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Terror taint Childhood lost in labour |
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Pinning hopes on the next PM
The black Retriever of Kasauli
Reading Henderson in historical context
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Terror taint Osama
bin Laden is dead. His soul may not rest in peace, and neither do controversies and queries that have followed the successful raid by the US Special Forces in Abbottabad in 2011. How could he have hidden in plain sight a short distance from a major Pakistani army cantonment, without anyone coming to know about it? Did the head of al-Qaida have support from within the Pakistani establishment, if so at what level? Who were the people he was regularly in touch with? The extensive electronic surveillance that preceded the raid and the recovery of a large cache of documents and computer drives gave US intelligence officers some answers, but what they knew has largely been shrouded from the world. Now an American reporter has levelled the charge that bin Laden did indeed have the support of the intelligence agency. She has named the then ISI chief, Lieut-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, as the person who knew about the hideout. Ironically, Pasha had cordial relations with American officials and was often seen as an anti-Taliban officer. Predictably, both Washington and Islamabad have maintained that there is no evidence that the al-Qaida leader's presence was known at the highest levels of the government in Pakistan. Even as denials ensue, there are signs that the establishment in Pakistan is re-evaluating the efficacy of supporting terrorist operations as terrorist attacks continue to take civilian lives there. The "strategic depth" police on Afghanistan have brought home terror, further aggravated by ISI-supported organisations that openly work for terrorists who target India. The political leadership and even the military have not been able to reign in the ISI, which has got entrapped in the very game it initiated. Further revelations will, no doubt, show the world the true nature of the internal security agency that supported terrorism. It is time we all realised there are no good or bad terrorists, only mass murderers whose designs must be thwarted by all civilised societies. |
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Childhood lost in labour Hundreds
of children have been found to be working as labourers in one of the biggest farms of Punjab -- Sangha Farms in Qadian Wala village. A few of them have allegedly been kidnapped from Bihar for
labour. The farm owner feigns ignorance and the administration, as usual, is asleep. Employing children below the age of 14 is a cognizable offence and ignorance of the law is an unacceptable excuse. Then, there is vicarious liability. The attitude of the government that had passed laws like the Child and Adolescent Labour Prohibition Act and the Right to Education Act 2010, and schemes like Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan to encourage the enrolment of children in schools is no different than that of the owner of the farm. To begin with, the government claims the number of child labourers has declined from 1.25 crore (Census 2001) to 49.6 lakh (National Sample Survey Office). Strangely, these figures were arrived at on the basis of a sample size of about 70,000 across the nation. Some U.N. agencies estimate the number to be as high as four to six crore in India. Lack of political will to rescue millions of children is evident from another fact that while 13,60,117 inspections had been carried out under the child labour law since 1986, barely 49,092 prosecutions were launched and merely 4,774 employers convicted. Making a mockery of the law that stipulates one year's imprisonment and a maximum penalty of Rs 20,000, penalty sums varied from Rs 200 to Rs 20 in most cases. If the government is not serious about the implementation of the laws, why did it frame them? The least it could do is to conduct a genuine survey to gauge the magnitude of the problem. Then, make the enforcement machinery accountable at all levels, including the police, but with the required sensitivity. Children can be liberated from the bondage of labour by including supervisory and recommendatory agencies.
