In this season of bank fraud and amids News X’ ongoing 100 day NPA
campaign now comes allegation of yet another potential banking scam And
the name of one of India’s best known bankers has been dragged in A
whistleblower claims there is "evidence" to suggest that ICICI Bank MD
and CEO Chanda Kochhar and her family were "a huge beneficiary" of a
loan sanctioned to the Videocon Group by ICICI bank itself The
whistleblower Arvind Gupta says the govt must order an investigation and
audit to check why a massive loan was given to a sinking company ICICI
Bank sanctioned a loan worth 3,250 crore to the Videocon Group In its
defence the bank says its loan to Videocon was as part of a consortium
of more than 20 banks and financial institutions The trouble is a big
part of this loan over 2,800 crore was declared a Non Performing Asset
in 2017 And ICICI Bank MD chanda Kochar’s husband Deepak Kochar has been
a business partner of Videocon Group Chairman…Venugopal Dhoot And so
the allegation is that Deepak Kochhar is an indirect beneficiary of the
loan granted to Videocon Among other things this episode raises serious
questions about a conflict of interests as Chanda Kochar was on the
panel that sanctioned this loan. The CBI has filed a preliminary enquiry
against her husband. Deepak Kochhar and will decide at a later stage
there are grounds to file an FIR.Whether. Chanda Kochhar will be
summoned will be decided after the relevant documents are examined. The
question is simply this Is the Videocon bad loanmore evidence of India’s
growing banking crisis?Does this mean that it is not the public sector
banks alone but even private banks that have major exposure to many of
these frauds?Just how deep is this banking sector rot? How is the govt
going to restore public confidence in the banking system which has been
completely shattered ? Also while it is yet to be determined if there
was indeed a quid pro quo involved in this particular instance is ICICI
MD Chanda Kochhar at the very least guilty of a conflict of interests?
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Saturday, 31 March 2018
Friday, 30 March 2018
Catalans join Roma among Europe’s persecuted (Pakistan Observer)
Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat
WORDS are cheaper than dirt, and meaningless in the absence of
practical steps to ensure that they be put into practice. Forgetting the
adage that “charity begins at home”, all – repeat all – the countries
still willing to remain in the European Union treat those fellow
citizens who are Roma atrociously. An outlay of as little as $ 6 billion
in the form of scholarships and Roma-specific educational facilities
would ensure that this historically ill-treated community be enabled to
reach the levels of more fortunate sections of the citizenry, yet the
European Union (which has spent over $ 600 billion on wars in Libya,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria) refuses to set aside this sum. In every
country within continental Europe, the Roma are a particular focus of
hostile attention by the police, much as African-Americans still are in
some parts of United States.
Adults within the community find it much more difficult to get jobs than other sections, with the consequence that some are forced into a life of crime. As a consequence, the Roma are openly derided in may parts of Europe as “criminals”, despite the fact that such elements exist everywhere in society. There are, for example, criminals that have perpetrated the most heinous of acts among the Protestant or Catholic communities, yet these groups are not defamed with the “criminal” tag the way the Roma have been for centuries. And now, another segment of European society is on course towards joining the Roma in being persecuted and denied justice by a European Union that spends much of every day preaching morality and ethics to countries across the world. How this fits with the fact that the EU contains some of the biggest arms merchants in the world remains unexplained. The children being bombed to death in Yemen are losing their lives as a consequence of the weaponry supplied by Europe and its North American partners, yet there does not seem to be even a second of remorse for such deeds, much less an effort to halt such trade in death machines. Indeed, the more significant the contribution to global arms sales, the louder the protestations of morality. Listening to these, the overwhelming majority of the Catalan people in Spain had faith that the European Union would as a bureaucracy stand by its declared principles and support them in their desire to be freed from the yoke of Madrid and from a monarch who is closely related to the family of Francisco Franco, the military dictator whose ascent to power was assisted by Adolf Hitler, a 100% monster who also happened to be 100% Austrian ie European. All that they sought was principled self-determination, and expressed such a desire not through force of arms but via the ballot box
Were Catalonia to become an independent state that would get admitted into the European Union, every citizen of (the rest of) Spain would have the right to live and work there, just as Catalans would have the right to live and work in (the rest of) Spain. The European Union has meaning and resonance only if it truly believes in a European identity, and does not consider itself a mere federation of Metternichean nation states. This, the Walloons and the Flemish people can separate from each other juridicially, as can the Basques of France or the north of Italy from the south. It would not matter, except for Ministries of Finance that would need to re-adjust their tax collection figures. However, such obvious logic seems beyond the comprehension of the leaders of the countries which make up the European Union. The central government of Spain has reacted to the Catalan movement for independence with a vicious show of force, arresting several and denying them the right to elect their own government. Now, in a shameless show of contempt for the rights of individuals and peoples, the most popular Catalan politician, Carles Puidgemont, has been arrested in Germany for the crime of having been elected to the regional legislature in Catalonia by his own people. It is apparent that to Angela Merkel at least, what s much more important than a common European identity is the right of majoritarian parliamentary majorities to impose their views on the minority, if needed by force of arms and by police methods. Severral of Puidgmont’s colleagues have been arrested in Spain itself. An entire people are under the lash of state power, exercised without any regard for natural justice.
Angela Merkel had posed as a saint in politics, but it would appear that such saintliness does not extend to the Catalan people, who have been denied the right of self determination within the European Union. The reality is that a kix of smaller states would add to the cultural diversity of Europe and contribute to its versatility. It should be remembered that it was the biggest states in Europe that were the instigators of conflicts : Germany, France, the UK and Italy. Such territorial entities feed the egos of some politicians, but when they collide against the popular will, it is the wishes of the people that should hsve primacy. Unfortunately, the central government in Spain has been transparent in its determination to block and harass the Catalan people for the “crime” of wanting ther own state rather than remain dominated by (rest of) Spain
Where are the voices of protest in Germany? Where are the Greens or the Free Democrats? Angela Merkel’s East German roots have meant that she has spent the bulk of her life under a regimented system in which the state is supreme over the citizen. It is therefore no surprise that she would order the arrest and incarceration of Carles Puidgmont when the State of Spain represented by the non-Catalan majority asks her to do so. Given the statist (ie sub-European) bias within the European Union, it is likely that Puidgmont would have been arrested in states such as France and perhaps the UK as well, had he stepped foot there (as he is entitled to do as a citizen of the EU). Given the entirely peaceful nature of the Catalan movement thus far and the undoubted popular support for the right to self-determination, it will be with obvious hypocrisy that the European Union as a collective or any of its members delivers homilies to others about “respecting the rights of a people”. Carles Puidgmont believed in the sanctity of that EU promise, and lost his liberty as a consequence.
