PM Modi to detractors: Do you really have a plan for India? (The Sunday Guardian)

 Have Mamata, Sitaram Yechury, Rahul and others become genuine allies? Or will the coalition fall apart at the first touch of hard reality bumping into flowery language? India cannot afford such a disaster.

New Delhi

What is their plan for the morning after, in the event that a miracle occurs and what as the core group may be termed RUSTAMS (the combination of Rahul, Uddhav, Stalin, Tejashwi, Akhilesh, Mamata and Sitaram) repeat 2004 and displace the BJP to form a government at the Centre? Given the presence of the CPM as one of the key players in the anti-Modi alliance, would those looking to India as an alternative location to China change their minds and decide to stay or go elsewhere? Not that many others in the group have distinguished themselves for their support to private investment in general, whether domestic or external. Rahul Gandhi shares his great-grandfather’s tendency to indulge in cosmic conversation, wanting love and peace for all without telling us how either objective can be achieved. The obvious candidate of AICC de facto President Sonia Gandhi for the leadership of the party (and the country), Rahul has defied predictions of irrelevance and has as a consequence emerged as the primary target of the BJP, displacing Arvind Kejriwal. His mention of the power of love is frequent. But is it as dissociated from reality as was Jawaharlal Nehru’s unwavering belief until the 1962 war that the PRC and Mao Zedong could become brothers to India and its leadership? Yet in practice there seemed very little evidence of love in the manner in which Rahul talked of his cousin Varun as an individual who would always be unwelcome in the Congress Party. Love seemed a bit distant in the use of such sharp language against a close family member, albeit from the Sanjay Gandhi side of the Nehru family.

Turning to the CPM, the Bengal unit of the party broke with orthodoxy in 2008 when Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee invited Ratan Tata to set up the new Nano factory at Singur. Immediately, the Trinamool Congress, founded and since led by Mamata Banerjee, launched a muscular movement against a project that would have created not just hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state directly and indirectly including by acting as a catalyst to restore Bengal to the status it once had as the most advanced part of India. The quintessential politician that she is, Mamata knew that Singur’s success would affect her chances at toppling the CPM, and ensured the project was shifted from the state through her agitation against it. As Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee has shown the same mastery over politics as Jyoti Basu did in the same job, and the same lack of success in economic matters as Jyoti-babu, the long-serving CPM CM of Bengal. While there is considerable interest in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and the South where external investors are concerned, thus far few have been making a beeline to TMC-ruled Bengal despite the hold that the hard-working, feisty Chief Minister has over the state.
Defying political logic, the present Numero Uno in the CPM, Sitaram Yechury, has become a formal ally of Mamata Banerjee. It is unlikely that Sitaram would have sided with Bhattacharjee in trying to get the Tatas to invest massively in Singur. Although the CPM broke with the CPI as a consequence of the former siding with China against the Soviet Union when the two communist giants parted ways, it is clear that in matters of economic policy, it is the Stalin rather than the Deng model of economic development that is favoured by the party elite, with the possible exception of the pragmatic CPM Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan. Of course, the CPM government in Kerala too is not hesitant to go the Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi way on occasion, in seizing private property, naturally in the name of public good. Given the immensity of expropriation of private property that has taken place in India even after 1947, and the continuing poverty in India for decades, it does not appear that there has been much public benefit through taking away private property at negligible or zero prices. As for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, he has in practical terms given responsibility to his son and his son-in-law to bring more investment into the state, but this has so far remained a work in progress. None of them seem to have mentioned the fact that several actions by private players that were banned earlier have recently been decriminalised by Prime Minister Modi, and more such moves are on the way. Surely such measures would encourage investors to put more of their capital into India.

RUSTAMS’ POLICY AMBIGUITY
No one outside India would have believed that the IPC and the CrPC have remained the bedrock of the police system in India, despite their origin going back to the 1860s. All that is now being changed, although in time what needs to happen is the abolition of the death penalty in the same way as colonial-era laws relating to same-sex relationships were repealed. In view of the fact that the only crime meriting the death penalty (until its complete ban) ought to be terrorism, and that lynching of an individual by another or others for whatever reason is a terrorist act, prescribing such a sentence for cases of lynching has been welcomed by many, as also the specific mention of harsher punishments for crimes against women and minors. Not that any of these changes has attracted any attention by the RUSTAMS. This is despite the fact that the reality is that for too long, enmeshing an individual in a criminal case has been far easier for the authorities to do in India than in the other democracies that are part of the top five economies of the world. Reducing this vulnerability of the citizen to arbitrary arrest is a welcome move in the context of attracting investment away from China or from countries whose populations are ageing and therefore need to locate manufacturing and services not just within their boundaries but in friendly countries that have youthful populations, predominant among which is India. The next five years will provide a window of opportunity for India to attract hundreds of billions of US dollars of outside investment, a fact understood by the Modi government. Should the RUSTAMS have their way, it is very likely that policies towards investment both external and domestic may change in a manner that operates to the advantage not only of Vietnam and Indonesia, but principally China as well. Of course, several in the I.N.D.I.A. coalition may change sides and join hands with the NDA later. Indeed, several of its member parties had once been allies of the BJP, with even the CPM joining hands with the ruling party during some periods in the 75 years of the political history of free India. Given the cloud of doubt about the propriety of expropriating the name of the country for a political formation, it is likely that some citizen or the other may file suit demanding that each letter in the I.N.D.I.A. coalition be pronounced together with the full stop after it, to avoid a political formation getting identified with the country itself.

