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A power-packed House Will the captains stand up? |
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Welcome to the New Republic
Judging in Geneva
Patel vs Nehru: Clash of titans on China policy
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A power-packed House THE newly elected members of the Lok Sabha have come with a promise to give clean governance. A third of these messengers of hope have a tainted background though. Of the 543 winning candidates, 186 have criminal cases pending against them. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which analysed the election affidavits filed before the Election Commission, 34 per cent of the new MPs face criminal charges. Of these, about 21 per cent face serious criminal charges related to murder, attempt to murder, causing communal disharmony, rape etc. The criminal credentials of the people's representatives have grown steadily; in 2009 and 2004 the percentage of MPs with a criminal record stood at 30 and 24 respectively. Before the elections, ADR data had shown, across the parties, candidates facing criminal charges were more than twice as likely to win as compared to those with a clean record. In the Punjabi folklore it is believed till a man has a few criminal cases pending in a court and till he owns weapons, he hasn't arrived. The technology-driven, suave urban politics of 2014 is influenced by the same old agrarian beliefs where macho criminality is seen as a positive attribute for gaining power. Going by the success rate of the elected MPs in this House, criminality or the charges of criminality favoured them. In a country where Rs 33 per day can keep one afloat above the poverty line, one crore adds glamour to this power quotient. Eighty-two per cent of our new MPs have assets worth over Rs 1 crore each, as compared to 58 per cent in 2009 and 30 per cent in 2004. This showcases the country's economic growth and their greater electability. It affirms the fact that money wields power the same way a gun wields power. And they go hand in hand. With one-third of them having both, they make it a power-packed House to kill the Minotaur of corruption and crime. To herald good days ahead!
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Will the captains stand up? WHEN both SAD and the Punjab Congress mocked at AAP for being a non-party during the campaign, some of the voters may have thought they were putting up a false show of confidence. But probably they were not pretending and were genuinely - and blissfully - ignorant of the reality, at least at the start of the campaign. The SAD was confident of its ability to manage elections and could also see the disarray the Congress was in. The state Congress drew its confidence from the obvious anti-incumbency it saw against the ruling
SAD-BJP combine. Only the two could not see their own follies. A charade of introspection has now been launched by both the parties. No leader, though, is prepared to admit what is plain to the voters in the state. Regarding SAD, Shanta Kumar, state in-charge of its ally BJP, has said it himself: The common man was fed up with the government because development had come to a standstill; officials had to be bribed for even petty matters; and the law and order situation had moved from bad to worse. All of this was personified in the selection of the SAD candidate for Fatehgarh Sahib, a builder-developer with no political or social credentials. The Congress thought it had pulled off a trick by fielding its big guns. Barring one all misfired. In a seat like Patiala, the 'royals' thought it was their birthright to win, not realising people want their leader to be seen amongst them. Bickering over their losses in elections, Congress leaders have failed to even perform their role as Opposition. None of this, however, is visible to the party leaderships, or they won't open their eyes to it. SAD has appointed a committee to see where the party went wrong, when all major decisions were of the very top leadership. Will the committee have the authority to speak the facts? The Congress leadership, of course, is doing just some more of what they have done after each loss - blame one another. Will both the parties ever make an honest confession of what went wrong?
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Thought for the Day
Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.
—Malcolm de Chazal
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Indians in Canada WITH reference to the departure of 600 Indians to British Columbia by a direct steamer from Calcutta in accordance with immigration laws, a Bombay contemporary thinks that if a considerable number of them are wives and children of those Indians who have already settled down in Canada they will be probably allowed to land as a special case. But we think that this does not solve the problem and the Indians in Canada will not be satisfied with the admission of their wives and children. The Canadian question is different from the South African and our countrymen there do not want unnecessary and irrational restrictions under conditions much easier than in South Africa. Regulations at a discount WE are further informed that the answer-books in one of the English papers at the Matriculation examination were valued under a new plan which has no precedent in the Punjab University. The sub-examiners whose duty it was to value the answer-papers subject to such directions as the Head Examiner may think it necessary to give, had to attend the University office and sit with the Head Examiner who distributed them one question each out of the paper to examine. The total number of marks thus obtained in a single paper from ten examiners or so will be added, and the results declared. No doubt the new system might claim the advantage of giving the freest play to a Head Examiner's whims and idiosyncracies and enforcing his will fully and completely. But it should not be forgotten that such a procedure tends to reduce the sub-examiner to a mere automaton and hardly conduces to his self-respect.