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The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. — H. L. Mencken
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MANY readers of the census report have been painfully impressed by the figures showing the great dearth of women in the Punjab. Various reasons have been ascribed to this strange social defect and various theories too have been advanced to explain this inequality. The Pioneer in discussing the subject is inclined to think that the social habits and custom of the people are such as to ill use the female population so much as to decrease their population. Two facts are mentioned to support this view. One is that at birth the proportion of females to males is greater than at the succeeding ages. The ratio at the age 0 to 5 is 832 to 1,000. But in several castes that levy a bride price the number varies from 1005 to 1052, probably because they take better care of their female population. The scarcity of women is particularly confined to those between the age of 15 to 45 and this shows that there is no female infanticide or depreciation of female life at girlhood. Contempt of Court
THE Bill which Sir Reginald Craddock introduced to the Imperial Legislative Council on Wednesday to further amend the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, if passed into law, will complete the process of effectively gagging the Indian section of the press. It is probably the fifth or sixth of the series of new and continual changes made since Lord Elgin's time in the laws relating to the press and the platform, and whatever may be the opinion of the Government as to the value of these additional weapons the sum total of the effect on the country does not seem to have been beneficial. These and other repressive measures affect independent and self-respecting papers and impair their powers for potential good, but it is at least doubtful whether they touch the propaganda against which alone they are aimed.
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Pinning hopes on the next PM All
businesses, whether domestic or foreign, are waiting for the results of India's general election. Why should there be so much apprehension about the future of the Indian economy and why should it depend on who forms the next government at the Centre? After all, India is a mature, almost middle-income country with per capita income of Rs 39,961 per annum (2013-14) and GDP of $1.7 trillion. We have good roads, ports, airports, well-functioning courts of justice, mega cities, luxury housing, malls, schools, colleges, hospitals -- everything a country needs. We have a thriving service sector and an established manufacturing sector. All these will remain intact even if the UPA goes and another party forms the government. In the last interim Budget Mr. Chidambaram wanted to play it safe by cutting public expenditure in order to control the fiscal deficit. The interim Budget has also increased the allocation of Central funds to states. Hence the power of the Centre in the next one year will be diluted vis-à-vis states. The incumbent government has tried its best to create a good image of itself in the last one month by inserting ads in national dailies every day about its achievements and clearing pending projects post haste. People, especially young voters, however, will make up their own minds. The common person is awaiting change and desires a reprieve from continuous inflation, corruption and general ineffectiveness of government decision-making. According to the latest data, in the last quarter of 2013, GDP growth was only 4.7 per cent and not 5 per cent, which would have indicated an upturn in the economy. There is, however, good news that in February 2014, manufacturing output has notched up and was at its highest in recent months but one month's performance is not enough. Why has the UPA been so ineffective in pushing GDP growth in its second term? Why has it not been able to tame inflation? Why has corruption remained the biggest issue? Looking back, it was the three stimulus packages that the UPA government gave after the global economic crisis that was responsible for much of what is wrong today. As a result of the stimulus packages, the fiscal deficit rose and there was too much liquidity in the economy and inflation rose to 10 per cent. The government and the RBI had no option but to raise interest rates and it did so 13 times before the new RBI Governor took over. Meanwhile, the government's interest rate policy did a lot of damage to business expectations and investors dithered and held back from investing in industry. People in general lost faith in financial assets, especially with the erosion of the rupee against the dollar, and began seriously buying gold. Consequently, the current account deficit ballooned and there was a threat of the rupee depreciating further. Only the announcement by the US Federal Reserve about staggering its monetary easing policy brought back FIIs which saved the current account deficit from deteriorating further. But what is alarming is the negative industrial growth which contracted by 0.