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More autonomy for CBI Polio becomes history |
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Lopsided Indo-US relationship
The story of Garfield and family
Maid in US: Of diplomats & double standards
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More autonomy for CBI THE Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can now approve projects worth Rs 15 crore in a year. He will be free to appoint consultants and employ people on contract. The Director will be given the rank of Secretary to the Government of India, and will, in effect, now be allowed to handle India’s premier investigating agency autonomously. Why is everyone not cheering? For one, he will not be totally autonomous, and overall, the reforms fall short of the demands made by activists and opposition leaders. The CBI has demanded many times that it be allowed to function freely. Even as the demand fell on deaf ears for many years, recently the Opposition became shrill in demanding a fixed term for the Director. It has also suggested that the CBI be bifurcated into two wings, one which would look after prosecution while the other should handled investigations. The CBI is held in high esteem by the public, more so since it is seen as an independent agency which is not susceptible to the kinds of pulls and pushes that the police forces face from various state governments. However, the CBI, too, has come under criticism for being selective in its investigation and prosecution, and being susceptible to the Central Government's pressure. The CBI has been given more powers, even some degree of autonomy. Now, it can handle some of the administrative matters like small purchases and even some transfers and postings without having a junior official looking over its shoulders. However, we must remember that this has been because of the political and judicial pressure. The organisation now needs to demonstrate how this autonomy will help it do its job properly. Far too many cases have languished even after the CBI started investigating these. Wrapping up cases and taking these to their logical end will help it justify the faith that the common people repose in the nation's most respected investigating agency.
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Polio becomes history Finally, there is something to bring cheer to the UPA government. India has declared itself to be polio free for the third consecutive year. WHO (World Health
Organisation) is expected to formally certify India's polio-free status the next month. The unthinkable has been made possible by a strong political will, a seamless partnership of the Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF, and other private organisations like the Rotary Club and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Above all, it was the tireless hard work of millions of front-line workers - vaccinators, social mobilisers and community and health workers who carried out the operation of oral vaccination against polio type 1 and 3 on a scale that is almost unmanageable for the diversity of population involved. The achievement is no less than a miracle. Despite adequate financial resources, innovative polio surveillance techniques and the tireless efforts of more than 23 lakh vaccinators who vaccinated close to 170 million children under five years of age during every round of
immunisation. Meeting the gender bias and cultural barriers made it a daunting task. The sole case of polio recorded in 2011, down from 741 in 2009, was of a girl in West Bengal. Her father later admitted of his “grave mistake” for he got only his son vaccinated for polio, but not his two daughters. Then, there were factors like a migrant population, orthodoxy, rumours against the vaccination, poverty and unhygienic conditions — interlinked with the disease — to fight for the successful implementation of the mammoth
programme. The success of this programme has provided a model to the government that can be replicated in the eradication of other deadly diseases like TB and for the implementation of other immunisation
programmes. It also proves that India has the wherewithal to sustain such a massive programme for years. The challenge now lies in preventing the virus from entering India until it is eradicated globally. Though, polio immunisation posts are set up along the international borders with Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma and Bhutan. Experts suggest India will have to be vigilant to maintain its polio-free status.
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Thought for the Day
Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.
—Douglas William Jerrold
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The olive branch YESTERDAY'S issue of the Civil and Military Gazette contains a leading article on the “Failure of the swadeshi enterprise in the Punjab” The subsidence of “the excitement and panic” has enabled our Uppar Mall cotemporary to take “a calm survey of the causes that brought about the financial crisis in the Punjab.” It has at last found out that the People’s Bank was formed to provide funds for local industrial enterprises and that this object “was plainly stated in the Memorandum and Articles of the Association, and the shareholders cannot complain of having been misled.” It refers to two radical defects in the industrial campaign. First, the funds that should have been set aside in the People’s Bank as reserves were also needed to keep the companies going and “the bank was scarified to the latter.” Secondly, although many of the mills owned by the companies were equipped “with the best modern machinery and started with excellent prospects,” continual scrutiny of the cost of production and general economy in management were lacking. The gravamen of the offence seems to be that the whole was a swadeshi affair in which commercial knowledge “appeared” to be wanting. And that verdict need not have set the Ravi on fire. Congress deputation to England THE Leader announces that at a meeting of the United Provinces Congress Committee held on Tuesday evening with Mr. S. Sinha in the chair, it was resolved to recommend to the All-India Congress Committee the election of our distinguished countryman Pandit Bishan Narayan Dar as one of the delegates who should form the Congress deputation to England as resolved by the last session of the Congress. The name of the second delegate of these provinces will be definitely settled and announced by the end of the next month.