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Welcome to the New Republic THE landmark 2014 election has ended a fading era and ushered in a new one. The country has moved from nostalgia for a bygone past with bygone heroes and bygone slogans to aspiration, willed by a new under-30 generation which is seeking jobs, equal opportunity, freedom from corruption and rent-seeking and demands good governance untrammelled by excessive and largely self-serving ideology. Narendra Modi has helped catalyse that change and it would be churlish not to congratulate him on his historic electoral victory. However, this does not and cannot mean that Modi should not be given a fair chance to redeem his election pledges. He waged an indefatigable election campaign and has for the moment ended the 25-year-long era of unstable coalition politics that followed Rajiv Gandhi's tenure, with the BJP winning a single party majority of 282 and grand total of 336 seats with its NDA partners. Nevertheless, the BJP and even the NDA will remain in a minority in the Rajya Sabha until the next round of bi-annual polling when the party's huge Lok Sabha majority will weigh in. This may entail some compromises in the interim with the AIDMK, Trinamool and the Biju Janata Dal, seeking special packages for their states or Jayalalithaa looking for Central benevolence in her disproportionate assets case in a Bangalore court in the kind of cosy swap deal in which the Congress/UPA was so adept. Modi, like others on all sides, made some regrettable comments that were unduly combative, divisive and provocative. He spoke of summarily repatriating all Bangladesh “infiltrators” in India who were necessarily assumed to be Muslim, while welcoming “persecuted” Hindus from anywhere in the world. He also reportedly warned of “revenge” against persons and for reasons unknown after the polls. Even if these were no more than off-the-cuff remarks rashly made in the heat of the moment, he did strike a more conciliatory note in the closing stages of his campaign and avoided triumphalism or arrogant unilateralism in acknowledging his tremendous victory. He pledged to work for all Indians, irrespective of caste, community, party or region, and promised “less government but more governance”, particularly in promoting employment and equal opportunity for those who had risen above poverty and now aspired to join the ranks of the lower middle class. It is nonetheless sad that Gujarat failed to field even a single Muslim candidate despite the community's weightage in the state's population and that in the BJP’s list of elected MPs there is not a single Muslim! Indeed, there are altogether only 22 Muslims in the new Lok Sabha, the lowest number since Independence. Mulayam Singh betrayed the Muslims by allowing the Muzaffarnagar riots to take place in order to win Jat votes. Yet it is significant that the BSP was totally wiped out and failed to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha as against 20 seats in UP and one in Madhya Pradesh in the outgoing House. The JD (U) in Bihar likewise suffered humiliation partly because Nitish Kumar ultimately failed to rise above caste by his creating a Mahadalit category and scuttling the recommendations of two high-powered commissions he had set up on first becoming Chief Minister on land reforms and common schooling in education. Per contra, the BJP won all the 17 reserved SC seats in Uttar Pradesh. Does this suggest that aspiration is trumping caste, which operates as a glass ceiling for them, and that they are struggling not so much as to improve their caste status as to move up the class ladder. It may be too early to say so; but should this represent a trend, it would be a tremendous vindication of Ambedkar and his way of thinking, which is the way forward. The RSS was most active in canvassing for and counselling Modi, an old Parivar acolyte. Will this translate into a hold on government? Possibly not, given Modi's huge margin of victory. The VHP, the Bajrang Dal and some RSS-BJP cadres may press the Hindutva agenda, but should be blocked by moderate elements in the BJP who wish to see the emergence of a strong, right-of-centre platform that will ensure the party a long innings, a rallying point for others and one that will carry the country into the 21st century. Another, possibly decisive factor, could be Modi's passionate ambition to win international acclaim after having been treated as something of an outcaste these past many years. Each positive step he takes to woo this constituency will not merely win him plaudits at home as much as abroad, but