The world is presently in a state of transition, as its equilibrium is under challenge by China under the CCP led by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The new Cold War has become a reality that must not be ignored in the manner that the Government of India ignored the China threat throughout the 1950s. Even by 1959, when the hostility of Beijing towards Delhi was palpable, no efforts were made to prepare for a contingency such as war. If Rahul Gandhi rather than Indira Gandhi were the Prime Minister in 1966, would he have taken the painful but necessary step of bombing areas in Mizoram that had been overrun by armed groups backed by China? If it were Lal Bahadur Shastri, he would certainly have followed the same path as his successor, but would Nehru have, given his belief that all problems could be resolved through a show of love and dialogue? Love is a wonderful emotion, but even the genuine and not the feigned kind is often of limited value in times of potential crisis. This is what India has been facing on its border with China since Tibet was occupied by the PRC in the 1950s to an attitude of welcome from India. Whether it be Cold War 2.0 pitting the major democracies against an authoritarian superpower, or the opportunity of India becoming a production hub for relocating industries and services from China in particular during the next five years, the Central government over the next five years needs to acknowledge such realities and take measures to ensure that threats are dealt with while opportunities are grasped.

Prime Minister Modi was criticised for spending time in the US and France rather than attending Parliament during those days. Should the portents of conflict and confrontation inherent in the situation on our sea and land borders multiply, the US and France would be key partners of India. It may be remembered that no country was substantively in 1962 when China attacked all across the Sino-Indian boundary in force. Repeat, no country was there by the side of India when the attack came. That is what comes of ignoring reality. Whatever may be said about Indira Gandhi, she did not ignore the reality of the genocide taking place in what became Bangladesh since 1969. By going abroad and shoring up relationships with major democracies for mutual benefit, and in doing away with colonial-era laws and regulations that have kept India chained for so long, Prime Minister Modi has demonstrated that he understands both the threats and the opportunities for 1.4 billion citizens that are extant in the present era. Do the RUSTAMS share that appreciation of the situation? India cannot afford geopolitical errors in the present era, especially on the scale witnessed in the past. The public need to be confident that there is the inner cohesion and a united will in the I.N.D.I.A. coalition to walk the talk before votes get cast. Have Mamata, Sitaram Yechury, Rahul and others become genuine allies, including in the states they run? Or will the coalition fall apart at the first touch of hard reality bumping into flowery language? India, especially the country’s youth, cannot afford such a disaster.

TRACK RECORD MATTERS
The times require clear and purposive leadership or past errors will get repeated. Oh, that’s “whataboutery” is the reflexive response of those with a Lutyens mindset when asked a difficult question. The fact is that past experience, past events, count when judging those who seek to lead India in the crucial period from now until 2029. Analysis has to be based on the records and experience of the past, not on assumptions based on illusions or verbal sophistry. The coming five years is a once in a generation opportunity for India just as the 1980s were for China. Which is why the result of the 2024 general elections will impact generations to come. Which is why qualities such as a proven track record of competence and good judgement matter. The Constitution of India provides for a single Prime Minister. Who that person will be should RUSTAMS succeed needs to be known before votes get cast but this remains unclear. In contrast, Prime Minister Modi’s record in governance since 2014 is as clear as crystal.

PM Modi to detractors: Do you really have a plan for India?

Victory in 2024 central to PM Modi’s agenda (The Sunday Guardian)

 Who emerges the winner in 2024 and who loses will determine the trajectory of India for generations more. Small wonder that the Opposition’s gloves are off.

It is no secret that the defeat of the 8-10 August No Confidence motion in the Lok Sabha is a foregone conclusion. Or that the primary intention behind the move by the 26 parties in the I.N.D.I.A alliance is to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak to the House after volley after volley of thinly camouflaged abuse has been sent in his direction during 8 and 9 August. During the period when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, India experienced what in effect was a presidential election. Both 1977 and 1980 were about whether voters wanted the only child of Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru to continue as Prime Minister or not. After their electoral sweep of north and west in 1977, the Janata Party had clearly won the war, but then lost the peace. Although responsible for such policy blunders as the Gold Control Order while he had been Finance Minister, Morarji Desai was a capable Prime Minister. His problem was that there were too many colleagues in the ministry who wanted to either turf him out or to take his place in South Block. The group of young people around Sanjay Gandhi expertly fanned such ambitions, fantasies even, of several in the government. Among them was Sanjay’s wife Maneka, who used her writing skills to skewer prominent personalities in the Janata Party government. The President of India, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, by virtue of his seniority in protocol, regarded himself as entitled to have the decisive say in who would be the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi was therefore correct in assuming that the effort by the Syndicate within the Congress Party in promoting Reddy was to get him elected as President, confident that he would find a way of replacing a Prime Minister who had gone her own way rather than abide by the views of the party elders who had placed her in power after the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent.

Reddy’s bid to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan was scuttled through the shock victory of the personal candidate of the Prime Minister, V.V. Giri. Soon afterwards, voters turned out in large numbers to give Indira Gandhi a substantial majority in the fifth Lok Sabha Had Sanjiva Reddy won the Presidential election and succeeded in changing the Prime Minister, the trajectory of India for the next generation would have been different. Foreign policy would have changed as much as economic and social policies would have. Indira Gandhi’s victory in the 1971 polls gave her the confidence to go ahead with policies very different from those that a Prime Minister from the Syndicate would have followed. Similarly, had the Mahatma chosen Sardar Patel to be the Prime Minister in 1947 and not Nehru, India would have been set on a different course. Lal Bahadur Shastri could have changed the trajectory of India but for his death in 1966, as could have P.V. Narasimha Rao had he won in 1996 rather than losing his majority to an opposition assisted by the split in the Congress Party caused by the antipathy of Mrs Sonia Gandhi towards Prime Minister Rao.

