Will Tsai Ing-wen strengthen India-Taiwan relations? (Gateway House)

India has long sought China over Taiwan, so is it too late to rectify foreign policy? The recent election results in Taiwan have upset China as China fears it will lose control over Taiwan. Gateway House interviews noted China expert Professor Nalapat to get his take on Taiwan's new president-elect and what lies ahead for tenuous Sino-Indian-Taiwan relations.

Gateway House: The first female president-elect of Taiwan. How do you see this impacting its relations with China, which were coming back on track?

Madhav Nalapat: The acceptance of Dr. Tsai Ing-wen by all groups of Taiwanese indicates Taiwan has become a highly evolved, liberal society.  As far as China is concerned, it is, of course, a complex situation.

A few months ago, we had the first-ever meeting between a Chinese president and Taiwanese president, and things looked rosy.

As the Kuomintang of China (KMT) were undefeated by the People’s Liberation Army, or Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, and merely retreated to Taiwan, the Taiwanese regard it equal in status to the CCP. The only workable solution, I believe, is “one nation” — one Chinese nation — “but two separate Chinese states”: the communist state headquartered in Beijing, and the democratic state in Taipei, and both, part of the great Chinese republic.

Is it that the youth of Taiwan want independent identity? There was the feeling that Taiwan did not want separate status as the government had been trying to better ties with China with all the economic and trade agreements it was signing, yet we saw this massive rally in 2014, supported by the youth of Taiwan against the trade pact, and now, one-and-a-half years later, we have the outcome of the recent elections…

Taiwanese are not really rejecting the fact they belong to China, but that Beijing tries to control them.  KMT went wrong in acting subordinate to communist China.

China Daily warns of China-Taiwan relations getting strained because of Tsai’s victory. So, the Chinese are not taking this well?

China Daily has been right on some things and wrong on many others, as in its assessment of Dr. Tsai: She is not going to make provocative moves towards the mainland like former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian did, and it is a mistake for people in Beijing to regard her as a new version of him.  Unfortunately, CCP leaders had little contact with her, and the China Daily article you refer to is likewise ignorant.

Dr. Tsai would like to see Taiwan develop on its own track, but knows good relations with the mainland are vital for that, and I doubt she would do anything to destabilize (OR destabilize) those. It is not a track that is hostile to China.

Tell us about the time, in 2012, when you brought Dr. Tsai to Gateway House and India.

Well, Dr. Tsai is a liberal democrat who likes to be close to the people. So, we deliberately kept her visit low key in terms of pomp and luxury, letting her walk around Bombay, travel by train, stay in a four-star hotel… I think the people of Taiwan have chosen wisely, and chosen well, and I say this despite my regarding outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou a superb leader and good friend.

We have seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy reset in the past twenty months to with countries not given due consideration in the past few years. Although India and Taiwan do not have a working relationship at the moment, will Dr. Tsai as president change that?

The potential for India-Taiwan cooperation is immense, but our bureaucracy has to give up its paralysing fear of China.  We should engage vigorously with the new government in Taiwan, on the same level as Southeast or East Asia does with Taiwan. Unfortunately, the Indian bureaucracy is not very courageous when it comes to taking the initiative.

I would like Dr. Tsai to visit India again. Her first visit to us was delayed for a long time as our bureaucracy was so terrified of China, they did not want her to come. Yet the Chinese are pragmatic and reasonable people; they may say something, but realise they have to cut some slack. India is too big to be ignored by any power, and we have a bilateral treaty.

As long as it does not go against the central interest of any power, we should act as we deem fit, in our best interest. There is a good strong score for really vigorous engagement with Taiwan, and I am really hopeful that, in the three-and-a-half years remaining of Prime Minister Modi’s full term, coupled with Dr. Tsai’s presidential four-year term, both of them will ensure a truly strong relationship between New Delhi and Taipei.

This transcript was especially abridged for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.
http://www.gatewayhouse.in/85113/

To listen to the full interview here: https://soundcloud.com/gateway-house-indian-council-on-global-relations/will-tsai-strengthen-india-taiwan-relations

Professor Madhav Nalapat, holds a UNESCO Peace Chair and is a senior associate of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, India. He is also a board member of the India-China-America Institute, and an Associate of the United Services Institution of India.

Chief Justice Thakur, protect freedom of speech (Sunday Guardian)

Supreme Court needs to assume the responsibility of ensuring that the people of India enjoy freedoms that are the birthright of those born in a democracy.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India T.S. Thakur is known among his peers for his integrity and his determination to ensure justice. Both qualities will be needed if he is to ensure that the immense power of the institution he heads gets used to ensure that the freedoms given to the citizens of what is widely regarded to be a democracy cease to be rolled back or diluted. This is a context where an individual was thrown into prison simply for making a few joking references to a “baba” (otherwise known as an individual regarded as divine by himself and by his followers). Enraged at the slight on the presumably godly personage, a follower filed a complaint before the Haryana police demanding that the humorist be prosecuted. Some years ago, a handbag containing the manuscript of several poems and belonging to this columnist’s wife was stolen near an office block in Gurgaon. The thieves threw some currency notes near the car in which the handbag had been placed, thereby motivating the driver into opening the door and scrambling about on all fours in an effort to retrieve the Rs 10 notes strewn about. During that period, the thieves made off with the handbag. It was expected that the gentlemen who made off with it would be located, as they were regulars at the location and therefore apparently known to the occupants of a police vehicle parked a few feet from the vehicle from which the bag was stolen. However, the police were simply not interested in the matter.

