Why India is escaping more terror strikes (PO)

M D Nalapat

Those who planned the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai in 2008 were aware that the Mumbai police is widely regarded as being among the most corrupt in the world. Although all levels of the force are routinely said to accept money in exchange for official favours,a distinction has to be made between juniors and seniors. Harm gets done to the national interest only when the higher rungs of the police become corrupt, which is the case in Mumbai. Like their counterparts in Colombia or Mexico, many of whom are on the payroll of the narco mafia, too many top policemen in Mumbai are reported to think nothing of accepting money and other gifts from the underworld, including that section which funds and facilitates terror attacks. Just as corruption in the force has helped narco traffickers to use Colombia and Mexico as safe havens for their operations, terror networks in India use their corrupt contacts in the Mumbai police to facilitate their

There is a difference between corruption that causes harm to national security and other types of graft. In an economy and a society at the stage that India is in, it is utopian to visualize a situation when corruption will disappear the way that it has in Finland, Sweden or Norway ( but certainly not in Spain, Italy or France, in each of which large pools of corrupt officials thrive, including at the highest levels). Hence, the war on corruption must principally target (1) the higher levels of the administrative structure and (2) those forms of graft that immediately impact national security. In the case of Mumbai,this is represented by the senior officers of the police force who accept cash from narco traffickers, even though they are aware that many of them are also associated with terrorist networks operating in India and overseas. Indeed, narcotics and terror go hand-in-hand in South Asia, as the results of the poppy trade in Afghanistan have made clear.

In the case of 26/11, key sources within the security establishment say that at least two senior police officers of Maharashtra state ( of which Mumbai is the capital) have been in the pay of a Dubai-based operator since the middle of the 1990s. They say that this is the reason why the Mumbai accomplices of the 26/11 plotters have escaped detection. Instructions were given “from the top to ignore any possible local leads to the conspiracy”. Even in the identification of the external players, almost all the detective work was done by the FBI, with the Indian authorities playing second fiddle. In particular,the grave security lapses by the Mumbai police that allowed the 26/11 terrorists to continue on their destructive path for three days has yet to be addressed. Not a single top official – including those guilty of clear dereliction of duty and worse - has been cashiered. Instead, a few have been promoted and all shielded. The reason behind this is the influence that a certain businessman based in Karachi has over key politicians in the central and state level.

UPA sabotages India’s thorium energy quest (Org.)

M D Nalapat

Over the past decades, despite severe international sanctions led by the US and China, Indian nuclear scientists such as Dr P K Iyengar and Dr Anil Kakodkar have ensured that this country secures the capability of becoming a major player in the energy market, provided that the Three Stage Programme devised by Homi Jehangir Bhabha in the 1960s gets implemented. However, over the past four years, the UPA has quietly sought to abandon the Three Stage Programme in favour of a massive programme of purchasing foreign reactors that give zero benefit to local technology and very little to local industry.

Interestingly, each time an effort is made to recover sufficient uranium for the nuclear industry, a slew of NGOs emerge that block mining. Although the Manmohan Singh government has evidence that many of these are funded by interests hostile to the indigenous nuclear industry, yet—clearly under pressure from 10 Janpath—it has succumbed to blackmail and refused to mine uranium, especially in Meghalaya. As a result, the PHWR reactors of the Department of Atomic Energy have for long been forced to operate at below 70 per cent of capacity, thereby depriving the country of energy.

Sadly, since 2001, the establishment in India has slowed down the Indian reprocessing programme, the result being that vast pools of irradiated natural uranium have built up,that are a safety hazard and which—once processed—can serve as feedstock for a nuclear energy programme. Because of a tendency of successive governments to succumb to US-China pressure, the Fast Breeder reactor has not yet been fully operationalised, mainly because of lack of fuel. Incidentally, the US, China and the EU are using every means of pressure at their disposal to prevent India from mastering the Fast Breeder Reactor technology, because they know that once such a Rubicon gets passed, India would become one of the key countries in international nuclear commerce. What is a mystery is why governmernts in India have agreed to such anti-Indian diktats for so long, and now appear poised to even scrap the Three Stage Programme altogether.

For the past fifteen years, the Department of Atomic Energy has been working on Advanced Heavy Water Reactors(AHWR) and Compact High Temperature Reactor (CHTR), both being thorium-based. Once these get operationalised, the country would be able to do without costly imports of nuclear plants as well as petro-product feedstock. Of course, this would cut into several Swiss bank accounts held by VVIPs in India, which is why the indigenous AWHR and CHTR programmes are being sabotaged by the Sonia-led UPA.

