Perilous polarisation

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Sixty-six years ago the fathers of the Constitution brought forth upon this subcontinent a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are equal. Now we are engaged in a great battle, testing whether a nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure in a land which has experienced centuries of graded inequality, established and sustained through violence by a minority which arrogated to itself the authority of the dominant religion.

The echoes of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address in the above lines are intentional. For, although the battle is fought mainly on the political plane and in constitutional forums, the nation stands polarised perilously and the calculated use of force by one side, which also makes strident calls to arms, has created an air of civil strife.

As of now the outcome of the campaign launched by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh through its students’ organisation, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, remains open. Even before the backlash of the tragic end of Rohith Vemula, Dalit research scholar of the Hyderabad University, subsided, the Sangh Parivar opened a new front in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Judicial intervention has checkmated it there.

Some worrisome flip-flops preceded the Delhi High Court’s grant of conditional bail to JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, whom the police arrested on sedition charges following complaints filed by ruling Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri and ABVP members. His arrest had angered and united the political opposition at home and invited sharp criticism from academics in different lands.

On February 15, pro-Parivar lawyers assaulted Kanhaiya Kumar and JNU students and teachers who had turned up to demonstrate solidarity with him and media persons in the trial court premises, dubbing them anti-nationals. The police merely looked on.

Two days later, the lawyers did it again, contemptuously ignoring the presence of the Registrar of the High Court, who was deputed by the Supreme Court to watch the situation, they also stoned and chased away senior lawyers who too were sent by the apex court.

In view of the unprecedented developments on the lower court premises, Kanhaiya Kumar’s lawyers moved the Supreme Court directly for bail, and his application was scheduled for consideration the next day. However, when the matter came up, the bench headed by Justice GS Khehar backed off. It asked him to go to the High Court, saying its entertaining the bail application directly would create a new precedent.

The High Court took 12 days to grant the student leader bail. In her judgment, Justice Pratibha Rani went beyond the requirements of law and virtually endorsed the prosecution case against him, using terms lifted from the vocabulary of the current political Establishment which dubs its critics anti-national.

In a channel debate, former Supreme Court judge AK Ganguly said Justice Pratibha Rani’s comments were “an act of judicial cowardice.” Alluding to her directive to Kanhaiya Kumar not to actively or passively participate in anti-national activities, former Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising said, “There can be no anticipatory restraint on free speech.”

Three weeks after pro-Parivar lawyers created mayhem on the court premises there has been no sign of effective action against them by either the police or the judiciary, although there is in the public dominion a video in which some of them brag about their criminal act.

The Bar Council of India, which initially said it would take strong action against erring lawyers, is now providing them cover by describing their conduct as a response to provocative slogans by JNU teachers and students.

There are other disquieting developments too. The Delhi High Court has permitted a Parivar-affiliated lawyers’ organisation to hold an International Women’s Day function on its premises and Chief Justice G. Rohini is to be the chief guest. Indira Jaising criticised the move as indicative of the court throwing its weight behind the Parivar body.

Meanwhile, Hindutva elements continue to exacerbate the situation with hate speeches. One organisation offered a cash award for harming Kanhaiya Kumar. One leader exhorted his followers to prepare for a last battle against Muslims.

Sixteen eminent citizens, in a letter to Chief Justice TH Thakur and other judges of the Supreme Court drew their attention to the alarming and threatening statements of persons in power. They said these statements, which seemed to be part of a pattern, had caused fear and insecurity among the citizens, particularly minorities, Dalits and Adivasis and solicited suo motu constitutional action.

Along with it, they sent with recordings and press reports of a score of hate speeches by different leaders, including RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and members of the government.

The signatories to the letter included former judges PB Sawant, Rajinder Sachar, BG Kolse Patil and Hosbet Suresh, former police officers Julio Ribeiro and SM Mushrif and well-known scientist PM Bhargava. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 8, 2016.

Echoes of ancient battles

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s attempt to silence alternative voices and establish a single Hindutva narrative has unwittingly revived memories of battles fought in the distant past which have remained buried in myths and folk tales.

One of the events cited by Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani as evidence of anti-national activity in the Jawaharlal Nehru University was the observance of Mahishasura’s martyrdom anniversary on the campus by the All India Backward Students Forum.

In Hindu mythology, Mahishasura is an asura (demon) whom Goddess Durga killed in a nine-day battle. In tribal lore, he is a hero who died valiantly resisting enslavement of his people.

Durga is a very popular and powerful goddess. Smriti Irani, who described herself as an ardent Durga devotee, read out in Parliament extracts from what she said was an AIBSF pamphlet eulogising Mahishasura.

AIBSF said those passages were taken not from its pamphlet but from one produced by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student body, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, to malign it.

Mahishasura is a revered icon of many marginalised communities, including the Santhal tribes spread across the states of West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand. There is a small tribal community known as Asur, whose members worship Mahishasura.

A newspaper quoted the head of the Santhals, 80-year-old Nityananda Hembram, who, incidentally, is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a retired Chief Architect of the Defence Ministry, as saying Mahishasura was not a mythical character but an historical figure who had repeatedly beaten back the Aryans before a woman sent by them defeated him through deception.

According to local tradition, the southern city of Mysuru got its name from Mahishasura, who once ruled over the region. He provided a good administration but was killed by Goddess Chamundi at the instance of those who were envious of his popularity.

Both Durga and Chamundi are equated with Shiva’s consort, Parvati.

In his book “Riddles of Hinduism,” BR Ambedkar observes “the Brahmins do not seem to have realised that by making Durga the heroine who alone was capable of destroying the Asuras, they were making their own gods a set of miserable cowards.”

Functions to commemorate Mahishasura’s martyrdom have been taking place in different parts of the country without facing any serious hostility from the Hindu mainstream until the RSS launched its nationalism project.

Near the Chamundeswari temple on the Chamundi Hills outside Mysuru city stands a statue of Mahishasura. Speaking at a function held there last year to honour the slain ruler’s memory, Mahesh Chandra Guru, Professor of Journalism at the University of Mysore, said Mahisha was a Buddhist king, who respected human values but was depicted by the priestly class as a demon.

Like Mahishasura, Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, whom Rama kills in the epic Ramayana, and Duryodhana and his brother and sister, who are on the losing side in the other great epic, the Mahabharata, too have many devotees.

Five Ravana temples exist, four of them in the Hindi heartland. One of them, located in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, was constructed only about 125 years ago. It opens only once in a year.

There are Duryodhana temples in Uttarakhand in the north and Kerala in the south.     

Unlike in other parts of the world, where the gods of victorious tribes ousted those of the vanquished, in India the gods of both winners and losers were accommodated in the pantheon.

An interesting fact that emerges from a study of the ancient texts is that the Vedic community gave up most of the gods to whom they had paid homage in their early days and adopted the gods of the other communities. They readily accepted all gods in exchange for the right to officiate as their priests.

As the process of assimilation of the belief systems of the different communities progressed, a host of religious texts like the Puranas were produced to integrate all of them into what came to be known as Hinduism.

Many scholars now interpret the battles and killings described in the Puranas as records of the conflicts between the Aryan and non-Aryan communities. However, there is reason to believe that some of the events happened before the arrival of the Aryans.

Mrinal Pande, author and journalist, has pointed out that Durga’s historical origins, like Mahishasura’s, are embedded firmly among the pre-Aryan cultures of India.

However, it needs to be noted that in the process of gathering and retelling the tales, the authors of the Puranas fashioned them in such a manner as to serve the needs of the casteist society that was established in India after the decline of Buddhism. -- Gulf Today, March 1, 2016.

A spurious nationalism project

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today


The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has landed the Narendra Modi government in a soup by launching a war against alleged anti-nationals. University campuses and courtrooms are the chosen battlegrounds.

The RSS had played a critical role in getting the BJP to project Modi as its prime ministerial candidate and spearheaded the party’s successful poll campaign in the Hindi heartland which helped it to secure a parliamentary majority.

The Human Resources Development ministry, which oversees education, is one of the government departments in whose working the RSS, which describes itself as a cultural outfit, takes direct interest. A group comprising representatives of 11 RSS affiliates has been liaising with HRD Minister Smriti Irani on a regular basis to ensure that her work is in consonance with its aims.

