Another scandal playing out

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

 

The raging controversy over the Agusta Westland bribery brings to mind the Bofors scandal which reverberated in India’s political space for a quarter century before petering out with the bribe-takers getting away unpunished.

The Bofors case related to a 1986 contract for the purchase of 410 field guns for the army from Sweden for $825 million. The Swedish radio reported that the company had bribed Indian politicians to get the contract.

The Agusta Westland case relates to a 2010 contract under which the British subsidiary of the Italy’s Finmeccanica was to supply 12 helicopters for the air force’s VVIP squadron for Rs35.46 billion. Italian investigators said the company had paid commissions to three middlemen and bribed the then Indian Air Force chief SK Tyagi through his cousins to clinch the deal.

The Bofors scandal brought down Rajiv Gandhi’s government. The Central Bureau of Investigation which probed the matter registered a case in which Rajiv Gandhi, Bofors chief executive Martin Ardbo and Ottavio Quattrochhi, an Italian businessman and friend of the Gandhi family, figured among the accused. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated and the others died of natural causes without facing trial.

In the Agusta Westland corruption case, Italian prosecutors cited Air Chief Marshal Tyagi as an accused in a Milan court along with Finmeccanica chief executive Giuseppe Orsi, former AW head Bruno Spagnolini and three middlemen.

The trial court acquitted Tyagi, who was tried in absentia, of all charges. Orsi and Spagnolini were acquitted of charges of “international corruption” but were given two years in jail for “false invoicing”.

Last month the appeals court overturned that judgment. It held Orsi and Spagnolini guilty of bribery and indicted Tyagi as a beneficiary of corruption.

When word of the Italian prosecution came AK Antony, Defence Minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, ordered an Indian investigation. By then India had received three helicopters and paid Rs16.20 billion. Further payments were frozen and the money already paid was recovered by encashing the bank guarantees the company had provided.

In March 2013 the CBI filed a first information report and began investigation. The FIR named the Italian company, its UK subsidiary, two Indian companies which were believed to have been used as conduits for payment, Tyagi, who had retired by then, and three cousins of his, among others. Simultaneously the Enforcement Directorate started a probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In May 2014 the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government under Narendra Modi took office. The two investigations made little progress even after the change of government.

Following the Milan appeal court verdict, the investigations have come to life again.

Seventeen cops headed the CBI while it probed the Bofors scandal. One of them claimed in his autobiography that Rajiv Gandhi had told him he wanted defence deal commissions to be used to meet the Congress party’s expenses.

Like the Bofors case, the Agusta Westland deal too has an Italian angle, and that comes in handy for political rivals to embarrass the Congress, which has an Italian-born president in Sonia Gandhi. Bits of information embarrassing to the Modi government and the Indian media have also come to light.

In a letter to an international tribunal James Christian Michel, one of the middlemen, alleged that Modi, in a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi during the last UN General Assembly session, offered to free the two Italian marines facing murder charges in India in exchange for evidence against Sonia Gandhi in the helicopter deal.

The External Affairs Ministry and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry rebutted the allegations in statements which are studies in prevarication. The former said there was no Modi-Renzi meeting “as part of bilateral meetings” during the UN session and the latter said Modi did not “cut any deal” with Renzi.

Michel had said the Prime Ministers had a “brush-by meeting”, not a scheduled bilateral meeting. He had said Modi had offered a deal, not that he had cut a deal.

According to a Milan court document, Agusta Westland had paid Euro 6 million to Michel to manage the Indian media. The beneficiaries of the pay-out remain unnamed.

The Congress party has alleged that Tyagi was associated with Modi’s Principal Secretary Nripendra Mishra and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in the Vivekananda International Foundation, a pro-Hindutva think tank.

Recalling the Bofors experience 25 years later, Chitra Subramaniam, a journalist who investigated clandestine payments in that case, said, “It showed us how every political party sought to protect its space without thinking of us as a nation.” That story is being played out again. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 3, 2016.