Will Sonia trump Saint Antony? (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat

t was Pramod Mahajan who came up with the concept of "India Shining". And in his case, such a claim was certainly true. From a lower-middle class background, the BJP's Mr Fix-it entered the higher rungs of the economic elite. Of course, because of the need to pretend that he was still penurious by the standards of his business friends, a lot of such wealth would have been distributed amongst various names. Some claim that the marital adventures of his only son was motivated more by a desire to husband the wealth left behind by Mahajan than by romance, although this is something that is difficult to prove, and may indeed be wrong. The lady in question was admittedly a charmer, as the Mahajan family well knew. Decades ago, during 1977-78, when Indira Gandhi was out of office and needing vast amounts of money for her political comeback, the oxygen for her return was provided by D. Devaraj Urs, the urbane Chief Minister of Karnataka. Urs took care of her needs almost as comprehensively as another Karnataka CM, Ramakrishna Hegde, ministered to V.P. Singh. After all, it needs to be remembered that just as it took a lot of money to keep M.K. Gandhi in poverty, it takes a lot of cash to run a noticeable anti-corruption campaign.

Supreme power with zero responsibility (PO)

M D Nalapat


In times past, a section of society was treated as “untouchable” by the rest. They were not allowed to approach the others, and if by mistake one of them made physical contact with the “touchable” part of society, the unfortunate individual was put to death. In the south, a section of society was not merely “untouchable” but “unseeable”. This lowest of the low was forced to ring bells or shout out their location, so that others may be warned to keep away. They were not allowed to use the same paths as others did, having to content themselves with moving around inside fields and jungles, out of sight of others. The rigid stratification of society - which after a while became based on birth - helped weaken the different kingdoms within the country such that they became easy prey for invaders from Afghanistan, Arabia, Central Asia and the territory that is modern-day Iran

One of the few benefits of British rule was the springing up of reform movements within the Hindu religion, many led by thinkers from Bengal. Raja Rammohun Roy and others like him understood that there was no way India could expel the British, unless society itself became more just. For millenia, learning had been confined to a small proportion of the total population. The rest were given no opportunity to study. This state of affairs continued till the Mughal era, when several from the lower orders of society discovered that they could vastly improve their status by adopting the faith of their conquerors. Of course, such individuals could not dream of equality with the Mughal princes and their retinue,just as later on Christian converts in India were still treated as inferior to the British,despite both having the same faith. However, the treatment given to them was far better than the discrimination they had endured when they were in their previous faith, a factor that encouraged a steady flow of converts for several centuries

Ever since the 1857 uprising, the British in India were reluctant to force social change,or to impose their systems and standards on those who did not want them. Hence the country had to wait till independence in 1947 for laws to get passed that criminalized discrimination on the basis of caste.

Life After Bin Laden (The Diplomat)

By M. D. Nalapat

The Diplomat speaks with Indian Decade contributor and UNESCO Peace Chair Madhav Nalapat about the implications of Osama bin Laden's death and the future of islamic extremism.

You've written before about alleged links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and terrorists, specifically in relation to the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Do you expect the attention focused on Pakistan's intelligence services following the killing of Osama bin Laden to bring sufficient pressure for change?

Days after the Mumbai attack, sources tracking events in Pakistan told me that the ISI was behind the carnage, and that the Pakistan military had assisted in the training and logistics of the attack. Because of this information, I was the first to write authoritatively on the ISI's involvement, which was denied by the United States for more than a year after the terrorist outrage happened.

Successive US administrations have, for the previous 60 years, believed that they can use Pakistan for their own purposes. Military assistance given since the 1950s to ‘fight communism’ was used solely against India, with Pakistan joining hands with China since 1963 -- nine years before President Richard Nixon established a strategic partnership with Beijing. Even the CIA can’t believe that the Pakistan establishment was unaware of A.Q. Khan's activities, yet it acts otherwise, exactly as it has over the bin Laden execution.

Yes, the Pakistani military can be forced to support rather than sabotage US interests. However, this will come about only when carrots get replaced by sticks, and when officers known to be assisting groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba get sanctioned by the United States the way the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been, and prosecuted in the International Court the way the Serbians have been.

Thus far, there’s no sign of this happening. Indeed, the United States is rapidly losing the very ability to alter the behaviour of the Pakistan military. For the past decade, I’ve pointed to the growing influence of China within the Pakistan military. By around 2005, I’d say, Beijing had overtaken the US in overall influence, and is now far ahead. The Pakistan military is becoming like the Burmese military, a tributary of the People’s Liberation Army. Hence, to expect change post-bin Laden is to live on illusions.

