PM and CJI Can End India's Colonial Hangover

 

The country has a penal code that has a vintage of more than a century and a half.

 

The Supreme Court of India deserves gratitude from those who believe in the values of freedom and democracy. That “jail is the exception and bail is the rule” has been repeated endless times, yet it appears to many in India that jail is the norm and bail the exception. The emphasis by the Apex Court on liberty in the recent granting of bail to some media personalities will hopefully be emulated by courts across the country. So far as the media is concerned, over the years dozens of journalists have been sent to jail in states across the country. Some have been silenced in a more permanent way. In another field, numerous personnel connected to India’s nuclear and missile industries succumbed to “suicides”, “accidents” and “break-in murders” since the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton declared a public as well as a covert war on both nuclear and missile activity in our country. The killings stopped once reports of the serial deaths of individuals in the nuclear and missile industry appeared in The Sunday Guardian. The time has been overdue to investigate the arrest, intimidation and deaths of numerous Right to Information (RTI) activists across the country who seek to probe wrongdoing by those in authority. RTI was intended to be an instrument of transparency that would tear away the layers of secrecy in which governmental processes operate. Instead, the UPA regime ensured that RTI boards were dominated by those who had spent their entire careers keeping information away from the public. This is among the practices of the past that should not be allowed to continue . A country’s progress is determined by those in key positions. Care needs to be taken to ensure that attendance in the durbars of powerful bureaucrats and politicians cease to be indispensable for getting into positions of authority. On paper, there are “360-degree investigations” of prospective nominees to responsible office. In reality, such consultations usually take place solely within a narrow band of officials and their favourites. The personnel dossiers that get prepared about suggested nominees often reflect the personal and other biases of those preparing them rather than be a factual rendition of an individual’s pluses and minuses.

Lack of transparency in the processes of governance has created an absence of public accountability even after 1947, although during Modi 2.0 more and more processes are being made less opaque. This is because of the Prime Minister’s focus on expanding the scope of Digital India. As a consequence of this, several more administrative processes have become transparent, but more need to follow. The RTI law in its manner of operation needs to be rescued from the morass into which incorrect implementation pushed it during the UPA period. This can happen through increasing the powers of RTI boards and choosing members who have spent their lives chasing transparency rather than making a fetish of secrecy. Several of the officials who dominate RTI boards apparently believe that the common citizen cannot be trusted with any information other than the line tossed in her or his direction by official channels and those outside that are faithful to the line peddled.

Until the Supreme Court stepped in and ensured justice, there had been much commentary about the incarceration of a prominent editor by a state government. His news outlet had been reporting on a presumed suicide that in the view of some could have been a murder. As a consequence of that view, several individuals were sent to prison while others were questioned by police for long periods in the full glare of television cameras. Ultimately no proof of murder was discovered. Among other such statutes, India has a narcotics law that makes the word “draconian” an understatement. This is now being used to create a brouhaha that will have the effect of relocating the Indian film industry to Mauritius. Judging by what is being charged against some of those connected to Bollywood, even the possession of small quantities of “soft” drugs that are in widespread recreational use could result in long jail terms. It would be better to legalise such drugs the way President-elect Joseph R. Biden plans to do in the US, and in the manner several countries around the world have. The Narcotics Control Board has to focus on “hard” drugs and on taking down their distribution and finance channels. Given the range of ways in which a citizen can be deprived of his or her liberty in India, it is no surprise that even so prominent a journalist as the editor who had been incarcerated in Maharashtra remains enmeshed in a criminal case This is a process that could take decades to complete, with attendant human and financial costs. The Supreme Court needs to set a high bar for the taking away of liberty or the confiscation of property of the citizen. Such forfeitures should not continue to take place in India in the manner that used to happen during the colonial period The range of penal laws left behind by the British and preserved by those who came to power after the country won its freedom needs to be reduced to conform to the changes required by the 21st century. Under existing statutes, a wide range of actions by a citizen can be interpreted in a misleading manner by an interested official, even though the same may be entirely innocent of wrongdoing. The country has a penal code that has a vintage of more than a century and a half in an era when technologies get transformed every few months. Over the decades, rather than get reduced, penal provisions have been added on to over the years, especially in economic activity. Officials (and politicians in power) love such authority despite its killing effect on the business environment and on individual freedom. During the UPA period, jail was added as an option for several financial charges despite the fact that the wording of regulations and laws often lend themselves to misinterpretation and erroneous conjecture. North Block during the Vajpayee period removed several such vexatious provisions, and to a considerable extent sought to ensure that officials did not misuse their powers. Despite the reality of corruption increasing with every new anti-corruption measure coming into force, more and more penal measures have been introduced. These need to be rolled back during Modi 2.0. The rate of economic growth in India has been falling for some years, even before the pandemic, and this can get reversed should the risks to liberty and property caused by misinterpretation and erroneous conjecture get reduced. The Prime Minister has spoken of the need for this, hence such a change in this longstanding colonial practice is expected.

The Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court can separately work to ensure that colonial laws and practices be discarded so that the governance system reflects the 21st rather than the 19th century. Many of the existing penalties should be civil and financial rather than criminal and penal. Economies delinking from the PRC are looking to invest in India, but are wary of the continuing hangover of the colonial era. This puts them at the mercy of the minority of officials who because of their venality (facilitated by lack of transparency and accountability) have given administration in India an unsavoury reputation. Properties have been summarily grabbed by governments and freedoms taken away with abandon by Central and state authorities over the decades. It is time this changes.

 

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/pm-cji-can-end-indias-colonial-hangover

Moral Policing Wrecked Nitish Kumar's Tally in Bihar (Sunday Guardian)

 

 

The dent in the finances of the state because of the liquor ban caused a reduction in government programs and job creation. At the same time, instead of becoming weaker, the liquor lobby has been celebrating the onset of Prohibition.

New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made an advantageous move in 2017 when he joined hands with the BJP after a lapse of four years. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President J.P. Nadda had made it clear before the Assembly elections that whatever the balance of seats between the JDU and the BJP, Nitish Kumar would continue as the Chief Minister if the alliance secured a majority. This promise has been kept in spite of the poor performance of the JDU, the government led by which was rescued by the continuing mass appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That it was the charisma and credibility of the PM that powered the JDU-BJP alliance to victory in Bihar is obvious. It helped that J.P. Nadda has shown himself to be a capable chief of the party that is a close rival of the Chinese Communist Party in being the largest political organisation in the world. Certainly the BJP is by far the largest party in any democracy, a position it reached during the tenure in office of former BJP President Amit Shah. The decision in 2013 of the central leadership of the BJP to choose Modi as the standard bearer for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was responsible for the party securing a majority in the 2014 polls after a gap of three decades when no party had that distinction. Not even the party that has ruled India for the longest period, the Indian National Congress, which since 1999 has been led by Sonia Gandhi. That feat by the BJP was repeated in 2019, indicating that a plurality of voters still had faith that Modi is the leader who can ensure a better future for them. It is that faith which has ensured yet another term for Nitish Kumar, who is thereby edging closer to Jyoti Basu’s record, he having been the Chief Minister of Bengal for 23 years. Unfortunately for Bihar, the tenure of Nitish Kumar has given evidence of a strong strain of moral policing. In the past, supporters of then CM of Kerala, A.K. Antony had created a halo of rectitude around the non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian, who gave up his bachelorhood much later in life than is usual. However, even the politician who was nicknamed “Saint Antony” by his friends did not seek to go forward as CM with moral policing in the manner that Nitish did.