In the same way that Lok Sabha elections became a referendum on who should be the Prime Minister during the period when Indira Gandhi was in office, since 2014 national polls have become focused around a single leader, Narendra Damodardas Modi. In 2014, it was an acknowledged reality that Modi and not Advani would be the PM should the BJP win, a factor that ensured its majority. In 2019, the question before the electorate was whether Modi or Rahul Gandhi should be Prime Minister of India. The results showed which individual was preferred over the other. In the 2024 elections, it is not clear who the 26-party coalition that is working to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls will appoint as the Prime Minister, should they secure a majority. Should the Congress Party get 75 seats or more, it would have a good chance of having a party veteran as the coalition choice for the Prime Ministership if the alliance secures a majority. The Opposition alliance is proceeding on the assumption that the BJP’s 2019 seat tally in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, UP, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will not get repeated in 2024, and that the BJP could therefore fall well short of a majority. The obstacle to such an outcome is the credibility and confidence that voters have in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Which is why the No Confidence motion that is to be debated during the next two days is going to be fought in an effort at chipping away at the image of the Prime Minister in the minds of voters.

The 2024 elections will be the most consequential election in the history of India, superseding any previous poll. Who emerges the winner in 2024 and who loses will determine the trajectory of India for generations more. Small wonder that the Opposition’s gloves are off, and that the effort to reduce voter confidence in PM Modi is being fought freestyle. Whether it be in foreign, economic or social policy, there is a universe of difference between Prime Minister Modi and any of those in the Opposition who seek to replace him. The next five more years are essential for the Prime Minister to set in stone the change of course that he has engineered since 2014 in India. Those changes would then be placed on a trajectory that overall cannot be reversed. Those opposed to him are aware of that, which is why the contest ahead is likely to be the most contentious in a long time. As Chief Minister, Modi secured a hat-trick in Gujarat. Should he do likewise at the national level as Prime Minister, the Congress Party would be the most affected, in that its national leadership would be severely weakened and it would in its functioning simply be a collective of regional satraps. 2024 is not just another Lok Sabha poll.

More than in any previous election, the outcome of the contest for the next Lok Sabha will permanently redraw the contours of India should PM Modi get a hat-trick. A win in 2024 would ensure that he places the country in an entirely different path from that followed by past regimes. Continuing in office for another term is central to fulfilling the transformational agenda that Modi set out to accomplish when he was sworn in as Prime Minister of India in 2014. Those opposing PM Modi understand this, hence their “no holds barred” approach to the looming poll battle.

Victory in 2024 central to PM Modi’s agenda

Parliament readies for launch of 2024 Lok Sabha campaign (The Sunday Guardian)

 The 2024 campaign is about two different paths for India during coming decades. Another term in office is essential for Prime Minister Modi to complete the work he began in 2014.

New Delhi

Parliament will witness the start of the campaign by both the ruling as well as opposition parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections next week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a hat-trick by securing a BJP majority in the next Lok Sabha, on the lines of the previous two. As for his likely opponent, a lower court found the Congress Party’s de facto Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi guilty of criminal defamation and imposed the maximum sentence prescribed for the offence. As a consequence of the judgement, Rahul was disqualified from being an MP. The Gujarat High Court concurred with the lower court view, only to have the matter stayed by the Supreme Court, thereby ensuring his return to the Lok Sabha. Had Rahul Gandhi used his immense influence over the previous government to consign the colonial-era law relating to criminal defamation to the trashcan, he would not have had to go through the temporary inconvenience of being deprived of his Lok Sabha seat. A criminal defamation law belongs only to a colonised and not a free people. It is to be hoped that it will be removed from the statute books by the present government in the same way as so many other colonial-era laws and regulations have been since PM Modi took over in 2014.

Several of the laws passed in the present Monsoon Session of Parliament have a transformative nature, such as the legislation relating to ease of business. This de-criminalises several business practices that are legal elsewhere but were banned in India. In the US, the second largest democracy in the world, with rare exceptions, financial misdemeanours are punished with fines rather than with imprisonment. As a consequence, the exchequer gains revenue rather than incur the additional cost of yet another person joining the penal population of the country. In the US, where business is concerned, prison time is given in rare cases of deliberate and substantial fraud, and not otherwise. During his tenure, especially in the second 5-year term, considerable distance has been covered by PM Modi in making India a destination where an official or a business mistake made in good faith is not used as an excuse to prosecute and ruin a person. Should Prime Minister Modi return to his current office after the coming polls, a clearing away of the web of enterprise and initiative stifling (where businesspersons and officials are concerned) laws and regulations is likely to continue. If the BJP were to lose the polls, the policy path that will be taken by the opposition alliance in such a matter is unclear.

The 2020s are an era of decoupling, and not merely from China. As a consequence of ageing populations, large numbers of Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese SMEs and MSMEs are relocating from their home countries to nearby destinations which are lower cost and have a relative abundance of young and skilled talent. Where India is concerned, it needs to be remembered that some of the ASEAN members are emerging as potent competitors, especially for relocating SMEs and MSMEs, both sectors which are significant job creators. Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia have improved the availability and standard of their educational institutions, thereby providing a sufficient pool of manpower for foreign companies seeking to relocate not just from China but from their own shores. Ensuring that India is able to out-compete such countries in attracting external investment will need several more reforms, which is why the nature, leadership and composition of the next Union Government will be of overwhelming importance to the fortunes of youth in particular. On the matter of key elements of economic policy, as yet the stand of the I.N.D.I.A coalition is not known, and neither is the likely composition and direction of its government, were the group to emerge the victors in 2024. During the 1950s until the mid-1980s, it was considered the divine right of government to expropriate private property, a tendency still present in the form of numerous efforts by various state governments to seize private properties “for the good of the people” when they lack title to them, nor has the transfer been agreed to by the owners. Fear of the courts is not a limiting factor in such property grabs, as the legal system is clogged with tens of millions of cases, and the laws so framed that substantial delay is commonplace, except in relatively rare cases of rapid intervention by a High Court or the Supreme Court. Redressal is often delayed for such a long period that often the owners pass away or lose interest in spending more and more time and money fighting cases that have lasted for decades. Justice sans delay is central to attracting investors, and the expectation is that the Supreme Court will put in place measures that have this effect.

