Hina charms India (PO)

By M D Nalapat
Why would an attractive 34-year old ever be made a Cabinet minister, that too in the crucial Foreign Affairs portfolio? Conventional wisdom opines that Hina Rabbani Khar has been appointed Foreign Minister of Pakistan merely because the generals in Islamabad and their civilian advisors saw the need for a fresh, moderate and attractive face to represent Pakistan to the world. As a consequence, there were low expectations of the minister, who was seen as a foreign policy neophyte closely guided by the military establishment. After two days, this view has been replaced with genuine respect for a tough negotiator who sticks to her stand, albeit in a civilised manner, rather than in the table-thumping tradition of Nikita Khruschev. Hina Rabbani Khar has been dominating television space in India, giving interview after interview to various channels, in each of which her sincerity in seeking a durable peace between India and Pakistan has been conveyed.

Within Pakistan, there exists a significant constituency that seeks to return the country to the period under Ayub Khan, when it grew at twice the rate of India. The next shot at normalcy came during the era of Pervez Musharraf. Although he was as aware as the present Foreign Minister of Pakistan about the fact that normal relations with India are essential for speedy economic development in the country, Musharraf’s desire to play to several contradictory galleries at the same time robbed his policies of the consistency needed for a satisfactory outcome. While there were brief windows of opportunity for peace, none of these were realised, mainly because the establishment in Pakistan has thus far seemed unaware of the fact that the India of today is very different from the country ruled by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for the first two years (1984-86) of his rule. The three were powerful enough to impose their will over the rest of the country, unlike their successors, who are too weak to ensure a similar obedience to their wishes. Jawaharlal Nehru was able to brush aside the opposition of Deputy Prime Minister Vallabbhai Patel in ordering the Indian army to cease fire when it was moving towards the taking over of the entire territory of Kashmir. Nehru preferred to go by the views of independent India’s first Governor-General, Louis Mountabatten, and the British officers of the Indian military rather than go by the demand of General K M Cariappa that the army ought to be given a further six months to clear Kashmir of the invaders. Interestingly, around this time, Mahatma Gandhi went on a fast in order to force the government to hand over a large sum of money to Pakistan. Prime Minister Nehru secretly favoured this course, but was opposed by Patel, who pointed out that to give money to Pakistan was to assist Rawalpindi in waging its war against India. However, once the Mahatma intervened, Patel had no option but to fall in line, to the delight of Nehru. Ever since the Kashmir ceasefire and Nehru’s decision to refer the issue to the UN, Nehru functioned as the all-in-all of the Congress Party and the government, implementing his personal views as policy.

Indira Gandhi took a decision at Simla four decades ago to surrender all the gains of the 1971 war with Pakistan, in the hope that the gesture would ensure that the “peace constituency” in the neighbouring country could then be made strong enough to challenge the “conflict constituency”. This was the argument used by her closest advisor ( a Kashmiri Pandit like herself), P N Haksar. The left-leaning, brilliant Haksar was entranced by the vision of peace and cooperation between India and Pakistan, and he forgot the hurt done to the psyche of Rawalpindi by the detaching of Bangladesh. With nothing other than an oral assurance by Prime Minister Z A Bhutto that the Line of Control in Kashmir would get converted into the international boundary, Indira Gandhi forced the Indian military to relinquish the territorial and other gains of the campaign. This was possible only because of the awesome power that she had over the Congress Party and the government. 

Toward a clean, green China (China Daily)

By M.D. Nalapat 

In 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People's Republic of China, while Britain's Indian empire was divided into many parts in the years preceding it in the 1940s. Chairman Mao later unified the Chinese mainland, and for the first time in more than a century, China became fully independent of outside control and could pursue its own course in domestic and foreign affairs. This is the most precious legacy of Chairman Mao.

In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping reversed the old policy and opened China to the rest of the world. Deng was confident that Chinese people had the resilience and quality needed to compete with others and win the battle of economic development.

Over the last three decades, as pointed out by General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Hu Jintao in his speech at the 90th anniversary of the CPC, the policy framework created by Deng led China to become the second-largest economy in the world. It is now on track to becoming the largest within a generation.