DISCONNECT BETWEEN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Since 5 April 2016 any individual in Bihar caught with a bottle or even a glass of alcohol faced imprisonment for a minimum of 10 years, and even a life sentence. While such punishment is and should be the norm for horrendous crimes such as those carried out by child predators and serial murderers, Bihar should enter the Guinness Book of Records by the way the state has mandated a similar penalty simply for the consumption of liquor. Perhaps because he was not at the time an ally of the BJP, but of the RJD, there was scarcely a protest from the human rights lobby at the disconnect between crime and punishment that was the brainchild of the CM of Bihar. Hundreds and later thousands of tipplers began to crowd prisons in Bihar as a consequence of the Prohibition Law. The furore caused by this among the people resulted in a small relaxation of the policy in 2018, but not before immense harm had been done to the social and economic fabric of a state that is situated in the fertile Gangetic plain and yet is among the poorest in the Union of India. The relaxation in the liquor law came a year after the JDU entered into the alliance with the BJP in 2017 that has ensured security of tenure for the Bihar CM ever since. The CM has thus far refused to reverse the Bihar liquor law. In his view, the ban will (a) reduce domestic violence, not an unusual event in a still largely patriarchal society, (b) finish off the political and financial clout of the liquor lobby in the state, and (c) raise the poor of his state out of poverty by saving the money they would otherwise spend on alcohol. All three assumptions are wrong. Unfortunately, when the moral police instincts of the Bihar CM were given full rein in the 2016 liquor law, those around him did what they normally did when faced with such a situation, which was to applaud the CM for his action rather than sound a note of caution. When a politician gathers around him only such people as nod their heads at whatever he or she says, that individual will soon get into trouble. The ability to listen to opposing views and to ensure that a multiplicity of opinions is presented before a decision gets taken is crucial to good governance.

RISE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

In several households, liquor has long been a not uncommon element of daily consumption, including among the poor. In Bihar, the underprivileged there work for more than ten hours each day, and return to their shanties with aching and tired limbs. In that state, the minimum wage and maximum permitted hours of work are ignored by several who employ casual labour, although presumably this information was not brought to the attention of the Chief Minister’s Office. A tot of liquor costing about Rs 30-40 was consumed by such labourers every day on their return home, to dull the aches and to escape from the miseries of everyday existence at least for a while. For truck drivers, a dose of liquor is useful in ensuring sleep after a gruelling day spent on choked roads, rowdy traffic. This is especially the case if the truck being driven is itself in poor condition, again not uncommon in several parts of the country, but very prevalent in Bihar. The Chief Minister of Bihar may not have ever consumed a drop of liquor in his life, but that is not reason enough to seek to impose his preferences on the rest of the population in such a drastic fashion. Several who were poor could not do without their daily dose of pain balm they took to enable a temporary escape from reality. They now had to spend Rs 210-240 or more daily rather than the earlier amount of Rs 30-40. That too for liquor that may be spurious, as it is supplied by bootleggers and smugglers rather than by approved outlets as earlier. This extra spending on alcohol has left much less money for household needs such as food, schooling and clothing. Because of the additional cost plus the fact that Nitish had proclaimed in speech after speech that it was because of pressure from women that he had passed such a law, beatings in the home have increased rather than been reduced by the measure. Despite such facts, more than a few analysts and commentators remarked on the women’s vote that Nitish was seen by them as receiving in the early stages of counting, when the JDU was doing well. Such analyses showed their disconnect from the ground situation. Judging by the results, the CM lost much of that vote but was lucky that women in Bihar still have immense confidence in Prime Minister Modi. This enabled the JDU to remain a force in the state Assembly, albeit behind the RJD and the BJP.

REVENUE LOST

The dent in the finances of the state because of the liquor ban caused a reduction in government programs and job creation. At the same time, instead of becoming weaker, the liquor lobby has been celebrating the onset of Prohibition. They are making extortionate profits from the shortage of alcohol. Prices have risen by more than four times, only this time the extra amount is in black and outside the ambit of Central and State taxes. As a consequence, Central revenues also suffered because of the CM’s moral policing. Certainly alcohol is best avoided, but the way to achieve abstinence is for Nitish Kumar to dress in the simple manner of the Mahatma and go about on foot from village to village preaching the virtues of temperance. Setting the police loose on those who do not share his moral principles and preferences in liquid refreshment is another example of the manner in which laws and regulations in India have been used to try and change even such forms of social behaviour as are non-threatening to others. Had the Chief Minister stiffened the penalties for violence under the influence of alcohol and the creation of a public fracas by the inebriated, the response to the liquor ban would not have been so profound. The best way to reduce the influence of the liquor lobby is to go the Tamil Nadu way and ensure that authorised sales are made at reasonable prices to the poor. Unlike in the case of Bihar, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu does not regard it as part of the duty of the state government to prescribe or proscribe lifestyles, dress or diet.

Another loss to Bihar was the fall in tourism. Fewer footfalls took place in a state where even consuming a bottle of beer could lead to a long and uncomfortable stay at state expense. Marriages began to move out of the state, given that alcohol is often part of the celebrations. In Gujarat, another “dry” state, several marriage invitations include receptions in nearby Daman for reasons that are obvious. Another setback was the closure of several sugar factories in Bihar. With the closure of every factory came the loss of about 3,000-4,000 jobs, not to mention the tens of thousands of farmers who have suffered from the aftershocks of each factory and liquor processing centre that closed down. Moral policing has cost the state of Bihar jobs, and hit family finances as well as state finances. It is to be seen if the Chief Minister has learnt any lesson from the poor showing of his party in the just concluded Assembly elections, or whether he will continue with using the bludgeon of law and the police to enforce his own moral codes on a population that would like to be left alone to deal with such matters by themselves. Politicians and officials across the country and in the Central government need to understand the wisdom and the essentiality of Prime Minister Modi’s call for Minimum Government so as to ensure Maximum Governance.

 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/moral-policing-wrecked-nitish-kumars-tally-bihar

Minimum Government Essential for Remaking India (Sunday Guardian)

 

Surprisingly, the first Economic Survey of the Modi government magnanimously gave high marks to its predecessor.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, with assistance from Satyen Pitroda, ensured that the days of waiting for hours and even days to put a long-distance call through ended. The flaw was that new private players were kept out of the telecom industry, while only those with connections to the ruling establishment were allowed in most sectors. Mani Shankar Aiyar sought to nudge the Congress government into decentralising its financial and administrative authority to the state and local level. This led to signs of panic from both the Central bureaucracy and the owners of large hotels in Delhi. Most of the customers of such hotels were businesspersons and others who visited the capital to persuade politicians in power and the bureaucrats clustered around them to sanction the many permissions needed to undertake most activities in India. It was Narasimha Rao who launched Reform 1.0 by the simple process of throwing into the dustbin several of the regulations that had been put in place over decades of growth that by the standards of East and even Southeast Asia was paltry. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee launched Reform 1.5 by making the working of government less burdensome for enterprises and gifted the UPA an economy improving in health. The numerous policies of the UPA over its decade in office had the effect of damping down the economic potential of India. Surprisingly, the first Economic Survey of the Narendra Modi government magnanimously gave high marks to its predecessor in contrast to the many statements made by the BJP during the tenure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This was presumably because of the fact that it was drafted by the same officials who had held high positions during the UPA period. In a gesture that was Gandhian in its forbearance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given an honoured place in the new government to those officials who had served in high positions during the previous decade, just as he gave pride of place to those who had been prominent in the government headed by Vajpayee. When he was sworn in as the 44rth President of the US in 2009, Barack Obama similarly filled his team with those who had been in the Clinton administration rather than focus on bringing the change in personnel that was anticipated. Presumably, Obama felt that the mere fact of being the first African-American President of the US was change enoigh, and went ahead with a Clinton Lite administration. It was only during the concluding phase of his eight years in office that Obama broke loose from the Clinton shadow, and went ahead with initiatives in Cuba, Iran and India that broke substantial ground where relations with the three were concerned. After moving to the White House in 2017, President Donald J. Trump reversed his predecessor’s breakthrough “sunshine” policies towards Teheran and Havana, but doubled down on the convivial relationship between Washington and Delhi that had been started during the post-Clinton period in the Obama administration.

