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Light at end of tunnel
Showdown over Snowden
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Caught in the rain
South Asia's boiling cauldron
Left-overs of life
US and India: 1 plus 1 makes 11
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Light at end of tunnel
To
meet the challenge of terrorism with development, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have gifted a power project and a rail link between Banihal and Qazigund to Jammu and Kashmir during their two-day visit to the troubled state. Based on the reports of expert committees and interlocutors, efforts to bridge the distance between Srinagar and Delhi should continue despite the trust deficit on account of the hanging of Afzal Guru, the issue of unmarked graves, forced disappearances and the 1991 mass rapes. The Central and state governments have to ensure the rule of law and curb human rights violations while sternly dealing with terrorists. With the killing of eight jawans in a suspected Hizbul Mujahideen attack a day before the Prime Minister's visit, terrorism is once again raising its ugly head in Kashmir and is a warning against complacency that seems to have set in with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah fervently demanding the lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. There has been a semblance of peace in the militancy-ravaged Valley, leading to the revival of the tourism industry, the mainstay of the state economy. But unemployment and lack of balanced growth apart from militancy are the issues staring the state in the face. The much publicised success of a few Kashmiri youth in the Civil Services Examination has given a new hope to some of the better educated youngsters but obviously much more needs to be done to help the less privileged, unskilled and uneducated youth. The latest ambush of the Army convoy in Srinagar, the killing of nine foreign tourists in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan area and the daring Taliban attack on the presidential palace in Kabul indicate terrorism is very much alive in this region and could even gain momentum after the US-NATO pullout from Afghanistan. The change of guard in Pakistan with the swearing in of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister has given some positive signals, but in the given scenario India cannot afford to let its guard down. For growth peace is a key requirement.
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Showdown over Snowden
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many, he is a whistleblower; for the US government, he is a fugitive on the run; for the authorities in Hong Kong, he is a problem that has left their shores; while for the Russian government, he is a convenient issue to thumb its nose at the US Administration. Edward Snowden has caused more than a ripple ever since he exposed the large-scale electronic snooping by the US National Security Agency. First there were the embarrassing revelations, then came the flight from Hong Kong, followed by transit through Moscow. The Obama administration’s headache called Snowden refuses to settle down. Even as the rest of the world speculated about his whereabouts, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Snowden is in an airport transit zone, after travelling from Hong Kong to Moscow on June 23. He is technically not on Russian soil, and President Putin has refused to extradite Snowden to the US. Diplomatically, it is a virtual showdown with those who have provided shelter to Snowden. The US has been vocal in voicing its displeasure about Snowden being allowed to leave Hong Kong, and about Moscow providing him shelter. The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has maintained that it would be “deeply troubling” if Russians knew about Snowden’s arrival. However, President Putin dismissed such concerns and said that his nation had no prior intimation and that Russian security agencies were not working with Snowden. Putin has taken a hard line against the US positions on Syria and on the missile-defence shield planned for deployment in Europe. Recently, the US has toned down its statements, but there is real anger at the lack of options it seems to have. The vast scope of the vacuuming of electronic data traffic has shaken up many individuals, organisations and even nations. The US had been somewhat complacent in factoring in diplomatic consequences of this action. Even if it achieves its goal of getting Snowden, the US will need to do a lot to repair the damage caused by the expose.
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Caught in the rain
A
deeply entrenched fatalistic approach seems to guide administrations. Nothing else would explain the absolute lack of preparedness with which we are caught each time there is a natural disaster, whether rain, snow or earthquake. While the Uttarakhand floods exposed the extreme inadequacy of the state government in helping the thousands of people affected, it also laid bare its virtual complicity in illegal constructions critically close to riverbeds, if not in them. In Punjab, a similar ‘eyes shut’ attitude lets the state receive monsoons with most of its drains choked. As a consequence, every few years the state faces a deluge, when there is no reason for it, given the large number of rivers and natural and manmade drains. Rains arriving a fortnight ahead of the date and the fear instilled by the Uttarakhand catastrophe have sent officials in Punjab scurrying to clear a few drains and strengthen canal and river bundhs. Why, one wonders, would they wait for the third week of June to take up this task when it could well be undertaken in May, leaving some time for ‘mission accomplished’ reports and checks before the most awaited — or is it dreaded? — season of the year. Most of the work that does get done is aimed at preventing flooding in cities and large towns. Drains in rural areas remain largely ignored and weak points in canal and river bundhs unattended. Emergency clearing and plugging happens at spots that finally give way in the midst of the monsoon. Nature can be unsparing and inflict punishment without warning. Yet we go on crossing its path till in one fell swoop it wipes us aside, as seen in Uttarakhand. What happened there could well be repeated in Punjab, with entire localities having come up in the beds of seasonal nullahs. Blocking a natural drain is illegal, but there is no one to cry for a poor drain when land can fetch astronomical prices. Certain areas on the outskirts of Ludhiana city are prime examples of such encroachment, which can be seen all over the state. Given the scale of the challenge, officials perhaps find it more prudent to shut their eyes rather than open the drains.