China's millennia-long culture was diluted by a century of conflict and chaos. As a result, many young Chinese were not fully immersed in their own traditions and culture. The past decade, however, has seen a renaissance of traditional culture infused with modern elements that have been adapted to Chinese ethos. Hu has gone beyond the material realm to recognize the spiritual core of the Chinese people and given it full expression in line with socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Many people in China saw the transmission of culture as one-way traffic, with China absorbing the culture of the economically advanced countries without offering anything in return (except excellent Chinese cuisine and manufactures). Now, the CPC leaders are looking deeper into Chinese history and tearing to shreds the last vestiges of prejudice against traditional Chinese culture.

Today, Chinese people are dropping their anchors in tradition even as they take on the international community on the economic and cultural fronts. Not so long ago, the global consensus seemed to be that ancient rituals such as tea ceremony could be seen only in Taiwan and hardly on the Chinese mainland.

Today, such ancient wisdom is proliferating across the whole of China. That the international community can be won over more with soft power has been emphasized by Hu, who has taken measures to spread the knowledge of China's "soft power" across the world.

Though Chinese leaders lay stress on traditional culture, they attach great importance to modern technologies, too.

When Hu became general secretary of the CPC central committee in 2002, China had already become one of the biggest economies in the world, but its research and development (R&D) sector was weak. Chinese enterprises relied in foreign technology even for the production of basic machineries. The country had to import advanced technology and supplied less sophisticated products in return.

It was then that CPC leaders made R&D a priority. Nine years later, the results are there for all to see. China leads the world in several technologies, including renewable energy and high-speed trains. And it is highly possible that in another 10 years, it could be making aircraft to compete with Boeing and Airbus. It could even begin to catch up with the United States and Europe in innovations and improvements to existing products.

Chinese universities and research centers are evolving into world-class institutions. As Hu said in his speech, the Scientific Outlook on Development is at the core of China's future.

The CPC has not fallen into the trap of seeing corruption as the inevitable by-product of economic reform. It knows that reform and modernization are central to the well-being of the Chinese people, and that corruption is found in any system.

The extradition of fugitive Lai Changxing, accused of smuggling 53 billion yuan ($8.2 billion) of goods that implicated many senior officials, shows the "resolution" of China to uphold the law and punish corrupt officials.

But corruption cannot be fought by police alone. However harsh the punishment, people will still be tempted to steal. A better way of fighting corruption is to spread awareness of the need for overall harmony in society so that the making of money does not become the sole purpose of life.

By drawing attention to and reinforcing traditional Chinese attitudes for people to live a worthy lifestyle, the CPC is seeking to use China's history and tradition to guide people away from corruption and toward a lifestyle that serves the community, rather than just oneself.

Aware that the "head of the snake" has to be crushed instead of just leaving it injured, Hu is bringing accountability to the highest levels and not hesitating to punish those who have betrayed the trust of the CPC and the Chinese community as a whole.

Under Hu Jintao's leadership, China has rediscovered its traditions as well as marched ahead at the front of progress. As Mao Zedong said, "walking on two legs" is best. Going along the path set out by Mao and Deng, General Secretary Hu has sought to ensure that China walks briskly forward on the two legs of "tradition" and "modernity" to reclaim its global position that it enjoyed for centuries.

The author is vice-chair of Manipal Advanced Research Group, and UNESCO Peace Chair and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University, India.

(China Daily 07/27/2011 page9)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-07/27/content_12989288.htm

Fai’s guests may not have known, but we did (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