While President Trump was certainly crucial in the evolving Indo-US partnership, the credit should also go to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The  Bush administration had taken the unwise step of denying a visa to the then Gujarat Chief Minister, an error continued by the Obama administration till the people of India gave a parliamentary majority to the BJP in 2014. On his part, Modi did not allow this and other hostile policies towards him to affect his focus on bettering ties with the US. Unexpectedly for those unaware of the policy focus of Modi and Obama, the two bonded immediately. It helped that the National Security Advisor to President Obama was Susan Rice and that Ashton Carter was the Secretary of Defense. Both understood the centrality of an Indo-US partnership in the Indo-Pacific era, although it has yet to be seen if a President Biden would include Rice and Carter in his administration. The fact that he chose Kamala Harris as his running mate has been an encouraging sign that Joe Biden has moved beyond the obsessively Atlanticist shadow of the Clintons. He has an asset in his spouse Jill. According to those who know her, it was fortunate for newly elected Senator Biden that he met Jill, whose exceptional qualities resemble those of Biden’s eldest son Beau. It was a tragedy not only for the family Beau Biden left behind by his passing but also for his country that Beau had his life cut short by a fell disease. Biden’s second son has been controversial, and the generous payments made to him by entities controlled by the Chinese Communist Party have been used by the Republican Party as evidence of Joe Biden being in Beijing’s pocket thanks to his surviving son. However, what is more likely is that Hunter may simply have been following the “American as Apple Pie” policy of pocketing dollars, wherever they may come from. There is therefore almost no chance of Hunter Biden having any affinity to China. He appears to be a go-getter who would have accepted big payments from almost any country without any attachment except to the money. Even were Hunter Biden to be in thrall to the PRC, it is impossible to believe that a President Biden would, as a consequence, soften his policies towards China during Cold War 2.0. In this context, it must be remembered that it has been President Trump who has imposed harsher measures on Russia than even Jimmy Carter. Compared to President Trump, President Bush was a “panda hugger” during almost the entirety of his eight years in the White House. This when the Democratic Party has endlessly repeated Hillary Clinton’s 2016 charge that Trump was a Russian puppet. Judging by the sanctions on Moscow during the past three years, if this is how a puppet behaves, Washington needs more of them.

Although there have been incidents in the past, such as senior officials refusing to meet individuals who are prominent in the Democratic Party such as Pramila Jayapal, it is a certainty that the interests binding Washington and Delhi will combine with the diplomatic skills of Narendra Modi and the genial personality of Joe Biden to ensure that the relationship between the leaders of the world’s two giant democracies will be as close as those between Modi and Obama, and that visits by each to the other country will take place soon. Apart from the fact that it is certain that the soon-to-be Vice-President of the US is certain to visit Chennai after the obligatory stopover in Delhi. Reforms have accelerated during Modi 2.0, and changes are needed, such as allowing security and defence partners to have their companies set up 100% owned entities in India. And that for Covid-19, a President Biden saves millions of lives the way President Bush did for the HIV pandemic by sourcing from India 90% of essential therapeutics for preventing HIV from being the killer it had been. Another partnership between the US and India would ensure that drug cocktails of very low cost could be disseminated across the world to sharply bring down death rates from the novel coronavirus from the present levels. Should Biden make India the priority that Obama and Trump have, he would ensure a partnership that could decide the result of Cold War 2.0.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/minimum-government-essential-remaking-india

India-US bonhomie will Continue under Biden-Harris (Sunday Guardian)

 

It is likely that establishing a close bond between the incoming President of the US and the Prime Minister of India will be a priority for both Joe Biden and Narendra Modi.

 New Delhi: The “Namaste Trump” mela in Ahmedabad this year and earlier, the 2019 “Howdy Modi” hoopla in Houston, have been lampooned by many as sideshows. Such a view ignores the symbolism of both across the world. India has an economy far smaller than that of the United States (almost by ten times), and yet as the two leaders marched arm in arm across the stadium on both occasions, it was perceived by tens of millions of viewers that the Trump administration had finally accepted India as an equal, just as President Richard Nixon did with the People’s Republic of China in the 1970s. Nixon’s deft diplomacy created the defining alliance of the US during Cold War 1.0. This was not with the other members of NATO but with Beijing, and there grew an often understated, often covert, link between that capital and Washington. Similarly, the most consequential partnership between Washington and any other capital during Cold War 2.0 will be—as was acknowledged by then National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster in 2018—with Delhi. There has been much quibbling over whether what is taking place between the PRC and the US is indeed a “Cold War”. Those reluctant to admit that their serial predictions of the PRC turning democratic with economic success have doubled down on the strategy of engaging rather than confronting China. Such elements have long been part of the Biden policy ecosystem, hence the optimism in Beijing that spring is approaching after a Trumpian winter. The sizeable “Engage, don’t confront PRC” lobby in Washington has pointed out correctly that both sides seek to avoid a direct conflict but are silent about the fact that wars are not always started by design. A “Cold War” is not the opposite of a “hot” or kinetic war, but describes a situation wherein one superpower is seeking to wrest global leadership from the other by whatever means is available, and the other is seeking to repress its capabilities for doing so. Such a contest may be “hot” in some locations while remaining “cold” in others.

There has been a perception among policymakers, especially in Asia, that a Biden administration would return to the G-2 model favoured by Beijing (until it establishes a clear lead over the US). US tech companies, unhappy at having to decouple from their PRC partners and suppliers, have lavished money on the Democratic Party presidential campaign in the expectation that the decoupling from PRC-controlled supply chains that began in the final year of the Obama administration and was continued with more vigour under Donald J. Trump, will get reversed. They are likely to be disappointed, as PRC progress in Artificial Intelligence and in space and missile technology has begun to pose an existential threat to US military assets. As President of the US, Joe Biden will have access to data that show how the PRC has, for at least a decade, been working to separate its own tech supply chains from the US, and how it being the dominant component of so many US supply chains is assisting such a process. Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris can be accused with accuracy of being “soft” on the PRC, unlike what has been alleged against them by the Republicans. Judging by some of the new entrants in the advisory councils of both, it is clear that both have transitioned from the Altanticist obsession of the Clintons to the Indo-Pacific pivot initiated by President Barack Obama, with the assistance of two outstanding intellects, Susan Rice and Ashton Carter. However, President Obama was cautious to a fault in many ways, and standing up to China was included in that list. ASEAN countries factored in with dismay the non-response of the Obama administration when the Scarborough Shoals were taken over by the PRC from the Philippines in 2012 despite an agreement with Manila not to do so. The Pentagon’s policy has been the undertaking of symbolic passages by naval vessels through the South China Sea. Instead, what is needed (in conjunction with other powers) is to recover primacy over that crucial waterway through reversing the steady militarization of the South China Sea that has taken place under General Secretary Xi Jinping. This transformational leader has from the start of his rule in 2012 placed the PLA at the hub of diplomacy and strategy. The geographical activism that has taken place under Xi since 2012 resembles the manner in which there was accretion of territory by Chairman Mao, only this time mostly on water rather than land. What may be termed as neo-socialist (or neosoc) PRC analysts (who are as fixated on the expansion of Beijing’s power as the neo-conservatives or neocons were in the US were about boosting that of Washington) are gaining influence within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is this group that is pushing for an aggressive PRC policy towards India. Their line has been adopted by the Central Military Commission (CMC) in the expectation that the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on India has given an opportunity for the PLA to knock out any chances of Delhi emerging as a credible challenger to the PRC. Once humiliating blows were landed, India would (in their view) lose its attraction as a potential ally to the US, and would itself begin a process of internal turmoil and eventual meltdown. This would in line with the objectives of GHQ Rawalpindi, a PLA ally. Simultaneously, the influence of Russia besides the PRC’s own lobby within India would prevent the Narendra Modi government from going ahead with an Indo-US partnership, on the specious ground that by doing so, the “independence” and “strategic autonomy” of India would be compromised. Both are indeed being sought to be compromised, not by those in favour of a defence and security alignment with the US, but because of the activities of the PLA and GHQ Rawalpindi. Both are working in tandem where India is concerned. PRC “neosoc” (neo-socialist) analysts expect the Biden administration to seek a return to the G-2 model in Asia. Should they be correct, US credibility as a security partner for Southeast Asia would fall to depths not seen since the 1930s.