Waiting for climate justice

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A heat wave was sweeping large parts of India as Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar joined leaders from 174 other countries at the United Nations headquarters on Earth Day to sign the historic Paris Climate Agreement.

India has lived with the vagaries of nature throughout history. There are changes in the established weather pattern from time to time, resulting in drought or floods. They cause large-scale suffering, and are seen as natural calamities or acts of God.

Last year, as the country experienced a heat wave, Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan said, “This is not an unusually hot summer. This is climate change.”

That heat wave, the fifth worst in recorded history, took a toll of 2,422 lives, the highest in more than two decades. This year the heat spell started early, and this month appears set to become the cruellest April in living memory. The worst of summer is still ahead.

Last week the Centre informed the Supreme Court, which is looking into a complaint about the inadequacy of relief measures, that 256 of the country’s 675 revenue districts, have been declared drought-affected and 330 million out of the total population of 1.21 billion live there.

It is the state government that notifies a district as drought-hit and it has the responsibility to take measures to relieve the people’s distress. But it has to look up to the Centre for funds for the purpose.

Scientific management of drought, which is a major cause of failure of crops and ruin of farmers’ lives, is comparatively new. It was only in 2010 that the National Disaster Management Authority, set up under a 2005 law, formulated guidelines to facilitate coordinated response to drought.

According to NDMA, there has been no increase in the incidence of droughts over the last two centuries but their severity appears to have increased. Water is being overexploited. In the absence of effective rain harvesting, groundwater replenishment is limited.

The NDMA guidelines called for a shift in public policy from drought relief to drought preparedness and mitigation measures such as integrated soil and water management. They also envisaged drought-proofing measures before the planting of crop and drought management while it is growing.

The magnitude of the current drought suggests that the guidelines have not been implemented properly or that they have proved inadequate. The worst sufferers are the marginal farmers who number about 200 million. They own less than two acres each but have to borrow heavily to meet the cost of cultivation. Crop failure lands them in deep trouble and often leads them to suicide.

A report of 2014 put the number of farmers who had taken their lives since 1995 at 296,438. Last year 3,228 farmers were reported to have committed suicide in Maharashtra state, which was in the grip of a severe drought.

Statistical data indicate that some regions are drought-prone. The probability of drought is once in two years for western Rajasthan, once in two and a half years for Tamil Nadu and Telengana, once in three years for Gujarat, eastern Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh, and once in four years for south interior Karnataka, eastern UP and the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Assam is in a happy position with the probability of drought as low as once in 15 years.

Climate change, of course, is an issue which goes far beyond the havoc caused by drought and floods. At Paris, India made a commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 35 per cent and augment its non-fossil fuel power generation by 40 per cent. It also agreed to undertake massive tree planting to absorb 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Indian businessman Anand Mahindra, who spoke on behalf of global capital at the climate agreement signing ceremony, said the Paris pact provided the corporates with the opportunity to visibly integrate their interests with those of the planet’s future. “We have contributed to the problem and it is up to us to help mitigate it,” he added.

There has been a sharp deterioration in the situation in India in the last two years but the Central and state governments are yet to take effective measures to help people in distress. An estimated 250,000 people have migrated from the Latur area of Maharashtra, which is experiencing water shortage.

Climate justice, on which the Paris agreement lays stress, will elude India unless the Centre moderates its policies which have made agriculture an uneconomical activity and industry a destroyer of the environment. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, April 26, 2016.

New strategic equations

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

What does the agreement “in principle” between India and the United States on a logistic exchange deal, announced at the end of talks between defence ministers of the two countries in New Delhi earlier this month, signify?

Ahead of his visit, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter invested his mission with special importance by declaring the US had a “whole global agenda” with India covering all issues, while its relationship with Pakistan had to do with only issues of terrorism and Afghanistan.

Speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations a few days earlier, he had claimed there was a remarkable convergence of US and Indian interests in recent years, leading to a strategic handshake. It was reflected in the 2015 Framework for the US-India Defence Relationship and in the Obama-Modi Joint Strategic Vision Statement of last January, he said.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar explained that under the proposed Logistic Support Agreement India and the US would provide logistic and other support to each other when needed. He cited the humanitarian exercise undertaken during the Nepal earthquake as an example of such a contingency. Actually the agreement goes further and envisages the militaries of the two countries using each other’s assets and bases.

Both Carter and Parrikar said the agreement would not entail deployment of American soldiers on Indian soil. However, in an interview to an Indian news channel, Carter had earlier indicated it could provide for deployment of US forces under certain conditions but only at the invitation of the Indian government.

The logistic support agreement was first mooted by the US 12 years ago. Discussions on the subject made little progress as AK Antony, who was Defence Minister in the Manmohan Singh government, did not favour it.

Criticising the Narendra Modi government’s decision to go ahead with it, Antony said it was “the beginning of the end of the independence of India’s foreign policy and strategic autonomy.”

Antony’s alarmist view may be a hangover of Non-alignment as practised in a bipolar world. The emerging global scenario calls for new strategic concepts. India is, in fact, seeking new strategic equations with many countries, including China.

Carter’s India visit was part of a two-week tour to boost the Obama administration’s policy of “Asia Pacific rebalance” which aims at safeguarding US political and economic interests in the context of the eastward shift in the global power balance. His final halt was the Philippines, which was once a US colony and has been aligned with it militarily since gaining Independence. The China factor in the US rebalance found direct expression in Carter’s statements there.

“Countries across the Asia Pacific are voicing concern with China’s land reclamation, which stands out in size and scope, as well as its militarisation in the South China Sea,” he said. “They are voicing those concerns publicly and privately, at the highest levels, in regional meetings and global fora.”

Philippines Defence Minister Voltaire Gazminn said US presence in the region would deter uncalled for actions by the Chinese.

Their remarks did not amuse China. It accused the US of sabotaging peace and stability in the region.

This was in sharp contrast to its muted response to India’s LSA decision. Asked about the reports from Delhi, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said India was an influential country with an independent foreign policy based on its own interests.

When India joined the US and Japan in military exercises last October, the Chinese Communist Party’s English newspaper Global Times had cautioned against getting roped into an anti-China camp.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no doubt keen to enhance India’s strategic relationship with the US. At the same time he understands there is also a need to preserve the time-tested relationships and to cultivate new ones in the light of emerging geopolitical realities.

With the best of will Modi will find it hard to go the whole hog with the US in realising its five objectives which Carter had spelt out in his speech at the Council of Foreign Relations, namely countering the prospect of Russian aggression, managing China’s rise, strengthening US deterrent against North Korea, checking Iranian influence in the Gulf and accelerating the defeat of Daesh (Islamic State).

At the weekend External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was in Tehran to cement India’s traditional relations with Iran, after which she was to go to Moscow for the Russia-India-China trilateral. Defence Minister Parrikar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval were packing their bags for visits to China, also for strategic dialogues.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, April 19, 2016.

Recycling of hidden money

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Another black money chase has begun with the leaked Panama Papers revealing the names of more than 500 Indians linked to companies registered in tax havens.

It is widely believed that corrupt politicians and bureaucrats hold black money abroad but these documents contain no big names from these categories. The only politician named in them is Anurag Kejriwal, who was President of the Delhi unit of the small Lok Satta Party, founded by former bureaucrat Jayaprakash Narayan, until his expulsion two years ago.

This does not necessarily mean the politicians are a better lot than the public imagine. The Panama Papers came from just one of the many firms facilitating offshore accounts.

The best known names in the papers are those of Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter-in-law and former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai, a star in her own right.

Bachchan claimed someone might have misused his name. Aishwarya Rai’s media advisor told the Indian Express, which was involved in the global media investigation of the leaked papers, that the information was false.