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Lopsided Indo-US relationship While both India and the United States in their different ways are seeking to douse the flames of the outrageous treatment given to Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York, the wounds are deeper than Washington realises. The truth is that in its cavalier treatment of India's dignity and amour-propre, the American authorities have shown that, despite their standard formulations, India counts for little in their scheme of things.
After all, the US State Department authorised the arrest of Ms Khobragade knowing full well that it would involve the strip search and imprisonment of the lady diplomat of a friendly country, an unheard of phenomenon. Besides, the elaborate planning of the US embassy in New Delhi to evacuate the maid and her family to New York under a trafficking visa so as to entrap the Indian diplomat was an extraordinary act. The US consular official involved in these activities was asked by India to leave, which he did, together with his wife. It was no surprise that this American diplomat and his wife, also a consular official, had nothing but contempt for India and Indians in their blogs. And the US authorities considered it inconsequential that the maid in question was the subject of an Indian court case brought against her. What is worrisome for India is not merely the treatment meted out to one Indian diplomat but the attitude of mind and weight Washington gives to this country in its overall world view. In a sense, it reveals the lopsided nature of the Indo-US relationship and India's own economic and military weaknesses. To put it simply, would Washington have dared treat a Chinese consular official in a similar fashion? This particular incident will blow over with time, but relations between the two countries have lost a measure of trust laboriously built after the prickly relationship that was the legacy of the Cold War and the military relationship the US nurtured over the decades with Pakistan. India’s task now is to frame its future policies with one eye on Washington's real policy of treating India either as a country of little consequence or assuming that it is subject to being bullied and intimidated. If the assumptions about the overriding American attitude to India are correct, New Delhi must initiate an overall policy review of the options it has of negotiating the world without enjoying the trust of the US. That New Delhi must continue to deal with the US in a multitude of spheres at the bilateral and international levels is a given. The US remains the sole super power and New Delhi has economic, strategic and geopolitical reasons to engage with American officials and others. The problem is how India can deepen its relations with others to counterbalance the effects of Washington's real view of India. Obviously, the depth of such a review must await the formation of a new government in New Delhi, but the exercise in the proliferating think tanks must begin now. India has not been particularly successful in befriending its neighbours. The fault does not entirely lie with India, but mistakes have been made and an abiding axiom in diplomacy is that the greater the stability of its governing structure and its economic and military prowess, the more options it will have. One option for New Delhi, which will soon be highlighted by the honour given to Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the Republic Day's chief guest, will be dramatically to increase the level of relationship with Tokyo. Indeed, there is a striking parallel between Tokyo’s recent doubts over the abiding nature of the US security guarantee and New Delhi's disillusionment with its treatment by Washington. The US has been distinctly cautious over the Chinese claims over the Japanese-administered outcrops of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and over the abrupt Chinese measure to declare an air zone overlapping Japanese and South Korean zones. While the US overflew its military aircraft through the new zone, its recommendation to its civilian airlines to notify China while overflying its new zone caused surprise and shock in Tokyo. For one thing, Washington is giving credence to the Chinese