AGGRESIVE NEO-SOCIALISTS

The nationalistic (or in their words, patriotic) neosoc analysts in China believe that the Biden administration will move away from the Indo-Pacific strategy fashioned during the Trump presidency. This would be at the precise time when the Quad needs to expand its potentiality through the association of Vietnam and Indonesia. The latter country contains the only waterway through which nuclear submarines can transit from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, besides having the largest Muslim population in the world, followed by Pakistan and India. There was a similar burst of optimism in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) think-tanks when Donald Trump was sworn in on 20 January 2017. The 45th President of the US was after all a businessman, and the CCP has been expert in the handling of business entities, which is why to this day, Big Tech in the US remains hostile to the Pompeo-Esper hard line on China. They would prefer that Huawei and other PRC entities continue to service their needs, even if in the process US tech giants are themselves are at risk of getting overtaken in global markets by business champions nurtured by the CCP. The declaration of President Trump’s 2017 trade war with China was regarded by them as simply a negotiating tactic to get more concessions. It was only after several months that the “neosocs” understood that at least under Trump the era of the US facilitating the expansion of PRC businesses and markets was over. Given the fact that not only Republicans but Democrats share apprehensions about the direction the PRC is taking, it is unlikely that even the many Atlanticists in a Biden administration would be able to resist the growing number of voices within the Pentagon, the National Security Council and even the State Department that regard the Indo-Pacific rather than the Atlantic as the centre of gravity in global geopolitics. Such a pivot implies that it is the PRC that is the principal foe, and no longer Russia, which under Vladimir Putin has now moved into the role of being an indispensable (and therefore quasi-equal) partner of the PRC. The Sino-Russian alliance is a formidable construct that has the potential to establish a unipolar Asia before moving on to the creation of a unipolar world. At the same time, as Beijing establishes itself as the dominant power in Asia, Moscow would once again expand its footprint in Europe, especially in those European states that were once part of COMECON. Should an Indo-US security and defence partnership become operational, this would pose a significant obstacle to such plans, which is why both Moscow and Beijing (not to mention Islamabad) are opposed to the idea of a US-India partnership. The signing of the final foundation agreement (BECA) between the US and India has shown that the influence of Moscow on decisions in Delhi is finally declining. It is a sign of the influence of Moscow within the Ministry of Defence that when the PLA intruded yet again (and in a strength not seen since 1962) into Indian territory in May, rather than purchase US weapons platforms, once again bulk orders were placed with Moscow. These were of items with which the PLA is very familiar. It was when US equipment made a substantial difference to the fighting capabilities of the Army and the Air Force in their recent confronting of the PLA challenge that the importance of turning to a rival rather than to an ally of China for crucial military supplies became more apparent within the Lutyens Zone. Despite not having met or even talked to Candidate Trump until he became President Trump, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick off the mark in establishing as close a relationship with the 45th President of the US as he was with Barack Obama. It is likely that establishing a close bond between the incoming President of the US and the Prime Minister of India will be a priority for both Biden as well as Modi. Such closeness will be opposed in India by those political parties who remain as wedded to the USSR-US Cold war 1.0 strategies as hardcore Atlanticists in the US cling on to illusions that the realities that took shape after the 1939-45 war have not been overtaken by the emergence of the Indo-Pacific century, or that it is no longer Moscow but Beijing that is the primary challenge to Washington.

The Democratic Party has been unlucky in the loss while in office of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Both understood the importance of the change that was accelerating in Asia and Africa. Had Roosevelt been in office for the whole of his final term, many of the wars and miscalculations that followed would have been avoided. Had Kennedy lived to win a second term, the India-US relationship would have blossomed into a partnership. President Clinton had no time for India except in the matter of demolishing its nuclear and missile deterrent against the PRC, which he indulged in terms of policy even while objecting to some of its actions in words. Even in his last-minute visit to India, President Clinton made sure to visit Pakistan as well, thereby underlining the hyphenation of the two countries that was a staple of US foreign policy from the time of President Eisenhower. It took President George W. Bush to accept the reality of India as a responsible nuclear weapons state, and also to open the door to the world’s largest democracy becoming the manufactory of 90% of the life-preserving drugs that ensured that HIV (AIDS) ceased to be a death sentence for the poor across the globe. The incoming US President needs to similarly turn to India if he is to ensure that the poor in his country get affordable access to the medications needed to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. This would be still more relevant in a situation where a vaccine remains distant. The Clinton, Obama and Trump administrations took the side of Big Pharma against their own poor and their own budgets, working overtime to shut the door on cheaper generics from India. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would be welcomed by Big Pharma as a well-paid lobbyist, so relentless has been his effort to get India to change its laws and practices so as to weaken its generics industry and to ensure that patents for Big Pharma drugs get indefinitely extended through legerdemain rather than any genuine change in the effectiveness of the high-priced medication whose patent is getting extended. Someday, the human rights lobby will become active in the matter of the tens of millions of poor who have died or suffered agony because access to low-cost and equally effective medications from India was blocked by their lobbying.

FORMING A TECHNO TRIANGLE

The US, India, Japan and Australia have formed the Indo-Pacific Quadrilateral Alliance, and this is a legacy that the 46th President of the US is likely to not just continue with, but strengthen. Contrary to the dissemination of perceptions that he is an apologist for the PRC, Joe Biden is known to be focused on the US interest. In such a context, the chances are high that the signing of the defence and security Foundation Agreements (one under Barack Obama and two under Donald Trump, all cleared during the period in office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi) will clear the way for major defence manufacturers in the US to set up segments of their production facilities in India, so that they can more effectively compete in costs with the competition that will soon come their way from the Sino-Russian alliance. Care needs to be taken by the Government of India to ensure that 100% ownership be permitted in defence rather than 75%. There is no reason why India should not permit full ownership for entities in partner countries in the defence production sector, especially in a situation where nearly 80% of core defence equipment is sourced from outside the country. Care needs to be taken to ensure that only companies that are based in friendly countries are allowed to enter into production, while those from countries with which there are tensions which could escalate, need to be kept out, as also those from countries that have a close military and security relationship with foes of India. A similar welcome can be extended to US tech companies so that they source production not in the PRC but in the other country with a billion-plus population, India. The obsession of then Vice-President Dick Cheney with the domestic sourcing of items needed in the wars he helped begin together with President George W. Bush pushed up costs and was among the reasons why the economy of the country tanked during the final year (2008) of the 43rd President of the US. Value addition by the US to a proportion of components made elsewhere makes more sense than seeking to source the entire downstream production of items in the US in the manner that President Trump frequently announces as his goal. A possible winner would be the setting up of a Techno Triangle involving the US, India and Taiwan. This could evolve into a significant partnership in a context in which tech companies from both the US as well as Taiwan have begun a process of decoupling from the PRC. Tweaks in policy, such as permitting higher-level visits between Taipei and Delhi, would facilitate the process of relocation of Taiwanese manufacturing and other supply chains from the PRC to India. Just as there were advantages to locating production facilities in the PRC during 1981-96, there are significant advantages to locating in India. This would especially be the case once Prime Minister Modi goes ahead with simplifying and compressing administrative procedures and making them more transparent. Much has been achieved in this direction during the Covid-19 pandemic, but several more reforms need to follow to ensure that India becomes a global manufacturing hub in the manner that the PRC became during the years when Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping was leading that country.

INDIA’S DAUGHTER

Incoming Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Devi Harris, was brought up by her mother, who had deep roots in India. She is no Bobby Jindal, seeking to cover up both ethnicity and identity. Her Vice-Presidential visit to Tamil Nadu via Delhi will be an event that will generate a festive atmosphere in that state. Both she as well as her husband Doug and her “manas putri” Ella and “manas putra” Cole would love such a visit to the country that Kamala’s mother called home. There have been posters in Tamil Nadu celebrating the California politician’s ascent in politics and prayers in multiple locations were held for her success in the 3 November polls, which seem to have been answered. Coming from a state where Indian-Americans are ubiquitous, it is surprising to come across numerous social media posts asserting the proposition that the first term Senator did not identify with the country from where her mother hailed from. Kamala Harris also has roots in Jamaica, a country that has some of the friendliest people on the planet, but overall she is—like other citizens in her country of multiple ethnicities—quintessentially from the country where she was born in and which she has from her childhood considered as home. A country that has elected her as the fist woman Vice-President of the US, and the first non-white to hold that post. A country that is finally moving towards a partnership with India, a bonding that ought to have taken place decades ago but somehow eluded policymakers on both sides, although the people of both countries have formed a dense network of relationships, including in business, health and education. Just as Mike Pence has been an effective second-in-command to President Trump, so will be Vice-President Kamala Harris to President Joe Biden. Even after they step down, Donald Trump and Mike Pence will be welcome in India anytime. Pence, in particular, has distinguished himself through a clear view on global geopolitics that understands the stark reality of the situation that is confronting the US in the shape of Cold War 2.0.

Just as President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, the need has arrived for President Biden and Prime Minister Modi to sign the Indo-Pacific Charter. This would enshrine the centrality of preventing aggression by predatory powers in the Indo-Pacific, and serve as a framework for cooperation on the basis of agreed principles. It would energize and give heart to ASEAN and further stabilize South Asia minus a particular country that its military has tethered to the PLA. Donald Trump has been a success where India-US ties are concerned. President Barack Obama established a legacy of trust together with PM Modi. This has been carried forward in a robust manner by his successor Donald Trump, unlike almost all the other signature policies of the 44rth President of the US. Rather than result in a rollback, the odds are that the period in office of the incoming President and Vice-President of the US will ensure an even closer partnership between the two biggest democracies. Such a pairing is essential in an era when the values both believe in are under threat.

