1958. Since then, it has been in effective control of security policies more or less without let-up till today. There have been some moments, though, when the military was weakened. The first was in 1971, after the defeat in Bangladesh. The second, less stark, moment was in 2011, after the US incursion in Abbottabad, to kill and snatch Osama bin Laden. On that occasion, the head of the ISI had been forced to apologise to the “bloody civilians” in the Pakistan National Assembly and offer to quit.

Both these were occasions when hard power had been exercised against the army, and it had been defeated. Indeed, this is a basic rule of statecraft: when you defeat a policy, you defeat the authors of that policy.

Parallels from other countries abound. Hitler was not stopped by appeasement; he was finally stopped only by war. And it was only when defeat looked certain that there was a move from within to unseat him, in July 1944. Similarly, Khrushchev was strengthened and the Soviet military weakened after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the Soviets pulling their missiles from Cuba.

To look at it another way: if it is true that a hard line on our side strengthens the hardliners in Pakistan, then the corollary must be that a soft line [appeasement, which we have been practising for decades now] should strengthen the moderates. But this has clearly not happened; in fact, over the years of appeasement, the contrary has happened, and the military has only got stronger, as its policies of bleeding India have gone unchallenged.

We shall all grow together or none will grow

It is also sometimes formulated in terms that suggest that peace is vital for the Indian economy to grow. Again, history is a good guide. We had peace with Pakistan in the 1970’s, and indeed, Gen Zia-ul-Haq called it the golden period in Indo-Pakistan relations. And yet, the decade of the 1970’s was the very bleakest in the economic history of independent India. By contrast, the period after 1993 has been the most turbulent in the subcontinent, and this has been the period of the best Indian economic performance.

Pakistan has maintained its own pace through this period, somewhat better than India in the 1970’s and significantly worse since the 1990’s, to the point where it has become the sick man of Asia. There is no correlation between the rates of growth in India and Pakistan. And there is logic in this. There is little trade between us – for India the total trade turnover with Pakistan is less than 1% of our global trade turnover of US$ 600 billion. Our GDP is ten times that of Pakistan, a fact our analysts rarely mention, though we are constantly told – wrongly – that China’s GDP is four times that of India.

We have to help [current leader] survive and strengthen him/her

Time was when it was the Americans who used to tell us that this or that leader was our “best bet” – it started with Ayub, and thereafter, we did not need to be told. We sold this hokum to ourselves. After Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – the man who promised a thousand-year war, it was Gen Zia. Of course, it was but natural that it had to be Benazir after that, and then it was Mian Nawaz Sharif. And so goes the dreary cycle – it turns out it is now in our own interest to strengthen Mian Nawaz.

This begs two questions: is any leader worth strengthening at the cost of our own interests, and can it be done by any outsider? As to the first, the proposition that we need to strengthen this or that leader is dangerous nonsense. It was in this mistaken belief that even as shrewd a leader as Indira ji was led astray at Simla in 1972. Her laudable motivation was to shore up Bhutto, so that he, in turn, could keep his promise to settle the Kashmir issue on terms acceptable to both sides. But just as soon as he could, he turned his back on the understanding, and we are paying in the blood of our soldiers and innocent citizens for the misplaced generosity. Yet again, the same Bhutto’s subsequent career is instructive on the second point too: by 1977, he was overthrown, and by 1979, he was executed.

Admittedly, this is an extreme case, even by Pakistan’s gory standards. However, the case is illustrative of what these kinds of simplistic ideas can lead to. It needs to be borne in mind, because once again, voices are being raised that we need to help Mian sahib strengthen his position. No, we do not need to, and we should have the modesty to accept also that we do not know how to go about it. Ignoring hostile acts and going ahead with business as usual – even if we accept for argument’s sake that it is the army that is behind the latest burst of hostility – will not strengthen him; in all likelihood, it will weaken him and further embolden the army.

If you don’t talk, you are pushing the subcontinent to war

This is an argument that crops up each time there is a flare-up in tensions between India and Pakistan. “Talk” is actually a euphemism for the more accurate description for what we have been doing – appeasement. The Pakistanis are particularly good at using this argument, and this is then amplified by like-minded persons on our side. The reality is that there are any number of options between appeasement and war. There are diplomatic, economic, political, and, yes, military measures that can be employed, all below the level of conventional war. We do not need to look very far: Pakistan is doing all of this quite successfully against us, and we just need to pay them back in the same coin.

The odd thing is that Pakistan is much the weaker country in this stand-off – its GDP is one-tenth that of India, as has already been mentioned. Its military cannot match ours even after decades of under-spending on defence by India. We have mesmerised ourselves by how far China is ahead of us by exaggerating the gap, but we never look at the gap between India and Pakistan. It is vulnerable to economic pressure, both on water and on power – and we are holding out a lifeline to them on both. This can be changed, and must change.