Do Pakistan’s protestations that they didn't know bin Laden was there have any credibility?

Still slaves, even after ‘Independence’ (Sunday Guardian)

By M. D. Nalapat

	Police officers beat a man during a protest in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra on 19 April: ‘If the notables close to Dus Number visit a police chowki in rural India or a government office in the exurbs as ordinary citizens, they will soon come to understand the martya Sen, Sunil Khilnani and the other notables close to Dus Number may not notice this, but India is hardly a democracy for the 99%-plus of the population sans access to money and its Siamese twin, power. Although the Congress party claimed to be opposed to the British Raj, they have retained each and every one of the accoutrements of the colonial authority, including the laws and the administrative structure. Not coincidentally, such an institutional framework sucks away rights and authority from citizens and places them in the hands of the — admittedly elected — political executive. Hopefully, some day Sen and Khilnani will wander away from the air-conditioned environs of British-built Delhi and visit a police chowki in rural India or a government office in the exurbs, not as favourites of Dus Number, but as ordinary citizens. If they escape arrest or worse, they will soon come to understand the reality of democracy, Nehru-style. During the Raj, any Indian needed the permission of the white masters to undertake most activities. Any that was seen as detrimental to the interests of the few hundred thousand British in India and their fellows at home was banned. Has anything changed since then? Circa 2011, the permission of one agency of the government or the other is mandatory for any activity, including those regarded as routine in genuine democracies. The home ministry and the HRD ministry, in particular, have worked in tandem to snuff out independence and initiative in thinking in our institutions of learning. If Jairam Ramesh is correct that the IITs and the IIMs are not of the standard that he is used to in his peregrinations abroad, the reason lies in his own government which has tasked a 76-year-old (Professor Yash Pal) to come up with a roadmap for a 21st century education system. Hopefully, the good professor will suggest policies that are internationally in sync with the values and needs of the 1960s, rather than the 1930s. Several hundred thousand officials in India have — individually — the power to take away liberty and assets of a citizen. Many of them exercise such discretion in a manner that is designed to quicken the flow of funds to unnamed accounts in tax havens. It is characteristic of Dus Number that it got set up a committee to examine how black money could be eliminated, that was staffed entirely by exactly the same team that has presided over the biggest accumulation of black money in the nation's history. Naturally, these worthies would like even more extreme punishments to those they finger as wrongdoers (for a consideration of course, or the lack of it). They know that each turn of the thumbnail screw will increase the bribes that need to be paid to them and to their political seniors to escape torture. A Baba Ramdev and an Anna Hazare, with their prattle about death sentences, suit their purposes perfectly. We have a Reserve Bank of India that cannot get beyond undergraduate textbooks in economics, and which ignores the fact that the single biggest cause of inflation in India is corruption; a defect that no increase in interest rates will touch. The RBI has allowed the same US and European financial entities responsible for cheating investors of more than $4 trillion to set up shop in India and fleece unwary investors. Today, India has become as much a haven for commodity speculators as is the US and the UK, including in foodgrains. Instead of seeking to bring such elements to book as international criminals, Dus Number gives them access to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister.
	ust as the authoritarianism of the 1970s led to the 1977 reaction against Indira Gandhi, the reversal of the — far too slow and incomplete — liberalisation of 1992-2004 by the UPA has created a public backlash against the state and its instruments. The people of India are even more circumscribed by the state as they were pre-1947. The ersatz democracy created by politicians unwilling to shed colonial-era powers needs to get replaced by a structure of administrative governance that returns to the people the rights they would enjoy in a democracy. There is a contradiction between the Constitution of India and the colonial-era criminal and civil procedure code and between the rights given to the people under the Constitution and the British-era administrative structure of Nehruvian India. That the people of the country are finally realising that they are still slaves is the only harbinger of hope. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/still-slaves-even-after-independence

Corrupts made accountable (PO)

M. D. Nalapat

M A Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was a tactical genius who succeeded in dividing the Subcontinent in two. Unlike the Congress leadership, Jinnah understood that World War II would have so weakened the UK that freedom for India would be inevitable, even without the exhaustive - and exhausting - agitations launched by the Congress Party. After the fatal tactical error of withdrawing from government both nationally and regionally in 1939, the Congress Party began to rapidly lose the support that it had hitherto enjoyed within the British establishment. In contrast, the Muslim League under its leader M A Jinnah supported a British establishment that he knew was in a severely weakened state. Jinnah kept away from the freedom struggle because he saw that independence was a foregone conclusion. Instead, through gaining the goodwill of London, he ensured the backing – both open and quiet - of the British government in his single-minded pursuit of Pakistan.