 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/india-us-bonhomie-will-continue-biden-harris

Hindu Assertion is an Effect of Govt Bias | Prof. M.D. Nalapat ( Sangam Talks)

Since the 1980s, there has been a growing consolidation of what may be described as “Hindu-ness” in India. This should not be a surprise because ever since 1947, the major political parties seemed to have forgotten the majority community an kept their incessant focus on the minorities, principally the Muslims. The successive governments in independent India have partitioned the society into majority and minority. Essentially, it is a double partition: At first the country was partitioned territorially, and subsequently, people of different faiths were partitioned in terms of policies. Now the situation is such that any kind of effort to equalize the field between the majority and the minority communities is seen as cultural, physical or religious persecution of the Muslims. genocide, physical, cultural, or religious. However, unless there is an equalization, we cannot call it secularism. Thus, the growing sense of nationalism in the country is not Hindu assertion, but simply the recognition of a majority as majority. 

Professor Nalapat addresses the Muslim community clarifying that the community is perfectly safe in India. Notwithstanding the narrative that certain vested interests have created, not joining the Jinnah-Churchill bandwagon of partition, he states that the Muslim community thus needs to restore its faith in an undivided subcontinent. 

One of the big gestures of reconciliation, says he, would be to hand over the greatest sites of the Hindu faith, Ayodhya, Mathura, and Varanasi, to the majority community. For when the places of birth of Ram and Krishna, and the original site of the Kashi Viswanath temple are restored to their former glory, it would go a long way to strengthen the secular fabric of the society.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiyOCwsbk1c

Prof M D Nalapat on US Elections & why partners China and Russia are supporting opposite candidates ( PGurus)

Why is China cozying up to Turkey? Where is Iran in the China-Turkey-Pakistan-Malaysia axis? Who is opposing MBS inside Saudi Arabia? What does China hope to achieve by meddling in the Middle East? And most important, why is China rooting for Biden and Russia for Trump? Prof M D Nalapat has the answers in this must-see video!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOws913M0I4

 

 

Bihar will show if hope is running out (Sunday Guardian)

 

 

The Opposition is relying on emotions caused by the pandemic resulting in a protest vote against the Central and state governments in Bihar.

Depending on the results of the Bihar Assembly polls, either the Congress Party or the BJP will claim that the election was not a referendum on the central leadership of the losing party, but was based on state-specific issues having scant relation to the national level. Such a reading would be incorrect. So far as the Congress Party is concerned, increasingly since Jawaharlal Nehru was nominated by Mahatma Gandhi to be the first Prime Minister of India, the dynasty begun by Motilal Nehru has become inseparable from the party that ruled India for the longest time, and may well do so again, such being the inexplicable nature of politics in the world’s most populous democracy. As Prime Minister, Nehru accounted for much of the oxygen (authority) within the Congress Party, and by 1969, almost all the oxygen was diverted to Indira Gandhi. Because of the unprecedented mandate that the Congress Party secured in the 1984 polls, Rajiv Gandhi maintained the family’s dominance, but this began to fray after his defeat. P.V. Narasimha Rao ensured that Rajiv’s family was protected, but did not as Prime Minister concede to 10 Janpath the immense store of “oxygen” that gets attached to the most important job in the country. The loss of his job and his authority happened practically simultaneously. Once Sonia Gandhi formally took over as Congress President (or CP, as she is referred to within the party leadership), she demonstrated a ruthlessness that was absent in Rajiv, which is why she continues to hold sway in the party and has the ability to transfer its formal leadership to Rahul Gandhi, who seems much more like his father in temperament than his mother. While Sonia Gandhi enjoys being in the vortex of politics, Rajiv did not, and seemingly neither does Rahul, although Priyanka may be more like her mother in this respect. In the BJP, practically all the oxygen at the national level is provided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, much as was the case of the Congress Party under Nehru in the 1950s.

While the Congress Party has depended on targeted voting clusters and state sops for maintaining its support level, the BJP depends on both sops as well as generous dollops of emotion. Fortunately for the Prime Minister, much of the media in India admires him, and their coverage reflects this. The abrupt change from dropping in on Nawaz Sharif to celebrate a birthday to the Balakot strike assisted the BJP I’m surprising the Congress Party in the 2019 polls, and in 2024, the party seems confident that a similar appeal to emotions will see it through. The problem facing the BJP is that emotions are intermixed not just with distaste for an enemy power or concentrated on those seemingly bereft of national pride, but in economic realities. The manner in which the 2016 demonetisation was carried out by North Block and the RBI drained liquidity from key sectors of the economy, especially those at the lower end. The impossibly high rates and bewildering complexity of GST when first fully rolled out in 2017 similarly had an effect on the economy. Even more consequential have been the WHO-recommended lockdowns this year that were intended to reduce caseloads and fatalities caused by the novel coronavirus that flew to the far corners of the world from Wuhan during November 2019-February 2020. Medical practitioners in Hubei warned local authorities of the toxicity of the disease, but were silenced rather than rewarded for their concerns. While those flights caused what ought to have remained a localised outbreak became a pandemic across continents, the impact on international goodwill for the People’s Republic of China has been severe, as are the longer-term economic consequences to its economy of the deceleration in growth caused by the countermeasures taken by key markets in the wake of the pandemic. In India as well as in the US and elsewhere, the calculation of the proponents of the “lockdown theory” is that millions of lives were saved as a consequence of restrictions that were applied. What is not contested is that hundreds of millions of livelihoods have been affected. Jobs have vanished, incomes have plunged, and this has produced emotions that have so far been mostly latent, but which are nevertheless potent. The rate of growth of GDP in India had been falling for some time prior to the Great Indian Lockdown, but despite the pain that was caused by that,  there was also hope that the future would be better. This is the first time since 2014 that such a hope seems to be diminishing. Even in the middle classes, there is a growing sense of hopelessness about the future that multiple assurances of “green shoots” from those in authority have not extinguished. Bihar is the home of millions of migrant workers who were left to fend for themselves during the first lockdown and found their reserves of money running out in the absence of work. The abrupt extension of the lockdown panicked many, and resulted in their leaving for home rather than in a strange place bereft of shelter, food or income. The exodus of migrant workers from cities fuelled the spread of the pandemic across the country. The Opposition is relying on the emotions caused by the pandemic resulting in a protest vote against the Central and state governments in Bihar.

The obstacle to this calculation by the Opposition is the credibility of Narendra Modi as the instrument of beneficial change across the country. The elections in Bihar will test whether this is intact despite the economic pain of the present. Even if intact, that is all the more reason that those working atop Raisina Hill concentrate more on policies that ensure that millions be assisted to jump out of the economic ditch into which they have fallen. Emotions rise when jobs vanish and incomes fall. Check what happened in Germany in the 1930s. It is time that North Block and the RBI stopped refusing to go ahead with enough of the monetary and fiscal measures that need to be taken this year and for two more years to enable recovery from the pandemic and its effects. The need is for the government to direct a copious flow of income directly into the pockets of the lower and middle classes who have built this country by their toil and need help now. Before their patience and hope runs out, such a response needs to come.

 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/bihar-will-show-hope-running

India-US Indo-Pacific partnership assures security for Asia (Sunday Guardian)

 

 

 Despite the influence of known GHQ Rawalpindi proxies in the Biden camp and less so in the Trump set-up, it will no longer be possible for any administration to untangle the two interlocking DNA strands that form the India-US partnership.