Given such a record, it would have been expected that the boys in uniform would not have allowed a complaint about a joke to disturb their afternoon nap, but in an uncharacteristic display of efficiency, the Haryana police hauled in the offending jokester and brought him before a magistrate, who lost little time in depriving him of his liberty for a period of two weeks. Quite possibly, such dispatch on the part of the police was owing to the pull effect of the “divine” gifts of the baba in question. However, does a country where a harmless joke gets met with imprisonment merit being called a democracy? In India, the colonial system of laws and administration has resulted in a situation where it is as easy as in North Korea or Saudi Arabia to deprive an individual of his or her liberty, a fact once again exemplified by this arrest. The follower of the baba was “hurt” at the less than adulatory references to his hero, and sent the offender to jail. This columnist has been hurt by the ease with which the liberty of a citizen of India was taken away as a result of the complaint filed by this baba-follower. Now would the Haryana police arrest the complainant in the “case of the mocked baba” because of the hurt he has caused to all those who believe in freedom of speech and other democratic rights of the citizen?

In China as in Saudi Arabia, there are individuals above negative comment. Should a mocking cartoon get printed about President Xi Jinping or King Salman, those responsible are unlikely to have an untroubled existence for a considerable period of time thereafter. However, unlike India, neither country advertises itself as a democracy. From the banning of a book (Rama Retold) by satirist Aubrey Menen in the 1950s to this country being the first to ban Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in the 1980s, a regressive and corruption-fuelling colonial system has repeatedly been used to emasculate freedom of speech to a level far below that found in other major democracies.

In such a situation, the Supreme Court of India needs to assume the responsibility of ensuring that the people of India enjoy freedoms that are the birthright of those born in a democracy. Of course, there have been periods in the past when even life was not regarded as a “fundamental” right. Recently, when a High Court verdict boldly underlined the regressive nature of Section 377, and in effect deemed it illegal, the Supreme Court gladdened admirers of Victorian moral codes by striking down the HC verdict. A bit earlier, in 2011, the court affirmed that Rs 100 crore was fair recompense to be paid to a former judge, because a news channel had for a few seconds shown his countenance rather than that of another judge who was being impeached for graft. It was lucky for the channel that it had not aired the wrong image for an hour, as in that case, the penalty may have exceeded Rs 1,000 crore. Needless to say, the verdict has become a Damocles Sword on the media, scaring it away from exposes for fear of the evidence in its possession being not comprehensive enough in an age of opaque governance to satisfy courts in a country where “criminal defamation” is still legal.

Free speech can be annoying and sometimes troubling. However, it is part of the price paid by individual citizens for belonging to a democracy. In the Knowledge Era, an atmosphere of freedom is crucial for innovation and creative expression.

India can lead the globe in the creative arts, and in the innovative genius that creates a tech giant. But for that to happen, the unreasonable use of the “reasonable restriction” clause concerning freedom of speech — put there by “Father of Democracy” Jawaharlal Nehru to dilute freedoms — needs to be curbed. This is best accomplished by the Supreme Court of India. Over to you, Mr Chief Justice.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/2648-chief-justice-thakur-protect-freedom-speech 

Hillary to repeat 2008 defeat in 2016 (Pakistan Observer)

On July 31,2015 in this newspaper, this columnist drew scorn among other US-watchers by suggesting that the 2016 Presidential race in the US could be a “battle of extremes” between billionaire Donald Trump and “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders. From the start of the present election cycle in the world’s most powerful country, these columns have expressed doubts over the sustainability of the Hillary Clinton campaign, and predicted that it would end in defeat. This caused some scorn and much anger among the many within the media and in academe who regarded it as fore-ordained that the spouse of William Jefferson Clinton would romp her way to the Democratic Party nomination. 

More than the fact that her husband indulged Wall Street while he was President, it is the insult-filled campaign Hillary waged against Barack Obama in 2008 that has cast a shadow over her chances at the nomination. The impression which the party gleaned of the former First Lady was that of a ruthless pol whose ideology was simply power, high office secured any which way. Of course, she had a fearsome machine on her side, well-paid professionals primed to take down opponents and to promote their candidate.

The Clintons are not known to take prisoners, and those who display any symptoms of disloyalty are almost always punished in a manner that makes clear that such a fate has been caused by their “disloyalty” to the Clintons, which in Clinton speak means backing any candidate other than those promoted by Hillary and Bill. If Bernie Sanders escaped till recently the full dose of the toxicity of the Clinton attack machine, as indeed did Donald Trump, it was the view within their confidants that the Senator from Vermont was a joke who would fizzle out in the final stretch, while Trump was seen as the ideal Republican candidate to go head-to-head against Hillary. That they would both emerge as strong contenders for the Republican and Democratic nominations never entered into the Clinton calculus.

Interestingly, as in 2008 until it became clear that Barack Obama had an edge over Hillary Clinton among white voters in the party primaries, the African-American community has been the most loyal support group of the former First Lady of the United States. This is despite the fact that most of President Clinton’s support for the community comprised of hot air, with few additional benefits flowing to African-Americans, a talented group of individuals short-changed by a system which handicaps all of them because of the misdeeds of a few.