Adults within the community find it much more difficult to get jobs than other sections, with the consequence that some are forced into a life of crime. As a consequence, the Roma are openly derided in may parts of Europe as “criminals”, despite the fact that such elements exist everywhere in society. There are, for example, criminals that have perpetrated the most heinous of acts among the Protestant or Catholic communities, yet these groups are not defamed with the “criminal” tag the way the Roma have been for centuries. And now, another segment of European society is on course towards joining the Roma in being persecuted and denied justice by a European Union that spends much of every day preaching morality and ethics to countries across the world. How this fits with the fact that the EU contains some of the biggest arms merchants in the world remains unexplained. The children being bombed to death in Yemen are losing their lives as a consequence of the weaponry supplied by Europe and its North American partners, yet there does not seem to be even a second of remorse for such deeds, much less an effort to halt such trade in death machines. Indeed, the more significant the contribution to global arms sales, the louder the protestations of morality. Listening to these, the overwhelming majority of the Catalan people in Spain had faith that the European Union would as a bureaucracy stand by its declared principles and support them in their desire to be freed from the yoke of Madrid and from a monarch who is closely related to the family of Francisco Franco, the military dictator whose ascent to power was assisted by Adolf Hitler, a 100% monster who also happened to be 100% Austrian ie European. All that they sought was principled self-determination, and expressed such a desire not through force of arms but via the ballot box
Were Catalonia to become an independent state that would get admitted into the European Union, every citizen of (the rest of) Spain would have the right to live and work there, just as Catalans would have the right to live and work in (the rest of) Spain. The European Union has meaning and resonance only if it truly believes in a European identity, and does not consider itself a mere federation of Metternichean nation states. This, the Walloons and the Flemish people can separate from each other juridicially, as can the Basques of France or the north of Italy from the south. It would not matter, except for Ministries of Finance that would need to re-adjust their tax collection figures. However, such obvious logic seems beyond the comprehension of the leaders of the countries which make up the European Union. The central government of Spain has reacted to the Catalan movement for independence with a vicious show of force, arresting several and denying them the right to elect their own government. Now, in a shameless show of contempt for the rights of individuals and peoples, the most popular Catalan politician, Carles Puidgemont, has been arrested in Germany for the crime of having been elected to the regional legislature in Catalonia by his own people. It is apparent that to Angela Merkel at least, what s much more important than a common European identity is the right of majoritarian parliamentary majorities to impose their views on the minority, if needed by force of arms and by police methods. Severral of Puidgmont’s colleagues have been arrested in Spain itself. An entire people are under the lash of state power, exercised without any regard for natural justice.
Angela Merkel had posed as a saint in politics, but it would appear that such saintliness does not extend to the Catalan people, who have been denied the right of self determination within the European Union. The reality is that a kix of smaller states would add to the cultural diversity of Europe and contribute to its versatility. It should be remembered that it was the biggest states in Europe that were the instigators of conflicts : Germany, France, the UK and Italy. Such territorial entities feed the egos of some politicians, but when they collide against the popular will, it is the wishes of the people that should hsve primacy. Unfortunately, the central government in Spain has been transparent in its determination to block and harass the Catalan people for the “crime” of wanting ther own state rather than remain dominated by (rest of) Spain
Where are the voices of protest in Germany? Where are the Greens or the Free Democrats? Angela Merkel’s East German roots have meant that she has spent the bulk of her life under a regimented system in which the state is supreme over the citizen. It is therefore no surprise that she would order the arrest and incarceration of Carles Puidgmont when the State of Spain represented by the non-Catalan majority asks her to do so. Given the statist (ie sub-European) bias within the European Union, it is likely that Puidgmont would have been arrested in states such as France and perhaps the UK as well, had he stepped foot there (as he is entitled to do as a citizen of the EU). Given the entirely peaceful nature of the Catalan movement thus far and the undoubted popular support for the right to self-determination, it will be with obvious hypocrisy that the European Union as a collective or any of its members delivers homilies to others about “respecting the rights of a people”. Carles Puidgmont believed in the sanctity of that EU promise, and lost his liberty as a consequence.
Monday, 26 March 2018
Trump readies to tell Kim: Surrender nuclear assets or die (Sunday Guardian)
M D Nalapat
The idea behind a Trump-Kim meeting is to make the North Korean leader understand that the US President is ‘deadly serious’ about a military option.
Expert in evading hard choices and in obfuscating issues, the
Washington Beltway (an ideological cousin of Delhi’s Lutyens Zone)
remains on overdrive in an effort at reversing the 8 November 2016
verdict of the US electorate and removing the 45th President of the
United States from office. However, now that he is entering his
fifteenth month in the Oval Office, the US President is finally coming
out of the defensive crouch that he was made to adopt by advisors chosen
for their Beltway connections, and who are rapidly being dismissed from
office, the latest to go being National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster,
who is being replaced with John Bolton, who in temperament and
tenacity, although not in appearance, resembles Trump. As Exxon CEO, Rex
Tillerson was known for his emollient approach to prospective global
partners of the oil giant.
However, PR skills were not what President Trump sought in a
Secretary of State, and Tillerson has now made way for Mike Pompeo, who
shares several geopolitical concepts with the present occupant of the
White House. Together with Defense Secretary James Mattis, this is the
team that will accompany President Trump to talks in May with the
Supreme Leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un. The Beltway is opposed to such a
meeting, perhaps out of fear that Trump may gain in popularity and
global respect as a consequence of the unprecedented sit-down between a
serving US Head of State and a North Korean leader. However, the US
President is known to wish to go ahead with the summit, and has asked
his aides to busy themselves with the formalities needing to be
addressed before the meeting takes place in a third country.
Those privy to the White House rationale for such a meeting say that it is intended to meet four specific purposes:
(a) Show the international community that President Trump is ready to
walk the extra mile for peace, provided that the basic objective of
ensuring the security of the US is not compromised.
(b) Size up Kim Jong Un and ascertain the “extent of sincerity” of
the North Korean supremo in handing over his nuclear assets once assured
of security for his regime from external forces.
(c) Convey directly and bluntly a warning to Kim that this is his
last chance for obeying the wishes of the international community and
“handing over his nuclear assets for disposal in a time-bound and
verifiable manner”.
(d) Allow Kim to meet Trump face to face to understand that the US
President is “deadly serious” about the military option, and that he
will not hesitate to launch a war in case it becomes obvious that the
DPRK has no intention of surrendering its nuclear weapons program. While
Presidents W.J. Clinton, G.W. Bush and B.H. Obama could not bring
themselves to cross the line and initiate a military solution to the
North Korean issue, Trump would like to show the North Korean side that
he represents a break from such a pacifist path, and that he will have
no hesitation in giving the order to “strike and destroy North Korea’s
military assets and leadership”.