New Delhi: The signing of the final defence and security foundation agreement between the United States and India has placed on a firm and fast track the Indo-Pacific partnership between Washington and New Delhi. It is instructive to note that the initiation of formal engagement and interlocking of the US and Indian militaries began in 2001 with the signing of the military information protocol between the two sides, but was set back by the granting of “Major Non-NATO Ally” status to Pakistan in 2004. The same offer was made to India, which refused to accept the longstanding US policy of being equated with Pakistan. Appointing the arsonist (the Pakistan army) to head the Af-Pak Fire Department after 9/11, was among the long list of errors committed by the George W. Bush administration in its haphazard battle against Wahhabi terrorists in Afghanistan. Another was the permission given to Pakistan to evacuate terrorists as well as their GHQ Rawalpindi trainers from Kunduz in the early stages of the 2001 conflict in Afghanistan. This was an astonishing decision, which in its subsequent consequences ought to have led to the censure of President Bush by the US Congress. The US followed the path taken by the USSR in not understanding that the key to success in Afghanistan vested in holding Pakistan accountable for its actions in that country, and taking action against GHQ Rawalpindi rather than rewarding that military for having nurtured terror groups even after 9/11. A US request to send a division of Indian troops to safeguard the Kurdish zone in Iraq following the defeat of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was turned down by the A.B. Vajpayee government owing to domestic political calculations. Earlier in the 1990s, the Clinton administration had brushed away feelers from Prime Minister Narasimha Rao for a de facto alliance between the US and India to replace that which had collapsed with the fall of the USSR in 1991. Instead, President Clinton doubled down on pressurising India to dismantle its nuclear and missile program. It also backed officials such as Robin Raphel, whose mentor in Pakistan (Shafquat Khakhakel) converted the brainy and hard-working US diplomat into a lifelong apologist for GHQ Rawalpindi and a foe of Indian interests. In 2004, the UPA came into power in India, and security and defence cooperation between India and the US slowed to a crawl. They were speeded up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, who came to office after the influence of the Clintons was on the wane within the Obama administration. The foundational logistics agreement (LEMOA) was signed in 2016 through a cutting away of Pentagon and State Department red tape by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and the communications agreement (COMCASA) in 2018. After another gap of two years, the final foundational defence and security agreement (BECA) has been signed last month. This makes the Indo-Pacific Partnership between the US and India an operational reality, and was made possible by the leadership and insight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the close relationship that President Donald J. Trump established with him, exactly on the same lines as was done by his predecessor Barack Obama.

INDIA AND US COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER

Neither India nor the US can by themselves secure the Indo-Pacific against the vigorous and well planned drive by the Xi-Putin alliance to establish primacy over the Indo-Pacific. Both the US and India have complementary capabilities that need to be jointly harnessed and deployed in offensive and defensive roles. While India has been a laggard in developing its own advanced defence platforms, except for its space and missile capability, the US has developed long-range precision munitions capable of inflicting crippling damage on enemy forces and fortifications. Examples are the Precision Strike Missile and the Naval Strike Missile. Under President Trump, the Marine Corps has been transformed into a deadly first responder in cases of aggression. Within the Indian military as well, there are substantial reserves of manpower (including a growing cohort of fearless women) who can be deployed along with US forces in future contingencies, once inter-operability gets perfected and the flow of US equipment to the Indian armed forces multiplies in a manner that reflects mutual security needs rather than narrow commercial considerations. Such a shift in priorities will save rather than increase costs for the US even in the short run, and these savings would increase in the medium and long term.

With the signing of BECA, the two sides have established the US-India Indo-Pacific Partnership. This construct transcends the boundaries of partisan divides in both democracies. In the US with the exception of fringe elements. Despite the influence of known GHQ Rawalpindi proxies in the Biden camp and less so in the Trump set-up, it will no longer be possible for any administration to untangle the two interlocking DNA strands. This fixity of tenure irrespective of political changes is possibly among the reasons why Prime Minister Modi refused to delay the signing of BECA till after the polls. He went ahead with an agreement that is central to security in India, given the expansion of offensive and defensive capabilities that it creates. The foundational agreements signed with India are different from others that have been entered into by the US, and it was this insistence on the uniqueness of a country of a billion and more people that caused the Obama administration during its Clinton-heavy phase to continue to insist on India accepting conditions similar to those offered to states with much lower geopolitical potential. It goes to the credit of the Trump administration that the exceptionality of India was recognised so that agreement was reached to sign two more foundation agreements (COMCASA and BECA) during President Trump’s current term in office.

Both in the Beltway as well as in the Lutyens Zone, bureaucracies are used to operating in silos that have tunnel vision. The larger picture is either not factored in or not understood, while the short run consequences of any policy or action get precedence over longer-term interests. Such a mindset has caused the substantial underperformance over the years in the US-India relationship. Both countries have differences that are short term but have similar long-term visions of what constitute desirable future situations. Another issue relates to tactics. The US and India usually agree on objectives but differ on how to get there. An example is Iran, where Washington has been slow to understand that it could pay a high price (in terms of loss of its overall interests to the PRC) by arm-twisting India into stopping purchases of crude oil from Iran. This decision has been a disaster for India and also for the US, and has affected the Chahbahar project as well. India’s central role in this port and link project is essential for both countries (India and the US) in ensuring that Afghanistan remain free of the danger of being choked of supplies by proxies of GHQ Rawalpindi with the assistance of Beijing.

INDIA AS PRODUCTION PLATFORM

In 2014, soon after the Lok Sabha polls, the Merkel administration in Germany suggested to the incoming government that India could in effect replace China as the production platform for much of the manufacture of products by European consortiums. This is an offer that it would be wise to relook at, and if found feasible, to consent to. Along with that, US defence companies should be incentivised to shift part of their manufacturing to India, now that manufacturing them in China is out of bounds for security reasons. Such a move would also expand the markets for US products that compete with those turned out by the Sino-Russian alliance. The establishing of a strong partnership between the US and India is a security and defence imperative. These measures, including the signing of the foundation pacts, have opened the door to investment by countries and companies that are de-coupling from the PRC. Much work needs to be done to bring administrative and other systems in India to the standards required for seamless decision making and operation of facilities, and hopefully this will be a priority during Modi 2.0. The crony capitalism of past regimes needs to be wholly eliminated, as crony capitalists are known for becoming rich at the expense of the enterprises they run on money borrowed from the public banking system, not to mention concessions made at the cost of the exchequer. Eliminating crony capitalism needs to be a high priority during Modi 2.0, and sharing of information between India and the US on financial flows would greatly facilitate such a process.

INDIA, US TOGETHER DOMINATE IN CAPABILITIES

Establishing primacy over the Indo-Pacific and ensuring a multi-polar Asia (as expounded by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar) mandates the joint presence in an expanded range of situations between not just the US and India but between all four members of the Quad. This would cover not just the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) but, where needed, other parts of the Indo-Pacific as well. Now that situational and intelligence awareness can be shared extensively, the Beltway in Washington will need to come to terms with the fact that an expansion of capacities by the Indian military is essential for US interests, and that this has to be done in a manner that is financially sustainable for the smaller economy. Such activity would have both a demonstration as well as a deterrent effect. Rather than provoke a war (as apologists for the Sino-Russian alliance argue), it would deter conflict. With the signing of BECA, the way is open for the US and India to partner in strategic capabilities in a manner that has not been attempted in the past. At least six new nuclear submarines need to be built in India as per government. Surely it would be in Washington’s interest that the reactors for these be made in the US rather than in Russia. Also in the field of atomic energy, the use of thorium as feedstock and fusion rather than fission energy could be jointly explored by India and the US. The Beltway needs to understand that India is in key respects a co-equal partner of the US, and work on that basis rather than seek to follow a routine that is more familiar, of regarding the other country as subsidiary. Once the principle of acceptance of Indian exceptionalism is established, biotechnology, cyber and space could be other frontiers of cooperation that would reduce overall costs to the US while maintaining if not enhancing quality. Over the horizon radar technology could be developed by India as part of the joint production of defence platforms between the two biggest democracies.

Should there be another war over the Himalayan massif, J-STARS aircraft may fly across the Line of Actual Control to assist in offensive and defensive moves by the Indian military. Targeting information by the US military could be passed on to Indian airborne, naval and land shooters. Stockpiles of essential equipment could be kept ready across the Himalayan theatre for use in an eventuality. A war that involves India and China will give indications of whether it is Beijing or Washington that will prevail in the 21st century contest for primacy between the two. The Indo-Pacific partnership with India begun under Obama-Modi and completed during the Modi-Trump era will be a deciding factor in the outcome of Cold War 2.0.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/india-us-indo-pacific-partnership-assures-security-asia

Effects of the pandemic on Modi and Trump ( Sunday Guardian)

 

The Opposition in India is anticipating that discontent caused by loss of jobs and income will lead to an eruption of protests on the streets.