Interestingly, although John F Kennedy did very little for Black Americans while Lyndon Baines Johnson did much, it is the form who is idolised by African Americans rather than the latter. Just as the Taliban had its roots in the Clinton administration beginning 1993, so did the 2008 financial crash, which was caused by the abolition of Glass-Steagal and other Wall Street-constraining laws imposed in the US during the 1930s after the collapse of 1929. George W Bush carried forward the Clinton legacy, thereby precipitating the 2008 crash which wiped out $ 6 trillion of investor value owing to the greed of a handful of financial institutions, which today have got back much of the influence they had before the financial catastrophe. 

Judging by his campaign rhetoric, it was expected that Barack Obama would ensure that those guilty of the theft of trillions of dollars from the pockets of millions of investors would be prosecuted and their fortunes seized as penalty for the dishonesty and greed shown by them. Instead, in his first term, he followed the path of Bill Clinton and gave a free pass to Wall Street, appointing apologists for the billionaires in key positions in his administration and keeping out almost all the idealists who had powered his run to power. Hopefully these financial depredators will open their wallets for the Barack Hussain Obama Library that will be set up once a new President of the United States gets sworn in on January 20,2017.

That would be Obama’s reward for having ensured immunity to those who have brought the global economy to the edge of collapse. Of course, it needs to be added that in Jack Lew, President Obama appointed a Treasury Secretary whose integrity is beyond question, and who - unlike his predecessor- prefers Main Street to Wall Street. Had Obama Mark II emerged in his first term, the political and economic history of the US would have been different. The absence of accountability for the 2008 financial disaster gave the Republican Party an opportunity to dust away its responsibility for the crash and portray the afflictions created by it as being the creation of the Obama administration rather than that of its immediate predecessors. With her eye on the 2016 Presidential race, Hillary Clinton sought to improve her credentials as a policymaker by strong-arming Obama into giving her the prize job of Secretary of State. Subsequently, she stepped down soon after the 2012 elections in order to prepare for her bid at the top job in the world, that held by the occupant of the Oval Office. Unfortunately for Hillary, the bad decisions she took have established that Hillary Clinton is unsuited for taking the 3am phone call, or indeed a 3pm call in the White House. Whether it was accelerating the 2011 changes in Egypt, Libya or Syria, the legacy of Hillary Clinton is a much more unsafe world and a more unsafe US. 

The temperamental flaws which led to such toxic policy plus the negative perceptions about lack of sincerity and connect with the average voter caused by the failed campaign against Obama are likely to lead to either her defeat in the Democratic Party primaries or in the November elections. US citizens are by and large very decent people, who turn away from the extreme hunger for high office displayed by Hillary Clinton. And what would be the forecast for a Trump versus Sanders battle? Should the US economy still balk at visibly improving the lives of the poor and the middle classes, it would be the Democratic Socialist rather than the billionaire who has the edge. However, if better times dawn, ironically voters may turn to Trump, despite his being from the same party as George W Bush, the man responsible for completing the destruction begun by Bill Clinton.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=285883

http://epaper.pakobserver.net/201601/16/comments-1.php

Pak GHQ targets PM Modi through terror attacks (Sunday Guardian)

‘Pathankot is only the first in what will be a chain of incidents designed to discredit the India story.’

Despite the denials coming out of Pakistan, experts in key frontline states against terror say that their preliminary investigations into the involvement of GHQ Rawalpindi, Pakistan in the 1 January 2016 terror attack on the Pathankot airbase “conclusively show” that the optimists who believed that the Pakistan army higher command supported Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s stated policy of detente with India, are “flat out wrong”. On the contrary, they say that the Pathankot attack is only the first in what will be a chain of incidents designed to discredit the India story to global investors, and domestically seek to trip Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a leader capable of ensuring the safety and security of India. “Unlike most Indian Prime Ministers, Modi has the will to exercise the option of conflict, and this has unnerved GHQ, which has been used to spineless leaders in the past”, a source based out of London said. A colleague added that “GHQ has received multiple inputs that the new government is not tied to the pacifist approach of its immediate predecessors, and this is worrying the generals”. 

“Unlike what media reports portray, the Pathankot operation was not about destroying Indian Air Force assets, but about killing personnel, and thereby showing that security measures were ineffective”, a source based in the US claimed, adding that “the equipment given to the terrorists showed such an intent rather than a focus on the destruction of air assets”. Another expert warned that “several squads have infiltrated into India during the past four months through the narcotics-hawala channel”, and that those responsible for the Pathankot operation were only one of them. While there has been much praise of the National Security Guard (NSG) in the Indian media, analysts outside are less complimentary, pointing out that “the NSG officer placed in charge of the counter-terrorist operation in the Air Force base was from a tank regiment, and hence lacked the commando or infantry experience needed to tackle such a station”. A US expert judged the present Director General (DG) of the NSG, R.C. Tayal to be “a political appointee rather than a professional choice”. However, this is disputed by sources within India, who say that the DG is an “outstanding counter-terrorism specialist”.