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2013-14. Industrial growth slowed down due to demand factors also. The fall in demand has affected all industries, including the fastest-growing automobile sector. The savings rate fell to 30.1 per cent (of GDP) from 36.8 per cent (2008) and per capita private spending growth slipped to 3.7 per cent in 2012-13 from 7.8 per cent a year earlier. People postponed buying consumer durable items and the high EMI (equated monthly instalment) has been a daunting factor. If industrial growth, which is the biggest driver of GDP growth, goes down, then GDP growth also declines. Thus from the peak of 9.2 per cent GDP growth in 2007, today we are faced with a rate of below 5 per cent, which is not high enough to create an adequate number of jobs for youth. When incomes fall, then tax collection also is low and hence the rising fiscal deficit has been a problem. The fiscal deficit has been controlled by squeezing essential expenditure in key sectors which will impact the lives of people. More than anything else, India needs a higher rate of human development, food security, an increase in productivity in agriculture and manufacturing, better governance of cities, sanitation, education, health, safe water, pollution control and women's safety. In infrastructure, we need better roads, public transport, housing for the poor to improve the quality of life of the less privileged. With cash-starved state governments, little can be expected by way of welfare measures for the poor and the needy. Delhi has no Chief Minister. It is in need of infrastructural improvements. One can only see a beginning made by Arvind Kejriwal, who ordered the setting up of temporary shelters for the homeless. If Narendra Modi becomes the Prime Minister, the private sector would expect speedy clearances and decision-making. It hopes that everything would be hunky dory once the pro-business Modi becomes the PM. Unfortunately, problems of India are not confined to big business only. There are millions (45 per cent of industrial employment) employed in small-scale and micro-sector enterprises. Around 90 per cent of the labour force works in the unorganised sector. The small and medium industries contribute 50 per cent of exports and need policies that would increase their competitiveness. What happens to the anti-poverty policies for the very poor will also be important. If subsidies are cut -- which they are bound to be -- what will happen to small and marginal farmers and the lives of those below the poverty line? What kind of social safety net will be offered? It could be training programmes, cash in hand, housing, better agricultural inputs or jobs for the unemployed. It is a tall order for the next PM.
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The black Retriever of Kasauli Kasauli
is a beautiful little town ensconced in the Shivalik hills that the Britishers established way back in 1842. This heritage town has numerous buildings, some preserved while others are quietly withering away. Nevertheless, it is always a pleasure to inhale the cold air filtered through pine trees, and quietly enjoy a cup of tea in the bazaar. I would have photographed it a number of times whenever the family visited Kasauli. This is a beautiful life-like statue of a black Retriever, with its eyes painted red. This time when I drove up the cloud-filled Kasauli on a weekend, I asked the "chaiwala" and the vegetable vendor whose shop does a thriving business nearby as to who built this sculpture and why. I could not get much of a response, except a quick one "Angrezon ke zamaane se hai yeh shayad" (It is here perhaps from the British times). Having read about the Japanese dog, Hachiko (the faithful), whose bronze statue at Shibuya train station in Tokyo is a reminder of a dog's affection and loyalty for its owner, I was sure that this dog must have had a similar story. Several hours of relentless brainstorming with "Google Guru", feeding it with different keywords, ultimately led me to a blog of probably a senior retired Sikh officer who must have lived in Kasauli... very nicely captioned, "I am Daarji". "Daarji" is a very common affectionate sobriquet for father, grandfather and great grandfather. I could not find the real author behind "Daarji" in any of his blogs and his last entry was of 2012. But "Daarji" had related the story of this black statue that sits quietly on a pedestal outside a hotel and is often missed by many. Indeed it was a memorial to a true friend, a "hero" of Kasauli. This old building on the 'Y' junction on the mall was earlier a chemist and druggist store known as "B.Kalicharan & Sons" owned by Mr Kalicharan, who was a rich landlord of his time in the town having clout and influence in the area. "Daarji" relates that the DC of Kasauli, who was a representative of the British Queen, would walk behind him when Seth Kalicharan took a walk on The Mall. Since drug stores at that time were also the licensed wine shops and used to have lots of cash, one day some thieves broke into the shop and robbed it of imported wines, trinkets and cash. While the robbery was in progress, the black Retriever of Sethji attacked the robbers who fled from the scene. Our "Hero" immediately woke up the owner, and led the police to the robbers who were caught sharing the booty. Its fame grew and an Englishman photographed the dog, and sent the picture to a bronze foundry in North Devon in England, where the statue was built and shipped back to India. It was installed outside the Sethji's shop as a memorial to, what "Daarji" also says, "Man's Best Friend". So next time you are in Kasauli, do stop by and appreciate this bronze
statue, and salute the "hero".