	In this May 2007 photo, Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai addresses a news conference in Muzaffarabad. Pti t last, we know the truth, courtesy of the Delhi police. This superb force, which has about the same standards as their counterparts in Mumbai, have identified Suhail Hindustani as being even more passionately committed to the nuclear deal than Manmohan Singh. So committed that he somehow managed to conjure up vast sums of cash in order to entice select MPs into voting for the deal. This passion for the mysteries of the atom had been kept well hidden by Hindustani, perhaps even from himself, till 2008.That year, he outed himself spectacularly, working hard to ensure a result that gave the UPA government much relief, of course without any involvement of political planners and parliamentary Mr Fixits in the Congress party and its Sancho Panza, the Samajwadis. We have the results of the painstaking investigations done by the Delhi police to convince us that Hindustani and Saxena acted on their own, much as A.Q. Khan did when he set up an international bazaar for nuclear technology and materiel. The authorities in Pakistan carried out a detailed investigation into Khan's operations, and reached the conclusion that he had absolutely zero help from the military or civilian authorities in Pakistan. The redoubtable scientist was able to command state aircraft, diplomatic facilities and the nuclear establishment at will, clearly by resort to magic. Not that Saxena and Hindustani may, in their prison cells, feel lonely for much longer. Now that he has been denuded of the cover provided by the Samajwadi Party, it is entirely likely that the suave Amar Singh may play the part of the "lizard's tail", exactly as Suresh Kalmadi appears to have done in the Commonwealth Games scams. The decisions that cost the country hundreds of millions of euros could not have been taken by merely a Kalmadi. However, none except him has been held accountable. He seems to have acted as a cork on the bottle, preventing the genie of full disclosure from ever spilling out. If Sohail Hindustani lacks the gravitas to play that role in Nucleargate, Amar Singh will be made to step forward, and into jail. As in the case of the Commonwealth Games scams — repeat scams, plural — or the 2G depredations, first small and later medium-sized fish will get sacrificed to save the sharks who actually gave the orders for the loot. In the case of Nucleargate, it strains credulity to believe that a Hindustani or even an Amar Singh acted on his own, minus a support system provided by the beneficiaries of the outcome of the confidence vote. Of course, we have it on record from the principal functionaries of the Congress party and its allies in pushing through the nuclear deal that none of them was even remotely aware of the antics of the Saxenas and the Hindustanis. And we must take their word for it, exactly as we must the oath of the national capital's more venerable editors, that they had "absolutely no idea that Ghulam Nabi Fai worked for the ISI". If, instead, they had been open about the fact that it has been known at least from the mid-1990s that Fai was an "agent of influence" of the ISI, and that this fact did not seem weighty enough to prevent them from accepting his hospitality, his diatribes against India and his scripted resolutions on Kashmir, because they were non-official citizens of a presumed democracy, they would have been entitled to far more respect than their plea that they were ignorant of the sponsorship details of the conferences attended by them. In the interests of transparency, let it be revealed (to those unfamiliar with the internet) that this columnist himself has been writing a regular column for a Pakistani newspaper, the Pakistan Observer (pakobserver.net), which is particularly influential with that country's Punjabi constituency, including the many stalwarts from that province who serve in the Pakistan military, including in the ISI. If he were to now claim that he has been unaware of the provenance, the readership and the views of this newspaper, he would be a liar. Sadly, despite his many articles on Kashmir (some of which were a wee bit different from the perspective peddled by Mr Fai), this columnist was never invited to the many soirees graced by more illustrious compatriots. Those invited were presumably far more "reasonable" than this columnist has ever been, and favoured futures for Kashmir that approximated the views of that champion of non-elective democracy, the Hurriyat Conference. A journalist is a bit like a cabaret artiste, in that he has to bare his views, the way the cabaret star bares her body.
	ven a cursory examination of those views would show exactly why this columnist went uninvited. Ghulam Fai needed live Indian bodies that could be showcased around Washington as evidence that "Indian public opinion" favoured the surrender of Kashmir, so as to give oxygen to the many busybodies in the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA who wanted their country to lean far more heavily on India to make unimaginable concessions on Kashmir. To entice these Indian fellow-travellers, Fai was willing to splurge on air tickets, hotel stays and much, much more. It is a pity that not one of the many distinguished names on Fai's guest list seems to have any inkling of whether Fai was a male or a female, a liberal or a conservative, or indeed a human being or a ghost. He was, in Donald Rumsfeld's words, a "Known Unknown". It is no crime to attend a conference, if one is a private citizen. It is, however, a shame when practitioners of what ought to be a profession of the brave act in a craven manner and trot out that old chestnut of an excuse, "We did not know!" Well, the rest of us do. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/fais-guests-may-not-have-known-but-we-did

Hillary to India: Take out your wallets! (PO)