It is easy for the Centre to influence school education as the Central Board of Secondary Education and the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which decide the curriculum and prepare the textbooks, are directly under it. Since the universities enjoy autonomy, it can influence them only through the Vice-Chancellors appointed by it.

The RSS’s designs on prestigious institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management came to light last year when its two publications, the Organiser and the Panchjanya, carried articles which dubbed them dens of anti-national activity.

The modus operandi is for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the BJP’s student body, to complain of anti-national activity and for the VCs and the police to initiate action against students belonging to other organisations on the basis of its complaints. If they don’t act, the Centre pressures them.

While in IIT-Madras and the Hyderabad University, the ABVP targeted Dalit groups, in JNU it picked on the Left organisations which have dominated its campus throughout. It used a function organised by a small group to honour the memory of executed Parliament attack case accused Afzal Guru as a pretext to complain of anti-national activities by the Left organisations.

The Supreme Court, in its judgment in the Parliament attack case, had invoked the need to satisfy the nation’s conscience, and jurists like former Law Commission Chairman AP Shah have opined that Guru’s hanging was politically motivated.

Doctored videos attributing slogans and speeches heard at the Afzal Guru function to JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar were soon in circulation, and sensationalist television channels aired them. The police, called into the campus by Vice-Chancellor Jagdeesh Kumar, arrested Kanhaiya Kumar and a few others under the archaic colonial-era sedition provision of the penal code.

The JNU events developed into a huge embarrassment for the government as students and teachers of institutions across India and several prestigious foreign universities condemned Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest.

Opposition parties denounced the government’s handling of the situation and made common cause with the students. Voices of dissent rose from within the BJP camp too.

Calling for the release of Kanhaiya Kumar, Shatrughan Sinha, a film actor and long-time BJP MP, pointed out that JNU was a seat of learning with some very respectable teachers and some of India’s brightest young minds.

Three office-bearers of the ABVP’s JNU unit quit the organisation, declaring they could not be the mouthpiece of such a government.

To boost the nationalism project, the HRD Ministry directed all central universities to raise the national flag on 200-foot high masts on the campus. JNU has been flying the flag for decades.

The RSS is a new convert to flag-waving nationalism. It flew the national flag atop its headquarters in Nagpur for the first time in 2002, three years after the first BJP-led government came to power and 52 years after the Indian republic was established.

During the freedom struggle, RSS chief MS Golwalkar famously advised Hindus not to waste their energy fighting the British but save it to fight “our internal enemies that are Muslims, Christians and Communists.”

The RSS was banned thrice since Inependence – the first time after Gandhi’s murder in 1948, then during the Emergency in 1975 and finally after its cadres demolished the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in 1992.

Putting the current situation in perspective, eminent historian and JNU professor emerita Romila Thapar said the battle was between religious nationalism and secular nationalism.

The RSS having queered the pitch, Modi has no option but to brazen it out. He has said the current furore is an attempt by political opponents and non-government organisations to destabilise his government.

The government’s offer of a full discussion of the JNU issue in Parliament is beside the point, which is whether it is capable of reining in its supporters who are posing an open challenge to the rule of law.

The lengths to which they are willing to go in pursuit of the spurious nationalism project became clear when lawyers owing allegiance to it assaulted Kanhaiya Kumar in the trial court premises and stoned and chased away a team deputed by the Supreme Court to report on developments there. Some of them have also sought to bait the apex court by seeking contempt proceedings against Kanhaiya Kumar for allegedly criticising its judgment in the case against Afzal Guru. --Gulf Today, February 23, 2016

Troubled banking system

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

How healthy is India’s banking system, especially its large public sector component? The question has assumed significance following reports that state-owned banks wrote off bad debts to the tune of Rs 2,110 billion between 2004 and 2015.

Based on material provided by the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, in response to a Right to Information query, the Indian Express said the banks had written off as much as Rs 1,141.82 billion in the last three years alone. Bad debts which stood at Rs 155.51 billion in March 2012 had shot up to 525.42 billion by last March, it added.

Public sector units dominate India’s banking sector. The British-owned Imperial Bank of India, which the government took over in 1955 and renamed State Bank of India, is the country’s largest commercial bank. It now has more than 16,000 branches, including 191 abroad. Its assets stood at Rs 20,480.80 billion a year ago. Banks set up by former princely states function as its associates.

Fourteen large private banks were nationalised in 1969 and six more in 1980.

The SBI topped the list with write-offs of Rs 400.84 billion in the last three years. The Punjab National Bank, the second largest bank, stood next with a write-off of Rs 95.31 billion.

Responding to media reports, the Finance Ministry, the RBI and the SBI said loan write-off was basically a technical exercise to cleanse the balance sheet and achieve taxation efficiency. It was done at the head office level and did not preclude the branches from continuing recovery efforts.

However, many financial analysts voiced concern over the rise in bad debts and the recent fall in bank share prices. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan accused critics of making claims bordering on scare-mongering. He attributed the fall in share prices to the turmoil in the world markets but conceded that the performance of some banks, particularly public sector units, was not pretty.

There may be no need for panic, as Raghuram Rajan says, but there is certainly cause for worry. The RBI recently put the value of banks’ stressed assets (including restructured loans) at Rs 7,400 billion. This means 10.9 per cent of all loans is stressed. Standard and Poor’s has forecast an 11-to-12 per cent growth in stressed assets during the year.

The issue of bad debts was a well-kept secret until the All India Bank Employees Association released a list of top defaulters in 2014. It contained names of 406 account holders who owed the banks Rs 703 billion.

Liquor king Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines headed the list with debts of Rs 26.73 billion. The Winsome Diamond and Jewellery Company was a close second with debts of Rs 26.60 billion.

Among the other big defaulters was a construction company owned by KS Rao, who was Textile Minister in the Manmohan Singh government at that time. Raghavendra Rao and Deepak Puri, two businessmen whom the government had honoured with Padma awards, also figured in the list.

The AIBEA said bad debts of public sector banks had risen from Rs 390 billion in 2008 to 2,360 billion in 2013.

It alleged that banks, including private and foreign ones, had written off loans totalling Rs 2,040 billion between 2001 and 2013 under political pressure. It asked the RBI to publish the names of defaulters and demanded enactment of legislation to improve the recovery process and to make wilful default a criminal offence.

Raghuram Rajan, professor of finance at the University of Chicago and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, took several steps to help the banks deal firmly with defaulters immediately after he took over as RBI governor in 2013. Guidelines issued by the RBI allowed banks to convert debt into equity and take control of defaulting companies if debt restructuring failed. The banks could then find new promoters to run the companies.

The Modi government, which assumed office the following year, announced a seven-point programme to revive public sector banks. It has only been implemented partially.

The latest debt figures indicate that the steps taken by the RBI and the government have not yielded anticipated results. The government told Parliament last year that 30 top defaulters owed public sector banks Rs 951.22 billion. This was more than one-third of their non-performing assets.

The name-and-shame policy adopted by some banks also does not seem to have had any effect on the defaulters.

The RBI and the government must urgently come up with foolproof measures to ensure the good health of the banks with a view to safeguarding the interests of the depositors and honest borrowers. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 16, 2016.

Decoding Davos signals

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There were confusing signals from this year’s World Economic Forum meet at Davos, Switzerland, where, according to some observers, India figured as a potential saviour as its economy happens to be the fastest growing at the moment. What’s more, no country appears to be in a position to wrest that distinction in the immediate future.

Optimism about the world’s fastest growing economy contrasts with the economic gloom facing other emerging markets, an international news agency reported from Davos. But an Indian columnist who has not missed a single meet in the last 20 years wrote that the buzz around India 10 years ago was missing.

The difference between the Indian and international perceptions is understandable. India is seeking an opportunity to boost its exports, which registered a fall in the last two years. The developed nations are looking for an opportunity to sell more to India rather than buy more from it.

The interests of the two sides coincide at one point. India is looking for foreign capital to increase manufacturing facilities and developed nations are looking for safe investment destinations. However, building upon this coincidence of interests is not easy.