It is understood that Defense Secretary Mattis has been “on
overdrive” for the past nine months working on options designed to
decapitate the North Korean regime in such a manner that “significant
damage does not get caused” to US allies such as South Korea or Japan.
As part of such planning, high value military platforms (on sea and air)
have been rotated in the vicinity of North Korea so as to familiarise
themselves with the geographic locations that would be the target of the
air, land and sea strikes, and that such “preparations for conflict”
will get completed within four months, or soon after the Trump-Kim
meeting. “This time, a US President will not hand over US security to
any other country (read China) the way his predecessors have”, a source
warned, adding that President “Trump will take all actions that are
needed to protect the Homeland without worrying about the reaction
across the Pacific”.
Those in contact with the Trump White House say that the US President
“does not want to go down in history as the man under whose watch North
Korea was enabled to become a lethal threat to the Homeland”, and that
he is “ready to approve the military option rather than (in effect) stow
it away” in the manner of his three predecessors. The Trump White House
understands that the policies of the past have led to a trust deficit
in US reliability. However, the President intends to assure the North
Korean supremo personally that his regime will be safe from external
intervention if he abandons the nuclear weapons program. Those in
contact with the White House pointed out that the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis could have led to a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR.
However, the secret guarantee that Washington would not intervene
against the Castro regime in Cuba in the future, and would not seek to
facilitate regime change on the island, ensured that peace was
maintained.
The sources say that President Trump has a “practical mind” and “can
be relied upon to keep his word, the way he has in countless operations
he has conducted” across the globe. The expectation is that, in a “let
bygones be bygones” spirit, both North and South Korea could enter into a
“Bright Sunshine” policy once nuclear weapons get removed from the
DPRK, and that such a process may “within a generation” result in a
unification of the Korean peninsula. However, the “onus for this vests
with Kim Jong Un”.
During the May 2018 meeting of the two sides, President Trump will
give the North Korean supreme leader the option of “either salvation or
oblivion”. He “owes it to history to make a final effort for peace
before the furies of war get unleashed”, which is the US President is
disregarding Beltway opinion in his determination to hold a summit
meeting with Kim Jong Un “this May, or well before the deadline for
military action comes up”. Given the views and the propensities for
action of the by now far more “Trumpian” US national security team, it
seems clear that Kim Jong Un will face a choice that his predecessors
could duck because of the unwillingness of Clinton, Bush and Obama to
implement the military option at a time (during the Clinton period)
“when casualties on our side would have been zero” to “a few hundreds”
during the eight years of Bush II and “some thousands” during Obama.
Those close to White House thinking warn that casualties “could reach
the hundreds of thousands” in case Kim Jong Un refuses to disarm and a
military strike on him and his regime is delayed. “This is Kim’s last
chance for an honourable peace”, a source said, adding that “President
Trump will go to any extent to ensure the safety of the American people,
as will be seen should North Korea refuse to abandon its nuclear
program”.
Prof Nalapat lists 3 essential things that NaMo must do (PGurus)
Prof Nalapat lists 3 essential things that NaMo must do in order to get the country back on track after a drift of four years.
Saturday, 24 March 2018
Siddaramaiah’s Lingayat ploy opens Pandora’s Box (Sunday Guardian)
M D Nalapat
Existing minority communities may not look kindly to another addition to their ranks.
Whether out of compulsion or by conviction, Congress president Rahul
Gandhi has dispensed with the high command model favoured by his
predecessor Sonia Gandhi. In the earlier system, it was 10 Janpath
(acting and speaking through a handful of chosen favourites) that
dictated policy in any state run by the Congress Party. In order to keep
the ego (read “powers”) of the Chief Minister in check, the Pradesh
Congress Committee chief was usually his bitter rival within the party,
and whose primary activity was to sabotage the functioning of the
government, so that in time the high command would replace the CM with
(hopefully) the PCC president. Aircraft charter companies were kept busy
in visits of the CM and his ministers to the All India Congress
Committee headquarters at Delhi. Many of the ministers would have dreams
of replacing their boss, and would retail unpleasant stories about the
CM to those regarded as the “eyes and ears” of Congress president Sonia
Gandhi.
The lady would, on occasion, grant an audience to some of these
frequent flyers, generating newspaper headlines friendly or negative
towards the CM, depending on whether she met his foes or allies. Much of
the time of those in ministerial office was spent not on battling the
opposition or solving the problems of the state, but on durbar politics.
In every election, tickets were distributed on the basis of regularity
of attendance at the durbars of senior Congress leaders, with favourites
getting precedence over those unfortunates who were unable to attend
such durbars (and serenade and flatter the leader in question) bec ause
they were busy at the grassroots. Of course, it needs to be added that
it was not only the Congress Party that ran a durbar system.
Other parties did as well, and the durbars of prominent leaders of
these parties are well known not only to party cadres but to the wider
public as well. The large number of “durbaris” accommodated in top jobs
within each of these non-Congress parties is testimony to the reality of
the feudal spirit continuing in force despite Indira Gandhi having torn
up in 1969 the supposedly sacrosanct covenants entered into between the
Princes and the Government of India in 1947. In contrast, Rahul Gandhi
(entirely correctly) did not make efforts at micro-managing the
administration of states such as Punjab and Karnataka, whose Chief
Ministers function the way Biju Patnaik and B.C. Roy did during the time
of Jawaharlal Nehru. Facing an election that could fatally damage not
only his political career but the future of his party, the Karnataka CM
has deployed a sackful of tactics in order to reduce the BJP vote and
increase that of the Congress Party. Among them is his government’s
acceptance of the demand of a section of the Lingayat community for
minority status, which earlier had been granted to Sikhs and Jains.
In Karnataka, the Congress is aiming at the most reliable BJP vote
bank, the Lingayat community, within which state BJP president B.S.
Yeddyurappa belongs. The CM’s backing for separate status has led to
fears that the Hindu community will be at grave risk of getting
splintered, were the separation to take effect. Such fears are
misplaced, for the origins of the demand are not anchored in theology,
but in more practical issues. The most important is the fact that Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru continued with the British-era policy of
giving preferential treatment to non-Hindus, a strand of policy which
was implemented with added vigour during the ten years of UPA rule.
Enactments with a frank bias against the Hindus such as the Right to
Education Act were passed into law. The consequence of this law has been
to substantially handicap the majority community from setting up and
administering schools, thereby ceding the advantage to institutions
started by members of the minority communities.
