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Modi sarkar
Forced to beg |
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Assessing the K-solution
A small-towner in big ad land
Indian foreign policy at the crossroads
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Modi sarkar AS PM-designate Narendra Modi assumes office today, he takes over the government of a nation that has pinned high hopes on his leadership, even as people have given his party the majority that would enable him to be decisive. He will have with him a hand-picked team, and together they face daunting challenges. Primary among them will be to improve the economy, which has picked up from the time his victory was announced. Modi will be expected to deliver a bold economic programme that will improve GDP growth and cut down on inflation. The presence of the heads of government of SAARC nations in New Delhi in response to Modi’s invitation for his swearing-in ceremony addresses an external affairs drift that was seen in the last few years, largely because of domestic concerns. All SAARC leaders have responded to the invitation by being personally present except for one who was already on a planned visit abroad. While bold, the move ignited a controversy as various Tamil political parties reacted negatively to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa coming. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s presence will help to improve communications between the two nuclear neighbours. It is clear that Modi has made an impact even before he assumes office. Now as he takes over the reins of the government, the new Prime Minister will be expected to present his agenda of change and development. In education, the country needs more teachers and better institutions; universal health coverage will give the common man some respite from the out-of-pocket expenses that pose crippling burden on affected families; we need more emphasis on scientific, ecologically-responsible farming, and better support for farmers; the armed forces need new equipment... there are challenges galore. The citizens have given Modi the mandate to carry out the changes he needs to, and he will be expected to be inclusive in implementing policy. The new Prime Minister has a reputation of problem solving. He is now expected to deliver on his promise of better days ahead by providing leadership improving
governance.
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Forced to beg About
begging, there is more than what meets the eye. While poverty is real, begging has been turned into an organised industry. Gangs of child-traffickers control it ruthlessly, like a mafia, often amputating limbs of children to increase their chances of earning more. The sight of a maimed child's helplessness is unsettling even to the stoic and makes one feel heartless in failing to show charity. The magnitude of the "business" reflects its organised nature; in Mumbai alone the annual income of beggars is Rs.180
crore, according to the Maharashtra Government. India has an estimated 3,00,000 child beggars; every year 44,000 children fall into the clutches of the beggar mafia. The shocking revelations made by a 12-year-old boy, who had gone missing a few days ago and was later rescued by a neighbour from
Jind, corroborate what has been known for long. That many children are kept huddled at one place, their limbs are chopped to force them into begging. The growing number of child beggars in cities and metros is evident and so is the growing reach of child-traffickers. In the NCR alone, five children go missing every day. Haryana alone has 1,800 children missing since 2005. The correlation between the two may not have been overlooked by the police. Hardly any action has followed. Some noises are made by NGOs working to rescue children from traffickers, the number of recovered children remains abysmally low. Even when children are rescued, they are known to return to begging, many of them are made addicted to drugs. We do have the Beggary Prevention Act, like many other Acts, including the Right to Education Act, for the welfare of children but a child's loss of childhood to poverty or to the organised crime of begging is an irreparable loss. Organised gangs have turned a social problem of begging into a law-and-order issue and it requires to be handled at that level, to save children.
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If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one. — Cavett Robert
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A misleading name
ON Friday last a young man was placed before the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta on a charge of having no ostensible means of living. Some Anglo-Indian papers give his name as Shailendra Nath Singh. The Home papers might abridge this name into S.N. Singh and consider that Punjabis, especially Sikhs, are now being suspected by the Calcutta Police. This Province has its own troubles to combat, and Anglo-Indian and English papers ought to be careful that they do not mislead readers by the mutilation or misspelling of names. In Bengal, the Punjabi name "Singh" meaning lion is spelt "Sinha" or "Singa". It is neither "Sing" nor "Singh". In the Deccan it is usual to spell the name as in Bengal and Behar, but it is generally a compound word spelt "Narashinha," "Narasimha" or "Narasing," although the other classes take the name "Singa." Improvement of
dwelling houses
THE Health Officer of the Amritsar Municipality has, in his report of the work of his Department for 1913, pointed out the necessity of making insanitary houses fit for habitation or destroying them. The death rate of Amritsar was nearly 41 per mille against 38 in the previous year. There is no doubt that the heavy mortality is due to insanitation — particularly in dwelling houses. The present powers of the Committee, he writes, are quite ample to order the closing of dwellings if they are found unfit. We believe that these powers are not exercised now because houses are not inspected regularly and insanitation found is not pointed out and removed. If the Health Department has not a proper agency to do this, it is better that the inspection of houses should be regularly made and necessary improvements effected.