There was flight of capital from India when the current global slowdown began. But as the other emerging markets present a bleak picture Western investors are forced to gravitate towards India which has a seven per cent growth rate and a market of one billion plus consumers.

The theme of this year’s Davos meet was “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. In a theme paper, Klaus Schwab, who founded WEF 46 years ago, wrote that unlike the first Industrial Revolution which used steam power, the second which used electric power and the third which used electronics, the fourth, which began in the last century, is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.

Breakthroughs now occur at an incredible pace and disrupt almost every industry in every country, Klaus said, adding: “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale and scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.”

Every one of the earlier industrial revolutions he listed too had altered the way we live and work. They also divided the world into haves and have-nots. Such divisions took place between countries as well as between peoples within each country. By and large, the second and the third reinforced the divisions caused by the first one. No discussion of the global economy can be divorced from the fact that the fourth too holds the potential to accentuate the division, this time at a much faster pace than before.

Klaus referred to the importance of people and values in his theme paper. “In its most pessimistic, dehumanised form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to ‘robotise’ humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul. But as a complement to the best parts of human nature – creativity, empathy, stewardship – it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails.”

This ominous aspect did not receive attention in the Davos discussions because the primary objective of the meet was to advance the interests of the haves. The breakthroughs that triggered the earlier industrial revolutions too held out prospects of conferring immense benefits on the people as a whole but the driving force behind them was optimisation of profit and there is nothing to indicate that capital can outgrow its predatory nature.

The World Bank, in its latest ease-of-doing-business survey, places India at 140th position. Both foreign and domestic businessmen have been pressing the government to make it easy to do business. Essentially what they want is relaxation of laws relating to taxation, labour and environment.

With a score of 38 in the 0-100 scale India was at the 76th place in a field of 168 in Transparency International’s corruption perception index last year. However, strong anti-corruption measures do not figure prominently in the demands of either foreign or domestic commercial interests because they can find their way around the problem on their own.

The Swedish Chamber of Commerce in India, which has a membership of 141 companies, said after an internal survey that one out of three companies expressed the view that not paying bribes is a ‘competitive disadvantage’. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 2, 2016.

Casteism on campuses

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

 

The death of Rohith Vemula, a research scholar and activist, who took his own life, has brought into focus widespread discrimination against Dalits in institutions of higher learning and strengthened the marginalised section’s resolve to resist casteism.

Rohith and four students were suspended by the University of Hyderabad on the basis of a false complaint by Sushil Kumar, a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Janata Parishad, student wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging assault by Ambedkarites.

Following prodding by Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister of State for Labour, the Human Development Ministry had exerted pressure on the university to act against them.

The agitating students have demanded the resignation of Dattatreya, HRD Minister Smriti Irani and Vice-Chancellor P Appa Rao whom they blame for Rohith’s death and vowed to continue the stir until they quit.

Initially, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ignored the nationwide protests on the issue. After students showed him black flags at a Lucknow university he expressed sorrow at the “loss of a dear son of India.”

Smriti Irani pointed out that Rohith had said in his suicide note that he was not acting at anyone’s instigation. The irony in the preface to that statement was lost on her. “I forgot to write the formalities,” Rohith wrote. “No one is responsible for my act.”

He also wrote: “I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty.”

Police found no substance in Sushil Kumar’s complaint. According to hospital records, he was admitted for an appendicitis operation.

Prof Prakash Babu, Dean of Students Welfare, contradicted Irani’s statement that the students were suspended on the recommendation of a committee headed by him. He said he was included in the committee at the last minute and he had opposed the students’ suspension.

In the complaint to the police, the ABVP had named Prakash Babu, who is a Dalit, also as an assailant. He was included in the committee evidently to create the impression that the issue did not involve caste.

Dalit teachers of the university decided to relinquish administrative duties in protest against Irani’s false statement.

As protests snowballed the university revoked the order of suspension against the students. The HRD ministry announced a judicial inquiry. The Vice-Chancellor went on long leave.

The Central government’s strategy, it seems, is to tire out the students. It had used this strategy when students of the Film and Television Institute, Pune, launched an agitation against the appointment of a small-time actor as its head.

Education is an area in which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the power behind the BJP, is taking a keen interest since the party came to power. Last year authorities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, had banned the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, a Dalit group functioning on the campus, following a complaint by the ABVP. Public protests forced it to withdraw the decision.

The sequence of events at the IIT and the UoH suggests that the ABVP and the HRD minister are collaborating in an RSS project to prevent Dalit student activity in institutions which, though technically autonomous, are under the Central government’s control.

Thanks to the 15 per cent reservation for Dalits in employment and enrolment, there is significant Dalit presence among the faculty and the students on the central campuses. Taking the cue from the RSS, the ABVP alleges that anti-national (read anti-Hindutva) elements are active on these campuses.

To the chagrin of the Hindutva brigade, radical student groups, motivated by the ideals of Dalit icon and chief architect of the Constitution BR Ambedkar, are challenging casteism.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaran Yechury and Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Admi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal rushed to Hyderabad to express solidarity with the agitating Dalit students.

Political observers believe the Hyderabad events may hurt the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections. But casteism on the campuses is an issue that predates Modi’s arrival on the scene.

Following a spate of suicides by Dalit and other backward class students of Central institutions the Manmohan Singh government had appointed a committee headed by University Grants Commission Chairman Sukhdeo Thorat in 2006. It recommended several measures to end social isolation and oppression of the marginalised sections.

The government failed to act upon the recommendations, and suicides have continued. Rohith’s was the tenth on the UoH campus. At least a dozen suicides have been reported from other Central campuses.

What makes the present situation ominous is the BJP-led government’s open support to caste supremacists on the campuses.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 26, 2016

Start-up plan raises hopes

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Even as the flagship Make in India programme which sought to attract foreign manufacturers is languishing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week launched a “Start-up India, Stand-up India” programme to help domestic entrepreneurs.

The programme, announced last August, has come with a 19-point action plan, which includes a tax holiday, access to new technology and exemption from regulations.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said there was no alternative but promotion of domestic entrepreneurship as environmental clearance procedures and other constraints are making it difficult to attract foreign investors. The government, he added, did not want to interfere in the work of entrepreneurs. Its role would be that of an enabler or facilitator.

Under the new plan, entrepreneurs will get a three-year tax holiday on profits, self-certification rights with regard to compliance labour laws and an 80 per cent rebate for patent registration.

The government has committed Rs 100 billion over the next four years for the programme which is expected to create a favourable climate for newcomers to enter the world of business. The Stand-up part is designed to help women and the underprivileged Dalit and Adivasi communities.

Women have reached the top in some private corporations through inheritance and in some public institutions on the strength of their professional record, but they do not figure significantly in the ranks of entrepreneurs. Lack of resources has kept the Dalits and the Adivasis out of the world of business all along. The provisions made for these sections are, therefore, a welcome feature.

However, the programme also has several provisions that will work to the disadvantage of large sections.

The government has already abolished or relaxed legal provisions designed to protect workers from exploitation and prevent destruction of the environment. Given businessmen’s propensity to cut corners to augment profits, the self-certification procedure can harm the interests of the people as a whole and of the working class in particular.

The Harvard Business School used to display on its website a confession by one of its alumni, Rahul Bajaj, who is a third-generation Indian industrialist. In it, he said: “Ignoring a government regulation, I increased my volume (production) by more than the permitted 25 per cent of my licensed capacity.” It has now taken the post off, possibly to protect the image of Bajaj, whom it had honoured as a distinguished alumnus in 2005, as well as its own.

Dhirubhai Ambani, father of Mukesh Ambani, who is at No. 1 in the Forbes list of rich Indians, and Anil Ambani, who is at No. 29, was a first-generation businessman who rose to rival the established industrialists of his time. Such was his clout that journalist Hamish McDonald’s 1998 book The Polyester Prince, which narrated how he negotiated his way around regulations, could not be sold in India.

The Ambanis, however, made no attempt to block a later, revised version of the book, titled Ambani & Sons, presumably because the family is now quite confident about its place.