CONSEQUENTIAL ELECTION

The attitude towards court judgements often has an impact on the popularity of a government. After the courageous Shah Bano got a verdict in her favour in 1985 through the Supreme Court, rather than stand by her, the government of the day passed legislation that nullified the verdict. From that time onwards, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s political fortunes began to slide downhill. The error of believing that a small group of religious exclusivists accurately represents a vibrant community that now numbers close to 200 million has been repeatedly made. In Rajiv Gandhi’s case, several so-called “modern” minds of different faiths convinced him to pass the legislation that he did, rather than side with his own minister, Arif Mohammad Khan, who supported the Shah Bano verdict and urged its implementation. As the welcoming reaction to recent measures such as the abolition of the practice of Triple Talaq has shown, those who look to the future rather than remain tethered to the past are overwhelmingly in the majority in our country. In the case of the abolition of Article 370, Kashmir has benefitted from a measure that nullified a provision that was implicitly based on the discredited Two Nation theory. Hindus and Muslims are a single nation, Indians together. Equally welcome would be the passage of a Uniform Civil Code that ensures privileges to women that some long-established modes lack would be welcomed by all communities. Mary Roy, the mother of activist Arundhati Roy, fought and won her case relating to inheritance rights for women in the Christian community. Rather than change the law as happened in the case of Shah Bano, the government accepted the verdict, as did the Christian community. Those who had warned of the verdict’s severe disruption and turmoil within a community that has inter alia set up a large number of educational institutions across India were proved wrong, as would those be who predict a doomsday scenario were a Uniform Civil Code to become the law of the land, just as it is in the US, Europe, and several Muslim-majority countries. The good news in India is that women in particular are making their presence and ability felt in several fields, as are young people. They deserve good governance, they deserve an enabling environment for their brighter futures. Where the reforms needed for that to happen are concerned, much will depend on which group of parties emerge victorious in the coming Lok Sabha elections. The difference between a continuation of the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an alternative government made up of the 26 coalition partners is likely going to be substantial. The differences between the two cut across the fields of foreign, economic and domestic policy. The 2024 campaign is about two different paths for India during coming decades. Another term in office is essential for Prime Minister Modi to complete the work he began in 2014, the fact that is what makes the coming Lok Sabha election so consequential.

Prime Minister Modi has made central to his campaign issues such as the anti-corruption drive, the refusal (as witnessed at Galwan in 2020) to allow more land grab by the PLA, and showing that “PM Cares” is not just a slogan but a reality in terms of practical policy. Those who have brought forward the No Confidence motion will seek to disprove that such is actually the case. What the people of India will expect to hear during the 8-9 August debate on the motion and the Prime Minister’s reply on 10 August as to what the future that either side is planning for India, and how that future is to be made a reality. The policies favoured by the two sides and the different futures they result in are what is of concern to the voter. It is important for both sides to show in detail what the difference is, so that an informed choice can be made while voting. What is expected are clarity and completeness in the alternative road maps presented by the two opposing sides for going on the path to the future of India. Such is what the people expect from the leaders speaking on the motion on both sides. More and more voters are becoming aware that the 2024 polls are on track to being the most consequential where their lives are concerned, and that the debate that will take place in Parliament on the motion before it will give a pointer to what is in store if one side or the other wins the 2024 contest for the Lok Sabha. In the case of the government, the record of Prime Minister Modi is open and substantial. The parties seeking to overthrow the present government need to show what the alternative offered by them is, not in flowery poetic expressions but in real-life prose, and who the individuals are who will carry out the promises made. Thus far, neither has been revealed to the public.

Parliament readies for launch of 2024 Lok Sabha campaign

WaPo must read India correctly (The Sunday Guardian)

 The Washington Post established itself at the apex of the journalism pyramid as a consequence of four individuals. The first was Katherine Graham, the publisher, who withstood multiple efforts at persuading her to roll back the newspaper’s Watergate coverage. Without her support, Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee would not have been able to unreel spool after spool of support to Woodward and Bernstein, the two journalists who to this day epitomise the Watergate saga, which caused the resignation of a gifted but conflicted US President, Richard Milhous Nixon. Fast forward to the present, when even those opposing him in the race to get the Republican presidential nomination for the 2024 polls are too skittish to make any except the most oblique references to Donald J. Trump. Given the quantum of reportage about the former President’s mishaps or misdemeanours, depending on your affiliation, a scandal such as Watergate could have been featured repeatedly by newspapers without adversely affecting Trump’s political fortunes in the slightest. Indeed, both the New York Times and the Washington Post have devoted considerable space to allegations made by the Justice Department against Trump, but to no avail. Given the obvious political interest that President Biden has in besmirching the image of his former rival for the Presidency, the perception that what is taking place is indeed a witch hunt is gaining ground. Other former Presidents have been revealed to have broken the rules regarding the keeping of documents relating to their term in the White House, but have gotten away lightly. Soon after he took over from the disgraced Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford pardoned his former boss, and lost in the polls to the Democratic candidate, despite his personal qualities. It is unlikely that the conventional verdict that Ford lost because of his pardoning off Nixon is right. More likely it was because he seemed to be unfitted to the job, which perhaps he was, being new to the Executive Branch, that too as its head. Had Biden in this respect at least followed the example of President Trump, who refrained from pursuing and prosecuting his former rival Hillary Clinton, he may have gained more popularity than he now has. As matters stand, should there be a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024, this time it could be the latter who succeeds, no matter the vitriol poured on him by the opinion columnists of the NYT and WaPo.