Interestingly, as soon as the Union Jack was pulled down at midnight of August 15,1947, the new government of “free” India retained the entire framework of colonial rule. It retained the colonial administrative structure and the legal framework of the colonial past. Indeed, within five years of gaining control, Nehru began to introduce more and more restrictions on the non-governmental sector in India. Much of private industry - which had flourished during World war II as a result of military orders - was nationalised. Tax rates were brought up to absurd levels, reaching 97.75% by the 1970s. After three decades of Nehru family rule, almost any activity needed prior governmental permission. Finally, in 1977, in a reaction to such colonial-style control, the electorate reacted and threw out the Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi. Since then, no subsequent government dared to add on to the web of regulations and prohibitions, or to once again show the contempt for public opinion that was demonstrated by Indira Gandhi during 1975 and 1976, a time when several citizens (including this columnist) faced police incarceration. Of course, it was only in the 1990s that a few steps were taken to liberalise the economy, steps that were added on to till 2004, when the Congress Party once again came to power as the lead actor in a coalition.

From the final decades of the 18th century to almost the first half of the 20th century, a small number of British and other colonialists skimmed the cream from the Indian national product. Several stately homes in the UK were built out of the money gained from stints in India. Even jewels of historical value, such as a Koh-i-noor, were taken away and made the property of inhabitants of the conquering power. This loot by a relatively small and distinct segment of society finally roused tens of millions in the Subcontinent to protest, and to revolt. Even in the armed forces, anger grew at the double standards practiced on those not of the “Master Race”. The career prospects and salaries of those from the UK were way higher than that given to those unfortunate enough to have been born in India.

Since 1947,has there really been a change?

Europe should pass IMF baton to Asia (China Daily)

By M.D. Nalapat (China Daily)

At the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, the European Union (EU) said it had the right to maintain its people's standard of living even if that was unsustainable for the planet. The cure the EU suggested was that China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging economies accept severe emission cuts even at the cost of retarding their growth significantly.

In effect, that meant the standard of living of people in the emerging economies ought to be frozen or even lowered, so that European and other developed countries could continue on their environmentally debilitating trajectory.

Surprising the developed world that banked on disunity among Asian powers, China and India joined hands to block such an unfair outcome.

The developed world's was a "zero-sum" approach, in which it gained at the expense of countries that it had colonized.

Interestingly, we are seeing the return of "trusteeship", in which outside powers gain control of poorer countries - as is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countries such as Libya that refuse to accept such hegemony find themselves under military attack.

Such zero-sum tactics are harmful to the entire world, and eventually to Europe, a continent whose people can justifiably take pride in their cultural and scientific achievements. The zero-sum mindset reflects excess of confidence, and in the case of the EU, this zeal has been the cause of the present financial crisis that it finds itself in.

In 1990, West Germany incorporated East Germany on terms that reflected raw emotion rather than cold economic logic. The two countries' currencies were taken as equal, when in fact the value of East Germany's ostmark was far lower than West Germany's deutschmark.

After the unification, the western part of Germany financed a massive program of investment in the eastern part's infrastructure, hoping to shorten to a few years a process that should have been allowed to proceed at its natural speed and taken about two decades to complete.

The EU followed the example of West Germany when it granted membership to former Warsaw Pact countries - once again on terms that reflected hope rather than rationality. Huge sums have been spent on countries in the eastern part of the EU. These investments would have generated far greater returns were they directed at emerging powerhouses such as China and India. The consequence of such policies has been the present financial crisis that threatens to send Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain into default.

Indeed, a close examination of the public finances of Italy and even France shows that they, too, are far less healthy than the international rating agencies make them out to be. The reality is that Europe as a whole is close to bankruptcy, and as a result, policymakers there are looking at surpluses in emerging markets to bail them out.

It is in the context of the EU's desperate search for outside funds to bail member states out of self-created catastrophe that the managing directorship of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) becomes relevant.

The poor record of Europe in public finance makes it obvious that policymakers there ought not to be trusted with the world's funds, the way they have been for decades.

If the IMF's top post has to go to a European, he/she needs to be warned against pouring the funds available with the IMF down the bottomless pit that is Greece or Portugal. The IMF has imposed very stiff conditions on countries in Africa, South America and Asia that it has lent money to. But in the case of Greece, little due diligence seems to have been carried out before massive loans were sanctioned to it.