The Supreme Court has been holding Subrata Roy, a Kolkata businessman, in Delhi’s Tihar jail for about two years to force him to return to small investors about $5.4 billion they had put into a scheme of his Sahara group, which, according to the Security Exchange Board of India, was illegal.

All this raises the question whether the interests of workers will be safe under a self-certification regime.

Enthused by reports of sound industrial growth driven by manufacturing, signs of a pickup in investment and good indirect tax collections, the government claimed last October that the economy might be about to turn the corner. “We are on track. Acceleration switch has been pressed. We are pushing ourselves towards a high-growth trajectory,” said Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Amitabh Kant.

However, as the financial year draws to a close, there is little room for optimism. The rupee has fallen below the level at which it was when Modi took office. The stock market is erratic. Exports have declined due to the global slowdown, and the year may well see a record fall of 13 per cent.

In the circumstances, the Start-up programme assumes importance. It has the potential to help in creating jobs, improving skills and boosting production. Many states have evinced keen interest in it, and some have already set up incubation centres for young entrepreneurs. However, they may need time to produce results. -- Gulf Today, January 19, 2016.

Exposing chinks in armour

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Security experts are agreed that the Indian response to the daring terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase close to the Pakistan border on New Year’s Day was ham-handed and showed the authorities have learnt little from experience.

Visiting the airbase on Saturday, a week after the strike by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed satisfaction over the handling of the situation.

While security forces were able to prevent damage to military assets, critics have pointed out that the authorities failed to act quickly on intelligence input about an imminent attack.

The terrorists sneaked into India unnoticed by those guarding the border, carrying with them assault weapons, 50 kg of ammunition and 30 kg of grenades. They kidnapped a high police officer, seized his beacon-fitted vehicle and roamed in it for hours before scaling the 11-foot high wall of the airbase. The officer’s role is now under scrutiny.

Seven security personnel were killed and 22 others injured in the attack. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar disclosed that only one death was an operational loss. Five defence service guards were killed even before the counter-terror operation began. A lieutenant colonel died in a blast during the combing operations.

Retired Lieutenant General HS Panag, who was once in charge of the Indian army’s northern command, said the counter-terror operation was a disaster from the word go. “We were not only slow to respond but were caught with our pants down,” he added.

He attributed the colonel’s death to failure to follow the standard operating procedures.

Gen Panag as well as other experts were critical of the primacy accorded to the National Security Guard in the counter-terror operation. Defence analyst Rahul Bedi said the NSG was given command to keep the operation under the control of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, arguably the most influential person in the Modi administration.

Doval sent 150 NSG commandos into Pathankot from a camp near Delhi when about 50,000 soldiers with fair knowledge of the terrain and experience of handling terrorists were available in the immediate vicinity.

The NSG is under the Home Ministry. The Defence Minister justified its use saying the NSG’s expertise was needed to ensure the safety of about 3,000 civilians in the family quarters at the airbase. The argument did not impress Gen Panag. Time is not far when the army may have to take orders from the Home Minister, the National Security Adviser or the Police, he quipped.

On the second day, after four terrorists were gunned down, Twitter-happy Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced completion of the operation. Soon shots rang out again, necessitating renewal of the counter-terror operation. It took two more days to liquidate all the terrorists.

“Four days to neutralise no more than five or six militants is unacceptable in a confined open space where there is little or no scope for any civilian collateral damage,” said retired Maj Gen Sheru Thapliyal.

The National Investigation Agency has begun a probe into the attack. Analysts believe a high-powered commission of inquiry is needed to bring out the truth and formulate proposals to avoid a repetition of mistakes.

The Pathankot attack and the Gurdaspur attack of last July by Lashkar-e-Taiba have been valuable learning experiences for Modi and his colleagues who are ardent admirers of Israeli tactics.

Ironically, as they are coming to terms with ground realities, the Congress, which has the most experience of dealing with the Pakistan government and terrorists based in that country, is acting the way the BJP did when it was in the opposition.

The terrorists’ aim was to disrupt the dialogue process which received a boost when Modi, on his way back from Afghanistan, stopped at Lahore on Christmas Day to meet Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan are scheduled to meet on January 15. Sharif has said terrorists will not be allowed to disturb the peace process but Indian sources have said the talks may be called off unless Islamabad acts upon evidence of the Jaishe-e-Mohammed’s involvement in the attack.

Reports indicate that Nawaz Sharif has asked the Pakistan army to follow up on the leads India has provided.

The US administration is said to be exerting pressure on Pakistan to save the dialogue process.

Goof-ups of the kind witnessed recently cannot cloud the fact that the strategy followed by India since Rajiv Gandhi’s days with regard to Kashmir-related terrorism has yielded results. Civilian casualties in Kashmir have come down from more than 1,000 a year in the 1990s to just about 20 last year. The terrorists have shifted attention to Punjab precisely because cross-border operations in Kashmir have become difficult. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 12, 2016.

Congress needs to do more

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

 

One and a half years after Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power, imposing a crushing defeat on it, the Congress party is still without an action plan to revive its fortunes.

Recent election results indicate that the Modi wave of 2014 has abated. In that year’s Lok Sabha poll campaign Modi had called for a Congress-free India. He repeated the call while campaigning in the Assembly elections too.

Under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the Congress party had held in check the Hindutva flag-bearers, the Jana Sangh and the BJP, for decades. Modi’s antipathy towards it is, therefore, understandable. But the grand old party’s disappearance can only weaken India’s democracy, not strengthen it.

In last year’s elections to legislatures and local self-government institutions in several states, the BJP did not do as well as was expected. What’s more, the Congress showed distinct signs of recovery in the Hindi-speaking states where the BJP had pushed it down to the second place.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress snatched a Lok Sabha seat from the BJP in a by-election. It made impressive gains in local body elections in MP, Rajasthan and Gujarat, all at the expense of the BJP.

In the rural areas of Gujarat, the Congress wrested control of many district and taluk panchayats from the BJP. However, in the urban areas the BJP held its ground.

In Gujarat, the Congress had been declining continuously since 2001, when Modi became the Chief Minister. It was revealed recently that the party’s state leaders felt so intimidated by the anti-Muslim riots under Modi’s watch that they did not let Congress President Sonia Gandhi visit the wife of former party MP Ehsan Jafri, who was hacked and burned to death by Hindutva goons.

The BJP’s success in the urban areas testifies to its continuing hold on towns. But about 68 per cent of the people of Gujarat live in villages. The new electoral mood reflects the villagers’ growing disenchantment with Modi’s development model which helps the rich and hurts the poor, especially villagers engaged in agriculture.

Apparently the BJP is vulnerable even in the urban areas. In local elections in Chhattisgarh, the Congress outperformed it in several towns.

Modi doesn’t talk of a Congress-free India any more. One reason may be that there is no election around the corner. Another is that the Congress has blocked some legislative measures which are crucial to his reform agenda and he knows that while that party is around he has to deal with it. He, therefore, reached out to Sonia Gandhi and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, the ma-beta (mother and son), whom he had berated in election speeches.

While the ground situation is turning favourable to the Congress, the party apparatus remains moribund. The old guard and the coterie that surrounds Sonia Gandhi have defeated Rahul Gandhi’s attempts to introduce a measure of democracy in the party.

In Kerala, one of the few states where the Congress has a functioning apparatus, rival factions led by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala came together to scuttle organisational elections. They also defeated the efforts of VM Sudheeran, whom Rahul Gandhi had installed as head of the state party, to put an end to factionalism.

West Bengal and Kerala are among the states where Assembly elections are due this year. Mamata Banerji’s Trinamool Congress had ended three decades of Left rule in West Bengal in 2011. A coalition led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and a rival alliance headed by the Congress have been alternating in power in Kerala for several decades.

Both states have been traditionally hostile to the Hindutva ideology. Keen to take advantage of the decline of the Left and the Congress, the BJP, aided by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has drawn up plans to storm the two states.

At the recent CPI-M plenum in Kolkata, the West Bengal unit mooted the idea of an alliance with the Congress to check the growth of Hindu communalism. The Kerala unit shot it down.

When Sonia Gandhi named Rahul Gandhi as the party’s Vice-President, it was believed he would soon replace her as the President. However, the transition is getting prolonged because the old guard is not quite ready for it.