The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post for what to him was a measly $250 million, most likely on the request of a liberal friend, who was anxious that the newspaper be rescued from impending bankruptcy. It is unlikely that Bezos is behind the acid rain that the newspaper regularly sprays on India, picturing it in unflattering colours. Nothing is a simple mix of Black and White with Grey in between, and the situation in India is a festival of colours, some dark but many bright. Had President Biden followed the advice of the editorial writers of the Washington Post to blacklist India, he would have made the leaders of China, Pakistan and of course Russia very happy. All three are unhappy at the increasing warmth of India-US relationship, and seek to ensure its reversal back to the Old (USSR-US) Cold War days. In the New Cold War that most prominently features China and the US, what is a nightmare for Beijing (as well as Moscow and Rawalpindi) of closeness of relations between Washington and Delhi is an imperative if the democracies are to prevail over the autocracies in the New Cold War. Sometime in the future, perhaps an editorial writer will come to India for six weeks and travel around the country not just by air but by rail and road as well, and alone, not in the company of those who delight in seeking to consign their own country to the dustbin of international opinion. He or she will certainly come across scenes of despair, perhaps occasional spasms of violence, but neither would be unfamiliar to a resident of the US. Also would be seen the immense changes that have been brought about during the past decade in India. The vastly increased reach of digital systems and access, the improvement in living conditions of those previously marginalised communities, the surge in opportunities and expectations of the young. There would then be the first glimmers of comprehension why so much of the world is seeing India not in the way the Washington Post and its fellow travellers in the doomsday box see the country. They see India as a country on the cusp of being the third largest economy in the world, a level reached not through authoritarian fiat but through democratic persuasion. They would observe that the very media outlets that describe India as dictatorial and worse do so freely. That even the Sonia-led branch of the Congress Party, a group that never fails to scatter vitriol against the present dispensation, has been left unmolested. As for the court decision that deprived Rahul Gandhi of government accommodation, the matter was before the Supreme Court for a final decision, and not before the executive. Those who retain their regard for the Washington Post remain hopeful that someday, the newspaper will look at the entirety of the elephant that is India. That it will not obsessively focus on any single part real or imagined of the pachyderm to claim that this by itself it represents the whole. There is indeed authoritarianism threatening the world order, but it is centred elsewhere and not in the world’s most populous democracy. Please, editors at the Post, look around the world a bit more closely, look at India a bit more closely, and read the country correctly.

WaPo must read India correctly

In G-20 and SCO, PM Modi navigates turbulence in 2023 (The Sunday Guardian)

 India has managed to steer the G-20 in a way that establishes New Delhi’s credentials as a platform where even bitter rivals can participate. Within the SCO, India is resisting efforts to get the organisation to take sides in the ongoing Cold War 2.0.

New Delhi

When India took over the year-long rotating Presidency of the G-20 last November from Indonesia, the global faultlines typified in the Russia-Ukraine conflict since 24 February 2022 were visibly expanding. Given that the G-20 included both sides involved in the conflict, the Sino-Russian alliance as well as the G-7, it was apparent that tensions within the larger group would escalate as 2023 progressed. Rather than follow the conventional route and give the rotating presidency little domestic importance and despite the challenges that would come up during that period, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision to showcase India’s presidency to the people of India. In that way, two messages were conveyed, the first being that India was clearly at the Top Table so far as the international order was concerned. Till recently,it had been the UN Security Council that had been considered as the world order’s apex body, but the reluctance of the PRC to admit as a Permanent UNSC Member the world’s most populous country (and what will soon be its third largest economy) has ensured that the premium that the UNSC once enjoyed in the public mind had dimmed into insignificance. The permanent veto-wielding membership of just 5 countries in the UNSC now functions as a divided house. While there were illusions about getting China to join hands with the G-7 where pressure on Russia was concerned were high among its members throughout the past year, such optimism has been shown to be unrealistic.

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping seeks to substantially expand the SCO and BRICS so as to include not just anti-western countries but countries that are veering away from support to the US and its allies, such as seems the situation with Saudi Arabia. The purpose is to create not just an alternative but an opposition to what the CCP considers a western-dominated global order. When Xi talks of multipolarity, what he means in practice is the replacement of the fading unipolarity of the US with that of China. Similarly, to Xi, a BRICS currency swap agreement means not the use of the South African rand, the Brazilian real and the Indian rupee, but the replacement of the US dollar with the RMB in intra-bloc trade.