Presumably, this is the result of the former IMF managing director giving all the importance to EU economic interests rather than the global good that he was mandated to ensure. The IMF needs to reflect this reality and ensure that emerging economies get the prominence in its decision-making that is proportionate to their contribution to the world economy.

The IMF should no longer function in a way that gives one continent such potent power over its functioning. The rest of the world needs to tell the EU that its members will have to swallow the same bitter pills that people in Asia, Africa and South America have been subjected to for so long, rather than be accommodated and mollycoddled while the rest of the world is denied of its rights.

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

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-06/10/content_12669251.htm

India’s corrupt protecting the terrorists (Org.)

By M D Nalapat

PALANIAPPAN Chidambaram deserves credit for being open about acknowledging that the sole task of the government is to collect money from the people. This principle got completely enshrined in policy once Sonia Maino chose him as the Union Finance Minister in 2004. From then onwards, the collection agencies of the Government of India were set targets that they were asked to fulfill by using the coercive means at their disposal to the fullest. Anything beyond the target set could be shared among the officials, and this was no small figure, as the financial machinery of government was empowered by Chidambaram to confiscate, imprison and harass at will. As in the time of the British Raj, the country has been bled since 1947 for the benefit of its new rulers. And now the Nehru Era has given way to what may be described as the Maino Era.

That Sonia Maino has very little time for her so-called relatives on the Nehru side of the family is no secret. These unfortunates seldom get invited to Number Ten, and almost never to the holidays in the Maldives or off the coasts of Spain and France that are the locations for get-togethers with the extended branch of the Maino family. As for the Vadras, this clan too have been placed in the same bracket as the Nehrus, which is as a group to be largely ignored socially, even as one Maino after the other gets VVIP treatment in India courtesy the individual who is the fount of their prominence and prosperity, the charming and steely Sonia Maino. Under what provision of the Constitution of India the extended Mainos are given VVIP privileges at airports and elsewhere is not clear, but there must surely be some such provision that is not visible to the naked eye.

What is very clear is that the Maino Era has converted India into a land of scams. A few of these have come to light, although the overwhelming majority still remain hidden, locked up in the records of agencies that regard their foremost duty as the care, feeding and protection of a single clan.

The IMF needs to outgrow Europe (Sunday Guardian)

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma with French Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry Christine Lagarde at a meeting in Paris last week. PTI fter the obligatory disapproving coughs, Dr Manmohan Singh is likely to accept the replacement of one French managing director of the IMF with another. When Christine Lagarde comes to Delhi, she will enter a city teeming with Francophiles, a species that is particularly strong within the Ministry of Defence. She will converse in French with Sonia Gandhi, and perhaps even find time for a celebrated import from her own country, NAC member Jean Dreze. Given the lack of unanimity within The Rest, it is almost certain The West will once again lead the IMF, the way it does every "international" institution set up after the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. And since the demise of the USSR in 1992, the UN system too has come under western tutelage, as evidenced by UN Security Council resolutions that give colonial-era powers to "Coalitions of the Willing" in countries in Asia and Africa. Of course, perhaps by coincidence, such "coalitions" invariably comprise members of Nato, or are dominated by them. However, allowing the top job at the IMF to remain the monopoly of Europe is a bad idea, one that is likely to prove expensive for Asia, as it watches the money it saves getting diverted into the bottomless pit that passes for public finance in at least a third of EU members. What Lagarde and the rest of her backers seek is money from Asia, and lots of it, to reduce the burden on the EU taxpayer, as the effort continues to make Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece borrow their way out of fiscal collapse. Lagarde's top nine priorities out of a total of ten will be Europe, hardly the mindset expected in the head of an "international" bank. While the IMF may function as a lender to these four economies, this needs to be done on a cold-blooded estimate of what they need to do to avoid default. Thus far, in contrast with the bitter medicine that it has forced economies in South America, Asia and Africa to swallow, the IMF has been noticeably kinder towards Greece and the rest of the PIGS, a policy that needs to change. The reality is that the expansion of the EU on the terms decided upon by the earlier members has proved too expensive to afford. This ruinous policy was initiated by Helmut Kohl two decades back, when he broke every canon of modern economic theory to treat the East German currency as equal to that of West Germany. Had Kohl fixed a more realistic exchange value, the eastern part of a reunited Germany would have developed much faster than it has. And as for the other countries of East Europe, the massive EU effort to enable parity between their social and other infrastructure and that of western Europe placed the tribal loyalty of ethnicity well above reason. Rather than concentrating solely on East Europe, had West Europe given attention to emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere, its returns would have been far higher. East Europe needed to come out of its backwardness at a pace dictated not by emotion but by the logic of economic reality, a process that would have taken about two decades, or the same time as elapsed between the World War II destruction of Japan and Germany and the re-emergence of the two powers. The attempt to telescope this essential process of economic evolution has weakened the financial sinews of the western members of the alliance, and has reduced their relative presence across the world, something that Nato bombs and missiles rained down on the recalcitrant seems unlikely to reverse. What the IMF under Lagarde will attempt would be for the EU to use this so-called "international" umbrella as a means for channelling savings from Asia and other locations towards the EU's stricken members. But the problems of Europe are too big to be eliminated by savings from Asia, a continent that has already been cheated of more than $2 trillion in savings and investments as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, a disaster in the making of which it had no role. Rather than repeat the mistake made by West Europe since the 1990s, of pumping investment funds into East Europe rather than into locations that have today emerged as the engines of international growth, investors in Asia need to focus on themselves and on markets in Africa and South America. If the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have bankrupted the US in a way that the Vietnam War could not, the reason lies in the fact that Bush-Cheney sought to funnel all procurement into US entities, rather than make use of production platforms in Asia. Since the 1990s, the EU has made the same mistake as the Pentagon, only on an even bigger scale. By looking only inwards, the EU has reached a stage when several countries within it are certain to default, even while the only hope that it has for economic stability lies in an Asia that has been ignored for too long. Madame Lagarde at the IMF would be more of the same. More of the same policies that have brought the EU to the edge of financial meltdown. Prime Minister Singh needs to do more than politely cough. India needs to throw its weight behind an "emerging economy" candidate, for it is the move away from a Europe-centric approach that is the best policy for the IMF to follow.