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Reading Henderson in historical context THE partial release of the Henderson Brooks Report (HBR) has affirmed a widely held belief among historians and sections of the strategic community that a politicised and incompetent higher defence and intelligence system in Delhi contributed to and adversely affected the outcome on the battlefield in 1962. To enable a better understanding of the causes of 1962, however, the HBR should also be located in its historical context. A study of Indian perceptions at the highest level is vital to understanding the path to 1962. The primary objective of the Nehru regime, even as the dispute deteriorated after 1959, was to avoid a frontal collision with China. The central puzzle, therefore, is why did India find itself on the Himalayan battlefield in October 1962? There are four factors that arguably shaped Indian behaviour leading up to 1962: Contested worldviews It is useful to appreciate the context that framed India’s geopolitical worldview since this directly influenced the type of China policy adopted. The entry of Pakistan into the Western alliance system in 1954 led to an ideological model of threat assessment where an externally backed Pakistan was deemed as the primary political and military threat. India’s engagement of China and the 1954 Agreement emanated from Nehru’s unwillingness to open a second front. After 1959, there appears to be one worldview embodied by Nehru and Krishna Menon favouring non-alignment, resisting Pakistan, and avoiding conflict with China, and another worldview from the right calling for an entente with the West, a common defence pact with Pakistan and a more robust policy vis-à-vis China. This was not simply a dichotomy of ideological threat assessments but a real military dilemma since given fixed force levels the challenge was finding an appropriate deployment mix for the Pakistani and Chinese frontiers. If such a notion of contested worldviews is plausible, it might explain the erratic pattern of India’s policies and posture subsequently. Nehru in trying to placate the Congress right was compelled to make a policy shift and adopt an unyielding posture of no-negotiations and demonstrate resolve through the 1961 forward policy that even though did not intend for conflict with China it inevitably led to it.
The misreading India in world politics After 1959, the Indian government began to perceive both the superpowers’ tilt toward India on the dispute as some sort of restraint on Chinese behaviour. One could view it as ‘soft’ external balancing. In 1959, India made requests to the Soviets to rein in the Chinese. Soviet support via its neutrality, which was expressed in the famous Tass statement of September 9, 1959, while a symbolic gesture could have shaped India’s false sense of confidence in its dealings with China. Although we also now know that Moscow had told Delhi the limits of their influence on Chinese behaviour. Nevertheless, after 1960, India receiving strategic attention and material aid from both superpowers, even as China was growing increasingly isolated, probably emboldened the Nehru government to overestimate India’s importance in superpower grand strategies. It probably also led to an assumption that Chinese behaviour would be restrained by the international situation and it might also have simultaneously reduced incentives for India to make any concessions on the border dispute. An interesting anecdote exemplifies this: On October 13, 1962, a week before the war, in an exchange between Foreign Secretary M.J. Desai and US Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, Desai remarks that there “would be no extensive Chinese reaction because of their fear of the US - ‘It is you they really fear’.” Of course, the Chinese had received assurances both from the US regarding the Taiwan Straits Crisis (June 23 and June 27) and the Soviets (October 13-14), thereby freeing them to focus on the Indian front. Strategic culture The HBR reveals that assumptions about Chinese non-use of force had permeated the national security system. The perceptual roots were, however, deeper. For Nehru, the China threat was a long-range one that could only be dealt with by India’s industrial revival, and, that the “Chinese could not sustain any major drive across the ‘great land barrier’”. Such a conviction was reinforced by a broader strategic belief that a limited high intensity war had become impossible in a nuclearised bipolar system. India’s calculus was shaped by a one-step escalation scenario: any Chinese use of force would involve an automatic escalation to the global nuclear level, and, such a spectre of a global conflagration would somehow deter a conflict on the Himalayan border. The contrasting assessments of Nehru and Mao were evident from their 1954 encounter: Nehru argued that the nature of force had undergone a radical shift in a nuclear world and the next war would be truly global in both scope and destruction. Mao’s response was that despite the introduction of nuclear weapons the basic nature