Through the prominence given in 2023 to the G-20 within India,the other lesson that the Prime Minister intended to convey to the 1.4 billion people of the country was that international peace, stability and progress were not possible in the absence of coordinated efforts at protecting them. And that in the task of ensuring the three objectives of stability, peace and progress, India has a keystone role. AcrossIndia, the holding of G-20 events and the dissemination of information about the group has better opened the gaze of people in India to the world, and so far as the G-20 is concerned, opened multiple corners of India to what is arguably the most consequential multilateral organisation at present. Under the Modi Presidency, the orbit of the G-20 has been lifted to a much higher trajectory in terms of global significance than was the case earlier. When President Lulaof Brazil takes over the rotating presidency from Prime Minister Modi later this year, it will be a G-20 on a much higher trajectory than was the case just a year earlier.It is certain that Brazil will emerge as a worthy successor to India, so that the higher trajectory gets maintained during its presidencyand hopefully afterwards. Assisted by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Prime Minister Modi is successfully navigating through the rocky shoals and choppy waters of changing international relationships, including those that have been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war.While continuing to be a customer of Russian products such as oil, India has continued on the path of deepening security and defence cooperation with the US, Japan and other like-minded countries. Rather than get lost in a welter of conflicting objectives in the way that NATO has done since almost the start of the 21st century, India has remained focused on its key priorities, which include the Global South, food security and the defence of the Indo-Pacific against expansionist powers seeking to wrest land, air and sea space from other countries.

In the task of expansion of space at the expense of other countries, apart from the US itself, the biggest challenge CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping is facing is from India. In Galwan in early 2020, the Indian Army showed that man-to-man, its soldiers are more than a match for their PLA counterparts. India has an inexhaustible reservoir of young people, of whom potentially tens of millions can be trained to deploy as a deadly force in situations of kinetic combat. Prime Minister Modi through Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, is ensuring just such an expansion of speedily deployable additional man (and woman) power in the uniformed services, including through the Agnipath program. This is in the process of being tweaked so as to make it better able to fulfill the objectives for which it was set up. As havethe newly created tri-service theatre commands, another long needed innovation. The Indian armed forces are well on the way to becoming the most capable in the world, including in the essential task of helping protect theIndo-Pacific against predatory powers.

In a way that countries across both sides of the Atlantic failed to do during the 1930s, making a kinetic global conflagration inevitable, the process of building up a coalition capable of deterring the country that is the world’s biggest security challenge in the 21st century needs to succeed. That progress is being made in such a task is clear from the reinvigoration of the Quad by Shinzo Abe and Narendra Modi in 2017, and in the deepening collaboration kinetic and otherwise between like-minded Indo-Pacific countries threatened by expansionist powers, such as India with Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

India took over the G-20 and SCO in a year that has beenunusually problematic in many ways, and yet has managed to steer the G-20 in a way that establishes New Delhi’s credentials as a platform where even bitter rivals can participate. Within the BRICS, India is resisting efforts to get the organisation to take sides in the ongoing Cold War 2.0 that is taking place, a task in which it is being joined by Brazil and South Africa, neither of which wants the BRICS to become an entity controlled by a bloc that is opposed to another bloc. As for SCO, mindless expansion would destroy its coherence, and needs to be avoided despite pressure from one of its members. Choppy waters, rough seas. Piloting safely in such geopolitical seas is being carried out with energy and efficiency during this particularly turbulent year by the current 2023 Chair of G-20 and SCO, India.

In G-20 and SCO, PM Modi navigates turbulence in 2023

White House is Trump’s surest safety net (The Sunday Guardian)

 Behind prison bars, Trump would almost certainly gain rather than lose votes.

t was Vladimir Putin who spoke about an incident in his childhood when he was chasing a rat. Finally, he got it into a corner, and in desperation, the rat lunged at him and almost succeeded in doing the young boy serious bodily harm. Luckily, with the agility that Putin displayed later in life, he ducked and ran away from the frightened and hence dangerous creature. Vladimir Putin brings up that story to illustrate how it is always better to leave an exit route, unless it is a battle to the death. Attorney General Merrick Garland of the US has evidently not heard of Putin’s story, else he would not have allowed the filing of a large number of charges against the former President of the US, Donald J. Trump. It would be unfair to portray such an action as motivated by the fact that a Republican-controlled Senate broke all conventions and refused to schedule a vote on Judge Garland when he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama. Garland was an exceptionally capable judge, with a reputation for objectivity and integrity. The Supreme Court would have greatly benefited from such qualities, but the Republican fringe, given free rein by Trump, refused to allow Obama to appoint him to the Court.

Subsequently, when Trump moved into the White House, he nominated and got Senate approval for justices who were outspokenly of a bent of mind that is wholly congruent with current Republican orthodoxy. Even if he never again becomes Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell would have ensured his stamp on the future of the US through the judicial picks he chose and got approved enthusiastically by President Trump. Once Joe Biden shifted to the White House in 2021, he appointed Judge Garland as the Attorney General, a post he more than merited. If not himself, then key members of President Biden’s administration would like to see a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024. Several have pointed fingers at Biden, almost certainly unfairly, for the mounting legal travail that Trump is facing. Their explanation why Biden is behind such an unprecedented and ferocious attack on an ex-President as he wants a rematch of the 2020 polls. And if he was not aware a year ago, President Biden would know by now that the more the legal salvoes fired at Trump, the greater the chance that he would again be the Republican nominee for the coming Presidential election. Rather than “go gently into the night”, Trump is following the advice of Dylan Thomas, who said that instead, a man should “rage, rage, against the dying of the light”. In the case of Trump, the “light” would refer to his very freedom, for given the passionate way in which the Justice Department is prosecuting him, it is clear that prison is where its staff wants Trump to disappear into. A situation is being reached in which the only chance for Trump to stay out of jail would be to get elected President of the US in the 2024 polls. The former President is using every legal dart thrown at him as an additional proof of victimhood, thereby generating the emotion that drives upward more votes than any other sentiment.