wish that the sole super power and an emerging China should administer the world as the G-2. But in any event, India and Japan are natural allies and partners in seeking peace in Asia by containing the ambitions of an increasingly assertive China. Tokyo has in the past been less than friendly to India, particularly over its nuclear programme, even assuming its sensitivities. But in Mr Abe, India has for long been a steadfast friend and he is an enthusiastic exponent of an India-Japan relationship embedded in a wider strategic arrangement with Australia and the United States. Strengthening the relationship between the two countries is an obvious starting point in a new world overview. Second, South-East Asian countries, singly and collectively, are seeking to persuade New Delhi to show greater interest in cementing ties in the strategic arena against the backdrop of Chinese claims to much of the South China Sea. New Delhi is already actively engaged with the Association of South-East Nations, but could do more with such countries as Vietnam in buttressing the defence relationship without being overcautious of annoying China. India is continuing its thrust in Africa while it is in the early stages of interacting with Latin America. Putin's Russia remains an important partner while the European Union, despite its travails, offers something of a countervailing factor in dealing with the United States. There is, of course, no alternative to seeking to mend relations with the country's two problematic neighbours, Pakistan and China. One can only hope that Pakistan will achieve a measure of domestic peace and that China's unfulfilled ambitions will not be sought at India’s expense. There is of course no gainsaying the fact that the success of a country's diplomacy is only as effective as its internal strength. But good diplomacy can enhance India’s options despite internal weaknesses.
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The story of Garfield and family I
am not very fond of pets and that too cats. But one incident changed my attitude. This dates back to three years when one day a stray cat along with two cute kittens stood outside the kitchen door with beseeching eyes as if ‘asking’ to be adopted. There was something in the demeanour and entreaty in the eyes of those kittens which made the whole family develop an instant liking for them. Gradually Garfield, finding the children had been adopted, left and her visits became infrequent. Now Havana and Spot were there. It was a pleasure to watch them frolicking, licking each other’s body and making playful antics. One day Havana did not come. The whole family awaited so eagerly but there was no trace of him. Suddenly the next day we discovered its mauled body. He had sadly become victim to a neighbour's dog's butchery. Now we were left only with Spot, who became the darling of the house. At breakfast time it was a treat to see him having bits of omelette from the children. One day a neighbourly cat getting jealous of Spot’s royal treatment invaded its territory and snatched its food. The next time I stood with a stick in my hand to ward off the fat cat. It was a scene to see Spot straddling with pride in front of the fat cat and eating delicacies with relish and telling him, “It is my house. You have no business to be here”. When the fat cat tried to snatch the food, the little puny Spot attacked the big fat cat with so much confidence that it had to run for its life. This was because the members of the household were there to back him up. Gradually Spot became almost a member of the family. Everybody would wait eagerly at meal times for his arrival. It appears Spot also developed a special attachment for the family. One Friday evening Spot, after a fish meal treat, left for his night sojourn. The next day everybody waited for him at the breakfast time. The lunch time and then the dinner time also passed but there was no sign of Spot. We got worried and searched with no results. Only on the third day a badly mauled body of Spot was found. He had fallen victim to the same fate. There were tears in everybody’s eyes as we had lost a part of the family. Children were inconsolable and that night nobody touched the food. Our loving Spot had been lost forever.