By M D Nalapat
Bill Clinton is one of the biggest fund-raisers in the world. A check into the donors for his foundation would show names from across the world, including several not known to be interested in the numerous good causes that Clinton claims to champion. When she ran for office as Senator from New York and later as the Democratic Party challenger to Barack Obama in the last presidential elections, Hillary Clinton raised large sums of money, although these dried up when it became clear that she would lose to Obama. The Clintons know that it is economic issues that resonate strongest with the Democratic party faithful, and it is to their credit that they presided over a period of growing prosperity for the US population. Not merely that, unlike Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, who ran up huge budget deficits and sharply increased the debt of the average taxpayer, President Clinton was able to convert the Republican deficit into a Democratic surplus. Of course, in the process, he allowed changes in regulations that began the wave of speculative transactions that almost led to the collapse of the international economy in 2008.

Although newspaper headlines in India claim that Hillary Clinton came to Delhi and Chennai in India three days before “to strengthen the strategic relationship between the US and India”, the reality is that she came looking for a handout, and the larger the better. A gasping US economy badly needs cash from wherever it can find it, and US corporates look to their government to ensure that a steady and growing flow of Indian orders takes place. Secretary Clinton made no secret of this intention, although the hunger for cash was couched behind soothing words about India’s importance. Exactly the sort of idle compliment that sends officials, mediapersons and officials in India swooning in delight. Of course, the visit left Corporate India unimpressed. Clinton refused to give any solace on the issue of numerous obstacles being placed by the protectionist Obama administration on the employment of Indian software and other professionals. She declined to announce a single measure that would assist Indian exporters in entering the US market.

However, while she gave zero concessions to Indian commercial interests, Hillary made extensive demands on behalf of US business. One of the most obnoxious was her public demand that Manmohan Singh get passed in 2011 itself a law that would - in effect - allow US nuclear suppliers a free pass even if malfunctions in their equipment killed tens of thousands, the way the Bhopal factory of Union Carbide did a quarter-century ago. Although the house-trained India media refused to react strongly to such effrontery, presumably even two individuals as innocent of politics as Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi are aware that there would be a huge public outcry at such an indemnity given to foreign nuclear equipment suppliers.

Al-Qaeda Goes Local in India (The Diplomat)

By M D Nalapat

India is becoming a hotbed of terrorist recruitment. Police corruption and shameful incidents like the Gujarat pogrom are making it even worse.

Image credit:Satish Krishnamurthy

For decades, India’s security agencies boasted that there was ‘zero’ local recruitment to al-Qaeda and its affiliates. This claim seemed to be corroborated by the fact that none of the terrorists involved in plots across the world were Indian nationals, not even from the one state in the country where resort to Islamist violence has been endemic: Kashmir. Even there, for more than a decade, the ongoing insurgency has been manned by recruits from outside—mostly from Pakistan, but also from the Middle East, Sudan, Chechnya, and even Xinjiang.

Such immunity from the siren song of terrorism was attributed to India’s democracy, and to its secular Constitution. The first was seen as giving ample—and peaceful—outlets for dissent, while the other was held to ensure that the country’s 155-million Muslim minority didn’t feel persecuted or disempowered, the way they do in Gaza, for example.

Certainly, India‘s huge Muslim community has been as peaceable as the other religious groups in the country. In particular, the 12 percent of Indian Muslims who are Shiites are similar to the Jains and the Buddhists in almost never entering into violence against people of other faiths. Almost all outbreaks have involved the small Wahhabi segment of the Sunni community. One reason is the fact that in Sunni mega states such as neighbouring Pakistan, Muslims are given a higher status relative to people of other faiths, exactly as they are in parts of the Middle East and in Malaysia. As a consequence of the positive discrimination shown to Muslims in these locations, a small segment of the community in India is dissatisfied at the fact that a similar superior status for Sunnis is absent in secular India.

The other reason behind the increase in recruitment to India’s extremist groups is Gujarat. The indefensible 2002 pogrom against the Muslim community in that state, which was launched in retaliation for a previous terror attack on Hindu pilgrims travelling by train in that state, has been the single most effective recruitment factor in al-Qaeda’s drive to bring into its fold not just Arabs, North Africans, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis, but Indian nationals as well.