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It is a matter of shame that in the morning the birds should be awake earlier than you. —Abu Bakr
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South Asia's boiling cauldron
In
one of most brazen attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan in recent times, militants disguised in foreign military uniforms and carrying fake documents attacked an area outside the heavily fortified presidential palace compound earlier this week. The Taliban described the attack as part of its spring offensive and facilitated with “inside help and through special tactic”. It was timed to coincide with the visit of James Dobbins, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Kabul for meetings with Afghan officials about the peace talks and came a week after the Taliban opened an office in Qatar to pursue talks with the United States on a political solution to the conflict. The discussion about these so-called peace talks acquired a new momentum after the Obama administration made it public the other day that it will be starting formal peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar, the first direct political contact between the two since early last year. There was a lot of confusion initially after the Karzai government refused to support American efforts. Kabul was angry when the Taliban displayed the group's flag during their press event and spoke in front of a banner that proclaimed, in Arabic, "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", in effect portraying themselves as an alternative government. Washington was forced to defend itself with President Obama suggesting that it was no surprise there's friction in early efforts to launch peace talks between the Taliban and Afghanistan's government. The US Secretary of State reportedly had to assure Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Taliban flag had been removed from the newly opened office and the sign was changed to “Bureau of Peace Talks.” The Karzai government remains worried about its ability to fend off the challenge from the Taliban after the departure of western troops from Afghanistan in 2014. It certainly would not want the Taliban to gain any international acceptance at this stage. Washington, which is keen on preserving some semblance of normalcy in a country where it has been militarily involved for the past 12 years, wants to enter into some sort of negotiations with its major adversary before it is too late. It faces enormous challenges as was evident over the last few days not only with what has been happening in Kabul but also because of the responses of regional states towards the peace talks. The Afghan peace talks figured prominently during the discussion in New Delhi with Secretary Kerry for the fourth round of bilateral strategic dialogue. New Delhi perceives Kerry to be too sympathetic to Pakistan's military-jihad complex. Arguing that Pakistan has not got "credit sufficiently for the fact that they were helpful (in getting Osama bin Laden)," Kerry had suggested during his confirmation hearings that "it was their permissiveness in allowing our people to be there that helped us to be able to tie the knots." He has been against adopting a "dramatic, draconian, sledgehammer approach," because Pakistan is too integral to America's supply routes into Afghanistan. He helped broker the release of the CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, arrested on suspicion of murder and also later persuaded Pakistani officials to return parts of a US stealth helicopter that crashed during the May 2011 raid on Abbottabad. It was John Kerry who long ago dubbed the Afghan war “unsustainable,” and he has been a long-time advocate of Pakistan-centric Afghan policy. India's other worry is the return of the Taliban. Pakistan is leveraging its role in the ongoing transition in Afghanistan by releasing some Taliban leaders and expressing its support for a negotiated settlement there. Islamabad wants to let the Taliban and the Haqqani network loose in post-2014 Afghanistan so that it can exercise control over Kabul. All this leaves India out of the Afghan picture, even though Mr Karzai has wished for an Indian presence to counterbalance Pakistan. The more dominant Pakistan feels in the neighbourhood, the more it may be willing to risk confrontation with India. There have also been damaging media reports that Kerry has struck a deal with the Pakistani Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, whereby in exchange for the Pakistani Army facilitating Washington's talks with the Taliban, the US would ignore the past activities of the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban and work towards a power sharing arrangement with the Taliban. As such, India has repeatedly made it clear that any peace initiative with the Taliban should not violate the “red lines” drawn up by the international community. India's External Affairs Minister has underlined that India has "from time to time reminded all stakeholders about the red lines that were drawn by the world community and certainly by the participants should not be touched, should not be erased and should not be violated." During Kerry's visit to India earlier, New Delhi forced him to clarify his stand on the talks when he tried to assuage Indian concerns by suggesting that the talks with the Taliban will only be taken forward under "certain conditions." Kerry also assured India that the United States plans to continue supporting Afghanistan's military and to keep American forces in the country "under any circumstances" after the scheduled combat troop withdrawal in 2014. Washington has also sent its special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Dobbins, to brief the Indian government. It is difficult to see how this will be enough to make India comfortable with the changing American regional priorities. But what is very clear is that the road to negotiations in Afghanistan will be a very difficult one, given all the domestic and regional stakeholders who will need to be reassured. And New Delhi will have to prepare itself for making some tough choices in the coming days. The days of merely relying on “soft power” in Afghanistan are well past their sell by