of warfare remained unchanged except the casualties would henceforth be higher. The role of force still mattered and could not be ruled out. Clearly, there was a difference in strategic culture and how each side viewed the relationship of military power to politics. In a December 1961 Lok Sabha speech, Nehru remarked: “One must not go by all the brave words that are said in these communications to us by the Chinese government. But other factors work also.” This miscalculation is captured in Nehru’s view as late as on October 2, 1962: he “had good reasons to believe the Chinese would not take any strong action against us”. Overestimating Chinese weakness The economic and ideological crisis after the debacle of the Great Leap Forward led India to overestimate China’s internal problems. The assumption drawn was that given China’s deteriorating strategic and domestic environment after 1959, China would bark but not resort to overwhelming force. The 1961 forward policy of probing disputed pockets and showing the flag up to India’s perception of the border in the western sector probably emanated from this overall geopolitical assessment that was perceived as advantageous to India. Even on the frontier, most standoffs between 1959 and the spring of 1962 were local, and in most cases the Chinese backed off without attacking Indian posts. These experiences shaped intelligence and military perceptions that the Chinese were not interested in a serious conflagration. The real reason was that since the end of 1959 China had reduced the intensity of its patrolling and this only resumed in the summer of 1962. After two bloody skirmishes in the eastern and western sectors in August and October 1959, Mao instructed the PLA to cease patrolling in the forward zone within 20 km of China’s line of actual control. Using this limited time range as their reference, the Intelligence Bureau estimated that the Chinese were unlikely to use force against any Indian post even if they were in a position to do so. It was during this phase that the forward policy found expression. The reality was the Chinese had already accomplished most of their objectives by their own forward policies of 1956-1959, and, by 1960, had established a line of actual control in the western sector (Aksai Chin). They would henceforth adopt a holding pattern until the summer of 1962. From March 1962 onward the Chinese policy began a process of gradually reacting to India’s forward policy. As one historian writes, these measures included, “…ceasing withdrawal when confronted by Indian advances and adoption of a policy of ‘armed coexistence’, acceleration of China’s own advance, building positions surrounding, threatening, and cutting off Indian outposts, steady improvement of PLA logistic and other capabilities in the frontier region, increasingly strong and direct verbal warnings, and by September 1962, outright but small-scale PLA assaults on key Indian outposts — [but these] did not cause India to abandon its illusion of Chinese weakness.” The HBR shows that the Western Army Command did alert Delhi on Chinese activities during this time but did not receive the resources or a re-appraisal to modify the forward policy. Politically, there was a renewed attempt by the Nehru government to explore a détente in the summer of 1962. These initiatives, however, were half-hearted and did not explicitly abandon India’s pre-conditions for negotiations: namely, Chinese evacuation of Aksai Chin. Sleepwalking into conflict By the summer of 1962, India was in an extraordinary position where the regional commanders did not have the resources should China call the bluff on India’s forward probing. Delhi did not have the policy and intelligence agility to re-appraise the efficacy of the forward policy given renewed signalling by the PLA, and the Nehru regime was unable to lower tensions with China. India’s no-negotiation stance with China, however irrational in retrospect, was exacerbated by the careless and reckless implementation of the forward policy. It was this latter development that converted what would have probably remained confined to a political argument into a military confrontation with Mao’s China. The author is a doctoral candidate at King’s College
London, and author of India China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond.
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A huge economy like India's should be on auto pilot. But it is not -- because key decisions that would pave the path for the economy in future are perceived to lie today in the hands of the new government. Even though the Indian economy did take off and gather momentum, it lost speed mid-air and things began to look less clear and, in fact, far from rosy. Consequently, key business decisions were kept on hold and are now dependent on who will form the government at the Centre and what policy changes will come about. But the UPA government has left the country's finances in good shape.
However, this one black dog always intrigued me and no one could answer why it sits so quietly guarding a wine shop.