strengthen his resolve to hew the path of moderation, consensus and political consolidation. The office could also make the man by providing Modi the opportunity and means to walk his (new) talk. The one “Hindutva” both he and the Parivar have sought to play is moving forward on a uniform civil code. This is truly a most desirable, equal-opportunity, gender reform that the country direly needs that has strangely been packaged by the BJP and the Congress as a weapon with which to terrorise Muslims by, in effect, abrogating personal law. This is arrant nonsense, and speaks of total constitutional illiteracy. The Left has been decimated. Their Leninnist-Maoist-Trotskyite shibboleths have been increasingly irrelevant. They can only survive as a genuine social-democratic party. Finally, the Congress. It may not be curtains for it. But the absolute rout it has suffered marks the end of the once Grand Old Party, one of the oldest in the world. It suffered a stroke in 1975 but made a partial recovery with a feudal brand of dynastic politics. It gave up inner democracy, hollowed out secularism with vote-bank politics, and clung to a brand of socialism that cultivated rather than sought to eradicate poverty. Manmohan Singh did not fail. He was not allowed to succeed by a coterie around Rahul Gandhi, a failed “youth” bereft of any grand vision. He had greatness thrust upon him but refused to accept responsibility or accountability. His last “official” act was to rudely absent himself from the UPA Chairperson and party president's farewell dinner to the out-going Prime Minister, an act of singular political cowardice and ungraciousness. The country needs the Congress but free from the clutches of the rump Nehru-Gandhi family. Sonia Gandhi should retire gracefully and the AICC be convened to elect a new President and office-bearers. The party still has some good and talented leaders and cadres and must rethink its ideology and strategy as a centrist party dedicated to the future in order to win back some credibility. The 2014 elections mark a point of departure for a new beginning. www.bgverghese.com
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Judging in Geneva Flying to Geneva from London, one cold spring morning in 2010 to join as a judge with the United Nations, I saw vast expanses of snow, and small French villages dotting the hill sides. My thoughts turned to my own village, Lalton Kalan, a village of some antiquity, southwest of Ludhiana, much older than the city itself. In 1915 my grandfather, Sardar Balwant Singh Garewal, had left the village to join the civil service. A century later the grandson was heading to Palais des Nations in Geneva for the first session of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal. Our south-facing chambers brought in warm sunlight and on clear days a stunning view of Mont Blanc. But Lac Leman (or Lake Geneva) was always there, a mile away in the foreground -- launches and yachts skimming on the crystal blue lake. And eau d'jet majestically throwing up a plume of water, and in strong breeze, the plume would take the shape of a fan. It was in such tranquil surroundings that I settled down to work. Each case was heard and decided by a Bench of three judges. My colleagues were senior sitting judges, Judge Weinburg from Argentina, Judge Simon (Uruguay), Judge Courtial (France), Judge Adinyira (Ghana), Judge Painter (USA) and Judge Boyko (Canada). I was the seventh judge on the newly set up Appeals Tribunal to decide appeals against first instant judgments of the Disputes Tribunal, in service matters between the management and staff of the UN. My hotel was a 15-minute walk from the Palais. Though public transport was free, one preferred to take the scenic route. Lunch in the cafeteria would be a sumptuous affair, with fare from all over Europe. The wonderful thing about the UN is that one meets and works with people from different countries. Our Registrar Weiching came from China, legal officers Katrin and Liza from Germany and Australia, legal assistants Miriam and Kadija from the Phillipines and Burkina Faso, and a French-speaking Swiss lady, Arlette, as our secretary. In the neighbouring chamber sat Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General, trying to solve the Syrian puzzle. Near the end of my term, I had probably been spotted by one of my colleagues in the duty-free shop in the Palais, buying a Longines for my wife but nothing for myself. So on the day of my farewell my colleagues presented me with a smart Fredrique Constant, which now adorns my wrist, as a reminder of my Geneva days.