Gruesome accounts of Muslims being battered and burnt to death in Gujarat proliferate on social networking sites. The fact that there has thus far been almost no punishment meted out to the principal actors behind the 2002 violence hasn’t helped douse Muslim rage at this attack on their co-religionists in Gujarat, which many believe to have been sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party government of the state.

The BJP has consistently refused to censure those within it who were—at the least—negligent in preventing more than 2,000 Muslims from being killed in the spasms of violence in Gujarat that followed the Godhra train attack. Such a refusal to accept responsibility and ensure accountability converted the 2002 Gujarat massacres into a catalyst that has—for the first time—led to growing Indian recruitment into al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates, theLashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM). Since it came to office in 2004, the Manmohan Singh government has worsened the situation by going slow on enforcing legal accountability for the Gujarat riots, while simultaneously being in denial about the proliferation of local networks active in facilitating terror attacks.

Take as an example the November 2008 carnage in Mumbai. The investigation into that outrage deliberately bypassed leads that pointed to local involvement in the reconnaissance that preceded the Mumbai attacks. Almost certainly, such a turning away from facts was motivated by an official desire to protect the police and others who had been negligent in fending off the attack, and in properly tackling it once the Pakistani attackers began their three-day orgy of bloodshed. Because of the continued refusal to acknowledge that there’s now significant local involvement in al-Qaeda, certain localities in cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Lucknow that are known to host pools of radicals had—in effect—been declared as ‘no go’ areas, with the police having been directed to look the other way because of the involvement of key politicians and officials in tolerating such extremist nests.

Why such nonchalance? The reason lies in the multi-billion dollar hawala trade in South Asia that ensures the conversion of rupees into hard currency. Much of this trade is carried out precisely by the groups that facilitate narcotics smuggling and terror. By protecting these networks because they are used to launder political and official slush funds, terror networks obtain access to large amounts of cash that can be employed in the planning and execution of terror attacks as well as in expanding their networks.

This policy of denial continued despite several terror attacks in Mumbai, but it was finally discredited once the 2008 attack took place. Because foreign nationals were among those killed, the international response to the Mumbai incident was far more robust than those to previous attacks (which involved only local casualties). Since then, some effort has gone into uprooting terror networks, although as yet the kingpins behind their financing have largely escaped police attention. The three improvised explosive devices that exploded in Mumbai a little after 7 pm local time on July 13 have further hacked away complacency about the extent of al-Qaeda penetration in India.

Today, the world’s largest democracy has become as much a base for operations of that international entity as countries in North Africa, even as at present Pakistan and Bangladesh host a much bigger al-Qaeda presence than India. However, the fact that nationals of the country are getting recruited to the global war being waged by the organisation is a disturbing development, one that calls for greater efforts at creating psychological firewalls to prevent penetration of this pernicious ideology into the broader community in India.

Why has Mumbai been a particular target of the terrorists? The principal reason is the corruption in its police force, including at the higher levels. This has made it easy to set up safe houses in the city, and to launch recruitment drives without interference. Indeed, the business empire of Dawood Ibrahim—who was responsible for the 1993 bomb blasts and is believed to be behind several other attacks—flourishes in Mumbai, managed by family members resident in the city.

That Dawood has substantial influence within the higher ranks of the Mumbai police—as well as local politicians—is no secret. And he is not alone. For years, the movie and construction industry in the city has been forced into paying tithes to terror networks, or else have their executives face extermination. No other city in India is as riddled with mafia influence as Mumbai. Add to this the fact that the city is still India’s predominant financial and commercial centre, and the reason why it has been the victim of numerous terror attacks becomes clear.