Similarly, we need to get our perspective right on the issue of MFN treatment for Indian exports to Pakistan. Hardly any of the talking heads have pointed out that this is not really a decision for Pakistan to make in exercise of its sovereign rights. It is an obligation under WTO rules. And for sixteen years, it has flouted this obligation, and we have accepted this without either withdrawing MFN from our side too, or taking the country to the Dispute Settlement Procedure in WTO. This is how we encourage hostility from Pakistan – by making it a cost-free policy.

In talking of options short of war, it must nonetheless be kept in mind that we are operating in a dangerous security environment, and war may be visited upon us, whether we wish it or not. For that contingency, we need to be fully prepared to defend ourselves, and along multiple fronts.

Cannot change geography

This is especially hard to understand, coming from India. We have seen geography change right from the dawn of Independence. The creation of Pakistan itself was a change of geography, and a very important one, from our perspective. Then China became a neighbour, and a country called Tibet was removed from the map of sovereign countries. Bangladesh emerged in 1971. All three happened right on our borders, and yet we keep saying one cannot change geography.

In point of fact, change of geography has only gathered pace since the end of the Cold War. The USSR disappeared and fifteen independent countries emerged in its place. Yugoslavia disappeared and six new countries replaced it. More recently, new countries called Timor Leste [East Timor] and South Sudan have appeared on the map.

The point is that we should be clear that, contrary to our officially-stated position, we have no interest in a strong, stable, united Pakistan. We cannot hold it together if it is on the way to becoming a failed state. And we do not need even to try and do so either. What we need to do is to prepare for this contingency, should it arise.

Pakistan is itself a victim of terrorism

This is a particular favourite of the Pakistanis. They frequently mention that they have lost forty thousand lives to terrorism, of which four thousand are soldiers. This is a figure of losses over at least a decade, and works out to some four hundred a year on average. That is admittedly a large number, but not such a number as to deter an army from its strategic goals. The Indian army was losing more than this number in the 1990’s – to Pakistan-sponsored terror - but that did not deflect us from our aims.

More to the point, the terror that has taken this toll in Pakistan is a creation of that country itself. It is as if a bomb-maker dies because the bomb goes off prematurely, as has been known to happen, he should be regarded as a victim. Surely, this is a grotesque misrepresentation of the reality.

Morality and an eye for an eye

Finally, there is that hoary old chestnut – we are the land of Gandhi. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind – very emotive, completely fallacious. An eye for an eye makes two adversaries one-eyed, and keeps them on par in respect of physical ability. Nothing more, nothing less.

But more substantively, it is important to remember that Gandhi [who never said what is attributed to him about an eye for an eye] was fighting against a very different enemy. There is a quote from President Kennedy in his letter to Nehru written just after the 1962 war had begun, where he refers to Nehru’s efforts for peace - and Nehru was surely the most devoted of followers of Gandhi unlike the ersatz variety so much in evidence these days. Here is what Kennedy wrote:

You have put into practice what all great religious teachers have urged and so few of their followers have been able to do. Alas, this teaching seems to be effective only when it is shared by both sides in a dispute. [Emphasis added].

And this is the element that the votaries of no-change towards Pakistan seem to miss. The other party does not share the teaching, and, ironically, it was none other than Gandhi himself who failed in his dealings with the future leaders of Pakistan.

What is more, it is ahistorical to call for us to persist in this failed policy. This is precisely the policy that India has followed at least since the days of then-Prime Minister VP Singh – all to no avail.

The purpose of this myth-busting is not to score debating points. India is facing very serious security threats, probably the most serious in our independent history. This is no time for woolly thinking or ego-driven policies – even less is it permissible to look to vote banks. Statecraft demands that we unshackle our minds from thoughts that have held us hostage for far too long, and work out alternative policies that will address our security challenges.

Tailpiece.

New York, 26 September 2013 (Agencies)

This just in.

It is reported that the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan met in New York, and had a highly successful meeting. Prime Minister Singh had prepared well for the meeting and told his counterpart: “This time I really mean it. Phir ek baar kiya to dekh lena”.

The use of the word “really” caused some ripples, and one of the Party General Secretaries, who knows so little about so much, felt that Singh had been unnecessarily jingoistic in the conversation. He suspected that some “communal elements” had smuggled this into the Prime Minister’s talking points.

Nonetheless, the meeting was a grand success from the Indian point of view. The Prime Minister personally briefed a correspondent, who occasionally writes for a misleadingly-named newspaper. This correspondent reported after the briefing that the Pakistanis were shaken by this remark of the Prime Minister.

This is the same correspondent who recently broke the story about the existence of a group in India called the “Teach Pakistan A Lesson” school, which was propagating irresponsible ideas like upholding the sovereignty of India. It was he who also broke the story that this same school was wrong to suggest that the Pakistanis were indeed shaking after the meeting – with laughter.