The outside sources were unanimous that Nawaz Sharif “is the weakest Prime Minister since M.K. Junejo (who held the post under General Zia-ul-Haq)” and therefore “to expect Nawaz Sharif to rein in GHQ and its ancillary, the ISI, is futile”. No information has emerged from either Islamabad or Delhi about the specifics of the meeting in Bangkok between Pakistan National Security Advisor N.K. Janjua and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval. A source in London, however, claimed that Janjua “assured Doval, PMO advisor Asif Ibrahim and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar that the Pakistan army higher command was behind Nawaz Sharif and also that both the Sharifs (PM and Chief of Army Staff) were sincere in seeking peace with India”. The impression sought to be conveyed through the meeting was that “the Pakistan army was on board in taking steps to ensure that terror operations against India that originated in Pakistan ceased”. However, a high level source in Delhi said that “it was certain that Doval, with his vast experience, would not have believed his Pakistani counterpart’s assurances of good conduct”. He pointed out that the present chief of RAW “was specifically chosen by Doval because of his expertise with Pakistan”, thereby underlining the centrality of that country in the national security calculus of the present NSA. External sources tracking GHQ Rawalpindi confirmed that Janjua would say “only what General Raheel Sharif wanted him to say”, which was “to distance GHQ from terror operations in India despite the continued backing given to such groups on the excuse that they are related to Kashmir”.

The experts spoken to said that Prime Minister Modi’s lightning decision to call upon Nawaz Sharif on his birthday was a “masterstroke”, in that “it removed any lingering impression that he (PM Modi) was a warmonger”. The visit ensured that PM Modi “has been shown across the globe to be a leader sincere about peace with Pakistan”. However, they added that “although PM Modi must have known that Sharif was powerless to influence operations against India, he decided to show his support for the civilian authority (in Pakistan) and to peace”. A source in the US claimed that the national security establishment in Kabul was “very unhappy at the Lahore stopover, as they had given Prime Minister Modi a detailed dossier on the hostile actions of GHQ against Afghanistan and India”, and was, therefore, “taken by surprise at the Prime Minister’s decision to stop over in Lahore before reaching Delhi”. A special aircraft had been sent to Moscow to take PM Modi from there to Kabul, as the usual Air India jumbo aircraft “lacked the means to ensure safety in hostile skies”. According to sources in Delhi, the PM travelled in this second (and smaller) aircraft from Moscow to Kabul and from there to Delhi via Lahore. 

Apart from GHQ’s assessment that Prime Minister Modi would “stop at nothing” where action against Pakistan-based terror groups was conceded, and, therefore, needed to be discredited in the public mind through terror attacks, “GHQ Rawalpindi was also gravely concerned about the diplomatic breakthrough achieved (by Modi) on the US front”, as well as the PM’s skill in “balancing relations with China and Russia”. Such successes resulted in the plan to “provoke a reaction early in the BJP regime, when Pakistan is better prepared to respond rather than later, when economic and diplomatic successes may further tilt the scales in favour of India”, an outside source claimed. He added that “Pathankot was the result of such a plan” and warned that “this is just the beginning”, and that more such attacks would take place “to test Prime Minister Modi”. These attacks would be undertaken by local modules so that there would be no apparent trace of involvement from across the border. If the PM responds with conventional force, “he would lose international support”, and enter on a conflict with an indeterminate outcome, “thereby affecting his economic plans, especially that of securing huge investments from abroad”. But if he remains passive, “Modi would lose domestic support”. The calculation of General Raheel Shaif is that “either way Modi loses”, and that “the Pakistan army has prepared strategies for an Indian attack together with its ongoing terror operations with India, but are worried that a period of stability may see India growing too big in military strength for Pakistan to counter”. They claimed that General Raheel Sharif, the present Chief of Army Staff (COAS), is determined to “punish India” for the 1971 war, and to “win concessions on Kashmir that would go far beyond any offered by previous Prime Ministers of India”, and that he believed that “only terror would force the Indian side to seriously negotiate”, despite “public utterances to the contrary”.

According to a US source, General Sharif is “as powerful as Musharraf was in his time”. He pointed out that the COAS had “visited Kabul multiple times in full military uniform and met Presdent Ashraf Ghani to demonstrate who controlled policy towards Afghanistan in Pakistan”. A London-based source said that “General Sharif was received with Cabinet-level honours in China, the US and even Russia”, pointing out that China had given the Pakistan side advanced Ju-17 aircraft, while Russia had broken with earlier policy and supplied MI 35 attack helicopters to Pakistan after General Sharif’s visit to Moscow. Another source said that the Pakistan side had made a careful study of the Indian response to the Pathankot attack, and pointed out that on the five recent occasions when military installations were attacked by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan army had cleared the area “within 6 to 19 hours”, in contrast to the Indian side, which took three days before an “all clear” was sounded at Pathankot.  Outside sources warned that “GHQ has received confusing signals from some on the Indian side that Delhi was ready to launch into serious discussions on Kashmir and other issues, especially on Siachen and Sir Creek, on the lines followed by the A.B. Vajpayee government” and that “such a signal has whetted their appetite for concessions”. They say that “domestic terror networks have been set up in India that will communicate not with handlers in Pakistan but in West Asia”, and that “these are being activated to launch terror operations across India”, in which the Pakistan signature is absent, “but which form part of the overall GHQ plan to discredit and weaken Prime Minister Narendra Modi and derail his plans for the economy”. Pathankot was just a “test run for a new template of operations against India”, in their view, and the Indian security establishment needs to brace for more, “no matter what the diplomats from Islamabad or their apologists say”. After Punjab in the 1980s and Kashmir in the 1990s, GHQ is “fine-tuning a pan-Indian strategy involving local proxies” in their drive to ensure that India under PM Modi fails to reach its potential. Interestingly, other components of this strategy include ongoing efforts to discredit India globally as being a hotbed of fanaticism and intolerance, and as a country where minorities, women and the underprivileged are not safe. “All such covert tracks filled with disinformation will accelerate in the coming months, in locations across the globe”, even while India confronts a fresh round of terror designed to slow down its trajectory towards Middle Income status.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/2561-pak-ghq-targets-pm-modi-through-terror-attacks

Delhi’s ‘Odd-Even’ scheme is about more than pollution (Sunday Guardian)

It may be debatable whether pollution levels have dropped, but it is undeniable that it has made several citizens examine options such as car pooling or the Metro.

