The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Decreasing N-arsenals
Long road ahead for US and Russia

President Barack Obama’s statement that he would cut the number of deployed US nuclear weapons by one-third provided Russia reciprocates is bold. The two cold war foes have by far the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, even after they have been cut over the last few decades.

The ball was set rolling by the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) between the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union, and over a period, in spite of hiccups like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there has been a significant progress in the reduction of nuclear stockpiles of the two nations, which has further been cemented by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties between the two nations.

President Obama now presides over a nation that has not only a tremendous nuclear capability, but also an enhanced capability in conventional weapons, which is likely to become an obstacle in its endeavours to decrease nuclear weapons. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed concern about the anti-missile shields deployed by NATO and the US in Europe. Russians also worry about the high-precision, long-range conventional weapons that the US possesses and has used in various wars. The Russian President went so far as to say that such weapons “are approaching the level of strategic nuclear arms in terms of their strike capability.”

Relations between the US and Russia have been somewhat rocky. Recently Russia asserted itself over Syria, and defended its sale of weapons to the regime there that is inimical to US interests. Indeed, the very foundation of any reduction in arms is peace between two peoples. President Obama is quite right when he says, “We may not live in the fear of nuclear annihilation, but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe.” The US and Russia will have to undertake a series of confidence-building measures before they get to the stage where such arms reduction is possible. In the meantime, talking about it sets the tone for future interaction.

Social change
At last, khaps begin to respond

AS such, young men find it hard to get a bride in Haryana. Some reports suggest the crime rate has gone up in direct proportion to the number of bachelors at Bas village in Hisar district, though there is no proven correlation between bachelorhood and crime.

The value of the institution of marriage is said to be that of a crime deterrent. In this regard, the khaps in Haryana play a peculiar role. On the one hand, they demand young girls and boys to be married even before they are out of their teens, on the other they restrict the choices for selecting a partner to almost zero. While inter-caste marriages are banned, and violators get killed in the name of honour, sub-castes play an important role in marriages. The attachment to village kinship, caste, sub-caste and gotra make young grooms eliminate 8-10 sub-castes when it comes to matchmaking within the caste.

In a state where gender ratio is the lowest in the country, these caste and gotra-based limitations have spelt doom for the bride-seekers, and some would say, also fuelled crimes against women. Brides are now bought from other states, and there are reports of their exploitation, as they are shared within the family. Perhaps, responding to these challenges, khaps have begun to relax their gotra restrictions on marriage. Following two other khaps of Sonepat and Kaithal, the Gathwala khap has decided not to consider grandmothers’ gotras in a marriage.

These changes are welcome; at the same time khap leaders should desist from posing like experts on genetics. Their ignorance causes serious socio-cultural repercussions. A study conducted by the National Commission for Women found that 72 per cent of the 326 cases of honour crimes surveyed related to inter-caste marriages while the same gotra marriages accounted for 3 per cent. This clearly states that khaps should now relax their diktat on inter-caste marriages, otherwise circumstances would force them to.

Thought for the Day

A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them. —Herbert Read

ARTICLE

Too much hype over so little
Reshuffle neither here nor there
by Inder Malhotra

Despite all the hype over it, the reshuffle of the Council of Ministers has turned out to be, as an old English proverb has it, “a great cry and so little wool”. It is no surprise, therefore, that the media and the public reaction to it has been overwhelmingly negative. Epithets used include “lacklustre”, “under-whelming”, “damp squib”.

There is another significant feature of the Cabinet re-jig. Unlike the changes in the party organisation, some of which are undoubtedly imaginative, the ministerial reshuffle does not bear the expected stamp of the Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi. And what can be a cruller verdict on the reshuffle that it was almost immediately overshadowed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's declaration that the young Mr Gandhi was the "natural leader" of the United Progressive Alliance, and that the good doctor himself was ready, as he has been saying so often, to vacate the Prime ministerial "gaddi" for him to take over?

For days the media was resounding with the news that the oldies would be making room for the youth. Some newspapers even named those young ministers of state that have surely made a mark whose elevation to the Cabinet level was settled. Nothing of the kind has happened, and the hopefuls have been left high and dry.

Instead, Dr Singh, obviously with Congress president Sonia Gandhi's endorsement, has chosen to rely on the Old Guard, including some of whom nothing had been heard for years. Indian gerontocracy has been notorious for a long time, especially because leaders in almost all other powers are conspicuously young. What an irony it is, therefore, that with the resurrection of someone like 86-year-old Sis Ram Ola (he had lost his job as Central minister a few years ago) the average age of the Cabinet has gone up rather than down. Some have dubbed it as a case of “old wine in old bottles”. A political leader with a medical bent of mind says that instead of “fresh blood, the Prime Minister has injected in his team stale plasma, and that too in a country where well over half the voters are below 35”.