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Assessing the K-solution
A
few days ago, S. K. Lambah, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Af-Pak Special Envoy, addressed a seminar organised by the University of Kashmir. He spoke about a seven-point (some media reports have condensed them into five points) J&K solution (K-solution) on which New Delhi and Islamabad have been working 'quietly' for many years. These points, according to him, are (1) No redrawing of the current territorial disposition in J&K (2) Free movement of people across the Line of Control (LoC) (3) Progressive removal of trade barriers in specified locally produced goods (4) End to hostility, violence and terrorism (5) Minimum deployment of military on both sides of the LoC (6) Self-governance on both sides, and (7) Respect for human rights and reintegration of militants into society. The seven-point K-solution has not come as a surprise to India's strategic community. But since negotiations on this subject have been kept under wraps and have not been shared in political circles, the timing and place of its articulation, when the UPA-2 government was about to exit, surprised many. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had once stated that he was close to an ‘important breakthrough’ in the talks with Musharraf. Lambah’s repeated assertion that he was speaking in his personal capacity, therefore, convinced no one. I heard about such a proposal nearly a decade ago when an academic friend, part of the Prime Minister's inner circle on Kashmir, had unofficially asked my opinion on such a K-solution. Despite experience of the Kargil war and considerable cross-border violence in J&K and outside, I did not reject it outright. I do believe that it is the prerogative of statesmen to find solutions to complex political problems, sometimes out of the box. However, these solutions, in my opinion, are possible only when the opportunity and timings are right, or made right. My response was that both India and Pakistan will find it extremely difficult to pave the way towards such a solution. I pointed out that although Musharraf had assured Prime Minister Vajpayee in January 2004 that he would ‘not permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner’, his assurance had remained only on paper. I also expressed doubt if the Pakistan Army in its self-interest would let people in Pakistan forget the two-nation theory, or allow long-term peace with India. In his Srinagar address, the Af-Pak Special Envoy said that 'the efforts to seek a bi-lateral K-solution have gathered momentum' and 'the process has survived and sustained itself despite brutal and high visibility assaults'. This claim requires analysis and justification. Let us start with Pakistan. Despite decade-long discussions on this proposed K-solution, its most important premise and pre-condition on ending violence and terrorism across the border has never been met. Every year has seen acts of violence and terrorism, both in and outside Kashmir. Among the prominent ones have been the Mumbai train bombing in 2006, bomb blasts in Ahmedabad and Delhi and the 26/11 Mumbai incident in 2008, the Pune blast in 2010, and the Hyderabad, Srinagar blasts and the Samba terror attack in 2013. Ever since 2005, about 5,400 people have died in terror incidents in J&K and 825 people outside J&K (and Northeast) due to Islamist extremism. The trend of a sustained decline in terrorism-related fatalities since 2001 got reversed in 2013, with J&K recording 181 fatalities as compared to 117 in 2012. The LoC ceasefire too has become fragile on account of head hunting and retaliation. In July 2009 at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Manmohan Singh’s government made a surprise shift in its Pakistan policy by foregoing terrorism linkage with the composite dialogue. Instead of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Baluchistan was recorded in the bilateral document. Soon after a second electoral mandate, the Prime Minister appeared over keen to befriend Pakistan to be able to make history in India-Pakistan relations. As the K-word was not mentioned in the joint document, many strategists wondered if this significant climb down was to promote the
end-solution on J&K. The change of baton from Musharraf’s military dictatorship to elected governments in Pakistan has permitted no progress on the