Given the fevered state of politics in India, it was no surprise that a flurry of invective greeted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s sudden decision to restrict cars on the road on specific days depending on their registration numbers. Days after the “temporary” measure was initiated, studies have emerged that show that there has been only a small dip in pollution levels in Delhi consequent to the measure. Certainly, the restriction on “Odd Even” private cars driven by males will not by itself do much to reduce the smog that is draining the lungs of those unfortunate enough to live in a city which has become overcrowded and increasingly dishevelled. Given that decision to retain Delhi as the capital, it would have made sense to ensure that industrial units not get located in or around the city, so that its congestion may ease. Or avoid the use of so much land within city limits in the building of residential accommodation rather than be kept as open space.

Behind Arvind Kejriwal’s coughs and the sniffles lurks a ruthless power seeker focused on taking over the top slot in government, the corner office in South Block now occupied by Narendra Modi. In place of the relaxed culture of the Aam Aadmi Party during its early months of existence, Arvind Kejriwal today has as much control over his party as Sonia Gandhi has in hers. However, none of this detracts from the fact that overall, and despite the limitations imposed by its lack of powers over such matters as the NDMC, the police and Delhi-centric bodies such as the DDA, the AAP has acquitted itself rather better than several other state governments have. The volume of corruption seems lower than in many other parts of the country, and the taste for innovative ideas higher. Unfortunately for federalism, the Union Home Ministry seems to have made it its mission and its mandate to hound and harass the Delhi government, a task in which it has the enthusiastic cooperation of the Lt-Governor of Delhi. If only Najeeb Jung were to spend less time blocking policy initiatives and devote more attention to suggesting ways by which the citizenry in Delhi may be benefited, he would not seem so partisan. Indeed, a parallel to Jung would be the Congress-appointed Governor of Gujarat during 2009-2014, Kamla Beniwal, who shamelessly implemented a policy of throwing rocks in the path of Chief Minister Modi in his numerous initiatives. The way in which the Lt-Governor and the Union Home Ministry are responding to the Aam Aadmi Party’s overwhelming victory in the 2015 Assembly elections is damaging the name of the Modi government. It needs to be remembered that the Prime Minister himself has in his interactions with the Delhi CM been largely supportive of the steps which the duly elected Delhi government is taking. It has been said before but needs to get repeated that much more harm is being done to the image of PM Modi by his presumed friends than by his obvious foes, the Beniwal-model darts directed against Kejriwal being an example.

A sense of obligation to the community has motivated residents of Delhi into very high levels of obedience to the “Odd Even” scheme, and it should be continued after 15 January.

Rather than Page 3 celebrities, the AAP has chosen to take as its mascots ordinary citizens. While a male motorist in Delhi may not suffer any damage to his conscience going against an order enforced by the police, it is a different matter to confront an idealistic teenager, who may the same age as a son or daughter. The deployment of such volunteers has provided a moral force far greater than the earlier images of the rich and the powerful wielding brooms as though they were golf clubs, clearly in a hurry to shuffle around a bit till the cameras moved on. Prime Minister Modi’s call for Swachh Bharat is an initiative of prime importance to the future of this country, and those implementing it need to learn from the “aam aadmi” (rather than celebrity) approach of the Odd-Even campaign. It may be debatable whether pollution levels have dropped after the measure was introduced, but it is undeniable that it has made several citizens examine options such as car pooling or using the Metro rather than choke the roads and burn up imported fuel travelling all by oneself in a huge car. 

A sense of obligation to the community has motivated residents of Delhi into very high levels of obedience to the “Odd Even” scheme, and for this reason alone, it should be continued rather than abandoned on 15 January. Indeed, more initiatives need to be taken, such as making more stretches of road off limits for vehicular traffic, or ensuring “bicycle only” paths, that would promote alternatives to cars and other polluting vehicles. 

The BJP needs to reach out for its mascots beyond Page 3 types to ordinary Indians. Much of the appeal of Prime Minister Modi has come from the fact that he is from a simple, homespun family rather than the elite. In the case of Incredible India, for example, there ought to be several “brand ambassadors”, most from the “common” citizenry, who are the real treasure of this land and who would convince those from outside to visit a country truly unique.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/2517-delhi’s-‘odd-even’-scheme-about-more-pollution

 

Despite crises, oil prices to remain low (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical notes from India

M D Nalapat

Friday, January 08, 2016 - THE US Federal Reserve Board acted irresponsibly when it increased the bank rate at its last meeting, even if by only 25 basis points, thereby indicating that further rises were on the horizon. This columnist had expected rates to be stable at their present near-zero level, because overall economic situation was still very grim, and the US recovery fragile. Also, Janet Yellen (Chairperson of the Federal Reserve) is a favourite of President Barack Obama, and was expected to not take risks with economic growth by raising rates. Should there be economic turmoil, a paradoxical result will be that the Republican Party will make its way into the White House next January, even though it is the economic philosophy of that party which has exacerbated the economic crisis facing the US, a country where the middle class is shrinking, the poor are in despair and only the super rich are doing well. 