A political storm across India (PO)

By M. D. Nalapat


Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a personal commitment towards a peaceful resolution of outstanding issues with Pakistan, he is no Indira Gandhi and hence may not be able to fulfil his vision. The first - and thus far only - woman PM of India had a substantial political base, one that she demonstrated in both 1969 as well as 1978. Both those times, she split the Congress Party, and while in 1969,more than 40% of the party remained with her rivals rather than cross over to her side, in 1978 about 80% of the party cadre joined her in preference to those she was opposed to. Since that time, the Congress Party has been synonymous with the Nehru family, and neither its cadres nor its leaders would even dream of looking beyond The Family for the top leadership were Manmohan Singh to ever split the party in the way that Indira Gandhi did, it is doubtful if even 1% of the cadre would come over to his side. The rest would remain loyal to the Nehru family, now represented by Sonia Gandhi, who has established her control over the Congress Party and the Union Government efficiently and smoothly. Of course, Prime Minister Singh is himself loyal to the Congress President, and hence the question of his walking away does not arise. The problem that he faces is that this lack of a political base makes it difficult for him to implement the policies that he favours.

From 2004 onwards, economic reform has slowed to a crawl, and can even be said to have been reversed by the many new restrictions that have been introduced by dirigiste ministers eager to strengthen their (lucrative) roster of discretionary powers. Had economic reform of the type favoured by Manmohan Singh been pursued by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the country’s rate of growth would have been closer to 15% than the 9% presently achieved. Much of the demand in the economy has come because of money held abroad by Indian nationals, that is returning to the country because of the fear that foreign financial institutions may collapse. These funds are helping to keep the stock market from collapsing, and are ensuring a steady rise in property prices India is one of the few countries where regulators were unable to distinguish between short-term and long-term funds. The same treatment is given to both investments in the stock and money market (that can be withdrawn any time) and money invested in plant and machinery, that is tied to the enterprise. 

Trust Indians with information, views (Sunday Guardian)

Niira Radia: A book on her has been stopped from distribution as it might affect her reputation.

irst the Supreme Court reminded the people of India that they cannot be trusted with information about the religious affiliation of a political personality — in the case under reference, Sonia Gandhi. Now the Delhi High Court has ruled that a book on Niira Radia by R.K. Anand (Close Encounters with Niira Radia, Har-Anand Publications) needs to be stopped from distribution, lest it affect her reputation, or what is left of it after tapes of her conversations with multiple powerful personalities became public. Clearly, the people of India are but children, who cannot be trusted with content as adult as religious affiliation or uncharitable views about a prominent personality.