From the time international flights from infected locations landed in cities across the world and spread a disease that ought by the authorities to have been contained in Hubei, conversations about Covid-19 have been tinged with the panic that comes out of terror. The WHO acted far too late in warning against transmission through passenger jets, but sought to make up later (when the disease had already taken root globally) by describing the novel coronavirus in horror movie terms. Television screens filled with images of patients nearing their end, many gasping for breath and surrounded by ghostlike figures in PPEs and not by family. Death rates in those who were hospitalised soared, in no small part because treatment protocols for the new scourge had yet to take shape. Out of more than seven billion inhabitants of the planet, around a million are estimated to have died because of the manner in which Covid-19 was permitted to become a frequent traveller rather than contained in the location where it originated. The inability of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to prevent the global spread of the pandemic has resulted in a fall in its goodwill that has wiped out decades of effort by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to build bridges with populations in every continent. Although the PRC has made a quick rebound from the economic slump courtesy the measures taken to stamp out the infection within the country, the worldwide impact of Covid-19 on markets and on supply chains will not be anything other than a steep minus for China. In countries across the world, politicians regarded as being close to the CCP  are facing blowback from publics angered at the effects of the pandemic. Which explains why Donald J. Trump is seeking to portray Joe Biden as  a “panda hugger”, an individual friendly to the ruling establishment in China, and why news about Trump having a bank account in China is getting disseminated at speed by the Democratic Party. Of course, another factor working against the 45th President of the US is the fact that almost a year of Covid-19 has affected nerves and tempers. Joe Biden is obviously much more boring as a conversationalist or as a travelling companion than Donald J. Trump, but in these times, many voters would prefer a duller existence to the high-voltage uncertainty that the pandemic has made of ordinary lives. This is the difference that Covid-19 may make when compared with 2016, when the flashier, less predictable candidate won.

In India as well, the pandemic has brought with it an overflow of anxiety about the future. Tens of millions have lost their jobs, while others have seen their incomes reduced and savings get depleted. Fear of catching the disease is a nightmare not only because of the horrifying images of patients battling for life in the ICU, but because of the financial ruin its onset can cause in a situation where EMIs have become much more difficult to repay. And where there has been no substantial effort by the state to ensure that the burden, especially on middle class and urban citizens, gets reduced. Giving just limited relief (such as waiving the interest on interest) has resulted in the widespread perception that any citizen facing the pandemic is on his own. Sums amounting to 5% of the GDP need to be spent over each of three years to repair the damage caused by the pandemic and the WHO-mandated measures taken to limit its spread. Such expenditure needs to focus on employees (thereby taking some of the wage burden off companies) and on MSMEs facing financial and other difficulties because of the pandemic. Banks have indeed been infused with lots of government cash, but are thus far giving loans only to businesses that are less stressed rather than to those who need infusions of money to carry on their operations. Bankers are wary that they function in a country where the CBI can come knocking at the door of an individual 15 years after retirement about a loan that went sour during his service in the bank. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to allay such fears, as has Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, but they persist with the result that the banking system has failed to address the crisis in the operations of several businesses because of the pandemic. Not to mention the lockdowns designed to eliminate it. Bankers know that guarantees—mostly verbal—that are given by a particular government are likely to be ignored by its successor, just as Trump has systematically sought to reverse each of the signature policies of President Barack Obama, in many instances to the detriment of US citizens and possibly his own chance for re-election. Although President Trump has been accused of subordinating the Republican Party to his whims, the reality is that he has mostly done what his party grandees wanted for their own purposes. As a consequence, Trump has alienated several of the independent voters who ensured the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016, including with his judicial picks. Should Trump get defeated and his party lose its Senate majority because of its insistence on doing away with the Affordable Care Act and the right to abortion for women, it may not merely be the US Supreme Court that sees an increase in bench strength. The judges the 45th Preident has appointed have been remarkably predictable in their verdicts on matters of interest to the Republican base, and are not just ideologically but ethnically far from representative of the country that elected Donald J Trump four years back.

The consequences of Covid-19 on society and the economy will play out in the US elections on 3 November. In India, the next Lok Sabha poll is in 2024, still a considerable way ahead. What the Opposition is anticipating is that the discontent caused by the loss of jobs and income by the pandemic will lead to an eruption of protests on the streets of towns and cities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been seeking to allay the difficulties of those in rural areas, but thus far, a similar activism has not been witnessed in the urban areas. Millions of lives may have been saved by the lockdown, as supporters of the measures taken by PM Modi such as Bill Gates claim. However, many more millions have seen their income and consumption levels crash during the year, and most of them are below middle age. Modi’s rivals calculate that anger is rising as patience is falling, and that in months the time will be opportune for a mobilisation on the streets on the lines being seen in some other countries. The Bihar elections will show if Opposition expectations of a dramatic shift in the degree of public backing the Union Government has are beginning to come true.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/effects-pandemic-modi-trump

Cold War 2.0: US and India work on a winning strategy ( Sunday Guardian)

 

The CCP has since 1949 regarded itself as being in a war with the US over primacy. The difference is that in the Chinese mind, ‘war’ need not be kinetic. War to the Chinese means the subordination to their interests of the other, and using this definition, China has been ‘at war’ with the US for a long while.

New Delhi: The drive by Jospeh Stalin for the expansion of territory and influence of the Soviet Union that was visible after the 1939-45 war convinced US policymakers that (what was subsequently called) the USSR-US Cold War was a reality. This swift acceptance of reality came about because both Russian as well as western tradition defines war in kinetic terms: guns, bombs, troops. The Chinese do not. They believe in achieving their objectives through chipping away and reducing the physical, psychological, economic and technological advantages of the adversary. Such “victory through stealth” suppresses the ability of the rival power to respond effectively, especially if that country is a democracy. This is what had been taking place with India since the PRC pace of establishing superiority accelerated in the 1990s. Territory has been lost, meta data got vacuumed up in copious quantities to feed the Artificial Intelligence capabilities of the PRC, and domestic enterprises were serially destroyed by crony businessmen importing substitutes flowing from China. Much of Beijing’s expansion of territory on land and water and industrial and technological capability has taken place outside the public radar. The first President of the US to seriously call out China for its primacy-seeking policies was Donald Trump in 2017. This had never been attempted in the past, and indeed several US Presidents (including Nixon, Carter and Clinton) showered benefits on Beijing while occasionally scolding the CCP in public.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has in the US somewhat changed the public perception of China as less of a threat than Russia or even Iran, even in the foreign policy team of the Biden campaign there is widespread denial about the fact that a new Cold War has been taking place—this time between China and the US. In part, such a suspension of belief is because of a lack of comprehension about the ideological roots of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was enshrined as the core ideology of the CCP in the 1950s, the reality is that the last strand dominates over the previous two. Adherence to Marxism is minimal, while it is Stalin rather than Lenin who is the role model for the CCP. Under Mao, the CCP championed a vision of the future where the Chinese people would “stand up”, not just in China but across the globe. The CCP considers itself the lodestar of ethnic Chinese, no matter the country to which they belong. After the stabilisation since 1949 of (vastly expanded) borders carried out under Mao, the task of Deng Xiaoping was to ensure economic success, and this was accomplished before the close of the last century. After Mao and Deng, the third foundational leader of the 99-year-old CCP is General Secretary Xi Jinping. He is as different from Deng as the latter was from Mao. The overt nature of Xi’s drive to replace the US with the PRC at the centre of global geopolitics has resulted in an increasing number of analysts even within the Democratic Party accepting that there is now a new Cold War, this time between the US and China.

Such a realisation has come a bit late.