Of the new entrants in the government - four in the Cabinet and the other four as ministers of state — none looks capable of contributing anything to translating into reality the repeated vows of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, that they are determined to unleash big economic reforms and release “animal spirit” in the country to take care of the declining economy, lack of investment, falling rupee and so on.

Obviously, forgetting the paramount need to make the governance in this country more efficient, effective and honest, the decision-makers are concentrating all their attention on the coming elections in four states in November and to the Lok Sabha not much later. That is what explains Mr Ola's second innings as a member of the Union Cabinet. He is a powerful Jat leader of Rajasthan, and the Jat vote matters a lot there, particularly at a time when the Congress has good reason to fear that it might lose the state in the coming election to the BJP even though the saffron party, to Congress' delight, is in deep disarray on its own, and this is vastly aggravated by its split with the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar.

Mr Ola's re-inclusion in the Union Cabinet is not the only pointer to the stranglehold of caste on this country's electoral politics. A day earlier when another Union minister from Rajasthan, C. P. Joshi, who is a Brahmin, was asked to leave the government and work for the party, there was great jubilation in Jaipur in the camp of Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot. This, however, proved very short-lived because another Rajasthani Brahmin, Girja Vyas, was appointed in his place. In other words, both the Jat and Brahmin communities have to be wooed. Nor is the complicated caste phenomena confined to Rajasthan. It is countrywide. (Where are the pundits who, after the 2009 general election, predicted that identity politics was on the march to its end?)

Dwarfing the Congress leadership's concerns about Rajasthan are its worries about Andhra. This state had sent the largest Congress contingent of 33 to the present Lok Sabha. But the ruling party itself has made a hash of things there. After the sudden death of the former hands-on Chief Minister, Y S Reddy, the Congress high command's treatment of his son, Jaganmohan Reddy, led to a massive revolt. Mr Jagan Reddy has been in jail for long but he and his family remain a major challenge to the Congress. Worse, the Congress has given itself a certificate of political bankruptcy by the way it has handled the demand for a separate state of Telangana. The party has been committed to a separate state of Telangana since 2004. In December 2009 it had even announced its decision to form Telangana state but retracted very soon. Since then it has been making promises to the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti but is unable to make them good.

Consequently, both the party and the government are taking parallel measures to salvage the situation. In the course of making changes in the party it has made senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh in charge of Andhra and removed the ineffectual Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Union Health Minister. It is a measure of the leadership's appreciation of Mr Singh but it is doubtful whether he is pleased. This is so because up to now he held the charge of UP, the most populous and politically key state that usually decides who would rule India.

The honour of looking after UP has now gone to Mr Rahul Gandhi's trusted lieutenant, Madhusudan Mistry, who has apparently been rewarded for his good work in Karnataka during the assembly elections in which the BJP was thrashed by the Congress.

What has been done at the governmental level is no less interesting. Until Monday morning there were 11 Andhra ministers, senior and junior, at the Centre. By the evening their number increased to 13 because two more — K. S. Rao (Cabinet minister) and J.D. Saleem (MoS) were added. Caste was a consideration here, too.

MIDDLE

Victim of astrology
by Harbans Singh Virdi

Though there were no symptoms in my childhood and youth, I fell prey to it since I felt vulnerable due to my old age when the flesh is weak and the mind is wicked. When all seemed going downhill in life, a man of fate and fortune ill-advised me to seek solace in the sanctuary of a fortune teller.

Though I was skeptical in the beginning, the friend prevailed upon me to change the wheel of (mis) fortune. After all, channels after channels were presenting charming women astrologers with radiant faces and wearing rings of black magic, suggesting simple remedies to magical potions to those who sought their help. I felt overawed by their occult powers.

I knocked at the door of an astrologer holding an awesome reputation. "You have come so late in life," was the first punch of the astrologer. I kept cool but sought his indulgence. The astrologer studied my "horror scope" carefully and discussed the “action plan” to reverse the gear of my (mis)fortune. I was told to wrap a coconut in vermilion with some mantra to chant and immerse all mumbo-jumbo in flowing water.

Next day, after having purchased the strange ingredients, I headed for the flowing stream on the outskirts of the city. No sooner did I perform the sacred ritual than I heard a commotion behind me. I froze to see some volunteers in red attire, shouting at me from behind. "Why do you fools keep polluting the rivers which Babaji has been cleansing for years? It struck me immediately that they were volunteers of respected Baba. Thank God, they were not members of the red brigade of Mulayam Singh Yadav, otherwise I would have been lynched. I took to heels without looking back.