Lampooning by critics of dynastic succession notwithstanding, Rahul Gandhi appears to be the best bet if only because there is no one in the party with better credentials than him. In the last few years he has made a conscious effort to identify himself with the rural poor.

If Rahul Gandhi is to succeed Sonia Gandhi, the sooner the transition the better for the party. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 5, 2016.

Modi never ceases to marvel

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There were no hysterical crowds of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) chanting slogans and there was no display of histrionics but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visits to three countries in as many days last week were probably the most productive of the many travels he has undertaken since assuming office 19 months ago. In each country he did or said something to marvel at.

When he set out from New Delhi, only two countries were on the published itinerary: Russia, where he was to meet President Vladimir Putin for the customary bilateral summit, and Afghanistan where he was to open a parliament building, which was India’s gift to that country.

Before leaving the Afghan capital Modi tweeted that on the way back home he would stop at Lahore, Pakistan, to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was celebrating his birthday.

Media reports said when he called Sharif to convey birthday greetings, the latter suggested that he stop over at Lahore and he agreed. However, some analysts believe back channel diplomacy played a part in the development. An Indian businessman who had facilitated a meeting between them when they were both in Kathmandu for the SAARC summit was said to be in Lahore too.

Travelling frequently to promote India’s political and economic interests, Modi has earned a reputation as a globetrotter and invited barbs like “NRI prime minister” and “Salesman-in-Chief”. His domestic and foreign travels are usually plotted in great detail and official and non-official agencies are pressed into service to make sure that everything goes on as planned. Extensive media coverage guarantees political dividends.

Ridiculing Modi’s frequent travels, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi recently said uncharitably, “We don’t know where he goes. Maybe he is travelling so much because earlier he was banned and now he has got the freedom to visit foreign countries.”

However, a study by Sanjay Pulipaka of the Indian Council for Research on International Relations shows that Modi is not as great a traveller as friends and foes imagine. In his first year as Prime Minister he visited 18 countries, which was below the average of 20.4 countries visited by heads of governments of major countries.

France’s Francois Hollande visited 27 countries during the year, Japan’s Shinzo Abe 26, Germany’s Angela Merkel and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma 22 each and Britain’s David Cameron and China’s Xi Jinping 19 each.

Modi took with him to Moscow some top industrialists. While he was there India and Russia signed 16 agreements covering vital areas like defence and energy.

One of the agreements provides for joint manufacture of military helicopters. It enlarges the area of military cooperation between the two countries which are already jointly producing ship-based supersonic Brahmos missiles.

Putin indicated they would soon work together on a multi-role jet fighter and transport aircraft too.

India and Russia developed a close relationship during the time of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev. It gradually evolved into a strategic partnership and was later elevated to the level of “special and privileged strategic partnership” in recognition of their multifaceted bilateral engagement.

Talking to the Russian agency Tass ahead of the visit, Modi traced the origin of Indo-Russian relations to the 17th century when Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent an emissary to the court of Moghul emperor Shah Jahan and Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin toured India.

Modi, who is pursuing India’s nuclear energy programme vigorously, may be pleased with the agreement under which Russia will build 12 atomic plants with the involvement of Indian companies. However, there is strong popular resistance to the expansion of nuclear facilities.

Modi’s visit has set the stage for expansion of Indo-Russian relations. Before leaving Moscow, he said, “India and Russia represent two faces of a multipolar world. We want to work with Russia not just for our bilateral interests but also for a peaceful, stable and sustainable world.

The opening of the parliament building in Kabul underscored India’s abiding interest in the future of war-torn Afghanistan.

It is no secret that Indian and Pakistani interests in Afghanistan are at variance. Some analysts have pointed out that by flying directly from Kabul to Nawaz Sherif’s hometown Lahore to personally greet him on his birthday he has helped to remove Pakistani misgivings about India’s Afghan policy.

India-Pakistan relations are once again warming up. There is no indication how the Pakistan army, which reputedly looks over Sherif’s shoulders, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Singh, which looks over Modi’s, view the two Prime Ministers’ attempt to fast-forward the political process. - Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 29, 2015

Change of master, not of system

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress which headed the government at the Centre longer than any other party had come under attack frequently on two grounds: misuse of the institution of Governors and misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation. One and a half years after Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power there is no sign of change in the situation. If anything, it is getting worse.

Arunachal Pradesh is facing an unprecedented situation with Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa colluding with a group of Congress rebels and the opposition BJP to oust Congress Chief Minister Nabam Tuki.

The bizarre development began with Rajkhowa, a retired bureaucrat, advancing the date of the State Assembly session on his own. Speaker Nabam Rebia suspended 14 rebel Congress members and locked the Assembly premises to prevent the session called by the Governor without the Cabinet’s recommendation.

The Congress rebels and the BJP members met at a community hall, with Deputy Speaker T Norbum Thongdok, who is one of the rebels, in the chair. The Deputy Speaker rescinded the suspension orders issued by the Speaker. Thereafter the rebel assembly adopted a resolution removing the Speaker.

The rebel assembly later voted to remove Chief Minister Tuki and installed dissident Congressman Kalikho Pul as his successor.

On a petition filed by Speaker Rebia, the Gauhati High Court ordered that all decisions of the rebel assembly be held in abeyance. The court will take up the petition for hearing on February 1, 2016.

The Congress party alleged that Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who belongs to Arunachal Pradesh, was behind the Governor’s unconstitutional acts. Denying the charge, Rijiju told a reporter that subversion of the Constitution was not in his blood.

Curiously, while admitting the Constitution was being subverted, Rijiju did not condemn it. He blamed the Congress for the situation.

The gubernatorial shenanigans did not attract much political and media attention as Arunachal Pradesh is a remote border state with a predominantly tribal population. A mischievous move by the CBI around the same time received more attention as the scene was Delhi.

While the UPA was in power, annoyed by the revelation that the CBI had made changes in an affidavit in a corruption case at the instance of a minister, a Supreme Court judge had dubbed the agency a caged parrot.

Responding to the criticism, CBI spokeswoman Dharini Mishra said, The CBI conducts all investigations in a free, fair and impartial manner as per the law. However, Vijay Shanker, who had headed the CBI from 2005 to 2008, admitted that the agency did come under political pressure.

The hollowness of the spokeswoman’s claim was exposed when the agency requested the Supreme Court to grant its Director the status of Government Secretary so as to free him from the government’s administrative and financial control.

The agency clarified that it was not seeking enhancement of its legal powers. Even if the Director was granted the powers of a Secretary, superintendence would vest in the Centre and the minister in charge would remain the final authority, it said.

The Supreme Court made a cursory attempt to secure a measure of professional autonomy for the agency. It sought the government’s views on a law to give the CBI functional autonomy and insulate its investigations against outside interference. The government rejected the idea of such a law.

Six months later, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance replaced the Congress-led UPA in office. The CBI now had a new master but the system remained unchanged.

Soon a change in the CBI’s tune was in evidence. In 2012, it had filed a charge-sheet implicating Amit Shah, who was Home Minister under Modi in Gujarat, along with some senior police officials in two cases of alleged fake encounters. On a petition by Shah, the trial court quashed the charge-sheet last year.

By then Shah had become the BJP’s president. The CBI, which had earlier claimed it had evidence against him, chose not to file an appeal.

Recently the CBI searched the office of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ostensibly in connection with a corruption case against his Secretary, Rajinder Kumar, an IAS officer.

Kejriwal, whose Aam Admi Party had trounced the BJP in the Delhi Assembly elections, said the agency was looking for information on movement of files relating to alleged corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association when BJP leader and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was its president.

If Kejriwal’s allegation is correct, the caged parrot may be turning into a hunting falcon. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 22, 2015

India-Pakistan talks are on again

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi confounded fans and foes alike when he got off the high horse he was riding and gave the nod for resumption of India-Pakistan talks and their elevation to the level of a “comprehensive bilateral dialogue”.

Modi had assumed office a year and a half ago in the presence of heads of governments of all South Asian nations, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, raising hopes of a new era of good neighbourliness in the region. Things went awry when he called off scheduled Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two countries in New Delhi to demonstrate his displeasure at the Pakistan High Commissioner’s confabulations with Kashmir’s dissident Hurriyat leaders.