Despite the NDA entering upon its fifth year in office, this far no
effort has been made to either scrap the RTE to ensure that every
citizen of India be treated equally in the matter of setting up of
private schools. Prime Minister Narendra Modi apparently wants to wait
till a second or a third term before doing away with British-era
measures that target the Hindu community, such as the continuation of
state control over temples in India. But some Hindus are not prepared to
wait that long and doubt that such British-era discriminatory steps
will ever get rolled back. They would, therefore, like to join the ranks
of the minority communities, thereby winning for themselves the
privileges such a tag brings with it in India. The Lingayat community
has within its fold several who set up educational, medical and other
institutions, but who are finding themselves handicapped while competing
with those set up by members of minority communities. Just as the
Patidars led by Hardik Patel want to be treated the same as other
sections are as a consequence of laws applicable to reservations, so do
many of the Lingayats of Karnataka. Imprecations of anti-national
conduct by television anchors are unlikely to deflect them from such a
course.
While the existing minority communities may not look kindly to
another addition to their ranks, the Karnataka CM has calculated that
they have nowhere else to go, as few wish to cast their ballots in
favour of the BJP, at least in Karnataka. Also, the chances that the
Central government will concede the demand of a section of the Lingayats
for separate status is zero so far as the Modi government is concerned,
a fact that must be known to almost all minority community voters.
Given the tilt of certain official policies in favour of minority
communities and the reluctance even of the Central government to remove
this, more and more groups within the majority community are likely to
demand minority status, not out of distaste for the ancient religion
they belong to, but solely to be enabled to compete on an equal footing
with competitors from the minority communities. The Congress Party may
garner several hundred thousand more votes as a consequence of
Siddaramaiah’s dexterity. However, he will have opened a Pandora’s Box
of similar demands, until the Modi government finds the will to ensure
that equal treatment to all finally becomes state policy.
Friday, 23 March 2018
President Trump shows a Churchillian pugnacity (Pakistan Observer)
Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat
Say this for Hillary Clinton, she built (along with her husband Bill
and daughter Chelsea) a superb campaign machinery working for her. Their
reach was not just domestic but global, with key figures in the
“Hillary for President” movement being in regular contact with
diplomats, officials and experts from different countries, including the
UK, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. Of course, as
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s real task is to remove Donald Trump
from office through concocting a case of entrapment, sexual and
financial misconduct or collusion or whatsoever against the 45th
President of the world’s most consequential country, he has not shown
any interest in Hillarygate, nor indeed has the Trump administration,
except for fiery words about the lady and her doings by a handful of
aides who are genuine supporters of Trump.
The majority of key members of the Trump administration are “supporters by happenstance”, that being the need to profess loyalty to the billionaire in order to retain the high offices to which he has appointed them. And from the comfort of their suites of rooms and retainers, many (especially in the foreign policy field) have worked at sabotaging Trump’s vision of a 21st century Indo-Pacific world that no longer enshrines Russia as a hate object, the way the world’s largest country has been since Moscow under Marshal Stalin played a decisive role in the 1945 defeat of Adolf Hitler and the German Empire he led to such destructive effect, including the elimination of millions of the most productive human beings on the planet. Whether it be Defence Secretary Mattis or US Ambassador to the Middle East Nikki Haley, they continue to follow a doctrine that since at least the past two decades has benefitted only the European Union at the cost of core US interests, more and more of which are getting aligned to Asia and to the Indo-Pacific, which was first defined by this columnist as being the totality of the Indian and Pacific oceans and not simply slices of the two water bodies.
The EU as a construct was backed by three powers that in effect subsidized the entity, two of which were Germany and the UK, whose taxpayers met the bill for most of the other members of the European Union. The other is the US, which has hugely benefitted the EU through its military muscle as well as its negotiating strengths in fora in which Washington goes by what the EU seeks rather than ( as with Trump) just those outcomes which benefit the US rather than any other country or group of countries. Small wonder that the stately chancelleries of the EU dislike Donald Trump intensely, and in private (and sometimes in public) belittle and disparage the 70-year old who seems to have got the 21st century right in a manner that far younger politicians in the US have not
After a comfortable flight from Delhi to Washington via Abu Dhabi on Etihad Airlines, it became clear from talks with friends that even more heavily than the snow, what is raining down on what will still be for a few years more the capital of the world’s biggest economy is a torrent of abuse of President Trump, mainly focussing on Russia. The US President is accused of congratulating Putin on what Senartor John McCain (who has from start of his political career hewed closely to the EU line on strategic policy, as have Clintons and most of the Congressional leadership of Republican Party) calls a “rigged” mandate. This ignores the reality of Putin being far and away the most popular politician in Russia, in large part because he is seen as an individual who has not buckled down to dictation by NATO.
Refusing to join hands with the US and the EU in geopolitical errors that have had the effect of boosting the strength of terrorist groups in the Middle East, instead backing those who may be authoritarian, Putin has made Moscow as important a player in the Arab region as it was during the 1960s, before the 1967 war enshrined Israel as being far and away the most powerful military power in the Middle East. Since then,Moscow has been in retreat in the region, only regaining lost ground from 2011 onwards, when it refused to follow the Sarkozy-Hollande-Clinton-Blair – Cameron consensus and support groups that were in effect were paving the way for radical groups to take over, as indeed Daesh did during that period, only retreating under attack from Moscow and its allies in Teheran and Damascus, although the Pentagon and the State Department have claimed credit for the victory.