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Patel vs Nehru: Clash of titans on China policy FEW historical documents have generated as many myths as Sardar Patel’s famous letter to Jawaharlal Nehru on the Chinese threat. On November 7, 1950, Patel drew the Prime Minister’s attention to the implications of the PLA’s entry into Tibet. He warned that “for the first time, after centuries, India’s defence has to concentrate itself on two fronts simultaneously.” Patel called for a comprehensive policy response covering both border security and foreign policy. This included a military and intelligence assessment of the Chinese threat; re-deployment of Indian forces to guard access routes and “areas that are likely to be the subject of disputes”; improvement of communications in border areas; and an appraisal of required force levels and long-term defence needs.
Review of India’s advocacy Turning to foreign policy, he proposed a review of India’s advocacy of Beijing’s entry into the United Nations in light of developments in Tibet and Korea. He concluded with the terse comment that “it is possible that a consideration of these matters may lead us into (the) wider question of our relationship with China, Russia, America, Britain and Burma”, hinting that his reservations regarding Nehru’s foreign policy were not confined narrowly to China but extended to wider questions of relations with the major power blocs. Critics have condemned Nehru for failing to heed Patel’s advice. It has been alleged that he failed to perceive the new security challenges across the Himalayas and that the origins of the 1962 debacle lie in the blunders committed by Nehru in 1950. A dispassionate examination of the facts does not substantiate these charges. It is not true that the prime minister failed to anticipate the PLA’s entry into Tibet and the resulting security challenges. More than a year before the event, Nehru wrote to finance minister John Mathai, alerting him that “recent developments in China and Tibet indicate that Chinese Communists are likely to invade Tibet sometime or other…it may well take place within a year…it seems to me essential from every point of view that these areas should have good communications.” Nehru asked the finance minister to provide funds for this purpose to the extent possible. It is another matter that actual implementation was – and continues to be – tardy. Nehru bears no greater responsibility for this failure than any of his successors.
Widely held belief disproved Facts also disprove the widely held belief that Nehru failed to act on Patel’s proposals to strengthen border security. In fact, action was taken on these proposals with great speed. Within a week, the government set up the Himmatsinghji Committee to recommend measures for improving administration, defence and communications in the frontier areas. Another committee was tasked to examine locations for new Assam Rifles posts. Orders were issued to strengthen border check posts and equip these with wireless communications. Urgent steps were taken to extend administrative control in the North-East and in less than three months a firm presence was established in Tawang. There was no disagreement between the two leaders on these issues. Their disagreement lay elsewhere – on defence priorities and on basic foreign policy issues. On November 19, Nehru circulated a note to his cabinet colleagues explaining his views on Tibet and defence priorities. Without directly referring to Patel’s letter, Nehru contested the view that India must concentrate on “two fronts simultaneously” and that the Army should be redeployed accordingly. He concurred on the need to take all necessary measures to prevent Chinese infiltration and occupation of areas across the McMahon line but pointed out that “our major possible enemy is Pakistan…If we begin to think and prepare for China’s aggression in the same way, we would weaken considerably on the Pakistan side… spreading out of our armies in distant frontiers would be bad from every military or strategic point of view.” Nehru did not ignore the China problem. He only called for establishing clear priorities at a time when, “at least for some years”, India could not afford to bear the financial burden of a full-fledged two-front strategy.