Thereafter, falling back on the traditional Bharatiya Janata Party position, Modi insisted that the two sides should talk about terrorism first. A statement issued after Modi and Sharif met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Ufa, Russia, said National Security Advisers of the two countries would meet in New Delhi to discuss terrorism.

Sharif came under heavy attack at home for agreeing to a statement which did not mention Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan considers the core issue. Islamabad called off the meeting after India placed Hurriyat leaders under house arrest to prevent their travelling to New Delhi to meet Pakistan’s NSA, Sartaj Aziz.

With the two sides standing firm on publicly stated positions under domestic compulsions, an early end of the stalemate appeared unlikely. But, then, the NSAs met secretly at Bangkok, along with the Foreign Secretaries, on December 6 and announced they had discussed “peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir and other issues, including tranquillity along the line of control”.

The breakthrough followed an unscheduled meeting between Modi and Sharif, who were in Paris for the Climate summit. There they agreed on a formula which accommodated the wishes of both sides. The NSAs met and discussed terrorism and the Foreign Secretaries met and discussed Kashmir, and the stand-off ended.

One-upmanship has been an essential part of India-Pakistan relations in the recent past. Observers on both sides sought an answer to question as to who had blinked first.

Indian analysts were of the view that New Delhi showed more flexibility than Islamabad. A report quoted former Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh as saying India had given up the stand that it would only talk terrorism and nothing else. Modi wanted to take a tough line on terrorism and at the same time prove to the world that he was more pragmatic than dogmatic, and in the process he was sending confusing signals to the Indian public, he said.

Alluding to the way the BJP, while in the opposition, had obstructed efforts at normalisation of relations with Pakistan, former ambassador MK Bhadrakumar observed it was some natural justice that the party was forced to eat its own vomit, ironically, with Modi as the master of ceremonies.

Another former ambassador TP Sreenivasan wrote that Pakistan had won this round. Modi fans attacked him in the social media.

The fact is that Pakistan, too, took a step or two backward. It went back on the repeatedly articulated position that Kashmir is the primary issue and agreed to resumption of talks at the level of NSAs.

A host of factors, including some whose roots lie beyond the subcontinent, appears to have contributed to the softening of the attitudes of the Indian and Pakistani governments which made the breakthrough possible.Sushma Swaraj

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Islamabad on December 10 for the annual meeting of the 14-member Heart of Asia conference on regional cooperation in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad next year. Strained relationship with Pakistan does not bar Indian leaders from attending regional meetings held in that country, but it is sure to limit their interactions.

Observers believe the United States exerted pressure on India and Pakistan to start talking as good relations between the two countries is critical to its plans for Afghanistan.

Some link Islamabad’s changed stance also to the emergence of Army chief General Raheel Sharif as a key player in Pakistan’s foreign relations. An army officer close to him, Lt-Gen Nasir Khan Janjua, replaced Sartaj Aziz as NSA recently.

While resumption of dialogue is a welcome development, optimism over its outcome has to be tempered by the fact that the peace process is in the hands of security experts with limited diplomatic experience.-Gulf Today, December 15, 2015.

Tragedies waiting to happen

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

It was a tragedy waiting to happen. A torrential downpour, the heaviest in a century, submerged large areas of India’s fourth largest city, Chennai (formerly Madras), a week ago, snapping power and water supply as well as transport and communication facilities.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that Chennai has become an island,” Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament. After an aerial survey of the flooded city, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the devastation pained him and announced a relief package of Rs10 billion in addition to Rs9.40 billion sanctioned earlier.

The city, with a population of nine million, had received 490 mm of rain on December 1. Low-lying areas were inundated and hundreds of thousands of poor rendered homeless. As swelling lakes and rivers breached their banks, floodwaters rose up to the second floor of apartment buildings in newly developed suburbs, trapping an equally large number of flat-dwellers.

At least 325 persons died and about 1,000 were seriously injured.

In mid-October, a month before the northeast monsoon set in, the Meteorological department had forecast unprecedented rainfall this season. If the authorities had immediately cleaned up the clogged drains the flood might not have been so severe.

Not that the devastation was avoidable. Its primary cause was not the clogged drains but the unregulated and unscientific urban development of the recent past.

Chennai is the country’s fastest growing urban agglomeration. During 2001-2011, it recorded a growth of 32.5 per cent, as against 20.3 per cent during the previous decade. The three larger cities had witnessed a decline in the growth rate during the period: Mumbai’s fell from 30.5 per cent to 12.1 per cent, Delhi’s from 52.2 per cent to 26.7 per cent and Kolkata’s from 19.6 per cent to 7.0 per cent.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar blamed the deluge on global warming caused by the industrial activity of the developed world over the past century and a half. Environmental activists said the role of climate change was yet to be established through studies but there was enough material to establish the role of unplanned urban development.

Sunita Narain, Director-General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), pointed out that intense construction activity had destroyed water bodies in all cities, including Chennai. Professor Saswat Bandopadhyay of the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, attributed the devastation to “complete disrespect of basic urban planning and hydrological cycle”.

Chennai had become an information technology hub at the turn of the century. The rapid expansion that followed led to fourfold growth of the city area. According to the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, built-up and paved areas increased from 29.5 per cent in 1991 to 64.4 per cent in 2013, resulting in drastic curtailment of open areas. The city with 2,847 km of road has only 855 km of stormwater drain.

A CSE study found that only a fraction of the more than 600 water bodies which existed in 1980 were in a healthy condition in 2008. The area of 19 major lakes shrank from 1,130 hectares to 645 hectares during the period. The drains that carried surplus water from tanks to wetlands were encroached upon.

Builders find it easy to get around legal restrictions. City officials identified more than 150,000 illegal structures during a survey but there was no action.

The state itself is guilty of ignoring environmental regulations. Some important institutions stand on marshlands which were allotted to them by the government. The extended runway of the Chennai airport, the country’s fourth busiest, traverses the Adyar river.

In the last decade the country has witnessed several disasters which are rude reminders of the dangers of unregulated development. However, there has been no effective measure to prevent such tragedies.

About 500 persons died in Mumbai in July 2005 in the deluge caused by heavy rainfall. Following this, the authorities drew up a plan to widen drains, clean waterways and build pumping stations. It is yet to be implemented.

More than 5,700 people were presumed dead in floods and landslides in Uttarakhand after a cloudburst in 2013. A Utah State University study team linked the heavy precipitation to climate change.

Environmentalists said the heavy loss of lives and property was the result of obstruction to flow of water caused by debris left after construction of dams upstream and of mushrooming of resorts in the Himalayan pilgrim centres.

Last year floods in Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, took a toll of more than 200 lives.

The authorities have failed to rethink policies despite recurrent disasters. What’s worse, they are ready to relax the rules further to speed up developmental activity.

With the Centre planning to build 100 “smart” cities across the country, environmentalists fear more tragedies are waiting to happen. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 8, 2015.

Modi in tactical mode

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Parliament, which could not transact much business at its sessions earlier this year due to the acute hostility between the government and the opposition, began its winter session last week with both sides coming together to hail the Constitution and pay homage to its chief architect, BR Ambedkar.

The occasion was a two-in-one celebration: the 66th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, and the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, who rose from the ranks of the so-called untouchables to be revered by the nation as the Father of the Constitution.

The debate revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the National Democratic Alliance government, is trapped in the inherent contradiction between the core constitutional values, which it is sworn to uphold as the ruling party, and the Hindu Rashtra (nation) concept of its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In an attempt to dispel doubts about his party’s commitment to the constitutional ideals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the nation would only be run according to the Constitution. India was a diverse nation, and the sanctity of the Constitution which bound together all the citizens had to be maintained, he said.

He alluded to the bitter controversies in which the ruling front and the opposition parties are involved and made a pointed reference to the way the great leaders of an earlier era had worked together to frame the Constitution.

Waving an olive branch to the opposition, which has stalled his reform programmes in Parliament, Modi offered to address its concerns. “The government is ready to debate all issues,” he said.