date. The writer teaches at King’s College, London
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Left-overs of life Indian ethos promotes denial, passivity and living defensively. Indians believe in passivity and showing patience. For all their miseries they find explanations in God or previous “karma”. While training the Delhi Police for the Commonwealth Games I had to travel to Delhi very frequently. Before entering Delhi one finds jhuggies and dilapidated houses, and women working in fields. I used to think this is Mother India. Lutyen's Delhi is an island of prosperity surrounded by a sea of poverty and left-overs of life. The number of left-overs of life is increasing. It is becoming a land of little hope and unqualified squalor. The will to survive is instinctive, but the choices are not. Familial succession permeates the Indian political life. Hypocrisy is at a premium. Psychophancy and deviousness a norm among the elite. The things revolve around money, minister and manipulation. It is an age of tall men and short character, steep profits and shallow relationships, world peace and domestic warfare. Never have so many taken so much so blatantly. Everything is being done in the name of “aam admi”. There is a Turkish proverb which says that “when the axe came to the forest, the trees said that the handle is one of us. The politician is the handle and the bureaucrat is the blade”. Social obscenities are masquerading as political leaders. They have sullied reputations and limited appeal. I still remember that more than 30 years back when I was a District Superintendent of Police, a senior politician told me, “Do lakh rupees to yahan SP kee dharam kee kamai hai” (Rs 2 lakh per month is the holy income of the SP). Corruption is in the marrow of the bone of Indians. A sub-inspector brought a letter from a former Chief Minister. He wanted a posting in a “Thana”. I posted him. After a couple of months the Chief Minister dropped in. He told me that my “thanedars” were very unhappy with me. I asked him the reason. He laughingly told me that their complaint was that I don't accept a “Monthly” from them. “Kharcha pani bhe nahin laende”. Some friends asked me in the Delhi Golf Club that they have not heard of any scandal about me regarding women or money. I told them that I had showed my horoscope and the Pandit jee told me, “Aap ke hath maen paraye paisa ka sukh nahin”. Scandals come one after another like pounding surf. Law and politics meet in mutual embarrassment. Caste friction from the ghettos and villages have reached the chambers of governance. The web of political contacts provide a safety net. The honest, the straight-forward and the bright are ignored and are feeling suffocated. I call them the BPL (below poverty line) crowd. It is this BPL left-out crowd which is keeping this functioning anarchy on the rails. They do their job honestly and retire unsung,
unmourned.
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US and India: 1 plus 1 makes 11
The
world’s largest democracy and the world’s oldest democracy must do more together, uniting not as a threat to anyone, not as a counterweight to some region or to other countries, but unite as partners building a strong, smart future in a critical age. One of India and America’s strongest shared traditions is our love and our skill, our affection, for innovation. Indian Americans make up just one per cent of our population, but they create eight per cent of all the technology and engineering start-ups. Our two countries share a common DNA that compels us to look towards the horizon and think about the next generation. And if we’re going to fulfil our responsibility to those who follow us, then we have to tap into that tradition of ingenuity and initiative. And we have to work now, quickly, urgently, to write a history that is worthy of the future. It’s in our power. The question is, will we exercise it? In no uncertain terms, that is why the partnership between India and the US is, in fact, more important than ever. And I don’t just mean how our governments work together. That’s not what I’m saying. I mean how we, all of us, harness the energy of our entrepreneurs, our scientists, our students, our citizens, and we join together to build our nations, and at the same time meet the great challenges of our time. As the Hindi proverb asks, “Ek aur ek gyarah hote hei”. (One plus one makes 11). Together we are uniquely positioned and equipped to take on the toughest challenges of our time — challenges that regard opportunity, security, and even survival. As we look forward to the dimensions that will actually define our relationship, it’s a relationship that President Obama has rightly said will define the next century. Those three challenges that I just talked about actually each present a question: What shape will the future of our economies take? What shape will the future of our security take? And in what condition will we leave the health of the fragile planet that we share?