The Indian Express said the documents showed that Rai, her father, mother and brother were appointed directors of a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2005. Her status was later changed from director to shareholder. Still later the name was shortened to A. Rai “for reasons of confidentiality”.

Most of the persons are businessmen. The big ones include Samir Gehlot of India Bulls and KP Singh of DLF, both of whom are realtors, and Vinod Adani, elder brother of Gautam Adani, who reportedly looks after the Adanis’s foreign operations. Shishir Kumar Bajoria, a Kolkata industrialist who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after being associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for many years, also figures in the list.

The businessmen whom the Indian Express contacted said they were not involved in any illegal activity. They may well be telling the truth, for the laws of the land permit Indians to own companies and park money abroad in accordance with guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

Some of the offshore company owners are Non-Resident Indians who are not subject to Indian regulations. Under the RBI’s remittance scheme, drawn up to help service overseas requirements for purposes of education and medical treatment, as it now stands, even a Resident Indian can put in up to $250,000 a year in 100 per cent subsidiaries and joint ventures.

As soon as the Panama Papers came to light, former Supreme Court judge MB Shah, who heads a special investigation team on black money constituted by the government in 2014, asked it to ascertain if the Indians’ offshore activities were in accordance with the RBI guidelines.

If they acted with the RBI’s permission, it was legal, Justice Shah said. Otherwise action could be taken. The process would take time.

According to media reports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not want the Shah team to go into this matter as it lacks expertise to deal with the complex modus operandi of offshore operators. He asked a team comprising officials from different agencies to probe the matter and give him a preliminary report within 15 days.

In his 2014 election campaign, Modi had repeatedly lambasted the Manmohan Singh government for not taking steps to bring back the black money hoarded abroad and declared he would bring it all back within 100 days if he became the Prime Minister. The Opposition has been taunting him since the expiry of the deadline.

Not that the Modi government has done nothing. Last year it passed a law to give black money holders an opportunity to come clean, paying taxes. Some 644 persons, mostly IT professionals, doctors and small businessmen, revealed concealed income of Rs 41.64 billion and paid Rs 24.28 billion in tax and penalties. A second tax compliance scheme is planned for this year.

Some estimates put Indians’ illegal foreign holdings at $1 trillion. Few expect the big operators to respond to tax compliance schemes since they seem to be able to send black money abroad and bring it back laundered when needed.

One analyst wrote recently that black money is no longer static. It moves on the click of a mouse to chase better returns.

According to former Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman R Prasad, scam money sent abroad was coming back through routes such as foreign direct investment, foreign institutional investment and fake exports. The fact that about two-thirds of the foreign investments of the last 15 months came from small countries like Mauritius, Singapore, Cayman Islands and Cyprus appears to bear this out.

Collapse of an institution

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress, which was pushed down to the second position by Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 parliamentary poll and is now facing a fresh electoral test in four states, suffered a major setback during weekend even before the first vote was cast.

In Kerala, one of the states going to the polls, the party’s central leadership collapsed in the face of the obduracy of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, a well-established faction leader.

Factionalism has been a bane of the Congress since before Independence and remains a serious problem as the party struggles for survival. In most states, there are rival leaders who are constantly involved in group warfare but are held together by their common allegiance to the Gandhi family.

Election time usually witnesses an aggravation of party feuds. The issues are settled by the central leadership, widely referred to as the High Command. Since Indira Gandhi crushed the powerful state party chiefs who had combined and posed a threat to her, the term has come to signify the dynastic leadership.

Of the four states going to the polls, it is in Assam alone that the BJP has high hopes. There the Congress is relying upon the personal popularity of Tarun Gogoi, who has been Chief Minister for 15 years. The High Command began efforts to contain factionalism months ago.

Among the factors the BJP is banking on are the anti-incumbency factor and the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh, which it has been playing up for long at the national level.

In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where regional parties are in power and the Congress has but a small presence, the High Command intervened directly to forge alliances with the more powerful opposition forces.

The main fight in Tamil Nadu is between Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. As the High Command’s emissary, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, flew to Chennai and made a deal with Karunanidhi.

The Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist reached an informal understanding in West Bengal to join hands against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

A former Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee broke away from the party and floated the Trinamool Congress in 1997. It soon replaced the parent body as the CPI-M’s main rival in the state. In the 2011 Assembly elections, she led her party to victory, bringing to an end more than three decades of unbroken rule by the CPI-M-led Left Front.

The Congress, a minor ally of the Trinamool Congress in 2011, is now the Left Front’s junior partner. The CPI-M’s central leadership gave the nod for the understanding with the Congress in the state, overruling the opposition of its Kerala unit, which was worried about its likely impact in Kerala.

The Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI-led Left Democratic Front have been alternating in power in Kerala for more than three decades. Even as the LDF is hoping to return to power benefiting by the scandals that has rocked the current UDF government, Oommen Chandy is making a daring bid for an unprecedented second successive term.

For decades, Congress politics in Kerala revolved around K Karunakaran and AK Antony, who pulled each other down when the UDF was in power. When Antony moved to the national arena Oommen Chandy inherited his “A” group. After Karunakaran’s death, Ramesh Chennithala, one of his former followers, revived his “I” group, named after Indira Gandhi.

Oommen Chandy as Chief Minister and Ramesh Chennithala, first as state Congress chief and then as Home Minister, established a diarchy in the party. When Ramesh Chennithala joined the Cabinet, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi picked VM Sudheeran, who had withdrawn from group politics, for the party post. The two faction leaders joined hands to preserve their domains.

Rahul Gandhi backed Sudheeran’s move to deny the party ticket to a few tainted leaders, including ministers, but Oommen Chandy threatened to pull out of the elections if anyone of them was axed. Fearing a split in the party, the High Command stepped back, causing immense damage to its own stature. It continued efforts to force some minor changes but it is too late to undo the damage. -- Gulf Today, April 5, 2016.

From buffer state to bridge

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

In the age of imperialism, the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal retained its independence by becoming a buffer state between the expanding British power and the declining Chinese. A landlocked country with fewer than 30 million people, it is now seeking a new role as a bridge between its giant neighbours.

When India became a democratic republic and China came under Communist rule, Nepal maintained its status as the world’s only Hindu kingdom with power in the hands of the Ranas, who were the prime ministers. In the 1950s, anti-Rana forces overthrew the Ranas, ushering in an era of constitutional monarchy with a multi-party political system. Centuries-old cultural ties helped India to develop a special relationship with it.

In 2008, even as the divided polity was grappling with the problem of drawing up a new democratic constitution, an elected assembly put an end to monarchy. The constitution, which came into force last year, declared Nepal a secular republic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which was busy expanding its Hindu base at home, was not happy with the development.

The Madhesis, an ethnic group which has ties with people across the Indian border, sought changes in the constitution to safeguard their interests. With the tacit approval of New Delhi, they blocked movement of goods from India, which lasted five months, causing serious shortage of oil, for which the country relied entirely on India.

The Madhesi agitation prompted the ruling Communist Party of India-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) to turn to China for assistance. China was ready to help but transport and communication bottlenecks restricted its ability to render quick assistance.

A constitutional amendment which addressed the Madhesi concerns partially led to lifting of the blockade and easing of tension. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli took an early opportunity to make his first visit to India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the constitutional amendment but asked for more changes. Oli’s visit ended without the customary joint statement.

Last week Oli visited China, hailing it as an “all-weather friend” that had helped Nepal at times of distress. The two countries signed 10 agreements and issued a joint communiqué which, according to Nepalese commentators, has significant implications for the country’s economic development, democratisation and relations with India.

When the Oli visit was being planned there were reports that the two countries would also sign a deal which would provide for Nepal buying one-third of its fuel requirements from China. This was dropped later and Oli faced criticism at home for yielding to Indian pressure.

The joint communiqué indicated that the fuel trade deal is still on the cards.