Modi made no reference to the bitter national debate on the issue of growing intolerance, which assumed ugly proportions when Hindutva hordes began hounding celebrated film star Amir Khan who had spoken of the growing sense of fear, insecurity and despondency in the country and disclosed that his wife, film-maker Kiran Rao, a Hindu, had wondered whether the family should think of re-locating elsewhere.

He said they should focus on how the Constitution could help the Dalits, the marginalised and the poor. This appeared to be an image makeover attempt, prompted by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s refrain that he was anti-Dalit and anti-poor.

Modi, who habitually adopts a highly partisan tone, tried to sound statesmanlike, but there was no condemnation of the scattered acts of violence by Hindutva elements across the country and the public statements by governors, central and state ministers and MPs which run counter to the ideals of the Constitution.

Two quick steps that followed conveyed the impression that the government may be willing to turn a new leaf. One was the decision to accept the opposition demand for a debate in Parliament on the issue of growing intolerance. The other was Modi’s invitation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for talks to sort out the differences on the Goods and Services Tax Bill, a reform measure which the opposition has held up in the upper house of Parliament in which the NDA is in a minority.

However, it soon became evident that Modi’s new stance is tactical and does not signify any change in the government’s basic approach.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who spoke immediately after him, reiterated the BJP’s traditional positions on several issues.

He said secularism was a much misused word and claimed its misuse was creating problems in ensuring social harmony. Secularism should mean not neutrality towards religions but neutrality towards sects, he added.

This was a throwback to the position articulated by the RSS all along, which equates Hinduism with India and treats other faiths as sects.

Both Modi and Rajnath Singh, in their speeches, recalled that Ambedkar, who, as a Dalit, had suffered much humiliation in his lifetime had harboured no grudge against the country. They both conveniently ignored the fact that shortly before his death he had left the caste-ridden Hindu fold and embraced Buddhism.

The BJP’s new-found love for Ambedkar is suspect. Ambedkar’s legacy was almost forgotten by all but the Dalits, who look upon him as their liberator, until the VP Singh government (1989-1990), organised nationwide celebrations to mark his birth centenary and bestowed on him the nation’s highest honour, Bharat Ratna, posthumously. A few years later, Arun Shourie, who was a minister in the first BJP-led government, wrote a whole book to denigrate him.

In the book, titled “Worshipping False God: Ambedkar and the Facts that have been Erased”, Shourie portrayed him as a self-centred, unpatriotic, power-hungry, anti-national and a stooge of the British. He even sought to belittle Ambedkar’s contribution as the chairman of the committee that drafted the Constitution. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 1, 2015.

Regrouping to face Modi

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Early intimations of a grand alliance at the national level to check the advancing Hindutva forces, which pose a threat to secularism and democracy, were visible when leaders of political parties of varying hues gathered in Bihar’s capital, Patna, last week for the swearing-in of Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister.

Nitish Kumar had taken oath as the Chief Minister four times previously – twice as leader of the Samata Party and twice as leader of the Janata Dal (United). But this was the first time that leaders of many national and regional parties and chief ministers of many states were at hand to greet him.

In the recent Assembly elections, Nitish Kumar had led a grand alliance, comprising his JD(U) and his long-time rival Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal as equal partners and the Congress party as an add-on, to a sensational victory, dashing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to bring the state under the Bharatiya Janata Party.

That gave Nitish Kumar a national stature high enough to make him a possible future Prime Minister. Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, who was in Patna, said, “Nitishji should now get ready to move to Delhi as the next Prime Minister.”

The Congress was represented at the swearing-in ceremony by President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. The party also ensured the presence of all its Chief Ministers to underscore the importance it attaches to the coalition experiment in Bihar.

Other Chief Ministers present included Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party had inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP in this year’s Assembly elections, and West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress brought to an end more than three decades of Left rule in her state.

Other present included former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular), former Union Minister Sharad Pawar (National Congress Party), former Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.

To avoid the impression that the swearing-in had been turned into an anti-BJP jamboree, Nitish Kumar extended an invitation to Narendra Modi too. Since he was leaving on a scheduled foreign tour, Modi deputed two of his Cabinet colleagues to attend the ceremony.

The way Modi stormed into Delhi last year, pulverising the Congress party and the corruption-hit United Progressive Alliance government it headed, the popular impression was that he and the BJP were well set for a long innings. That impression was strengthened when, in state after state, Modi personally led the BJP’s campaign and led it to victory.

Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav having blown up the myth of Modi’s invincibility, the opposition, as a whole, has regained self-confidence and is getting ready to offer a stiff challenge to the BJP at both national and state levels.

But there are many hurdles to cross before a grand alliance at the national level can emerge. The two tallest leaders of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s largest state, Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party is in power in the state, and former Chief Minister Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, were conspicuously absent at the Patna event.

Assembly elections in West Bengal and Assam in the east and Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the south are due next year. The BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are already busy evolving suitable strategies to enlarge the party’s presence in these states where Hindutva elements are weak.

In Assam, the BJP did well in the Lok Sabha election, campaigning on the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh. It can be expected to milk the issue again in the Assembly elections.

In West Bengal and Kerala, the BJP is pinning its hopes on sections disillusioned with the Left parties. There are indications that some of their “upper caste” supporters may be willing to switch allegiance to the BJP. The political traditions of the two states rule out the possibility of a secular front to stop the BJP’s advance.

In the recent local body elections in Kerala, the BJP made big advances, especially in the urban areas, raising hopes in its ranks that it may be able to establish its presence in the Assembly in the next elections. RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat was in the state recently to energise cadres.

Politics in Tamil Nadu revolves round two Dravidian parties. The BJP may not find it easy to work out a respectable deal with either of them but smaller regional parties will be happy to do business with it.

To get a fair idea of the line-up ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections we have to await the outcome of the UP Assembly elections of 2017 which will witness a confrontation between the BJP and the non-BJP parties. - Gulf Today, November 24, 2015

Wrong way to fight communalism

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Karnataka’s Congress Chief Minister S Siddaramaiah has just shown how not to fight communalism. His decision to celebrate the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of Mysore, holding him up as a secular hero, provided Hindutva elements in the state, whom his party had defeated in the Assembly elections two years ago, an opportunity to whip up communal sentiments.

Tipu was the theme of the Karnataka government’s float at this year’s Republic Day parade in New Delhi. It provoked some protests in the state but was well received in the national capital. This encouraged Siddaramaiah to organise state-level celebrations to mark his 265th birthday.

Tipu, who came to be known as the Tiger of Mysore, inherited the kingdom from his father Hydar Ali, an army commander who seized power as the Wodayar dynasty’s hold weakened. The father and the son enlarged the kingdom, and posed a challenge to expanding British colonialism. The British fought four wars against them. They killed Tipu in 1799 and reinstalled the Wodayars, who ruled thereafter under British protection.

While launching the Indian National Army’s campaign against the British and allied forces during World War II, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose identified Tipu as an early freedom fighter who had taken up arms against the British, like Tantia Tope and Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi.

Tipu was the only Indian ruler of the time who never sought British protection. Impressed with his prowess as a military leader, Napoleon had sought an alliance with him in the fight against the British.

The British hated Tipu intensely. They took delight in naming their dogs after him. Many Indians named their dogs Tiger.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, while campaigning for the creation of Pakistan, once said that Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent had a common history but their heroes were different. The Hindutva school has proved him right. From the history books they have fashioned Hindu heroes like Maratha ruler Shivaji and Muslim villains like Moghul emperor Aurangazeb and Tipu Sultan.

Siddaramaiah invited leaders of all political parties and leading intellectuals to the Tipu birthday celebrations. The Bharatiya Janaa Party boycotted them. Its Hindutva associates organised violent protests, leading to three deaths. They said Tipu was a tyrant who committed atrocities against the Hindus.

Led by eminent litterateur Girish Karnad, writers and academics participated in the celebrations. Karnad described Tipu as the greatest Kannadiga of the last 500 years. If Tipu were a Hindu he would have enjoyed the same status as Shivaji, he said.

Shivaji, who carved out an empire by snatching areas from the declining Moghul power, is today revered as a Hindu icon and a Maratha hero. However, in his time, he had difficulty finding Brahmin priests to anoint him as emperor because he was born in a supposedly low caste.