This is similar to the way in which Hollywood (and official histories in the NATO zone) grabs for the US, the UK and even France (whose contribution to the war against Hitler’s armies was non-existent) the credit for defeating the German armies, when in fact the responsibility for that vested in the Russian forces. Despite casualties in the tens of millions, that force and the people behind the troops managed to overpower the German war machine and finally bring it to surrender. Soon afterwards, former followers of Hitler were not simply pardoned but placed in authority in Germany in order to challenge the Soviet Union and bring it to collapse, a feat that was achieved by the cowardice of Khruschev, the over-bureaucratisation of the Brezhnev years and the final surrender of Moscow’s interests to NATO by Mikhail Gorbachev
The attack on Donald Trump is unprecedented in its decibel level and coverage. News channel after news channel spends the bulk of its airtime regurgitating criticism of the President by an army of “experts”, each eager to ensure that the policies of the past return in their old virulence to the abodes of government in Washington. A standard issue politician may have wilted under the strain of such fire, but Trump seems to be ignoring the barrahe. Indeed, with every month the President seems to be gaining confidence in the wisdom of his own intuitive and businesslike approach to US policy, standing firm against advice to surrender his positions and adopt those of his foes. On the way from Abu Dhabi to Washington, this columnist watched “The Darkest Day”, a movie about Winston Churchill and how the British Prime Minister resisted those who wanted him to surrender to Hitler. His foes may be furious at comparison, but these days, President Trump is showing a Churchillian pugnacity and defiance of multiplying advice and threats from Washington Beltway to back away from his policies and adopt those of his 2016 opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The majority of key members of the Trump administration are “supporters by happenstance”, that being the need to profess loyalty to the billionaire in order to retain the high offices to which he has appointed them. And from the comfort of their suites of rooms and retainers, many (especially in the foreign policy field) have worked at sabotaging Trump’s vision of a 21st century Indo-Pacific world that no longer enshrines Russia as a hate object, the way the world’s largest country has been since Moscow under Marshal Stalin played a decisive role in the 1945 defeat of Adolf Hitler and the German Empire he led to such destructive effect, including the elimination of millions of the most productive human beings on the planet. Whether it be Defence Secretary Mattis or US Ambassador to the Middle East Nikki Haley, they continue to follow a doctrine that since at least the past two decades has benefitted only the European Union at the cost of core US interests, more and more of which are getting aligned to Asia and to the Indo-Pacific, which was first defined by this columnist as being the totality of the Indian and Pacific oceans and not simply slices of the two water bodies.
The EU as a construct was backed by three powers that in effect subsidized the entity, two of which were Germany and the UK, whose taxpayers met the bill for most of the other members of the European Union. The other is the US, which has hugely benefitted the EU through its military muscle as well as its negotiating strengths in fora in which Washington goes by what the EU seeks rather than ( as with Trump) just those outcomes which benefit the US rather than any other country or group of countries. Small wonder that the stately chancelleries of the EU dislike Donald Trump intensely, and in private (and sometimes in public) belittle and disparage the 70-year old who seems to have got the 21st century right in a manner that far younger politicians in the US have not
After a comfortable flight from Delhi to Washington via Abu Dhabi on Etihad Airlines, it became clear from talks with friends that even more heavily than the snow, what is raining down on what will still be for a few years more the capital of the world’s biggest economy is a torrent of abuse of President Trump, mainly focussing on Russia. The US President is accused of congratulating Putin on what Senartor John McCain (who has from start of his political career hewed closely to the EU line on strategic policy, as have Clintons and most of the Congressional leadership of Republican Party) calls a “rigged” mandate. This ignores the reality of Putin being far and away the most popular politician in Russia, in large part because he is seen as an individual who has not buckled down to dictation by NATO.
Refusing to join hands with the US and the EU in geopolitical errors that have had the effect of boosting the strength of terrorist groups in the Middle East, instead backing those who may be authoritarian, Putin has made Moscow as important a player in the Arab region as it was during the 1960s, before the 1967 war enshrined Israel as being far and away the most powerful military power in the Middle East. Since then,Moscow has been in retreat in the region, only regaining lost ground from 2011 onwards, when it refused to follow the Sarkozy-Hollande-Clinton-Blair – Cameron consensus and support groups that were in effect were paving the way for radical groups to take over, as indeed Daesh did during that period, only retreating under attack from Moscow and its allies in Teheran and Damascus, although the Pentagon and the State Department have claimed credit for the victory.
This is similar to the way in which Hollywood (and official histories in the NATO zone) grabs for the US, the UK and even France (whose contribution to the war against Hitler’s armies was non-existent) the credit for defeating the German armies, when in fact the responsibility for that vested in the Russian forces. Despite casualties in the tens of millions, that force and the people behind the troops managed to overpower the German war machine and finally bring it to surrender. Soon afterwards, former followers of Hitler were not simply pardoned but placed in authority in Germany in order to challenge the Soviet Union and bring it to collapse, a feat that was achieved by the cowardice of Khruschev, the over-bureaucratisation of the Brezhnev years and the final surrender of Moscow’s interests to NATO by Mikhail Gorbachev
The attack on Donald Trump is unprecedented in its decibel level and coverage. News channel after news channel spends the bulk of its airtime regurgitating criticism of the President by an army of “experts”, each eager to ensure that the policies of the past return in their old virulence to the abodes of government in Washington. A standard issue politician may have wilted under the strain of such fire, but Trump seems to be ignoring the barrahe. Indeed, with every month the President seems to be gaining confidence in the wisdom of his own intuitive and businesslike approach to US policy, standing firm against advice to surrender his positions and adopt those of his foes. On the way from Abu Dhabi to Washington, this columnist watched “The Darkest Day”, a movie about Winston Churchill and how the British Prime Minister resisted those who wanted him to surrender to Hitler. His foes may be furious at comparison, but these days, President Trump is showing a Churchillian pugnacity and defiance of multiplying advice and threats from Washington Beltway to back away from his policies and adopt those of his 2016 opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Saturday, 17 March 2018
After Kannada pride & flag push, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah launches scathing attack at the centre (NewsX)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has launched scathing attack at
centre. In a Facebook post, CM Siddaramaiah has stated that the southern
states pay more taxes to the centre without getting enough returns. He
further stated that a developed South India has been subsidising the
North. Meanwhile, MK Stalin in a statement has urged CM EPS to support
no confidence motion against BJP, says this is the most opportune time.
Congress slams BJP's One Nation One Poll, says simultaneous elections are impractical (NewsX)
Congress has slammed BJP’s move for simultaneous elections, calling it a
misplaced move. In a document accessed by NewsX it further said that
the idea of having simultaneous polls. Is incompatible with the
constitution and is also impractical?
Rahul torn between Gen Past and Gen Next (Sunday Guardian)
M D Nalapat
That dynasty is not a killer for a political career became apparent
in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav
scripted bypoll victories for the SP and the RJD. Mulayam Singh’s low
profile in the UP campaign left the spotlight firmly on his telegenic
son. Since the SP’s Assembly elections defeat, rather than surrender to
the “Old” Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav instead widened the distance
between himself and the SP’s “Gen Past” and steadily raised the
percentage of new entrants in leadership positions. This has
strengthened the public perception of a reset SP. Likewise, the absence
of a jailed Lalu Yadav and the stepping back into home life by Rabri
Devi have by default handed over the leadership of the RJD to son
Tejashwi. Should he avoid the more egregious of both Lalu and Mulayam’s
misjudgements (such as giving prominence to majority community goons and
to Wahhabi fanatics in preference to decent and moderate individuals
from both communities), the RJD will be on course to win the largest
number of seats from Bihar in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Among Candidate
Modi’s strong electoral cards was his being from the “backward” castes,
but in the fifth year of his rule, birth identity matters much less than
the overall performance of his government. Despite becoming Prime
Minister of a country eager for change, Narendra Modi retained almost
the entire ministerial core team of Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had lost
the 2004 polls with this very team. In his suite of civil servants, the
new Prime Minister left pride of place to the very civil servants who
had enjoyed a privileged status during the decade when Manmohan Singh
was the Prime Minister, some of whom were accomplices to UPA-era
corruption. Not unexpectedly, Modi has found it difficult to implement
any except incremental changes in governance, while his most
consequential initiative, demonetisation, was rolled out in a manner
less than favourable to the economy. The UPA faced headwinds caused by
the 2008 global financial meltdown and high oil prices, and yet achieved
a higher average annual growth the next six years than Modi has managed
in four years of faster global growth and low oil prices.