One of the agreements envisages feasibility studies on Chinese assistance for exploration of oil and natural gas resources in Nepal.

The most important agreements are those relating to transit facilities through China and road and rail access to its ports. They hold out the prospects of ending Nepal’s near-total dependence on India for contacts with the rest of the world.

The long distance to the Chinese ports may inhibit their wide use. However, when the contemplated road and rail access becomes a reality, Nepal will be able to use ports in Bangladesh, which are not more distant than Kolkata on which it now depends.

One agreement provides for Chinese assistance for the construction of an international airport at Pokhara.

Nepalese journalist Kanak Mani Dixit suggested it was the long blockade by India that emboldened the country’s political class to sign the deal in Beijing. Without the public opinion created as a result of that thoughtless adventurism, no leader, including Oli, would have gone the distance in inking the 10 agreements, he said, adding: “It has suddenly become possible to talk to China as Nepal does with India after decades of running scared.”

Dixit said there was no reason for India to panic as the development of trans-Himalayan linkages would benefit it too. He also felt there was no need for Nepal to be too beholden to Beijing as China, particularly its Tibet region, will also benefit from the agreements.

During Oli’s visit, China expressed full support for Nepal’s new Constitution, over which India still has some reservations. But the possibility of India’s sympathy for Madhesi aspirations emerging as a point of conflict has somewhat lessened with the leadership of that ethnic group establishing direct communications with China too.

Nepal’s hopes of becoming a bridge can only succeed if its big neighbours are able to rise above the strategic concepts of the imperial phase. There have been suggestions from some quarters that Nepal should restore monarchy and become a Hindu kingdom again to check the growth of Chinese influence. That will be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 29, 2016.

Ways of looking at the economy

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India’s star shines bright amid global economic challenges, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in New Delhi earlier this month. It now has the fastest growing economy and the largest and youngest workforce and is in the process of reforming the system, she noted.

The reform process began in 1991. A quarter century later, it still faces many obstacles. The first Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government could not go ahead with some proposals due to strong opposition from the Left parties which sustained it in office. When UPA II came up with a constitutional amendment to provide for a uniform pattern of tax on goods and services across the country the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was in the opposition, did not cooperate. Now, as the ruling party, the BJP is eager to take the measure forward but the Congress stands in the way.

The BJP and the Congress agree on steps to make it easy to acquire land for industries but the people who stand to lose their farmlands and homesteads are up in arms against them. Changes of the kind the International Monetary Fund is pressing for may not, therefore, come easily. However, India is well set to retain its status as the fastest growing economy as no credible challenger is in sight.

According to World Bank data, China’s growth rate stood at 9.5 per cent in 2011 and India’s at 6.6 per cent. Since then China’s growth has fallen continuously and India’s has risen except in one year. In the process, they levelled at 7.3 per cent last year. The projection for India in the current financial year is 7.5 per cent against China’s 7.1 per cent.

On the strength of the growth rate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed that the economy had recovered from the effects of the global slowdown. But former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who, as Finance Minister, had initiated the economic reform process in 1991, termed the recovery very fragile. Touched to the quick, Jaitley said, “In a global slowdown situation, to have the fastest growth rate in the world certainly does not make the Indian economy fragile.”

Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian sought credit for the government for the fast growth rate. He said the manufacturing and service sectors, which were under the government’s control, had done well while the farm and export sectors, which were not under its control, had not done so well.

The steep fall in oil prices in the international market helped India, which imports 70 per cent of its crude requirements, to contain inflation and the current account deficit. But it also hurt to some extent by reducing foreign demand for its products.

Alyssa Ayres, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a testimony before a Congressional committee urged the US to “elevate support for India’s growth to the highest bilateral priority” and to “work more comprehensively to integrate India in the global economic institutions”.

She mentioned in particular the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which has not acted upon India’s application for membership for two decades, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where India has the status of “key partner”, and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

China, which is watching the US moves, is of the view that unrealistic praise and forecasts for India are painting a false picture. “There is no possibility of India surpassing China,” the Communist Party’s English tabloid, Global Times, said in an article last week.