The Election Commission of India would agree with the distinguished judges. That "watchdog of democracy" has thus far been manned only by former officials, none of whom ever fought even a college union election. Whether it is the CEC or the CVC, the presumption in India is the same as during the days when the British were in residence in the Viceregal Palace. That civil society in India is incapable of being in charge of its own affairs and therefore needs the tutelage of officialdom. Because she never thought to try for the IAS, an Arundhati Roy can never hope to become a member of the Human Rights Commission or an Anna Hazare the CVC. And as for the Election Commission, that organisation believes that only a "sanitised" campaign, such as the ones waged in North Korea, are dignified enough to merit approval. Our commissioners frown on "personal attacks" on political opponents during a campaign, as negative information about a candidate is clearly as unacceptable as any criticism of the Raj was during its heyday.Unless key institutions of the state get liberated from the thin layer of officialdom that has thus far constricted their functioning, and unless the people of India be given the same access to information as their counterparts in the US or in the UK (the two other countries with significant English-speaking populations), to call this country a democracy would be farcical. The higher an individual reaches along the system, the greater should be transparency about that person. Neither Ratan Tata nor Sonia Gandhi can claim the right to "privacy", until they recuse themselves from the institutions that they control.

Why Ratan Tata? Because modern India has seen a melting away of the silos that traditionally separated commerce from politics. These days, businesspersons become politicians and vice-versa, so synergistic is the link between two professions that ought to be made mutually exclusive under law. At least at the level of Union and State Cabinets, there needs to be a bar on entry of those who have business interests. Anil Ambani, for whatever reason, reacted properly when he resigned as a member of the Rajya Sabha, an institution around which far too many reports of auctions swirl around. Public service ought to be a high-risk occupation in India, exactly as it is in the US. Instead, we pat ourselves on the back when an Andimuthu Raja goes to prison, forgetting about the many others at his level who are as, or much more, guilty of graft. It is not only in telecom that we need some Radia tapes, but in petroleum, coal, defence and other ministries as well. Sadly, even the driblets of information that are in the public domain are looked on askance by those who for decades have (by reason of being paid by the state exchequer) seen themselves as several cuts above the rest of us.

Not just transparency, but punishment needs to be proportionate to the level of the individual in the governance system. To claim that India is a country where the "rule of law" applies is to indulge in fantasy. Those with influence and resources have an immunity from substantive punishment that would be the envy of their counterparts in more civilised countries. What needs to be done is to ensure that the higher an individual, the greater should be the quantum of punishment. Rather than the present system, where a "joint secretary and above" are given protection even from inquiries, this segment needs to be exposed to the elements. And as for Niira Radia, this columnist, to his chagrin, has never met her. However, any individual who simultaneously wins the trust of Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata must be worthy of admiration. Ms Radia needs to seek to make India more like her other home, the UK, with respect to the flow of information. Some months ago, an account of this columnist's mother was published by a Canadian author who had visited her a half-dozen times over the years. With extreme understatement, it can be said that The Love Queen of Malabar (by Merrily Weisbord) is not a flattering book. We Orientals use language as poetry, weaving it in myriad ways and changing its texture and meaning, while Occidentals are more Teutonic, taking words literally. Ms Weisbord is very definitely Occidental. She has interpreted Amma's postures and verbal sallies with a literalness that casts an individual not known for lack of courage as the helpless victim of a brutal man, her husband. As those who knew Kamala Das a tad better than Ms Weisbord can testify, the relationship between my parents was loving and close. Indeed, a woman as independent as Amma would have walked out of her marriage in seconds, were that not the case. We, her sons, were advised to go the Radia route, and to seek an injunction against the book. We refused, because even though what has been said in it bears little relation to the reality of a beautiful relationship between a strong, very protective man and his wilful spouse, Ms Weisbord has the right to publicly express her views. Coming from the family of the writer who wrote one of the first books to be banned in "free" India (Aubrey Menen, and his Rama Retold), we could not react in any other way but to ignore the Weisbord book. Hopefully, those who seek to gag and to block will accept that in a democracy, this seems a better way to go.

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/trust-indians-with-information-views

Protecting the Mainos from Indians (Org.)

By M D Nalapat

THE external image of the Maino family, which runs the country that claims to be the world's biggest democracy, has been carefully and expensively cultivated. Interviews are bestowed only to those journalists who can be expected to lob softballs and to assist in the creation of the aura of saintliness and patriotism which suffuses each of the numerous official accounts of UPA chairperson Sonia Maino.

Space within the internet gets filled up with laudatory accounts, even while—mysteriously—snide references crop up in sites which feature the handful of individuals who challenge the Maino Myth. Union Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is believed to be behind several of the numerous commands made to website administrators to expunge negative references to the individual whom Chidambaram expects will catapult him to the prime ministership. He has masterminded an internet control law that would make it legally possible for the central and state police agencies to send to prison almost any surfer of the world wide web. Surprisingly, Opposition in India has remained silent over this egregious assault on individual freedoms.