K-solution endeavour except to continue the movement of some local goods and passenger buses across the LoC. In fact, soon after Musharraf’s exit, the Pakistan Army under Ashfaq Pervez Kayani lost no time in disassociating itself with the K-solution proposal. In 2008, the proxy war against India was extended to the Indian establishments in Kabul. No meaningful effort has been made by the elected governments to prosecute the 26/11 perpetrators or to check ‘hate-India’ rhetoric of the extremist ideologues. In fact, Nawaz Sharif, the present Prime Minister of Pakistan, had last year described Kashmir as a ‘flashpoint’that could lead to the ‘fourth India-Pakistan’ war. Lately, the proliferation and increased influence of Taliban and other extremist groups in the Af-Pak region and the possible spillover of militants into Kashmir has created further impediments for the K-solution proposal. Many analysts believe that after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan this year, a major ISI-backed Taliban may be expected in the region. Yet another development affecting the K-solution is from China — Pakistan's strategic partner and ally. Already in occupation of the Shaqsgam valley and having PLA presence in the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Kashmir, China seems to be challenging India's sovereignty over J&K. It has positioned itself as the third party in the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. In India, Parliament's unanimously adopted resolution of February 22, 1994 emphasising that 'the state of J&K has been, is, and shall remain an integral part of India' makes it mandatory for a government to take all political parties into its confidence before any K-solution can be formalised. Now we have a new government, which according to sources, is willing to engage and make peace with Pakistan, but with a clear policy that the continuing use of proxy war and terrorist violence against India will entail a significant cost. Many political leaders in the new establishment are known to be averse to accepting the unilateral status quo. But considering the overall interest of the people of J&K, they may not be so averse if the pre-conditions mentioned in the K-solution are met in letter and spirit. That, at present, appears very far away. The K-solution proposal in the India-Pakistan dialogue reminds me of a quote from Thomas Kempis who once wrote, “Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no
knowing”. The writer is a former Chief of the Army Staff
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A small-towner in big ad land I was an executive trainee in Bombay's newest (3 weeks old) ad agency, set up by the city's hottest creative mind with ambitious plans and eagerly watching peers. He had been told that he was too young at age 34 to be promoted the first Indian MD of a famous US agency’s India operations. So, he left and set up his own agency. Within a couple of months this outfit began breaking all records for business growth and creative awards. In a couple more months it outgrew its office and moved to a larger one. But that's a different story. With my joining, the agency completed its 11 person pioneering team. Aged between 19 and 34, we were the Goan MD, his Goan Executive Secretary, Parsi Account Executive, East Indian Copywriter, Maharashtrian Art Director, Mangalorean Media Manager, Tamilian Production Executive, Bengali Print Manager, Gujarati accountant, Karwarian media assistant (cum-Despatch in-charge), Anglo-Indian receptionist (cum-telephone operator) and I. Though of diverse origins, all the others were either Bombay born or long-time Bombay residents. The MD's cabin was at one end of our office room, in Marine Lines. The other 10 of us were seated with no partitions, only hired desks, chairs and some type-writers. Work pressure was unbelievable. We had to immediately earn, bill and collect money before we could pay the media, suppliers, rents and our salaries. Clients, including some famous ones, tried us out and stayed. We slogged along with and in support of each other, over long work days. The rewards followed. The only relief and further bonding was the shared lunches, for those who had the time. Becoming close-knit, our bonhomie was strengthened with amusing anecdotes about client meetings, photo/movie-shoots, models, printer’s devils, media gaffes and gossip from the related film and theatre industries. Witticisms, teasing and even pranks were constant. A week after I joined, the MD’s pretty secretary was seated next to me at lunch and was telling us about her fighter-jet pilot fiancé. I said that I too knew some fighter pilots from Chandigarh. Suddenly, in a serious tone, she confided, “You know my mother always told me to be careful of Sardarji boys.” I replied, “That’s funny, because my mother always told me to be careful of Catholic girls”. There was an instant outburst of hilarity in the office and from that moment on I became “family” to each one of my colleagues.