70% of the BJP’s 2014 victory was due to voter
disenchantment with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Hence she being
perceived as the leader of a new anti-Modi alliance is likely to harm
rather than help the anti-BJP opposition at the hustings. Many in India,
especially among the middle classes, are disenchanted with Team Modi,
but few amongst them wish to see a return of the Sonia-led 2004-2014
UPA. Unless Rahul Gandhi rebrands the Congress Party in the way Akhilesh
Yadav is doing with the SP, its electoral results will remain well
below potential. Rahul has to transition from going by the guidance of
“Gen Past” the way he unfortunately did during 2004-2014, to promoting
“Gen Next” policies. Such a shift is essential to take advantage of the
palpable inability of the BJP to convince the bulk of the electorate
that a “Naya Soch” and not just a Naya Pradhan Mantri arrived in 2014.
In UP and Bihar last week, many of those who voted for Modi in 2014
stayed at home rather than vote. A year later, unless the direction and
chemistry of governance changes substantially from what it has been for
the previous four years, many BJP supporters of 2014 are likely to vote
for whatever opposition party or combination they believe can defeat
Modi. There has not been enough perceptional change in substance since
2014 from the Vajpayee (or the UPA) years to convince tens of millions
of voters in 2019 to wait till 2022 for Modi’s promised “Achhe Din” to
arrive. In both villages and cities, the effects of (a) demonetisation
(b) a harsh GST and (c) “tax and persecute” policies are turning away
voters. If the present situation continues, the best hope for Prime
Minister Modi would be for Sonia Gandhi to remain the source of Congress
policy, and the pivot around which opposition unity forms. The
continuation of Sonia as the primary face of the anti-BJP campaign may
cause enough anti-Modi voters to stay at home, thereby ensuring just
enough LS seats for the BJP in 2019 to enable the party to put together a
coalition government.
As much as for Amit Shah, the results in
UP are a wake-up call for Rahul Gandhi. It was an act of grotesquerie
for Sonia Gandhi to say, as she did recently, that her effort during the
UPA decade was to ensure “equal treatment of all”. This when she
ensured through abominations such as the RTE that frankly discriminatory
policies got deepened rather than jettisoned. Certainly the passing of
the RTI Act was a welcome move by the UPA, but the subsequent filling up
by Team Manmohan of RTI posts by former or current civil servants
(including policepersons) made a mockery of the purposes of the measure.
By now, the official machinery has managed to defang the RTI into an
irrelevance, with added speedbreakers and exemptions to ensure that the
lack of transparency of the pre-RTI past is fast returning. If he is to
succeed in positioning his party as the speartip of the anti-BJP
opposition for the 2019 polls, Rahul Gandhi will need to demand the
strengthening of the RTI. He must call for the elimination of
contra-democratic laws such as criminal defamation or laws against
freedom of diet and lifestyle. He will need to call for lower taxes and
regulations, and for giving the citizen of India the freedoms a
democracy of 70-year vintage should assure. Rahul will need to support
the consensus among the moderate majority to build a Ram Temple at
Ayodhya, and celebrate the past of India, rather than deny it. To
succeed, Rahul Gandhi needs to repudiate the failed policy mix of the
Congress Party’s Gen Past, and instead call for fulfilling the needs of
Gen Next.
Friday, 16 March 2018
Warning signals from Hindi states for Modi (Pakistan Observer)
Geopolitical Notes From India
M D Nalapat
PRIME Minister Modi has given pride of place to MPs from the
Hindi-speaking states in the Union Council of Ministers. This was
because of the fact that the bulk of the MPs elected from the BJP were
from the Hindi-speaking states. In 1977, these states overwhelmingly
voted against the Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi. The second PM
from the Nehru family (and India’s only woman Prime Minister) was the
role model for Sonia Gandhi, who recently handed over the Presidentship
of the Congress Party to her only son, Rahul Gandhi. In 2014, she
followed in the footsteps of Indira Gandhi in a manner that was hardly
welcome, which was to witness the Hindi-speaking states vote
overwhelmingly against her party, exactly as they had in 1977.
Morarji Desai, who was chosen as Prime Minister by the ideologue of the anti-Indira movement, Jayaprakash Narayan, could not last three years in the job, although his overall performance on the job was superb. Economic growth got boosted and inflation reduced, but such successes had little effect on leaders such as Charan Singh, who every day was scheming to take over Desai’s job. Finally, a palace coup fuelled by MPs from the Hindi belt forced Desai to quit, thereby resulting in political instability until Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao managed to win over enough MPs to ensure a majority for his 1992-96 government. Although Rao came to office because of the support extended by Sonia Gandhi, she very soon turned against him, encouraged by those within the Congress Party who hated Rao, such as Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari, both from the Hindi belt. They formed a breakaway party with Sonia Gandhi’s not very hidden blessings, a development that caused the Congress Party to be defeated in 1996. These anti-Rao politicians were completely opposed to Narasimha Rao’s economic reforms, and it must be assumed that their hostility to economic reform was shared by Sonia Gandhi, else why would she have supported them in their revolt against Rao, albeit behind the scenes?
Modi chose Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh as his constituency, letting go of Vadodara in Gujarat. And from May 26, 2014 onwards, he and BJP President Amit Shah have sought to champion Hindi over English. More than in any previous government, the use of English in government has diminished while that of Hindi has grown. As a consequence, most of the top posts in the administrative structure have gone to Hindi-speaking bureaucrats. Modi uses Hindi (and Gujarati) as the medium through which he conducts the administration, and this places a handicap on officers from East and South India, few of whom are proficient in Hindi, the favourite language of such giants of Indian politics as Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia. Standards have been tweaked in examinations and selection boards so as to make it easier for Hindi-speaking candidates to do even better than they have in the past.