Everybody loves an underdog, and most feel a sense of empathy with a person whom they consider to be a victim of injustice. Sending Trump a formal notice that he is a target of the 6 January 2021 investigation into efforts at overturning the election result seems a case of overreach to many voters. Judging by his personality, it seems likely that Trump himself was convinced that he was being cheated out of a second term, and that he therefore needed to “fight like hell” in order to (in his mind) get justice. Mens Rea, a guilty mind, is central in criminal law, and if Trump believed he had won, several of the accusations now going in his direction may be based on a possibly false premise that Trump knew that he had lost but was nevertheless trying to overturn the result. Breaking convention, the defeated President did not concede to the President-elect, perhaps because he believed that he remained the President, and that votes had been stolen from him that needed to be somehow retrieved, most palpably in Georgia. From the standpoint of Mens Rea, several of those charged in the 6 January 2021 “insurrection” believed that they were only enforcing the law, absurd though such a belief was. Like Liz Cheney or Joe Biden, the Justice Department prosecutors are acting under the assumption that their own minds during the period were an accurate reflection of the minds of the rioters and Trump himself. In fact, the latter held the opposite view, and overwhelmingly, in a sincere if wholly misguided way. As President of the US, Trump ensured the fading out of Hillary Clinton by simply ignoring her rather than “locking her up” as he had said he would while campaigning. Had Biden done the same with Trump, it would not have been the former President who has by far the best chance of winning the nomination. And, should Trump with his usual unconcern for the views of his party elders embrace Biden’s expansive social agenda in the way that his supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene has already publicly done, he could win in 2024 by saying that he would accomplish the social agenda that Biden wants to do, but is being blocked by the Republicans. Donald Trump knows that the Justice Department is determined to put him behind bars. Winning the Presidential election next year would be a foolproof way of avoiding that fate, or cutting it short should his prosecutors manage to “lock him up” before the polls. Behind prison bars, Trump would almost certainly gain rather than lose votes, and Trump fans would blame his rival Biden for their hero’s plight. Joe Biden may get his wish and again face off against Donald Trump. The problem for him is that his own Justice Department may be making it more difficult for Trump to lose this time around.

White House is Trump’s surest safety net

Protecting the essence of Israel (The Sunday Guardian)

 Israel was explicitly set up in 1948 as the homeland of the Jewish community, just three years after World War II, during the course of which Nazi Germany sought to eliminate the Jewish people from the planet. Given their history of persecution, the small slice of land marked out for the establishment of Israel was not in any way unreasonable. At the same time, a much larger area was marked out as the Palestinian state. However, the leadership of that community was opposed to any land being ceded to create a new Jewish state, and went to war with Israel, in which a large chunk of land was lost to the State of Israel. Doing away with what is still referred to in capitals such as Tehran as “the Jewish Entity” became a popular cause within much of the rest of the region, and in 1967, a coalition of countries led by Egypt went to war with Israel. In the process, each of the main military participants in the war against Israel lost even more territory.

Subsequently, the Sinai peninsula was handed back to the Egyptians in an agreement worked out between Begin and Sadat, and since then, Egypt has been at peace with Israel. In the 2011 “Arab Spring” and the consequent coming to power of a regime controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood (an ultra-conservative religious party), there again arose the dread that such a peace may once again be broken. As took place in Turkey since President Erdogan took over, ultra-conservatives in Egypt grew in strength and were beginning to change the post-Sadat contours of Cairo’s policy until the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power by the Egyptian military. In Turkey, there was a failed attempt by elements of the Turkish military loyal to the legacy of Kemal Ataturk to overthrow Erdogan, but the attempt failed. The European Union backed Erdogan as he exacted revenge on the Kemalist elements, not just in the military but in the rest of the government as well as civil society. The narrow margin by which Erdogan retained power in the last poll shows that more and more of the Turkish people are opposing his plans to make Turkey a society more like Saudi Arabia in the pre-MBS days than what the country had been since the time of Ataturk. Had Turkey gone the Egypt way and the elected regime toppled, the country would have moved much closer to Europe than it is now. After his narrow escape from loss of power, Erdogan has sought to re-fashion his policies in a more Europe-friendly manner, but apart from a dash of outward symbolism, his project of making Turkey a bastion of religious conservatism endures.

A country that is experiencing internal turmoil during the present times is Israel. That Israel is a Jewish state is a given. What is in dispute is what the essence of this Jewishness is. According to the ultra-conservative parties that have given Prime Minister Netanyahu his narrow majority in the Knesset, only the Orthodox deserve to call themselves truly Jewish. The previous government took the unprecedented step of including Israeli Arabs into the ministry. The ultra-conservatives would like to see the elimination of any involvement of Arabs in any part of the governance system in Israel. They would like to pass legislation that would ensure the primacy of the Orthodox and the ultra-conservatives over other segments of the Jewish population of Israel. In their view, only a return to Orthodoxy would ensure that Israel remains what it was intended to be, the Homeland of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people, it cannot be forgotten, have gifted the world with much scientific discovery. While the overwhelming majority of such intellects are observant Jews and many are even conservative, very few indeed are from the Orthodox community. In that stratum, there is much ritual and routine that makes it somewhat more difficult to ensure the freedom of thought and broadness of vision that truly great minds demonstrate and indeed seem to need. Benjamin Netanyahu has made saving his government a priority, and it has not helped that his political opponents have been working hard to send him to jail should they return to power. The prospect of that has made Netanyahu make compromises that he may perhaps have avoided. On taking office, Trump gave Hillary and Bill a free pass, declining to seek their prosecution. A similar gesture has not been reciprocated by the Biden administration, and as a consequence, Trump is emerging as the most likely Republican nominee against President Biden. Those campaigning against the weakening of the Israeli Supreme Court on the streets of Tel Aviv believe that the essence of the Jewish state and faith is moderation and personal freedom. The Orthodox parties supporting the Netanyahu government do not agree. Israel seems headed for another election, and the result of this could decide which of the two sides win. As is the case in the US, especially in New York, the Orthodox Jewish community has to have the right to follow the practices and rituals that they believe define their age-old faith. What is at issue is whether they have the right to enforce their will through legislation on the rest of the Jewish population as well. Those who believe in greater individual freedoms and rights are willing to challenge the conservative government even if it be through the streets rather than the ballot box.
MDN

Protecting the essence of Israel

Qin Gang’s absence may reflect Xi’s weakening grip on the CCP (The Sunday Guardian)

 Has the disappearance of Qin taken place not because of Xi’s orders but in spite of them? Has Qin Gang become the ‘chicken’ that is being removed to scare the ‘farmer’, Xi himself?