Protection given to hawala operators; graft within the police; a growing pool of extremists given motivation and training by elements abroad that seek to derail India’s growth story…It’s a poisonous cocktail, and one that seems set to take more innocent lives before its effects are through.

http://the-diplomat.com/2011/07/20/al-qaeda-goes-local-in-india/

The perils of Montek-Aiyar economic policies (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

Montek Singh Ahluwalia (R) and former finance secretary Ashok Chawla during a book launch in New Delhi on Monday. PTI onsider the policy prescriptions of those fixtures of Lutyens' Delhi, Montek Singh Ahluwalia or Swaminathan Aiyar. India's equivalent of the Washington Beltway has long had an unshakeable confidence in the advice given to them by policymakers in the US. In 1966, L.K. Jha persuaded Indira Gandhi to go through with a savage devaluation of the rupee. In common with other former, present and future governors to date of the Reserve Bank of India, Jha believed that the wisest course for India to follow was to accept and implement any prescription suggested by the US and its key European allies. He brushed aside the reality of inflexibility in imports and the absence of a large-scale private sector that could ramp up exports after a devaluation. All that Indira Gandhi "achieved" in 1966 was to begin the process of debauching of the rupee that has led by 2011 of ten times more rupees being needed to buy a dollar than was the case pre-Jha. Luckily for those obsessed with the race between the Elephant and the Dragon, those now in charge of finances in China seem no different from India in its belief in those of its citizens who, through study and work, have been steeped in the interests and attitudes of the US and its major European allies. In Beijing, the one sure path to progress within the bureaucracy is a degree from a prestigious US or European university, which is why so many children of Communist Party bigwigs head there for study and work. These followers of what may be termed the Montek-Aiyar line of fealty to "suggestions from afar" have ensured that almost all of China's immense trade surplus now rots as dollar and euro deposits, rather than most of it getting spent in picking up physical and other assets in markets of the future in Africa, South America and Asia. By its policy of placing its financial future in the hands of US-EU bankers, China has followed the Arab world, who too have sunk almost all their oil wealth in institutions headquartered in those locations.

Politics: Short-cut to riches (PO)

By M D Nalapat
What is the industry with the lowest qualifications and the highest rate of profit? Even a high-school student in India can give the correct answer: politics. In these days of electronic banking, those politicians who keep most of their funds in India are being forced to account for a bigger and bigger part of them. The self-provided statistics of the wealth of legislators are certainly gross underestimates, but even these show that wealth rises by ten and even twenty times once a politician gets elected, and even more if she or he becomes a minister. Income-tax officers know that the Opposition of today may become the Ruling Party of tomorrow, hence they usually avoid looking closely into the tax returns filed by political heavyweights (unless ordered to do so by their political bosses).

Even if the Income-tax department does conduct an enquiry, a politician usually gets away. An example is the case of a former minister in Karnataka State, who was caught with billions of rupees in bank accounts controlled by him. This worthy simply declared that all the money came as gifts from his thousands of admirers. When the Income-tax department refused to accept such an explanation, he furnished a long list of names and addresses of people who claimed in writing to have gifted cash to him. Many of these were so poor that the amount they were presumed to have gifted was more than their annual income. When this was pointed out to an individual, he claimed that he and his family so admired the politician ( who is in his 40s) that they sold all their jewellery to make the donation! The Income-tax department had finally to accept the explanation and close the case, leaving the politician to enjoy the wealth that he had brought out into the open.

Of course, even in the case of the politician mentioned above, most of his wealth would be undeclared. These days, the bigger leaders are careful to avoid keeping their stash of cash in India. Instead, they put it away in offshore banking institutions, and every now and then use “hawala” channels to bring a part of it back to India, especially when elections get held. During general elections, so big is the demand for rupees that the value of the dollar falls against the rupee. 

The end of immunity for the privileged is approaching (Sunday Guardian)