Interestingly, Hindutva ideologues, who accuse British historians of manufacturing events like Aryan invasion to divide the people of India, have no qualms about accepting their accounts of Tipu’s atrocities.

Hindu or Muslim, no medieval ruler was a respecter of human values and virtues, particularly in times of war. However, guided by sectarian considerations, Hindutva propagandists pick and choose from historical accounts and glorify one and demonise the other.

In the public dominion there is plenty of material to establish that Tipu was not the bigot Hindutva campaigners make him out to be. According to one document, he had granted tax exemption to the Sringeri Mutt, one of four religious establishments set up in the ninth century in different parts of India by Sankaracharya, who is given credit for the Hindu advance after the decline of Buddhism.

When the Maratha army ransacked the mutt, its head appealed to Tipu for help and he responded by releasing gold and paddy to meet the cost of its restoration. He also made a personal gift of ornate costumes for Sarada, the goddess of learning.

Facts will not deter the Hindutva elements from pursuing their project of falsifying history with a view to promoting their communal interests. Their efforts need to be countered but the task is best left to unofficial agencies, particularly academic bodies – unless there are law and order issues.

Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP has been in power. During the five years it was in power, it tried out three Chief Ministers, all of whom were failures. This helped the Congress to regain power in 2013.

Studies have shown that the BJP benefits from communal polarisation. Secular parties and governments under their control must, therefore, take care not to give Hindutva forces the opportunity to stir the communal cauldron. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 17, 2015

Bihar rolls back Hindutva

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

By registering a convincing victory in the Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland state of Bihar, a “mahagatbandhan” (grand alliance) led by Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has shown that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindutva bandwagon is not unstoppable.

In the hard-fought elections, the alliance, which includes former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress party, bagged a total of 178 seats in the 243-member Assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party ended up with only 53 seats, which was less than its pre-Modi tally.

As is his wont, Modi had personally led the BJP’s election campaigns, with his lieutenant and party president Amit Shah by his side. He made several trips to the state and addressed more than 30 rallies. Divisive and communally sensitive issues like cow slaughter and reservations, which Hindutva elements raked up, resonated in the state. Shah added grist to the communal mill by declaring crackers would go up in Pakistan if the BJP lost. 

The grand alliance was the result of the decision of the JD (U) and the RJD, traditional rivals in the state’s politics, to form a secular front to check the advancing Hindutva forces. The Congress joined it as a junior partner. 

The alliance partners readily accepted Nitish Kumar, who acquired a good image as an administrator over the past 10 years, as their chief ministerial candidate.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is a man of ambition, was in no position to offer himself as a candidate as he is currently disqualified from contesting elections, following his conviction in a corruption case.

The voting figures reveal there was a consolidation of secular forces behind the grand alliance. The Communist Party of India, the CPI (Marxist) and the Samajwadi Party, which formed a separate secular front, failed to make an impact.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi, a three-time Member of Parliament from Hyderabad, set up a few candidates in the Muslim strongholds in pursuance of its plan to extend its activities across the country. It came a cropper as the bulk of the Muslim voters rallied behind the secular parties.

Modi had come to power at the Centre last year in circumstances which created an impression that his Hindutva bandwagon was unstoppable. That feeling strengthened as he led his party to success in one state after another until Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party stopped the victorious march in the Delhi state elections. No firm conclusions could be drawn from the Delhi experience since it is a small, almost entirely urban state, unlike any other. 

The rolling back of Hindutva forces in one of the backward Hindi states is significant for more than one reason. It shows that Modi is not the invincible hero that his admirers imagine him to be. It shows that secular forces have the inherent strength to roll back the Hindutva forces he is riding.

The Hindutva forces had been kept at bay by the administration and the Congress party which led it during the communal riots of the Partition period. They made headway in the recent past primarily due to a weakening of the secular forces’ resolve to check them on account of mistaken electoral considerations.

A question that naturally now is whether Bihar can be repeated elsewhere. Ground conditions differ from state to state. Conditions in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where Assembly elections are due next year, offer a variegated scenario. It may, therefore, be necessary to evolve suitable alternative strategies.

The BJP had no significant presence in these states at the time of the last Assembly elections. However, it was able to bag seven of Assam’s 12 Lok Sabha seats, capitalising on the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

The political traditions of West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had blocked the BJP’s efforts to build a Hindu vote bank until now. However, in the recent elections to local bodies, the party was able to make inroads at the cost of the Congress in several parts of Kerala, including the state capital.

The BJP secured a parliamentary majority on its own last year with its impressive victories in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together account for 120 Lok Sabha seats. Assembly elections are due in UP in 2017. Ground conditions there are comparable to those of Bihar. However, the Bihar experience can be repeated only if Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, leaders of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party respectively, sink their differences and work together as Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav did. --Gulf Todayy, Sharjah, November 10, 2015.

Befriending Africa again

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

In what has been described as India’s biggest diplomatic outreach to Africa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi played host to governmental leaders from more than 50 countries, 41 of them heads of state or governments, in the last week of October.

The occasion was the third Africa-India Forum Summit. The two previous summits were small affairs as the African Union had limited the number of participants to a maximum of 15. With the ceiling off, India went all out to ensure the widest participation in the five-day meet.

Libya was the only African country which was unrepresented. It was not invited as it was in turmoil when the preparations began and there was no effective government to deal with.

In the one and a half years he has been in office, Modi has visited many countries, big and small. One of the objectives of his foreign travels has been to enlist the support of UN members for reform of the world body, giving India a place in an expanded Security Council. In his address to the summit, he pointed out that India and Africa, which together account for a third of the world’s population, do not have adequate say in the powerful Security Council.

Animated by a clear vision of world history, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had placed great emphasis on development of close relations with all Asian and African countries. Most of them were still under colonial rule at the time, and he vigorously championed the cause of their freedom.

Even before Independence, as head of the interim government set up by the departing colonial regime, Nehru convened an Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi. He was also the prime mover behind the Afro-Asian Conference held at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1956. As they became free, almost all the countries of the two continents joined India, Egypt and Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement.

Nehru instituted a scholarship scheme for African students. By the 1960s, the beneficiaries of the scheme were in influential positions in several newly independent countries of the continent. The scheme is still in place, and it brings about 22,000 African students to India each year.

The ties with Africa weakened in the 1990s as the Indian government embarked upon economic liberalisation and rearranged its priorities. By 2000, China, which had prospered after it switched to market economy, stepped in to fill the breach.

Modi, who has a pathological aversion to the memory of Nehru, who had held Hindutva forces at bay during the communally charged days of Partition, avoided mention of his name in his prepared address, which listed six African winners of the Nobel Prize. Much to his discomfiture, several African leaders, in their speeches, made warm references to Nehru and Indira Gandhi and their contributions to Africa’s cause. “The Prime Minister listened, then swivelled back and forth on his chair and finally left for bilateral meetings,” wrote one correspondent.

To express their displeasure at Modi’s insult to Nehru’s memory, Congressmen stayed away from the dinner he hosted for the African leaders. South African President Jacob Zuma set aside protocol and drove to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s residence to meet her.

Such irritants notwithstanding, the summit carried forward the effort to put India’s relations with Africa on a firm footing once again, initiated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 2008 summit. On that occasion he offered a line of credit of $5.4 billion. At the next summit in 2011, he added $5 billion more to it. Also, India wrote off the debts of Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Modi followed it up with an offer of $10 billion in concessional credit over the next five years and $600 million by way of fresh grants. While this is a step forward, much more needs to be done to improve economic relations and to regain the high standing India once had in Africa.

China had replaced the United States as Africa’s largest partner in 2009 and its trade with the continent now stands at $222 billion. India’s trade with Africa, which was only $1 billion in 1995, has grown to $71.5 billion. There is clearly vast scope for further improvement.

The summit showed that the enormous goodwill generated by India’s support to the liberation struggles is still intact. This offers a firm basis for expanding cooperation in varied fields as envisaged in the India Africa Framework for Strategic Cooperation which was drawn up during the summit and the Delhi Declaration which was adopted at the end of it. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 3, 2015.