In his first term in office, Barack Obama was faithful to the Bill Clinton line, which is in many respects a Republican Lite policy where economics is concerned. He indulged Wall Street and ensured that those responsible for the 2008 financial crash evaded punishment. Even in his second term, Obama has been faithful to lobbies such as Big Pharma, blocking cheaper drugs from outside the US that can save millions of lives throughout the world. However, he has raised taxes on the super rich from the low levels that were the case under George W Bush, who made no secret of the fact that he was elected to serve only the interests of those who had at least a million dollars in the bank. Janet Yellen must be aware of the fact that the Federal Reserve needs to ensure that growth in the US be safeguarded rather than damaged by the sort of adherence to textbook economics that is seen in India, where Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has killed manufacturing by artificially boosting interest rates, even as the Finance Ministry has damaged the services sector through higher and higher taxes. 

Both at the Reserve Bank as well as the Finance Ministry, the intellectual input comes from those who have been steeped in US textbooks, and who assume that the Indian economy is no different from that of the US, or at the least should not be different. They have created a policy matrix which goes counter to what is needed at the ground level, and as a consequence, are slowly smothering domestic industry in India. More than any other cause, it is faulty policy that is doing the most harm to the future of India and its 1.26 billion people. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been innovative in his foreign policy, in economic policy he has adopted a cautious and conservative approach, which is why the rate of growth of the economy has been falling steadily throughout his term in office, even though it is still higher than that of any other major economy. 

The reality is that India needs 10-12% annual growth to ensure social stability, and the present 7% rate is simply not enough. Interestingly, despite his disastrous record at the Reserve Bank of India (where he has seen banks pile up bad loans and industrial units slowing down), there is talk that Raghuram Rajan may be the next Union Finance Minister, clearly a tribute to his friends in Washington and New York and their expanding influence in India. The factor which has prevented a slide in the Indian economy is the fall in oil prices, which has meant a saving of $26 billion thus far and counting. This windfall has ensured that the ill effects of policy by the Reserve Bank of India and the Union Ministry of Finance have been muted. The government has not shared its gains with the people, keeping the retail price of petroleum products high so as to benefit oil companies as well as the exchequer, and in the process driving up prices, thereby giving Raghuram Rajan the excuse he has been looking for to not cut interest rates by the 3-5% needed to ensure double digit growth. 

The fact of high taxes, high prices and low job creation is what is causing the BJP to get defeated in election after election, even in its strongholds of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, where at the rate the party is declining, the Congress Party may return to power in the next state elections, due in a year. Indeed, the failure of the BJP to ensure innovative economic policies, combined with the fact that no action has been taken by the Narendra Modi government on those responsible for corruption during the Manmohan Decade (2004-2014), has led to a visible lack of enthusiasm for the central government that contrasts with the wave of popularity which greeted the coming to office of Narendra Modi in May 2014 However, Prime Minister Modi has been a lucky individual, rising from a humble start in life to becoming an international statesperson known across the world. 

Although there are crises aplenty in the Middle East (or what is called West Asia), these are not expected to have much effect on the price of oil, which is settling at the level of $ 30 a barrel that this columnist had years ago indicated as the correct price if market fundamentals were given full play. The speed with which alternative energy technologies are developing is combining with technological improvements in shale oil extraction to ensure that there is almost zero chance of oil prices breaking through the $ 50 barrier. It is more likely that prices will remain around the $ 30 level, especially in view of the Chinese economy showing significant strain. The drive against corruption by President Xi Jinping as led to a flight of capital from China, while officials are wary of taking decisions at anywhere close to the speed found in the past, for fear that they will be accused of taking bribes. Overall, the official machinery in China is working at a much slower speed than in the past, when there indeed was corruption, but also efficiency. 

Today there is neither corruption nor efficiency, thereby making it imperative for President Xi to work out a way by which officials will once again feel confident enough to take bold decisions speedily. Overall, the outlook for China remains gloomy, as it does for Europe Economics is key in the modern world, where people expect the government to provide a better life. Those governments that fail to do so become unpopular, while those who succeed in boosting growth become popular. The fall in oil prices has created an opportunity for countries heavily dependent on imports of oil, such as India and China. But for the fall in oil prices, their situation would have been much worse than it is. However, unless wiser policies get worked out and implemented in both countries, such windfall gains will go waste.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=284977

http://epaper.pakobserver.net/201601/08/comments-1.php

Modi must reclaim economic policy from North Block babus (Sunday Guardian)

Since coming to office last year, there has been a visible duality about the Narendra Modi government. This is the difference between foreign policy and economic management. In the first, it is clearly Modi who is driving the process, willing to take risks and to brave criticism from the usual talking heads. Under the hyper-cautious Manmohan Singh, relations with Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka worsened, while today, each is not merely on the mend, but significantly better. Even Pakistan has altered its approach, such that there is finally some expectation that the men in khaki will accept that only good relations with India can rescue their country from the abyss into which adventurous policies have pushed it. Regrettably, it is now Turkey, which is following the same course as has been adopted since the time General Zia-ul-Haq took over as the Chief Martial Law Administrator, and it is a certainty that a country seeking to be fully European will, in coming years, follow the same dismal trajectory of India’s western neighbour, only worse. Turkey is headed towards the same civil war which Recip Tayyip Erdogan has fuelled in Syria, as well as the societal chaos of Iraq because of its involvement in ethnic and sectarian divisions within the Arab world. Should Pakistan follow the policy of Bangladesh and follow a policy of partnership, rather than hostility with India, its economy would once again cross into the high growth range that was the norm till Zia took office. 