And although there is a rising demand among the poor to be taught English, the language has been discouraged in an effort to speed up the use of Hindi. Several schemes have been announced for Hindi-speaking states,given the fact that it is crucial for the BJP to secure a good performance in these states in the 2019 Parliamentary polls. Interestingly, from being portrayed as “pro-business” while he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi is now being seen as a “friend of the poor”. His rhetoric has ceased to be business friendly, and has instead been filled with warnings that businesspersons will come under the scrutiny of the investigative authorities. The Income-tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED),the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other police organisations are these days as powerful as they were during the period when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister.
Modi secured for his party a majority in the 2014 polls because of the overwhelming support he received from the middle class, which in India comprises over 200 million. They voted for Modi in the expectation that he would lower taxes and regulations. Instead, donning his “friend of the poor” avatar, Prime Minister Modi has increased taxes in each of the budgets that have been presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who along with BJP President Amit Shah forms the inner ring of Team Modi. Far from taking action against members of the Union Council of Ministers under Manmohan Singh, Modi has spared them. A couple of days ago, a CBI court found Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran not guilty in a case that had been brought against them of misusing state telecom network for personal gain. Some months previously, entire set of those accused of corruption in 2G telecom scandal were similarly found to be free of guilty by another CBI court.
The Modi government has in effect given its predecessors a clean chit, even though it had won the elections on the plank of making them pay for the corruption of the Manmohan Singh decade. The BJP leadership seems to have convinced itself that it is an inevitability that it will win the next elections. However, voters in the biggest Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have delivered a shock defeat to the BJP, choosing instead regional parties which had previously been shunned by them. The UP, Rajasthan (where too the BJP lost) and Bihar by-elections verdicts show that the mood in the Hindi belt is now more sullen than is safe for the BJP.
Morarji Desai, who was chosen as Prime Minister by the ideologue of the anti-Indira movement, Jayaprakash Narayan, could not last three years in the job, although his overall performance on the job was superb. Economic growth got boosted and inflation reduced, but such successes had little effect on leaders such as Charan Singh, who every day was scheming to take over Desai’s job. Finally, a palace coup fuelled by MPs from the Hindi belt forced Desai to quit, thereby resulting in political instability until Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao managed to win over enough MPs to ensure a majority for his 1992-96 government. Although Rao came to office because of the support extended by Sonia Gandhi, she very soon turned against him, encouraged by those within the Congress Party who hated Rao, such as Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari, both from the Hindi belt. They formed a breakaway party with Sonia Gandhi’s not very hidden blessings, a development that caused the Congress Party to be defeated in 1996. These anti-Rao politicians were completely opposed to Narasimha Rao’s economic reforms, and it must be assumed that their hostility to economic reform was shared by Sonia Gandhi, else why would she have supported them in their revolt against Rao, albeit behind the scenes?
Modi chose Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh as his constituency, letting go of Vadodara in Gujarat. And from May 26, 2014 onwards, he and BJP President Amit Shah have sought to champion Hindi over English. More than in any previous government, the use of English in government has diminished while that of Hindi has grown. As a consequence, most of the top posts in the administrative structure have gone to Hindi-speaking bureaucrats. Modi uses Hindi (and Gujarati) as the medium through which he conducts the administration, and this places a handicap on officers from East and South India, few of whom are proficient in Hindi, the favourite language of such giants of Indian politics as Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia. Standards have been tweaked in examinations and selection boards so as to make it easier for Hindi-speaking candidates to do even better than they have in the past.
And although there is a rising demand among the poor to be taught English, the language has been discouraged in an effort to speed up the use of Hindi. Several schemes have been announced for Hindi-speaking states,given the fact that it is crucial for the BJP to secure a good performance in these states in the 2019 Parliamentary polls. Interestingly, from being portrayed as “pro-business” while he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi is now being seen as a “friend of the poor”. His rhetoric has ceased to be business friendly, and has instead been filled with warnings that businesspersons will come under the scrutiny of the investigative authorities. The Income-tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED),the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other police organisations are these days as powerful as they were during the period when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister.
Modi secured for his party a majority in the 2014 polls because of the overwhelming support he received from the middle class, which in India comprises over 200 million. They voted for Modi in the expectation that he would lower taxes and regulations. Instead, donning his “friend of the poor” avatar, Prime Minister Modi has increased taxes in each of the budgets that have been presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who along with BJP President Amit Shah forms the inner ring of Team Modi. Far from taking action against members of the Union Council of Ministers under Manmohan Singh, Modi has spared them. A couple of days ago, a CBI court found Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran not guilty in a case that had been brought against them of misusing state telecom network for personal gain. Some months previously, entire set of those accused of corruption in 2G telecom scandal were similarly found to be free of guilty by another CBI court.
The Modi government has in effect given its predecessors a clean chit, even though it had won the elections on the plank of making them pay for the corruption of the Manmohan Singh decade. The BJP leadership seems to have convinced itself that it is an inevitability that it will win the next elections. However, voters in the biggest Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have delivered a shock defeat to the BJP, choosing instead regional parties which had previously been shunned by them. The UP, Rajasthan (where too the BJP lost) and Bihar by-elections verdicts show that the mood in the Hindi belt is now more sullen than is safe for the BJP.
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
Friday, 2 March 2018
Eastern Indo-Pacific awaits Trump (Pakistan Observer)
Geopolitical Notes From India
M D Nalapat
While President Donald J Trump has visited Europe, East Asia and the
Middle East several times, thus far he has not come to any of the
countries that form the eastern side of the Indo-Pacific, the giant body
of seawater that is the hub of global commerce and geopolitics. Unlike
Europe, where the Atlanticist establishment reigns and as a consequence,
Trump is unpopular with several local leaders, his image within most of
Asia’s ruling elites is good. Candidate Trump gave a promise while on
the 2016 Presidential elections campaign that he would – in effect –
actualise what his predecessor promised to do, which was to reset US
policy from its post-1945 Atlanticist anchor towards mooring onto the
Indo-Pacific.
This has so far prevented him from proceeding at speed towards the objective of resetting US policy from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. However, those close to the strong-willed billionaire say that it is only a matter of months before such a shift gets carried out, including through the removal of those in the top layers of his team who are committed Atlanticists, as indeed are many of the members of the Republican establishment. Interestingly, those close to Senator Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party say that (unlike Hillary Clinton) he is not committed to preserving the Atlanticist focus of US foreign, economic and security policy, and that he has been devoting increasing interest to the situation in Asia, especially that in China, the Middle East and India. Among the backers of Senator Sanders in his own party is Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has become an expert on Asia as a consequence of her numerous visits to the continent, although as yet she seems to have been unable to persuade Senator to visit India and Indonesia, two countries that are the most strategically placed so far as geography of eastern reaches of Indo-Pacific is concerned.