Fundamental differences Nehru and Patel had fundamental differences on foreign policy. These arose from diverging assessments of the threat posed by international communism in the wake of the Telangana uprising. Unlike Nehru, Patel viewed the Communist powers as a permanently monolithic and expansionist bloc. This was evident in his attitude to China even before its takeover of Tibet. In 1949, he was in favour of delaying recognition of the new Communist regime in Beijing. After the Chinese moved into Tibet, Patel felt that India had “let down” the Tibetans but, as a realist, he did not propose military intervention. Going beyond Patel’s position, some of Nehru’s present-day critics blame him for failing to physically intervene in support of the Tibetans. No responsible Indian leader advocated military intervention in 1950. In the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, General (later Field Marshal) Cariappa, the Indian Army could at most spare a battalion for Tibet and even this modest force could proceed no further than Yatung. Nehru’s position combined principle with realism. “We cannot save Tibet as we would have liked to do and our very attempt to save it might well bring greater trouble to it”, he explained in his note of November 19. He knew that China would react to foreign interference in Tibet with a stronger military occupation and by further degrading Tibet’s autonomy. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, India supported a UN resolution condemning communist North Korea as an aggressor but abstained on a second US-sponsored resolution recommending assistance to South Korea to repel the aggressor. India later explained its position in a statement accepting the recommendation, while reiterating India’s policy of staying aloof from the East-West confrontation. Patel was not pleased with the statement. “I feel we need not have reiterated our foreign policy. Such reiteration implies that this step could be construed as a departure from that policy and we are being apologetic or defensive about it”, he complained to Nehru. Patel was supported by K.M. Munshi, who complained, “U.S.S.R. never has been a friend of India and never will be. Why should we lose the goodwill of friends without whom we cannot face Russian expansion? If they fall, we go under.”
As we noted earlier, Patel’s famous letter of November 1950 concluded with the enigmatic comment that consideration of the issues he had raised “may lead us to (the) wider question of our relationship with China, Russia, America, Britain and Burma”. Was he seeking a fundamental review of India’s foreign policy? Patel did not spell out his views in his letters or speeches but his stand on early recognition of the Beijing regime and the Korean War provide important clues to his thinking. A declassified American document appears to provide another important clue. On November 10, 1950 — just three days after Patel’s letter — Ambassador Henderson informed Washington, “Patel has been stating privately that within next few days he will insist in cabinet meeting that India not only change policy in direction of closer cooperation with western powers, particularly US, but that it make announcement to that effect… Patel and others advocating change in India’s policies are arguing that India must strengthen its military establishment if it is effectively to face its Communist neighbor, and that it cannot properly strengthen its military establishment without aid from US unless it makes clear before (the) whole world that it stands with (the) West against aggressiveness of international Communism”.
Opposition to Nehru Patel was, of course, the last person to contemplate any compromise of India’s strategic autonomy but he was convinced that it was in India’s own national interest to join hands with the western powers in confronting the Communist bloc in Asia. Nor was he alone in the cabinet in opposing Nehru’s foreign policy. Rajaji and Munshi, too, voiced their criticism in cabinet meetings. We learn from the diary of Patel’s daughter, Maniben, that he expected support from Baldev Singh, Jagjivan Ram and Sri Prakasa, in addition to Rajaji and Munshi, in the event of a showdown in cabinet with Nehru’s China policy. In the event, there was no showdown. The Deputy Prime Minister was terminally ill and his health deteriorated rapidly even as he prepared to join battle. He was unable to attend the cabinet meeting on November 21, in which Tibet policy came up for discussion. The Sardar breathed his last on December 15. None of the other Indian leaders had sufficient stature to mount a serious challenge to Nehru’s foreign policy. Thus, in November 1950, India briefly found itself at a crossroad in foreign and defence policy. Sardar Patel headed a group of ministers who sought a major policy revision involving close cooperation with the Western powers in Asia in confronting the Communist bloc. We need not go into the semantic question of whether such a policy would have amounted to a departure from non-alignment; the answer to that question depends on how we define non-alignment. It is important to note, however, that Patel’s policy prescription would inevitably have made India a frontline state in the Cold War in Asia.