Growth rate is not a reliable measure of the robustness of the economy. A developed economy cannot be expected to chalk up a high growth rate. The US growth rate in the last four years, for instance, ranged between 2.9 per cent and 4.1 per cent. Assessment of the economy entirely on the basis of the growth rate will, therefore, be misleading.

“It is inescapably clear that India won’t easily outgrow China as predicted by the West,” the Global Times article said. “From a macro perspective, China’s GDP in 2015 was nearly $10.42 trillion, which is around five times as much as India’s $2.18 trillion.”

IMF data of GDP shows that vast gaps separate India from China, and China from the US. In per capita terms, China’s GDP is 25 per cent of the US’s and India’s 11 per cent. Until India is able to carry with it the vast excluded sections of its population, the high growth rate will be of little avail. - Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 22, 2016.

BJP bid to extend footprint

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India has six political organisations which the Election Commission has recognised as national parties. They are, in the order of their appearance on the political scene, the Congress, the Communist Party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the CPI-Marxist, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the National Congress Party.

They owe their national status to the easy terms set by the Commission. When the CPI was about to lose its national status a few years ago, the Commission lowered the norms to help it remain a national party.

The Congress party has declined since the days of the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nationally, it has been pushed to the second place by the BJP. In the big states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu it is in the third, fourth or even still lower place.

For several decades, the influence of the two Communist parties has been limited to the three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Five years ago the regional Trinamool Congress brought to an end three decades of Left rule in West Bengal.

The Bahujan Samaj Party of former UP Chief Minister Mayawati and the National Congress Party of former Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar are essentially one-state parties with just enough presence elsewhere to qualify for national status.

The BJP is the only national party which has recorded growth in the recent past. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Narendra Modi led it to a spectacular victory, and it became the first party to secure an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha in three decades.

While it swept several states in the north and the west, it could not make much headway in the east and the south.

Two eastern states, West Bengal and Assam, and two southern states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, are going to the polls in May to elect new Assemblies. Assam has been under Congress rule for 15 years. In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front is seeking an unprecedented second successive term. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are ruled by regional parties.

These states, which together account for 113 Lok Sabha seats, had contributed only 10 seats to the BJP’s tally of 281 in 2014. The party is hoping to use the opportunity provided by the Assembly elections to extend its footprint in these regions.

In the Lok Sabha elections the BJP had done well in Assam, winning seven of its 14 seats with the help of regional parties aligned with it. In West Bengal it got only two out of 42 seats and in Tamil Nadu just one out of 39.

Assam is the only one of the four states where the BJP is represented in the Assembly at present. It has five members in the 126-member house. It has no members in the outgoing Assemblies of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Kerala has been inhospitable to Hindutva politics all along. Neither the BJP nor its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, ever won a Lok Sabha or Assembly seat in the state. However, in last year’s local bodies elections the BJP did well in some urban centres, including the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram, where it emerged as the second largest party in the City Corporation after the CPI-M.

This has led to high hopes in the BJP camp, and the party’s national leadership and its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are directly plotting the party’s campaign in the state to take advantage of what they view as a favourable situation.

A key element of their strategy is attracting sections of the backward castes and Dalits who are disillusioned with both the CPI-M and the Congress for one reason or another. Traditionally, the bulk of these sections have voted for the Left. The BJP has succeeded in enlisting the support of a couple of organisations of backward communities but the ability of their leaders to influence electoral conduct remains to be proved.

While the Congress and the CPI-M are engaged in a bitter power struggle in Kerala, their West Bengal units have come to a tacit understanding with the blessings of their national leaderships to take on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

The Trinamool Congress and a few regional parties of Tamil Nadu, including Chief Minister J Jayalithaa’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, were constituents of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. These parties have shown no interest in aligning with Modi’s BJP. The party as well as the RSS must introspect on why its ability to win friends has diminished. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 15, 2016.

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.