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Indian foreign policy at the crossroads western political science has yet to offer an analytical template to study foreign policy change. Conceptually, there are two approaches to analyzing foreign policy. One is an “outside-in” approach where opportunities and constraints in the external environment shape foreign policy. The other is an “inside-out” approach where domestic factors are seen as the key drivers for foreign policy. In practice, both these levels are inter-connected, and, changes in the international environment and domestic perceptions together shape foreign policy. Relying on such a framework, we can anticipate some of the broad contours of Modi’s foreign policy. A multipolar world In 2009, the outgoing National Security Adviser (NSA) summarised India’s perception of the post-Cold War era: “In many ways, the period after 1991 has been the most favourable to our quest to develop India. The post-Cold War external environment of a globalising world, without rival political alliances, gave India the opportunity to improve relations with all the major powers. The risk of a direct conflict between two or more major powers had also diminished due to the interdependence created by globalisation. And the strength of capital and trade flows was directly beneficial to
emerging economies.” Since 2009, however, if we look at statements by senior policymakers they underscore changing perceptions of the global order. A recurring theme in several speeches is an “uncertainty” of likely futures but also a recognition that the environment is changing towards a new balance of power. There is also a realization that the economic and security benefits from a unipolar-globalized world are unlikely to be available to India beyond the near-term. In a February 2014 speech, the outgoing NSA stated a widely shared belief: “Since 2008, the post-Cold War world that we had got used to is metamorphosing into something very different, as different from the previous two decades as those two decades were from the four decades of the Cold War.” The NSA further observed that, the “unipolar moment…came to an end with the global economic crisis of 2008.” Such changing perceptions are not unique to India and also resonate in the national discourses in several rising powers. It is now uncontested that there is a global power transition underway, and, material power is being diffused away from the West. This is further reinforced by a discernible trend among leading Western states, including the US, who show a declining capacity and will to assume global roles in managing security in different regions or in governing the international economy in a prudent and fair fashion. Redefining foreign policy roles Although the consequences of these trends are still being debated, it is plausible to argue that emerging powers will need to re-define and re-prioritise their foreign policy roles to fill the space of a receding superpower. This poses both an ideational and resource challenge because rising powers such as India and China still have formidable internal challenges that will keep policymakers occupied for several decades. Perhaps, this is what analysts implied when they extolled the virtues of unipolarity – that states could focus on development and leave the management of the international system to a superpower. Nevertheless, the era of free riding is nearly over. What does multipolarity mean
for globalisation? While the power transition is occurring in a context of high economic interdependence, the key change that multipolarity is bringing is states are viewing interdependence in a more strategic fashion. In other words, states are more concerned about relative gains and national advantage in their global economic engagement than they were in the pre-global economic crisis period. Most evidence suggests that the richer economies while continuing to remain plugged into the world economy are increasingly focusing on the domestic effects of their global trade and investment. This is primarily the result of the 2008 global economic crisis, and, persisting unemployment in the West. But there is also a growing anxiety in the advanced economies on losing some of their innovation advantages. Consequently, rising powers too are being compelled to adapt their own economic and trade policies to focus on relative gains. India is likely to emulate this trend. Indian identity and nationalism Indian intellectuals often claim that the age of “isms” is over and India has become de-ideologised. To argue this would be to claim that India’s has no international identity and is a “tabula rasa” upon which new epistemic preferences can be easily scripted. The post-Cold War era itself is testimony to the fact that even in an environment of a dominant superpower diffusing its ensemble of norms for every sphere of political activity – norms for the ideal management of a political economy, norms for domestic governance, and, norms for responsible foreign policies – these ideas were not be internalised uncritically by the Indian state. Clearly, there was some constraining factor that did not allow dominant transnational ideas