Panchsheel treaty Jawaharlal Nehru believed in a moral approach to international politics. He was an exponent of a peaceful approach and devoted to techniques of negotiation and co-operative understanding. Nehru had been an exponent of panchasheel or the five cardinal tenets of international amity and concord. In June 1954, the fundamental concepts of pancha sila were laid down in the course of a joint declaration by Nehru and Chou-en-Lai. They are: *
Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty: *
Non-aggression * Non interference in each other’s internal affarirs *
Equality and mutual advantage and * Peaceful co-existence and economic cooperation. These principles were meant to enhance the sense of security, trust and confidence.
Chinese checkers * India’s relations with China until 1960-62 rested on an age-long friendship and contact. The contact developed in the form of Chinese pilgrims coming to India from 221 B.C. to about 10th c. A.D. Diplomatic as well as commercial relations prevailed through the coast of Arakan and to the Pagan. *
The sea routes were also significant for maritime trade between China and India. These routes became points of numerous contacts — religious, trade, diplomatic and cultural. Buddhism was ardently followed in India. Trade contacts between regions of the Far-East and South India developed amicably during the early Christian centuries. *
The Government of India in 1947 inherited certain extra-territorial rights in Tibet. Delhi now expressed concern to Peking over the unsettled Sino-Tibetan relations that were to be adjusted through peaceful negotiations in 1950. *
Even when the Chinese troops entered Tibet on October 1950, Delhi followed a policy characterised by forbearance and patient negotiations. Thereafter, even in the UN General Assembly India supported the cause of China in the Korean War and condemned US aggression of Indo-China. *
The attempt to cross into Barahoti by the Chinese troops was also protested by India. But on July 26, 1956, Peking for the first time claimed that Barahoti was Chinese territory and denied that Tunjun La was a border pass. *
Towards the end of November, Chou-en-Lai paid a visit to India. Nehru and Chou discussed the border question in their meeting and Chou assured his Indian counterpart that the Tibet border dispute would be solved through negotiations. The border with Burma was also
recognised. * On July 28, 1955, China occupied the Barahoti area in south of Ladakh and in September they had intruded 10 miles inside India’s territory. Gradually, they crossed the Shipki pass into India. *
In April 1958, talks were held on the question of Barahoti. While China agreed to withdraw military personnel their civilian personnel continued to stay in the area. In April 1960, the talks between Chou-en-Lai Nehru ended in failure amidst violations on the border as well as air space of India. *
The relations of China and India were further strained on the question of giving asylum to Dalai Lama. Right from 1959, owing to large-scale demolition of Buddhist monasteries and confiscation of lands, the Chinese had caused discontent among the Tibetans. In the revolt of the Tibetans, certain insurgents together with Dalai Lama fled in the direction of India. *
By October 10, 1962 a massive Chinese attack was launched on Indian posts and the next day the Chinese captured the Thagla Ridge, the traditional Indo-Tibetan border. The Chinese refused to recognise the McMahon line or the accepted eastern border. *
It took a lot of deliberations before cease-fire was declared and the Chinese agreed to withdraw to the line as it was on September 8, 1962 .
The author is a former ambassador.
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This does not absolve Modi of allegations of past acts of omission and commission. But this must be left to due process. However, the pursuit of justice cannot be obliterated by blithe statements that the “people's court” has given him a yet another resounding victory. This is humbug of a high order. Ehud Olmert in Israel and Silvio Berlesconi in Italy are both paying the wages of sin as a result of due process concluded long after they demitted office. 
The Tribunal was housed on the seventh floor of the Palais. One approached it from Rue de la Paix (Avenue of Peace), past the huge three-legged chair and then through a short cedar-lined avenue with flags of member nations fluttering in the wind. In 1895 a Genevois philanthropist, Gustave-Phillipe Revilliod, handed over his huge private park, named after his mother, Ariana de la Rive, to the city of Geneva, along with his collection of peacocks. In the 1920s the League of Nations building was constructed which later became the UN headquarters in Geneva. Incidentally, the gigantic peacocks, built like St Bernards, still frolic around the grounds of the Palais. 