Whenever Sonia’s two sisters, or mother, or nephews and nieces or close personal friends such as the Quatrocchi clan come and go from India after visiting with The Madame, the media are kept far away. Indeed, so are the ordinary people of India, so complete is the security surrounding this privileged group. Their reliance on corporate jets goes unrecorded, as does the fact that exit and entry formalities are minimal, even for individuals who have no security clearance. The numerous foreign visits they make are conducted in secrecy, as is the guest list at the pricey locations where they are put up in by obliging ‘friends’. Not surprisingly, thus far there have been no photographs or news reports about any of the extended Maino clan, while items about Sonia Maino and her two children are almost always in terms that would bring a smile of approval to known admirers of the family, such as Sunil Khilnani or Amartya Sen. Those running media outlets know the baleful consequences of treating Sonia Maino the way the UK media treats David Cameron, or the US media sees Barack Obama. Such lack of teflon is reserved for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has far less sway over his ministers than political secretary to Congress president Ahmed Patel.

Lately, when Rahul Gandhi was informed by his entourage that a heap of cowdung was actually charred human remains, his find was breathlessly covered by the entire media, with a few outlets still reluctant to admit that a Maino could get facts so spectacularly wrong after it was shown that the claim was false. This columnist admits to sympathy for Rahul Gandhi, who may yet bloom into an effective leader. However, this can take place only if he escapes from the protective shadow of his mother and treats the people of India as people deserving of rights and respect, rather than see them the way his mother does, as a seething mass of people who need to be constantly kept under the control of the state. In the guise of ‘security constraints’, Sonia Maino has insulated herself from the very people who have given her entire family status.

NATO “saving civilians” thru bombs (PO)

M. D. Nalapat

All talk about the “emergence” of India and China has stopped with the continuance of the ceaseless bombarding of Libyan cities by NATO. This alliance seems able to go into action only in situations where it faces very weak opposition. Against such weaklings, its

soldiers, sailors and aircrew fight eagerly, conducting their missions with impunity, whether it be against the Serbians in the former Yugoslavia a decade ago or against the legally recognized regime in Libya, that made the mistake of surrendering its WMD capability peacefully in 2003,only to now face attempted decapitation. Each bomb dropped by NATO on Libya shows up the weakness of China and India, both of which have been forced to watch this attack on a defenseless country in silence. Those who believed that they could rely on Beijing to block UN Security Council action crafted by the majority group of the US, the UK and France have now been shown to be wrong. The Chinese do not want to annoy the NATO powers, on whom it depends for much of its export markets.

What a contrast to the period when Mao Zedong or even Deng Xiaoping was in charge. Those two were revolutionaries, unafraid to challenge the world. Chairman Mao at one time went against both the US and the USSR, although the 1960s were harsh years for the economy of the Peoples Republic. Unlike the present, when Beijing is silent at the assault on Libya by a coalition led by France and the UK, in the past it provided immense assistance to North Vietnam in that entity’s successful battle against the US. But for such help, the Vietnam war would have been far longer and much less difficult for the US to carry out. Of course, in 1979, Deng had in effect become China’s Paramount Leader when that country punished Vietnam by a brief 1962-style war, that was conducted not to gain territory but to make the point that Chinese interests could not be ignored by any neighbour. In 1962, the Peoples Liberation Army swept aside Indian forces in the north-east, only to return to the earlier positions once Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had been shown to be a “paper tiger” in his numerous statements that India would “reclaim the land occupied by the Chinese”. 

Why India is not America? (PO)

M D Nalapat

Immediately after the killing of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad, some military chiefs in India expressed confidence that they too were capable of carrying out a similar operation. Soon afterwards, India’s mild-mannered Prime Minister had to point out the obvious, that India was “not the US”, and therefore that it was not possible for Delhi to replicate the feat of Washington. Around the same time, in a predictable reaction to the posturing of the Indian military, ISI chief Shuja Pasha warned that “targets were prepared” for a strike, in case India carried out a US-style mission. This is, of course, no secret, that Pakistan will retaliate to an Indian strike in contrast with its acceptance of a US one. On the Indian side, even the monkeys that infest the precincts of South Block (the headquarters of the Defense Ministry) are aware that nineteen locations within Pakistan have been identified for a retaliatory attack, should there be a nuclear adventure against India. Such a sequence of action and inevitable reaction is the reason why a nuclear war between India and Pakistan is outside the realm of possibility, and why even a conventional war is almost impossible. Neither side would have much to gain from such a conflict, even should it finally prevail, and a lot to lose.