New Delhi

The absence from the public eye for almost a month of Foreign Minister Qin Gang of the People’s Republic of China has given rise to speculation that he has been cashiered for having an extra-marital relationship with a Chinese television anchor who often travelled abroad. Other theories mention the possibility of blackmail of the Foreign Minister by a “hostile power” i.e. the United States. A third claims that the fast-promoted Qin has fallen foul of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. The degree of opacity in the higher circles of the CCP resembles a bottle of black ink, hence such theories remain just that, hypotheses as to why Qin has been missing for almost a month.

That he has landed in disgrace because of a romantic liaison with an attractive television presenter is contrary to the fact that this relationship almost since it began must have been well known to not just the CCP General Secretary, but to lesser authorities as well. As envoy to the US, he would have been under 24/7 surveillance, and knowledge of any love affair, assuming that he had one, would have been known to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. The fact is that in less than 18 months, Qin was promoted from envoy to the US to being the Foreign Minister of China. The missing diplomat is part of the relatively younger group (most in their 40s or 50s) that has been collected around him by Xi Jinping. Each member of this inner circle of the CCP Supremo would be aware not just that his (there would probably not be a woman within the group) swift ascent was because of Xi’s patronage, but that were Xi Jinping to fall, not just the job but very likely the freedom and maybe in some cases the life of the Xi acolyte would immediately be severely impacted. That Qin Gang became a hidden dissident while he was within the trusted inner circle of assistants of Xi is implausible. Only a confirmed loyalist of Xi would have been sent to the most sensitive posting outside China for any PRC diplomat, the PRC embassy in Washington. As for the young lady, had she been regarded as even a bit unreliable from the regime’s point of view, she would not have been made an important news anchor by Phoenix television. Phoenix, although technically not state-controlled, is in effect very much a part of the Agitation & Propaganda wing of the CCP’s United Front. Just as in the case of Qin, the presumed lady friend’s loyalty to the regime would have been examined under a microscope and judged to be fool-proof.

Were there any doubts about her reliability, Qin Gang’s rumoured affair with the anchor would have speedily ended with her being sent out in disgrace, and at the least an admonition to Qin to stay away from anyone less than fully reliable as a regime supporter.

Did the Chinese FM reveal “secrets” to the anchor? Under Xi Jinping, the level of secrecy expected by those in the inner circle is even more than was ever the case earlier. Anything personal about Xi Jinping, for example, would be out of bounds to reveal to anyone, even what the General Secretary had for breakfast. Did Qin Gang break the 24/7 Code of Omerta (silence and secrecy) expected of him by just revealing not matters of state, but personal matters relating to the uppermost levels of the CCP? We do not know, and probably never will. As for falling prey to CIA lures, that again appears improbable, as only an individual of tested loyalty would have been sent to Washington and later given what may be the swiftest promotion in the Chinese diplomatic service, made Foreign Minister.

What then? It may be remembered that from mid-2022 onwards, the present writer was mentioning reports reaching him from Moscow about a weakening of the hold of President Putin within the Kremlin as a consequence of the way the Ukraine war was developing. Recent events have shown that to be very likely a reality.

Till now, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has wielded power within the country and the party on the level of Stalin or Mao. As a result, there has been concealed discontent about his absolutist ways. Have the seniors within the CCP core who dislike such a return to absolutism become strong enough to “kill the chicken to scare the farmer”? Has the disappearance of Qin taken place not because of Xi’s orders but in spite of them? Has Qin Gang become the “chicken” that is being removed to scare the “farmer”, Xi himself? To show him that unless he returns from Mao’s ways to that of the Great Helmsman’s successors until Xi took over in 2012? If Qin Gang has truly been disgraced, that may be an indication that Xi’s absolute grip on the CCP is under challenge. That he can no longer ignore and humiliate seniors in the way he has been doing since taking charge. The days ahead will show whether the fortunes of Foreign Minister Qin have plummeted or not. If they have, then even if outward appearances are to the contrary, it may be the first visible evidence that the hold of Xi is weakening, else a tested Xi loyalist such as Qin would not have been dealt with in the way he appears to have been. Of course, China being Communist China, it may be that it was indeed a heart attack that has taken Qin away from his jobs and not the work of a cabal engaged in resistance to Xi’s Mao-style grip over the CCP. Given the unexpectedly robust coming together by countries such as those in the Quad as a reaction to Xi’s expansionist ways and the fall in PRC economic performance, given the possibility of supply sources and markets shrinking, not to mention the turmoil caused by Xi’s Zero Covid policy resistance to the top leader within the upper echelons of the CCP cannot any more be dismissed as impossible. If such be the case, Qin Gang may be the first high-level victim of a purge of Xi loyalists within the governance structure of the PRC.

Qin Gang’s absence may reflect Xi’s weakening grip on the CCP