Ecological concerns
President Obama is committed to ambitious change in order to meet the challenge (of the health of our planet), to work with our partners around the world, to help the most vulnerable, and to move towards a global compact, as he said last week in Berlin, before it is too late. From the hearings that I took part in with Al Gore back in 1987, the first hearings ever in the US Senate on the subject of climate change, through the Rio Earth Summit, through Copenhagen, Kyoto, and many debates in between, I have watched in dismay while responsible people acted irresponsibly, ignoring science and facts. This is an issue that is personal to the many people who’ve worked on it, like Dr. Pachauri, people who have invested time and reputation in order to try to get ahead of the curve. India is well aware of the grave threat that this global crisis poses. Yours is already one of the most severely affected nations. And unfortunately, the worst consequences of the climate crisis will confront people who are the least able to be able to cope with them. The imperative for us is to act forcefully and cooperatively on climate change, not because it’s about ideology, but because it is about science. And here in India, the home of so much of the history of science, we must recognise that today the science of climate change is screaming at us for action. There is no time to waste. We have an urgent need to connect the dots here. When the desert is creeping into East Africa, and ever more scarce resources push farmers and herders into deadly conflict, where people are already, in parts of the world, fighting over water, then this is a matter of shared security for all of us. When we face major threats from extreme weather events, we all have to act. When the Himalayan glaciers are receding, threatening the very supply of water to almost a billion people, we all need to do better. I do understand, and fully sympathise with the notion that India’s paramount commitment to development and eradicating poverty is essential. But we have to recognise that a collective failure to meet our collective climate challenge would inhibit all countries’ dreams of growth and development. All countries have a different and unique history and national circumstance. And heading off this crisis is going to depend on working together, and on each of us doing our part. If we do this right, it’s not going to hurt our economies; it actually grows them. The new energy market can be the biggest market ever seen on earth. It’s a $6 trillion market with 4 billion users. And its fastest growing segment by far is clean energy. Compare that, for a moment. In the 1990s, when a lot of people grew a lot of wealth, that came from a $1 trillion market with only 1 billion users, and that was the high-tech computer revolution. This market is six times bigger and hundred thousand times more important. Combating climate change and reducing energy poverty are actually two interconnected challenges that can’t be separated. Access to energy is the essential ingredient of economic development. You can’t create jobs in the dark.
It’s about jobs
So this is not just about air and water and weather. This is about jobs. It’s about economy and growth. Staring us in the face today is one of the greatest economic opportunities of all time. It’s called clean energy. And I emphasise the dynamic, forward-looking India of today is not going to find its energy mix in the 19th century or the 20thcentury solutions. It won’t find it in the coal mines. India’s destiny requires finding a formula in the 21st century that will power it into the 22nd. I believe that, working together, India and USA can make this leap, and it would be to our benefit and to the whole world’s. We’re already taking new, cooperative steps together. I want to thank India for hosting the Clean Energy Ministerial here in Delhi in April. The clean energy partnership that President Obama and Prime Minister Singh launched in 2009 doesn’t just speak about the strength of our bilateral relationship. It’s actually proof positive that among our businesses and our universities and NGOs, we actually can mobilise billions in public and private resources to deploy energy that lights streets and cities and indeed lights the way towards the future. We can work together to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings. Huge amount of greenhouse gas comes from buildings themselves. But by building modern in modern and technical ways, you could make a building completely self-sufficient and completely energy-contained. We need to and can provide support to the entrepreneurs who have the most creative ideas. And in doing so, we’re going to find that the possibilities are limitless. Take, for example, Gyanesh Pandey. He’s an electrical engineer who moved back to India from the US, and he figured out how to power thousands of rural Indian homes using rice husks. Thanks to the combination of his imagination and a little investment from USA, Gyanesh’s husk-powered power plants are now providing electricity and opportunity to more than 2,00,000 people in 350 off-grid villages. We should work constructively side-by-side in the UN climate negotiations. We can more move towards a global agreement that puts us on track to avert the most dangerous climate change; that is sensitive to and respectful of the diversity of national circumstances and capabilities; and that is fair, pragmatic, and can actually evolve.