The first move had backfired, yet I was not disheartened. I tried another astrologer who advised me to feed dogs on a particular day and at a particular time. To me this appeared risk-free. Now finding stray dogs in any city is no Herculean task. I do not know how they sniffed my scent, a bunch of deadly dogs followed my car. Again my stars did not twinkle for me. No sooner did I place food in front of jumping dogs than all hell broke loose behind me. "Oye, why are you poisoning these innocent dogs? We will not spare you; Madam Maneka has ordered us to save dogs (not men). Now, I realised that they were members of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, blessed by Ms Maneka Gandhi. They were more ferocious than simple dogs. I again escaped without a scratch.

In my third and final attempt, I approached a smart and beautiful astrologer. "It is very simple, no flowing water or no stray dogs, just politely offer a simple, middle-aged woman a few cosmetics, scents and perfumes. This will change your fortune with electrifying speed, the woman astrologer assured me, smilingly. To my good luck, I also identified a single woman living in my locality. She would be happy to receive my gifts, I thought. On the fateful day, when I knocked at her door with a few packets in hand, lightning struck from all around. I ran for safety with the speed of Milkha Singh.

OPED World

Changing Russia a challenge for India
Moscow projects ties with China as ‘a role model’ for neighbourhood relations. With very limited knowledge of Russian history, literature, art and music, we in India can hardly understand what ticks ‘the new Russia’ today. This must change.
Rajiv Bhatia

Between the 1950s and the 1980s the Soviet Union was India's closest partner and friend, the only major country with which we had a friendship treaty. Its signing in 1971 was seen as diminishing our non-alignment, but it afforded us strategic protection against the US and allowed us to play a role in the emergence of Bangladesh.

Vladimir Putin is pushing hard a policy to improve relations with old friends like India following his return to the Presidency in May, 2012; a visitor looks at “Old Beggar with a Boy” by Pablo Picasso displayed at Pushkin Fine Art State Museum Director in Moscow. Indians need to study and learn more about Russian society, art and culture. — Photo: AFP

After the disintegration of the USSR or the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s foreign policy went through a major transformation as Moscow turned westwards.

A decade later, with V. Putin as the President, Russians resumed investing in relations with old friends, a policy he is pushing hard following his return to the presidency in May 2012. India too has begun to realise that in dealing with other major powers -- the US, China, the EU and Japan, its ‘privileged’ partnership with Russia is of considerable value.

In the above backdrop, I had the opportunity to lead an Indian Council of World Affairs delegation, composed of scholars and experts, to Russia last month. While interacting with leading foreign policy intellectuals from MGIMO University, Russian International Affairs Council and St. Petersburg University, we held comprehensive discussions on international, regional and bilateral issues. The central idea was to address the sense of mutual neglect and ‘stagnation’ that seemed to mark the relationship, and to craft the ways to eliminate them.

Today’s Russia is a nation without ideology. During much of the 20th century, its ideology was communism; the Communist Party was its church; and the general secretary was the high priest tending the vast empire. Then came democracy, the return of religion and the opening up of the economy. Oligarchs, corruption and crime followed. Consumerism and the cult of money drive the young generation now. Older people, however, miss stability and security of the Soviet era, apart from immense prestige the nation enjoyed as a super power.

National identity

Our higher education, conceived in the colonial era, is a handicap in our understanding countries such as Russia, China and Japan which do not speak English. Victories of Napoleon and his defeat by a military coalition led by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo are well known to us. But his disastrous campaign against Russia in 1812, which heralded his downfall, is underplayed. Likewise, Adolf Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, long siege of St Petersburg, the battle for Moscow and estimated loss of 27 million Russians in WW II, are much less known. By celebrating historic triumphs over Napoleon and Hitler in museums, monuments, music and literature, Russia has built up its national identity through generations.

Yet, today’s Russia is a nation without ideology. During much of the 20th century, its ideology was communism; the Communist Party was its church; and general secretary was the high priest tending the vast empire. Then came democracy, the return of religion and the opening up of the economy. Oligarchs, corruption and crime followed. Consumerism and the cult of money drive the young generation now. Older people, however, miss stability and security of the Soviet era, apart from immense prestige the nation enjoyed as a super power. No one misses excesses of the authoritarian regime. A government official in St Petersburg told me what she enjoyed most was ‘the freedom to travel’ and possibly to speak and think, not to mention freedom from being trailed by a KGB sedan.