The reality is that the CCP has since 1949 regarded itself as being in a war with the US over primacy. The difference is that in the Chinese mind, “war” need not be kinetic, and in fact, the ideal conflict would be non-kinetic. War to the Chinese means the subordination to their interests of the other and using this definition, Communist China has been “at war” with the US for a long time. The earliest expression of this was the essay of Lin Biao that “the villages of the world will overcome the cities”. “Cities” referred to the western world, “villages” to the rest. Of course, while the US led the “cities”, it would be China who led the “villages” to victory. Looking at the trajectory of its growth and influence since that period, it is evident that in this war (by the Chinese definition), it is the PRC that has prevailed over the US from the time President Richard M. Nixon sought Mao’s assistance in dealing with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Even during the period of Japanese occupation in the 1930s, Chairman Mao skilfully leveraged the Japanese threat to ensure a steady flow of military and other assistance from the Roosevelt administration, a policy that has continued under his successors since the 1970s. The CCP achieved this by leveraging USSR-US rivalry during Cold War 1.0 in a manner that India has so far been unwilling or unable to do in the new era of PRC-US rivalry during Cold War 2.0. Even after the collapse of the USSR in 1992, massive US assistance to China continued. President William J. Clinton continued the bipartisan policy of opening wide the doors to US technology to China, even while denying the same to India. Much of the growth in the national power of China since the 1980s is due to Taiwan, Japan and the US, all three of whom are now at the receiving end of “Xi Jinping Thought”. This is a philosophical construct that remains faithful to Mao’s vision of a China-led global order. Added to this is the incorporation rather than rejection of several of the philosophies of the Imperial Age. In this, General Secretary Xi has chosen to differ from Mao, who had contempt for the ancien régime and its architectural, intellectual and cultural leftovers. In terms of geopolitical as distinct from economic boldness, Xi is much closer not to Deng Xiaoping or to his immediate predecessors than he is to Marshal Lin Biao (who provided the sinews  for Chairman Mao to launch and sustain the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) in his willingness to take risks. Xi has fashioned a tapestry of Sinic excellence and capabilities that he expects will ensure the support of the Chinese people to both his methods as well as his objectives. It is therefore a surprise that several policymakers in Europe and the US, seem in denial of the extent of the makeover that Xi Jinping is seeking of the international order.

XI’S AMBITIOUS GOALS

The Belt and Road Initiative is among the signature policies of Xi Jinping, as are his digitalisation of Chinese currency and the harnessing of social media to create a “national will” such as would facilitate the CCP’s objectives. The BRI is intended to make China the hub of Eurasia, while the digital currency is designed to substantially replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency. In dealing with prospective and present allies, Xi has revived the Jimifuzhou or the Jimi system of Imperial China as the model that Beijing would like to follow in dealing with the countries it regards as allies. The system preserved the protocol privileges of foreign rulers while ensuring that they functioned in a manner that promoted Beijing’s objectives. The overall objectives would of course be decided in Beijing, and would be so designed as to achieve and subsequently protect the primacy of the PRC in the global order, displacing the US. The exception is Russia, which especially under Vladimir Putin is seen as a diminished but almost equal partner. Which is why the use of the term “Sino-Russian alliance” rather than “China-led alliance” is more appropriate. In the case of the US, the term “Indo-Pacific Alliance” would better describe the construct that is getting formed to take on the Sino-Russian alliance. While the US is the pre-eminent power in such a grouping, it would not be the “leader” in the manner of always having its way over India. This country in terms of geopolitical potential is as important during Cold War 2.0 to the US as Russia is to the PRC. Those in Washington who are still anchored to Atlanticist perceptions of “the former British colony” fail to understand this. An example of lack of sensitivity is the manner in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lectured India on Kashmir in the exact manner that was a staple of the Clinton presidency. However, after that lapse from understanding actual ground conditions in India, both have been silent on the subject despite the efforts of campaign staff close to the Pakistan embassy who are working to damage the US-India relationship for the benefit of Pakistan and China.

TEAM BIDEN IN DENIAL MODE

Xi Jinping has not been reticent about his goals nor secretive about many of his methods, which is why it is somewhat of a surprise that the Atlanticist lobby clustered around Joe Biden still does not seem to understand not only that Cold War 2.0 is a reality, but that it has been ongoing for decades. Or that India as a partner is essential to US success in overcoming the existential threat to US interests posed by the PRC. It is astonishing that there still remains doubt about this, given for example that the CCP’s Document Number Nine explicitly regards the ideology of freedom and democracy as the primary threat to the CCP. A hopeful sign is that lately the Biden campaign has brought into key slots individuals such as Ely Ratner, whose views are more anchored to the reality of the Indo-Pacific century than the long-standing opinions of the individual seen as a future Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken. This confidant of Joe Biden seems fixated on the (no longer existing) centrality of Europe and the US to the world as John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, whose Euro-centric policies launched the US into the Vietnam War. It needs to be said that some of his recent statements indicate that Blinken appears to be edging closer to the coffee, if not yet managing to smell it. This is in contrast to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mike Esper and National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien, all three of whom understand that the US is already in a war with China that may at any time turn kinetic. The risk of this would be particularly high in the absence of alliance structures created to ensure that such an eventuality does not take place.

CCP GETS A REALITY CHECK

As stated by Chairman Mao, war is the continuation of politics by other means. When the party that runs China talks as it often does of Total War, what is meant is a conflict in which cyber, commerce, asymmetric methods, infowar and neutralisation of elites in target countries forms part of the “battles” needed to ensure that the CCP’s objectives are met by the other country. The preferred method is to avoid a significant kinetic conflict and instead chip away at territory and interests over an extended period of time. This is what was happening in India, including on the Line of Actual Control. When its troops moved into Indian territory in May, the Central Military Commission did not anticipate the strength of the resistance that the paramilitary and later Army forces put up once PLA intentions became clear. Nor was the swift and deadly response of the Indian Army expected when the Galwan incident was initiated. Now that he has studied the mindset and tactics of the Chinese, Prime Minister Narendra Modi resisted pressure from arms’ lobbies influential in India and finally gave sanction to the signing of BECA, the Basic Exchanger & Cooperation Agreement with the US. This completes the trio of foundation agreements together with LEMOA and COMCASA. An earlier enabling agreement on the protection of the exchange of military information was signed in 2002, while LEMOA was signed in 2016 and COMCASA in 2018 during Modi 1.0. The UPA did not sign any of these pacts, which are essential in dealing with the designs of the PLA on Indian territory, something that that party has good reason to be familiar with and it is to be seen if it will seek to please the CPI and the CPM by condemning the signing of BECA. Arms manufacturers from select countries have long been wary that the signing of the foundation agreements could give US companies a head start in the substantial weapons trade that India carries out. By signing BECA, PM Modi has shown that while he remains friendly with Russia, he is aware of the geopolitical shifts that have resulted in the formation of the Sino-Russian alliance and its implications for India. The speeches of the Prime Minister after the Chinese intrusion into additional Indian territory this May show that Modi is fully cognizant of the reality of Cold War 2.0 and which side New Delhi needs to be on. That confusion about the change that Cold War 2.0 has caused is not limited to the Opposition but includes elements of the government as well is apparent from statements from within the system recommending that Russia be asked to join the Indo-Pacific alliance. This when Moscow stands with Beijing in opposing the Indo-Pacific construct. What is needed next is for the Quadrilateral Alliance to be operationalised in a manner that would be useful in deterring the other alliance from entering into a kinetic conflict in the Himalayan massif, the South China Sea or the Taiwan straits. Substantially developing the existing operational military and remote sensing bases in the Andaman Islands is an essential component of a strategy designed to ensure that primacy over the Indo-Pacific remains in the hands of the Quad rather than the rival Sino-Russian alliance.

BATTLE OF IDEOLOGIES

General Secretary Xi Jinping has sought to create a “will to primacy” among the people of China such as would ensure complete obedience to his vision and his methods. Hundreds of millions of Chinese believe that Covid-19 has been created by the US and brought into China. They believe that India is a shambles filled with chaos. That Japan is inherently evil, and is obsessively focused on helping the US to halt progress towards the China Dream. That the countries of Europe are no longer the technological powers they were just a few decades back and that their products can be replaced. Xi is emphatic in his messages to the population that the future belongs to China, if only the Chinese people act in a manner designed to bring forward the day when the epicentre of global power shifts from Washington to Beijing. In other words, follow the path recommended for them by the CCP. The narrative is that such an overtaking of the present top power in the world is steadily happening, and hence the blowback from those in the US and elsewhere who are hostile to the concept of justice for the Chinese people. The claim is that the US and India are in deep crisis, with unrest growing, and that this is because of the political system they have and the freedoms they allow. This narrative is constantly being disseminated across every possible platform, and it is being believed by hundreds of millions of Chinese. At the same time as the world is undergoing the pain of dealing with Covid-19, China itself is opening up domestically and expanding its economy. India and the US are essential partners in ensuring primacy over not only the Indo-Pacific but superiority in global logistics and technology chains of the future. The meeting on 27 October between Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, Mark Esper and Mike Pompeo must be only the start of the long and difficult battle to secure a future where ideology and values common to the US and India do not get eclipsed by the rival philosophy developed and put into practice by the Chinese Communist Party.

 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/cold-war-2-0-us-india-work-winning-strategy