A large group of deshbhaktas, who see Pakistan much better than the rest of the country because they see it by candle-light, averred one more time that Pakistan was changing. They confirmed that the Pakistanis had indeed been shaken to the core by Mr Singh’s remarks, and promised that terror attacks would never happen again. 

Mollycoddling Miandad is Tantamount to Legitimising Dawood Ibrahim

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

 

Even while seething with anger over the news that the close relative of the international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and former Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad had been given a visa to visit Delhi to watchthe final one-day match between India and Pakistan, one couldn’t help being utterly perplexed over the decision of the government of India to allow this man into India. The only rational explanation probably came from a Shiv Sena leader who said that the visa was given not in spite of Miandad’s close relationship with Dawood Ibrahim but because of it. Perhaps given the muted allegations of links between one of India’s most wanted criminals and terrorists and senior members of the UPA-II cabinet and the BCCI, the Shiv Sena’s take on the visa for Miandad sounds quite plausible. 

All other explanations, including those of officials (Miandad was not on any black list; he was given the visa as part of a group comprising office-bearers of the Pakistan Cricket Board; due diligence had been undertaken before giving him the visa; and other such equally silly reasons) and those of apologists and hangers-on of the ruling Congress party (he is a great cricketer; India and Pakistan are improving relations; just because he is related to a terrorist is no reason not to give him a visa; and other such inane, if not idiotic justifications) don’t stand to any reason whatsoever. 

Clearly, for all the noise that the government in India makes on the issue of terrorism and bringing terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim to justice, its actions and its policies are completely at variance with what it professes. What is more, the giving of a visa to Miandad has laid bare the sheer absence of any sort of statecraft in this current dispensation (which unfortunately seems to have rubbed off on the bureaucracy as well, especially since many of the time-servers are seeking extensions in service and are therefore currying favour with the political leadership even at the cost of the nation’s interest). One of the basic principles of statecraft is the use of all those instruments that help to further the interests and objectives of the State. But obviously, this simple rule has escaped the government of the day.

Despite the constant lament of both ordinary citizens as well as the strategic community in India about the failure of the government to emulate country's like the US and Israel (to name just two) in going after enemies of the State, the fact of the matter is that successive governments have neither been interested nor have they had the courage and conviction to develop capabilities to carry out extra-territorial operations against terrorists and saboteurs. The absence of such capabilities means that India cannot carry out covert actions to exact retribution for terrorist acts against its citizens. This leaves only a couple of tool in the hands of the government to use as leverage against countries and people who cross India’s path. 

In the case of Pakistan specifically, two of the most potent tools are visas and economic clout. Ask any Indian diplomat who has dealt with Pakistan and he will tell you that the only game in town is visas. Add to this the economic power of the BCCI and India has a very powerful instrument to reward or punish Pakistan. Rather than using this power to force the issue, the current government has decided to surrender it and allow Javed Miandad into India. If at the time of announcing the cricket tour (even this should have been used as a leverage to get something out of Pakistan instead of mouthing meaningless banalities about cricket being a unifying force and cricket being bigger than people...) the government and BCCI had made it clear that Miandad would not be welcome, it would then have been Pakistan’s call on whether or not to come for the tour. If they still went ahead with the tour, a strong signal would have been sent that India neither forgives nor forgets acts of mass murder and anyone who associates with a mass murderer of India will also not be forgiven. Even if Pakistan has not accepted the condition, the same message would have gone home. Instead the message India has now sent is that you can trifle with India, hobnob with a mass murderer and international terrorist and still be welcome in India without any fear of punishment or penalty.

Which serious country which also aspires to play a big role on the international stage behaves in such a foolish manner? We need to keep in mind that the UK refused entry to Osama bin Laden’s son even though he was married to a British citizen and had rejected his father’s ideology. India too had refused a visa to a foul-mouthed Pakistani politician Sheikh Rashid after it became known that he had run a terrorist training camp for Kashmiri terror groups in the early 1990’s. But now it seems it is kosher to grant permission to such disreputable characters to enter India.

To argue that Miandad is not a terrorist is to miss the point. He entered into a matrimonial alliance with Dawood not out of ignorance of Dawood’s antecedents but because of them. In doing so, Miandad was cocking a snook at India and as it turns out has been allowed to get away with it. Equally specious is the argument equating Miandad with some of Dawood’s relatives who are still in India. Have we even lost the ability to distinguish between a foreign national and Indian citizens’? As for Miandad being invited because of his cricketing past, will India allow a relative of Hafiz Saeed just because he is a cricketer or a poet or a singer? 

Clearly, the Manmohan Singh government’s Pakistan policy, if at all it can be called that, neither instils any confidence nor inspires any hope among a people who have been facing the scourge of criminality and terror from across the border. Much like the ancient Romans, it believes in providing Spectacles (read cricket matches) to lull the people into complacence.