Many of us grew up savouring the works of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gorky and Pasternak. Perhaps they are not familiar names to our youth today, but they should be. Gazing at the statue of Pushkin and wife Natalya Goncharova (proclaimed by the Czar’s court as the most beautiful woman in Russia) and enjoying an exceptional evening of ballet Swan Lake at Mariinsky theatre were the highlights of our cultural immersion.

Two days on the campus of a premier university in Moscow served as a window on changing mores. The air was charged with energy and dynamism. Youth dressed well, especially young women who all looked pretty and trim. When I walked in the corridors with the Rector, he was shown respect but there was no kowtowing. Inside the conference room, the quality of academic work was high. The university evidently had ample resources. But access control reminded me of the communist era. Despite being honoured guests, we were stopped on both days by security which allowed our entry after several telephone calls.

Russians are emotional and superstitious people, like us. An eminent resident of Moscow, welcoming us to his majestic home, shook hands only after I entered the lobby. Touching a guest at the threshold is considered ‘a bad omen here,’ he explained.

India-Russia relations

Russian scholars explained to us that in their worldview India ranked very high, only next to the US and China. They believed that the three countries – US, China and India – would mould the world politics. Russia has developed close economic relations with the EU, resulting in the latter’s growing dependence on Russia’s hydrocarbons, but US-Russia relationship remains mired in serious difficulties and trust deficit.

Once upon a time, the US and the USSR were equals, the only two super powers, but now the gap in economic, technological and military strength has widened. This has driven Russia to develop a deep relationship with China. Against Russia’s export of oil, gas, arms and military technology, China is able to supply capital and products needed by Russia. Besides, there is formidable convergence on strategic issues as they both share an anti-West perspective. Moscow projects ties with China as ‘a role model’ for neighbourhood relations.

The Russian approach creates both challenges and opportunities for India. The former has found powerful friends in the new regional grouping – BRICS. Moscow believes that the emerging economies – China, India, Brazil and South Africa – together with Russia, can write a new script for global drama, independent of the West. India remains unconvinced. Although supporting BRICS to attain more influence, New Delhi has to ensure that it does not become a platform for dominance by one country.

Our discussions revealed a substantive degree of convergence with Russians on many contemporary issues such as Syria, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Asia-Pacific. However, officials and policymakers need to take the process forward and develop a common plan so that mutually beneficial actions are taken by the two governments on a long-term basis.

Regarding bilateral issues, it needs to be appreciated that Russia-India relations in several domains such as energy, civil nuclear cooperation, defence, space, science and technology are imbued with substance and have been growing well. Political and diplomatic relations continue to progress excellently. But weaknesses of the relationship pertain to two specific sectors. Bilateral trade has been growing very slowly as India Inc. has not been persuaded about the desirability of increasing its footprint in the Russian market. Besides, people-to-people interaction and cultural cooperation need expansion and diversification.

A war between museums

For achieving the latter goal, we need to study and learn more about Russian society. While observing the country closely, I heard about two interesting ‘wars’: a war between museums and a new ‘cold war.’ Museums involved were Pushkin in Moscow and Hermitage in St Petersburg. Stalin, given to dismiss all art as ‘bourgeois’, had little liking for museums. So, treasures of Pushkin state museum found shelter in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage museum, turning it into a world-class facility. We visited both museums and noted the striking contrast. Pushkin’s director has now launched a drive for getting old treasures back, but Hermitage opposes it. The Kremlin has been caught right in the middle and was sticking to studied neutrality.

‘Cold war’ referred to the Russian government’s ambitious plans to accelerate economic development of the Far East, the underdeveloped region east of the Ural Mountains. Russia needs huge investments, but the economy is not doing well. China is zealous in sending capital but also its people. One of the Russian nightmares is a large-scale migration of Chinese people into the less inhabited Far East. At our conference in Moscow, a Russian scholar spoke knowledgeably about the contribution of the Indian diaspora towards deepening India-US relations. He opined that controlled immigration of educated workforce from India would be welcome, both for its economic and political benefits.

A double-headed eagle, looking to the West and the East, symbolises the country’s worldview. The Russian elite may see their nation as essentially European, but ‘Mother Russia’ would be incomplete without its Pacific and Asian dimensions. Many influential Russians feel that India has neglected its friendship with their country due to its engagement with ‘new friends.’ It is desirable and possible for India to maintain close relations with both Russia and the West. Governments are doing what they can, but civil society and the business sector should help them.

A former Ambassador, the writer is the Director General of the Indian Council of World Affairs. The article reflects his personal views.