Strong economic ties
Our economic partnership is already growing stronger. Annual trade in goods and services between the US and India has grown nearly five-fold just since the year 2000. It’s grown more than 50 per cent just during the Obama Administration. Bilateral foreign direct investment now stands at nearly $30 billion. This trade and investment supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in both of our countries. And public-private programmes like the Millennium Alliance give social entrepreneurs a platform to improve lives in areas from energy to data to agriculture. As we find ways to connect our economies to each other, we must also connect them with the rest of the shrinking world so that our neighbours can also realise their full potential. Nowhere is this more important, than in supporting Afghanistan, where India has taken a leadership role. The reality is that Afghanistan’s fortunes are tied to those of the region, just as the future of the region is tied to an increasingly stable, secure, prosperous future for the Afghan people. This is at the very heart of the New Silk Road vision, which I look forward to working with India to advance. Afghanistan plays a central part in our shared vision of a more inter-connected continent, with rail links that go from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Thailand and natural gas pipelines connecting Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. We are cooperating to realise the potential of the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor, which can spur development and investment as well as trade and transit between the dynamic economies of South and Southeast Asia. One of the most fruitful and meaningful ways to advance the economy is your continuing normalisation of the trade relations with Pakistan. Last year bilateral trade increased by 21 per cent and I welcome the ongoing discussions about the expansion of energy trade, the establishment of regular air travel between Delhi and Islamabad, and the prospect of more commerce passing through Wagah.
Strengthening security
That brings me to the third question before us: What can we do to strengthen our security in a region whose stability matters to the whole world, and where threats transcend borders? USA is grateful that we have found an extraordinary partner in India on matters of defense preparedness, combating narcotics, counterterrorism, and confronting extremists. We have enjoyed a very successful relationship with India on non-proliferation and on international security. Over the past several years, we have worked together closely to realise India’s intention of joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group. The US continues to support India’s full membership in these groups, as well as an expanded UN Security Council with India as a permanent member. And as we continue to develop this relationship, we look forward to opportunities for co-production and co-development of defence systems. India will soon have more C-17 aircraft than any country besides USA. And that will allow it to respond more rapidly and more efficiently to natural disasters in the region and beyond. I’m also proud of the work that we did on the Civil Nuclear Agreement. That agreement demonstrated our mutual confidence of our strategic partnership. So we look forward to realising the full implementation as soon as possible, including making progress on the efforts of Westinghouse and GE-Hitachi to construct nuclear power plants in India. India is a key part of the US re-balance in Asia. Our security interests with India converge on a wide range of maritime and broader regional issues, and we value India’s role in our mutual efforts to ensure a stable and prosperous Asia. It’s important that in Afghanistan the ongoing transition process reached a milestone just this past week. Today the Afghan people are no longer reliant on coalition forces for their security. The Afghan National Security Forces are taking the lead in providing security for their entire country. And by the end of next year, the NATO-led combat mission will be over. We also remain squarely focused on another historic milestone on the horizon: Afghanistan’s 2014 elections. As democracies like India and the USA understand, Afghanistan’s future will be determined when millions of Afghan men and women vote to choose what kind of country they want to live in, which leaders they want to empower, and how they will resolve the conflict that has torn apart their country for a generation. India can play a critical role in supporting these elections. India is a global partner in our effort to build stronger democracies throughout South Asia, as well as rules of the road across South Central and East Asia. In each of the three futures that we have discussed — our shared planet, our intertwined economies, our common security — we are actually more connected and closer than ever before. But the strongest glue that binds our fates and binds our futures is actually our people. The 3 million Indian Americans in the US and 100,000 Indian students who study there, they enrich our neighbourhoods, our offices, our schools. Indian Americans have also helped bring our two countries closer by giving back to India, founding countless non-profit and philanthropic organisations, many of which can be supported through an innovative online portal at the State Department that we helped create called IndiaGivingNetwork.org. That trend can only continue if both of our counties invest in the education we know is needed for the skills of the future. That is especially true here, where half the population is younger than 25 years of age. It’s a reason higher education is such an important part of our ongoing bilateral conversation. So, we have to look forward, and we have to move forward, along with the currents that will take us into the future. And we have to do this not as passive passengers, but as drivers. — This article is based on extracts from Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry’s
speech at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on June 23, 2013
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