Thus far,neither President Trump nor his Democratic critic Bernie Sanders has visited these two most populous democracies in Asia. A Presidential visit to India and Indonesia would have substantial global resonance. Not only are they two of the three most populous countries on the face of the planet, they are also two of the three countries in the world with the highest number of Muslim citizens. Although the Atlanticist establishment focuses near exclusively on the Middle East in connection with matters connected with the worldwide Muslim ummah, the fact is that all three of these countries (Indonesia, Pakistan and India) are located to the east of that region. Donald Trump has given the backing of his administration to Crown Prince Mohammad Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who for the first time since the establishment of his very important country is working on rolling back the Wahabbi tide, first in Saudi Arabia and subsequently globally. As this is being written, King Abdullah of Jordan is on a visit to India, where the entire population of the country is in a welcoming mode for an individual who represents the finest traditions of Islam, as indeed would be natural from an individual who is a 41st generation descendant of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) himself.
India has a large Sufi community, and they have come together to welcome Abdullah to Delhi. Unlike in the case of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where a junior minister was despatched to the airport to welcome him and his family to India, in the case of the King Of Jordan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went to the airport to receive the royal guest, in a show of empathy for Jordan and its role as an exemplar of moderation in the Middle East. In much the same way, although on a slightly bigger scale, both Indonesia as well as India have proven to the world that the Muslim community is as peace loving and respectful of other faiths as are those who believe in other numerically large religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. Whether it be in the UAE (especially Dubai) or in Kuwait, visitors to such countries understand how deep rooted the tradition of tolerance is among the almost wholly Muslim citizenry of such states. Hence the need for President Trump to move away from the Middle East-centric perspective of an Atlanticist establishment that is visceral in its dislike of him and the ideas he represents and visit India and Indonesia as well, having already been (as President of the United States) to the most populated country on the globe, China. Both First Daughter Ivanka Trump as well as eldest son Donald Trump Junior have visited India, thereby paving the way for the US President.
The US has long cherished the objective of serving as a beacon of democracy, and a visit to two of the three largest democracies would showcase such concern in a unique way. A “2 plus 2” summit is already planned for Washington next month, where President Trump and Prime Minister Modi will hold talks, as also Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. There is also talk of Prime Minister Modi meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping the same month, now that the leader of second most important economy has demonstrated to the world his control over the levers of governance in Peoples Republic of China. Indeed, should the US President use the visit to hold a meeting of the Quadrilateral Alliance countries (Japan, Australia,the US and India) while in Delhi, that would be a signal that the alliance is as firm in its structure and resolve as any elsewhere. In Jakarta, he could meet with the leaders of Vietnam and the Philippines together with the President of Indonesia, as the three countries merit inclusion in the Indo-Pacific’s first formal alliance. Hopefully by that time, the situation in the Maldives would have evolved in a manner satisfactory to the democracies.
This has so far prevented him from proceeding at speed towards the objective of resetting US policy from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. However, those close to the strong-willed billionaire say that it is only a matter of months before such a shift gets carried out, including through the removal of those in the top layers of his team who are committed Atlanticists, as indeed are many of the members of the Republican establishment. Interestingly, those close to Senator Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party say that (unlike Hillary Clinton) he is not committed to preserving the Atlanticist focus of US foreign, economic and security policy, and that he has been devoting increasing interest to the situation in Asia, especially that in China, the Middle East and India. Among the backers of Senator Sanders in his own party is Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has become an expert on Asia as a consequence of her numerous visits to the continent, although as yet she seems to have been unable to persuade Senator to visit India and Indonesia, two countries that are the most strategically placed so far as geography of eastern reaches of Indo-Pacific is concerned.
Thus far,neither President Trump nor his Democratic critic Bernie Sanders has visited these two most populous democracies in Asia. A Presidential visit to India and Indonesia would have substantial global resonance. Not only are they two of the three most populous countries on the face of the planet, they are also two of the three countries in the world with the highest number of Muslim citizens. Although the Atlanticist establishment focuses near exclusively on the Middle East in connection with matters connected with the worldwide Muslim ummah, the fact is that all three of these countries (Indonesia, Pakistan and India) are located to the east of that region. Donald Trump has given the backing of his administration to Crown Prince Mohammad Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who for the first time since the establishment of his very important country is working on rolling back the Wahabbi tide, first in Saudi Arabia and subsequently globally. As this is being written, King Abdullah of Jordan is on a visit to India, where the entire population of the country is in a welcoming mode for an individual who represents the finest traditions of Islam, as indeed would be natural from an individual who is a 41st generation descendant of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) himself.
India has a large Sufi community, and they have come together to welcome Abdullah to Delhi. Unlike in the case of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where a junior minister was despatched to the airport to welcome him and his family to India, in the case of the King Of Jordan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went to the airport to receive the royal guest, in a show of empathy for Jordan and its role as an exemplar of moderation in the Middle East. In much the same way, although on a slightly bigger scale, both Indonesia as well as India have proven to the world that the Muslim community is as peace loving and respectful of other faiths as are those who believe in other numerically large religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. Whether it be in the UAE (especially Dubai) or in Kuwait, visitors to such countries understand how deep rooted the tradition of tolerance is among the almost wholly Muslim citizenry of such states. Hence the need for President Trump to move away from the Middle East-centric perspective of an Atlanticist establishment that is visceral in its dislike of him and the ideas he represents and visit India and Indonesia as well, having already been (as President of the United States) to the most populated country on the globe, China. Both First Daughter Ivanka Trump as well as eldest son Donald Trump Junior have visited India, thereby paving the way for the US President.
The US has long cherished the objective of serving as a beacon of democracy, and a visit to two of the three largest democracies would showcase such concern in a unique way. A “2 plus 2” summit is already planned for Washington next month, where President Trump and Prime Minister Modi will hold talks, as also Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. There is also talk of Prime Minister Modi meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping the same month, now that the leader of second most important economy has demonstrated to the world his control over the levers of governance in Peoples Republic of China. Indeed, should the US President use the visit to hold a meeting of the Quadrilateral Alliance countries (Japan, Australia,the US and India) while in Delhi, that would be a signal that the alliance is as firm in its structure and resolve as any elsewhere. In Jakarta, he could meet with the leaders of Vietnam and the Philippines together with the President of Indonesia, as the three countries merit inclusion in the Indo-Pacific’s first formal alliance. Hopefully by that time, the situation in the Maldives would have evolved in a manner satisfactory to the democracies.