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Maid in US: Of diplomats & double standards L'affaire Khobragade mushroomed out of control and caused disproportionate diplomatic damage because the US badly misread it as an isolated incident. It raised too many issues of foundational principles and personal (of every Indian diplomat), institutional (of its foreign service) and national interests for New Delhi to ignore it or back down. Unless the charges are dropped and an official apology issued, closure will prove difficult and the diplomatic fallout could linger. Western media’s bias
India will also be disappointed by the Western media bias. It is rare for India's political parties, media and public to be united on any issue (hence Amartya Sen's "argumentative Indians"). This should have made Western media ask: What do all Indians see that we are missing? Might there be just the tiniest possibility that they are right? The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian and Financial Times published several editorials and opinion articles harshly critical of India and not one giving its side of the story. Sometimes, they were guilty of outright dishonesty, mentioning previous Indian diplomats caught in similar troubles but staying silent on more heinous crimes committed by US officials, from accidental deaths in Kenya to murders in Pakistan. Western journalists should wake up and smell the coffee. With market growth most likely in the emerging countries, they can ill afford a fatal dent to their global credibility for impartial news and analysis. They should also consider just how extraordinary and objectionable US assumptions, actions and behaviour have been. The West's capacity to impose its morals, laws and will on others is fading. This is most evident with Beijing as it faithfully begins to copy US contempt for international law when inconvenient but enforces it on others when necessary. China's leaders are internalising the US habit as the norm for a "first-class power". Conflicting narratives There were two sets of competing narratives. The first posited the maid as scheming to gain permanent entry to the US by levelling false accusations against the diplomat underpaying and overworking her. The second accused India of shielding reprehensible feudal practices and US proving both its egalitarianism and commitment to the rule of law, against the alternative of the ugly American syndrome of bullying and double standards. On both counts, the evidence in the public realm is inconclusive but the balance of probability favours the diplomat in the individual and Delhi in the official contentions. Regardless, the US media accepted the maid's and US narratives.
The law must prevail. Yes, but there are four twists to this simplistic slogan. First, whose laws and why? This case was already before India's courts which have proved more robustly troublesome to India's government than their US counterparts. It involved a contract signed in India between Indian citizens, with the government as an interested party. For the US to privilege its legal process in defiance of India's courts was provocative. To do so by impugning the integrity of India's judiciary betrayed contempt for its legal system. To evacuate the maid's family from India disrespected its government. Second, charging India's Deputy Consul-General with human trafficking and subjecting her to degrading treatment was an incendiary provocation. (Is there an uglier example of bureaucratese than "standard operating procedure for arrestee intakes"?) The maid was a legally contracted employee on an official passport with free board, lodging and health benefits plus paid annual trips home. Are US minimum wages so generous they would permit a guaranteed minimum monthly saving of $500 (almost three times India's per capita income) sent home as remittances? Wage dispute, yes. Visa fraud, possibly. But human trafficking? To paraphrase John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious". Third, are US NGOs and attorneys engaged in a de facto plea bargain extortion racket? Advocacy NGOs have an institutional bias in favour of domestics whose complaints advance their agenda, but lack the forensic skills and inclination to investigate impartially. The case also shows the risks of moral grandstanding by a politically ambitious prosecutor. The structural incentives of the costly legal process explain why drivers, doctors and IT companies pay up against drivers at fault, malicious malpractice suits, and patent trolls. The costs of taking the case through the courts vastly outweigh settling it quietly and getting on with life.
Similar considerations apply to foreign officials charged with misdemeanours and crimes in New York. A prosecutor can file a serious charge to encourage plea bargain of guilt on a lighter count as a low-cost triumph for himself. Most prosecutors are not so Machiavellian. Only the naïve will believe no one is. This case quickly descended into “she said, she said”. The investigating agencies do not appear to have talked to Khobragade ever to hear her side of the story. How could they possibly come to a reasonable conclusion without doing so, unless they had already made up their minds on her guilt pursuant to their own agendas? Fourth, one means of restructuring the incentives is the Vienna conventions on diplomatic and consular relations. They are often abused and cause resentment in many countries. Yet the immunities distil centuries of experience as the only practical protection against malicious and trumped up charges. Normal diplomatic discourse and everyone's public