n times past, royal families used to intermarry, thereby creating new alliances. These days, the preferred marital amalgam contains elements of business, politics and administration. Marrying off one of the daughters of a businessman to an IAS officer and the other to the son of a super-rich industrialist needs to be followed by the wedding of the only son with the daughter of the Chief Minister. Even better, one's dependent nephew ought to be married off soon afterwards to the daughter of the Leader of the Opposition, so that all bases get covered. Sensible families know that money, power and links to the civil service are each essential if one is to get the extra attention that can catapult a business above that of its competitors. This columnist has met the fabled Dhirubhai Ambani only a few times, all at Delhi during 1981-84. The frequency of the Ambani visits indicated that Dhirubhai, at least, was aware that looking after the "Governance Factor" was critical to the success of his business. Minor matters such as actually running a company could be left to underlings. Not so the cultivation of goodwill among the mighty. By all accounts, his sons have imbibed the wizardry of their parent, and during the time when they were a single unit, dominated policymaking almost as much as Dhirubhai had in his prime. To the relief of rival business groups, the two brothers were soon at each other, thereby weakening both. In a land filled with accommodative pols, the Ambani brothers — united — may have been able to choose the Prime Minister of India in 2009, had fate not intervened in the form of a separation, first of their businesses and later of their nuclear families. Manmohan Singh is unlikely to have been the Ambani choice, but at least till the early period of 2010, matters seemed under control for business groups. The CAG report on 2G and the ones that are now in the pipeline are signs that something is happening in Lutyens' Delhi that has not been witnessed since Jayanti Dharma Teja and his attractive wife were given "a little help" by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s. Since that time, unless one was as reckless as Ramakrishna Dalmia (who considered himself the equal of Nehru, if not his superior), one got along in tranquillity. After all, the system in "free" India scarcely differs from the imperial past. The "servants of the people" who took over from the British retained colonial laws, procedures and attitudes that gave them total discretion across wide swathes of national life. Naturally, laws were only meant to be applied to those not close to authority. The others enjoyed the benefit of immunity. If there was any "undue interest" being shown by an "overzealous official" (i.e. an official zealous in his duties), a phone call from a political secretary to a Cabinet minister, followed by a call from that diligent soul to the CBI or to the CBDT, would set matters right. owever, from the middle of last year, around the time that Sarosh Kapadia got sworn in as Chief Justice of India, such phone calls seem to be losing their effectiveness, when they are getting made at all. How else to explain the incarceration within Tihar jail of politicians and businesspersons known to be close even to top law officers of the Government of India? Or, the very individuals who with their legal briefs can make short work of a case, as they did with Ottavio Quattrocchi? The CBI is only as lethal as the law officers of the Union wish it to be. If these gentlemen are civilised human beings who do not believe in corporal punishment — or any punishment at all — for those careless enough to break a law that ought never to be enforced on those in the Inner Circle, then they ensure that the bark of the CBI (staged for the benefit of television cameras and quickly forgotten in the next news cycle) soon gets followed by a toothless soft bite. Indeed, the Kapadia Revolution has still not managed to penetrate beyond the first layer of those within the protection of the immune system formed over a half-century through the societal amalgam of business, politics and administration exemplified in the marriages mentioned above. In the CWG scam, neither the then Sports Minister nor the Chief Minister of Delhi (whose responsibility, at least on paper, is far greater than that of the luckless Suresh Kalmadi) seems to have even been questioned by the CBI. It remains to be seen if the flames of accountability created under the watch of India's gentle Chief Justice will finally reach them, or flicker out before getting close. The CBI, after all, is much better at hushing up culpability than in establishing it. But the breaching of the first layer has caused immense disquiet among the rest. They, after all, have paid for the immunity that has been theirs for decades. How dare such ridiculous concepts such as "equality before the law" be allowed to defile such a privilege! Hundreds of thousands languish in prison, including those who remain undertrials for years, if not decades. However, these do not excite the fury of the Immunes that is daily being witnessed on television screens. After all, "a man is innocent until proved guilty", a process that could take several decades to clear at just the district level. How dare those who have thus far enjoyed immunity (often at considerable expense and trouble) be put in the same bracket as undertrials without a rupee to their name? However, despite the fury, the privileged are remaining in prison. And for the first time since Joginder Singh managed to prise loose the banking details of Mr Q from the Swiss more than two decades back, the CBI seems to be actually solving a case rather than fudging it. Will Chief Justice Kapadia be able to ensure an end to the culture of immunity of the powerful that has made a mockery of law in this country, or will the system ensure that his initiative fails? While the odds seem stacked against the CJI, a buildup of public attention and involvement may just be enough to ensure that a few dozen more VVIPs get sent to jail this year, and that too for long stretches. Should that take place, then those who call India a democracy would not be just indulging in wishful thinking. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/the-end-of-immunity-for-the-privileged-is-approaching