These days, even cartoonists in major global publications add Narendra Modi to their images while sketching the major global players. The Prime Minister of India figures along with such fixtures as Barack Obama, Xi Jinping and Angela Merkel, in a sign that India under Modi has been accepted as part of the High Table of international diplomacy in a way not seen since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru. Chronic Modi-baiters (or closet Modi-haters) may dismiss as theatre his NRI excursions, but it cannot be denied that since 26 May 2014, whether in the US or in China, in Japan or in the UK, there is a buzz and a momentum around India that can translate into huge investments of capital, but only provided the economic part of the Modi agenda exhibit the same drive and innovative spirit that the foreign policy component shows in such profusion. Although North Block babus claim otherwise, to those outside the portals of government, the last two budgets have seemed more Manmohanish than Modi-fied. Narasimha Rao pushed through a raft of reforms during the first hundred days of his term, although Finance Minister Manmohan Singh diluted the effect by ensuring lower taxes on imports and on foreign companies while keeping rates high for domestic taxpayers and industry. Manmohan Singh, in common with the babus of North Block, has an intense dislike of alleviating the pain felt by Indian taxpayers, and this bias was visible in each of his budgets, as well as in those presented during his ten years as Prime Minister. It was only Narasimha Rao’s command that taxpayers should be treated “gently and fairly” that ensured that he did not enter upon the regressive “Police Constable” approach of P. Chidambaram, who, in the guise of going after unaccounted income, instituted a reign of terror that has resulted in tens of thousands of India’s most productive prospective entrepreneurs migrating to Singapore and other offshore locations, rather than continue in a location where they were harassed as criminals for the crime of running successful enterprises which challenged international competitors. 

It was this columnist who first described Narendra Modi (during his visit to China as Chief Minister of Gujarat) as India’s answer to Deng Xiaoping. From almost the start of his ascension to leadership in the PRC, Deng ensured a rate of growth double that of India’s in the present. Those who complacently — even boastfully — talk of the current 7% growth rate as proof of excellence need to know that the Modi Standard mandates double digit growth, and that anything below that is simply not enough. For this to happen, what is needed is to eliminate a boatload of restrictions created only for the purpose of extracting bribes, and which collectively make India a country where only masochists enjoy setting up a business. Taxes need to be reduced, so that the economy can expand and thereby fill coffers in a more plentiful way than higher imposts on an inadequately rising base of services and manufacturing. And as for black money, Deng’s words (“it does not matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice”) need to be remembered in a context where the generation of black money remains high, but its expenditure on taxed items is falling rather than rising. 

Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian clearly believe that within a year, all of India will embrace credit cards in place of cash, preferably those originating in the US. 

Certainly, innovations such as the Jan Dhan Yojana will speed up the role of banks and credit cards, but in the meantime, the domestic consumption vital for job creation should not be stifled by edicts such as making PAN cards compulsory for a range of transactions in a country where less than a tenth of the population have these bits of plastic. 

Just as he has so visibly shown in the field of foreign policy, Narendra Modi needs to take command of economic policy away from the babus of North Block into his own hands and his own genius. The next budget needs to reflect the reality of economic life in India, not the US, for a failure to do so would cast a shadow over expectations of performance for the remaining three years of the BJP’s term in office. 

Fiscal consolidation can only happen in a climate where growth becomes the driver of policy, and for this to happen, Prime Minister Modi needs to imprint his personal stamp on economic policy the way he has in foreign affairs.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/2419-modi-must-reclaim-economic-policy-north-block-babus

2016 is Modi’s year of governance reform (Sunday Guardian)

The year end meeting with Secretaries ‘was aimed at kick-starting the process of change in official attitudes’ for better governance.

2015 has been an “Annus Horribilis” for the Bharatiya Janata Party, with the party losing ground in key states, including to the often-derided Congress. However, officials concerned with major aspects of the governance mechanism say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is confident that “within 2016, the quality of administration will increase to a level such that negativity (about the performance of his team) will mute”. The year-end meeting with Secretaries to Government “was aimed at kick-starting the process of change in the official attitudes needed for success” towards better governance, and “several more interactions are planned in the New Year”. They say that 2016 will be the “Year of Governance Reform” so far as the Modi government is concerned, “beginning a period of 21st century administration in place of the present colonial model, which dates back to the 19th century, and has not been replaced so far”. Since taking office on 26 May 2014, officials say that PM Modi has spent “several hours each day studying the ways in which the all-India administrative machinery has been functioning and how it can be transformed”, and according to a key official, “is now ready with a comprehensive road map for change”. According to these sources, major elements in PM Modi’s plan include:

(a) The requirement that competence, and not seniority, be made important for career advancement. In particular, “younger officials in their late 40s or early 50s be placed in positions which formerly were the preserve of those just about to retire from service”. Such officials, being close to superannuation, “seldom have any interest other than serving out the remainder of their term without incident”, and are in many instances hostile to innovation and even to suggestions from their juniors “in a bureaucratic culture in which seniority is a fetish”. Examples of the promotion of relatively younger officers to key slots are that of the Director of the SPG and the Scientific Advisor to the Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister), these officials point out. Prime Minister Modi has himself been very quiet in public about such moves, preferring to “let results speak for themselves” in such matters. 