to be absorbed wholesale onto the Indian state and intelligentsia. In terms of foreign policy, the Indian worldview, albeit in a state of flux since 1991, has remained stubbornly attached to some form of an independent identity, which international and domestic observers have curiously left unexplained. Instead, by posing dichotomies such as non-alignment versus alignment, analysts have performed a disservice to India’s strategic history and heritage. Soon after the trauma of 1962, Girilal Jain traced the roots of India’s core worldview in 1963: “non-alignment was a natural corollary to the achievement of independence. It was an assertion of the right of equality on behalf of, if not by the people of India. The cold war had not even broken out into the open when this policy was first enunciated.” By breaking the linkage between world politics and non-alignment, Girilal Jain was emphasising the ideational roots of India’s place in the world. This ethos of independence was not contingent on a balance of power or a favourable international alignment; it ensued from India’s nationalist struggle and was simply non-negotiable. While the precise contours of India’s role have evolved significantly since 1947, the essence of an independent identity has remained resilient. All but the most perceptive observers focus on nomenclature rather than the substance of India’s ethos. For example, the term non-alignment is so contested and linked to the Cold War era, and, of the Congress Party’s dominance during that period that mere semantic renovations often negate what is otherwise a bipartisan belief. Indeed, the essence of Indian nationalism has not diminished. Modi’s political success reflects its resurgence. Modi’s foreign policy: change and continuity Both the above trends – multipolarity and a palpable quest for an independent and dignified role in the international order and its institutions – will shape and constrain the policy preferences that Modi’s government pursues. If bipolarity ensured that sustaining an Indian identity was feasible, unipolarity dramatically challenged the legitimacy and efficacy of adhering to such an identity. A multipolar balance of power enables Indian elites to preserve an independent identity. Yet, simply seeking and acquiring the ability to maneuver between the more powerful states is not enough. India needs to carefully define its own security and developmental interests and preferences in different regions and issue areas, and then craft partnerships with the relevant powers to advance or secure these interests. It could be the US on one issue or region, Russia in another, and, China on another, and, Iran on another. This is where strategic pragmatism, political leadership, and, inter-agency cooperation matters. The Modi regime will inherit a national security system that needs strategic guidance, management, and, arbitration of bureaucratic interests at the apex level. Finally, what of India’s South Asia policy? One of the paradoxical legacies of the unipolar-globalized era was that India in a sense retreated to its territorial shell and ceased to be an active shaper of its periphery. It is paradoxical because at another level, the post-Cold War phase was also about India engaging more deeply with the world and integrating with the global order. But regionally, India’s interests were re-defined to focus on economic growth perhaps not very different from Deng Xiaoping’s strategy for China, which can be summarised as leave geopolitics aside and focus on the economy. Thus, other than consistently affirming the need for a “peaceful periphery” India did not underwrite this by a clear geostrategy and policy. There has been no official articulation of what India’s regional interests and role is other than to attract its neighbours to participate in India’s economy. Astute observers have highlighted that since the 1990s, India’s regional policy has been largely devoid of both norms and a sense of power. A multipolar environment makes such an ambivalent regional role potentially costly because it leaves the door open for external powers and India’s smaller neighbours to pursue their interests without much concern for India’s regional position or for regional stability. Thus, the Modi regime will face the challenge of constructing a balanced regional role, which focuses on both economic and geopolitical issues. An analogy from an early period of India’s foreign policy can be made with the contemporary flux. It is often argued that Patel was the primary builder of the post-partitioned Indian state, which Nehru went on to leverage in an ambitious way in the 1950s. As the late J.N. Dixit aptly observed, “Nehru’s vision was built on the foundations of stability and unity brought about by Sardar Patel.” The Modi regime is arguably placed at a similar crossroad where the imperative for deeper engagement with Asia and the world can only be sustained on a foundation of internal stability, institutional renewal, robust economic growth and development, and, of course a secure periphery.
The writer is a doctoral candidate at King’s College, London.
Indian worldview
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