interest would be harmed without them. Even a cursory textual analysis shows US actions were likely in violation of several clauses of the Vienna convention on consular relations (and, if Khobragade was indeed cross-accredited to India's UN mission on the date of her arrest, the convention on diplomatic relations also). In addition to a textual interpretation, context, shared understandings and state practice are also relevant. India's Foreign Ministry seems to have worked with the US Embassy in New Delhi, which failed to keep the State Department in Washington fully informed of the mutual understandings regarding India-based domestic assistants working for Indian diplomats. Furtively ferrying the maid's family from India is prima facie evidence of premeditated US bad faith. US attempts to check abuses in their jurisdiction would command more respect if they were not bloody-minded about protecting their own diplomats misbehaving abroad. In the age of Internet and social media, such instances are quickly retrieved and flashed around the world. Last August, Joshua Walde's speeding SUV rammed a mini-bus killing one and injuring eight Kenyans. The US embassy whisked him out of Nairobi the next day. In the case of Raymond Davis, a consular official who killed two Pakistanis, then-Senator John Kerry said in 2011: "This case does not belong in the court" because Davis "has diplomatic immunity." Washington should have handled the affair within the Vienna convention. If it wished to end the prevalent practice of diplomats employing home-based domestic staff, it should have taken up the matter with India's government. If Khobragade's alleged offences were criminally outside the norm, it should have worked with India to file charges in the US (with India waiving immunity) or in India. If Delhi proved non-cooperative, she could have been expelled persona non grata — a very rare public slap among friendly democratic governments. Indian reaction India unilaterally gave US officials courtesies well in excess of legal obligations. When Delhi responded to the physical mistreatment of its diplomat by paring back privileges and facilities of US officials on strict reciprocity — no more, but no less — it was accused of hypocrisy and over-reaction by the US media. Indians queried why they had been so pampered in the first place. Efforts to be reasonable in past provocations (among the targets of heaviest NSA surveillance, India reacted the most mildly with a diplomatic shrug) were mistaken for weakness and earned neglect and contempt. Hardball diplomacy worked. Standing up to arbitrary US high-handedness won the admiration of most and gratitude of many countries — even Pakistan expressed support. For all the self-righteous indignation from Westerners who want to be the world's moral compass, after the tough response, India can be confident proper procedures will be followed in future, while Washington will find it harder to extricate US diplomats in difficulty with the law abroad.
Culture of entitlement Nevertheless, for India's government and bureaucracy, the detested "VIP" culture of entitlements, corruption and cronyism, responsible for the stunning triumph of a neophyte party in the recent Delhi elections, is starting to create foreign policy headaches. Also, the institutional capacity for managing increasingly complex external challenges requires a rapid expansion of personnel and resources, and modernisation of recruitment, training and promotion procedures. And the Indian elite must learn to treat domestic staff as humans with rights and dignity, not servants to be abused and exploited. Most importantly, India must fix its multiple governance deficits and reinvigorate a sustained high-growth trajectory. The political drift and policy paralysis afflicting this government has been an international and domestic disaster for the country. While it's too much to hope for any firm direction before the election, whichever party or coalition takes office after May must address the major policy challenges with a sense of conviction, commitment and urgency. — The writer is professor in the Crawford School, the
Timeline * November 2012: Sangeeta Richard, the maid, arrives in US to work for
Khobragade. * March 2013: Khobragade files a lawsuit against Richard in Delhi HC. *
June 23: Richard leaves home to buy groceries, does not return. * Sept 20: Justice Jayant Nath notes grievance about employment, salary or ill-treatment can only be adjudicated by Indian court. *
Dec 2013: Khobragade arrested while dropping daughter to school. * Dec 18: India transfers her to UN Mission, provides immunity. *
Dec: 24: India limits immunity for US diplomats, withdraws it for kin *
Jan 8: India orders US to close embassy club for expat Americans. *
Jan 9: India refuses US request to waive immunity. US mission to UN files diplomatic note with Indian mission for Khobragade's departure. *
Jan 9: US judge denies diplomat's request to extend Jan 13 hearing *
Jan 10: After getting immunity, Khobragade returns to India.
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The children christened the cat as ‘Garfield’ after the popular cartoon character. The elder kitten was jet black with green eyes and was labelled as 'Havana', while the younger one with various shapes of spots was christened ‘Spot’. So the story of Garfield, Havana and Spot began. They were regular visitors. The cat family, without fail, came at the time of breakfast, lunch and dinner. They would sit outside the kitchen door and leave after having their fill. They were so punctual about the food timings that we could be late but not they.