(b) Rather than continue with a virtual caste system within the government machinery, in which the IAS almost totally monopolises the top positions, “an effort has been made to discover talent from other services as well”, so that the pool from which high-level recruitments get made is expanded to cover all the Central services. At present, the IAS has regarded top posts across the government as its right, with the IPS an Also Ran in the race for prize posts. Other (i.e. non-IAS, IFS, IPS) Central services are, in effect, considered below the IAS, which itself is given precedence over the IPS, with state-level administrative services forming a still lower tier. Thus far, appointments have been made almost completely in accordance with this informal caste hierarchy. However, “since Modi took charge, this has changed”. As part of the change, “a Railways officer has been made CMD of Air India, while an IPS officer is now head of the Enforcement Directorate, with another being appointed envoy to Saudi Arabia”. The focus will be on “talent that can deliver results and are not just good at drafting statements”. The effort will be to “set verifiable benchmarks for performance and reward or punish based on outcomes”, the officers claimed.

(c) Officials predict that a concerted drive will take place to rectify a major anomaly in the pay structure, which is that “at the lowest level, the khalasi, driver and peon earn, on an average, four times the cost to company (CTC) of their counterparts in the private sector”, while at the top, “the Cabinet Secretary earns less than 10% of what the CEO of even a medium-sized private company does”. A similar disproportionality is present in the emoluments of CEOs of public and private enterprises. Such an inverted pyramid results in the best minds opting for the private sector, sometimes in mid-career. “A stage has been reached where honest officers almost cannot afford to work in government, and only the corrupt find the going easy to bring up their families”, a senior official pointed out, adding that “96% of the salary bill of the government goes towards the bottom posts, whereas what counts is quality and motivation at the decision-making levels at the top”.

(d) Measures are under consideration which would decentralise the recruitment of personnel and manage their careers, something which has been the monopoly of the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT). Such over-concentration of powers within the DOPT has made “appointments, promotions and other decisions slow and unimaginative”, thereby leading to frequent recourse to the courts by disgruntled officials. Some officials are of the view that “the time has come to give the ministries as well as the state governments the power to recruit and dismiss officials”, keeping in view local conditions, with the DOPT playing the ombudsman role. 

(e) When the President of India has a term of only five years and even Prime Minister Modi will need to go before the people after five years for renewal of his mandate, officials in favour of reform say that the colonial-era system of lifetime employment of civilian officials makes no sense. They say that the same system as present in the armed forces should get extended to the civilian side, with automatic promotions being abolished and laggards asked to quit. There is even a view that all officials should automatically go on contract mode after reaching a particular level of seniority, and have their performance reviewed in a manner far more comprehensive and objective than is the norm under the colonial model, with non-performers shown the door.

(f) A system of induction of outside talent into different levels of the administration may be introduced during the year, so that “those with domain expertise are involved along with generalists in the formulation and implementation of policy”. 25% of posts should be blocked for those from the private sector, think-tanks and universities, “as is the case in advanced countries”. Also, “career bureaucrats ought to be given the option of three- or five-year stints in private entities as well as universities”. They say that the UGC needs to revise its norms so as to ensure that “work experience in specialist fields be given the same weightage in teaching posts as pedagogy”, so that “officials can get inducted as professors in order to ensure that students have a better knowledge of real life situations so as to equip them for actual rather than textbook situations”. 

Critics of Prime Minister Modi claim that he has yet to promote transparency in the functioning of government, by giving access to the processes through which decisions get taken. However, these officials say that the Prime Minister’s drive to digitalise more and more aspects of government functioning promotes transparency. They say that Modi is “pushing hard to ensure that internet access be increased to cover the entire population and that speeds be raised” from the present very slow levels. They say that the Prime Minister wishes to see that a day comes when citizens can get work done involving government departments, “entirely online”, so that the hassles of going to government offices and facing unresponsive (or corrupt) officials be reduced, and that “a big push has been planned during 2016-17 in internet connectivity and usage in governmental processes”. 

However, even those officials in favour of reforms seem to be less than enthusiastic about the need for better transparency, so that the public becomes aware of the processes of government and how decisions affecting them have been arrived at. Clearly, it will be an uphill task for Prime Minister Modi to convince the bureaucracy that efficiency and integrity can only be secured through a much higher level of transparency than has been the case with the colonial model of governance continued and expanded by Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors since 1947. The RTI has been moribund since 2012, the year when key officials say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “quietly sought to change course on the legislation and return to opaque governance”. The performance of the NDA-appointed CIC (Chief Information Commissioner) and his colleagues has thus far been underwhelming, while as yet, pre-poll promises of release of government records have been replaced in many instances by a defence of secrecy, including in matters that are more a half-century and more distant from the present.

According to the officials spoken to, “Prime Minister Modi places a high premium on competence and on delivery of results” and that it is this quality that is sought after, within both the specialist as well as generalist officers. “The solution is the replacement of status quoists with change agents”, an official said, adding that “what counts in the field is competence and adaptability, rather than a brainless adherence to precedent and seniority”, colonial-era practices that are in danger of “corroding even the armed forces”, these sources pointed out. Over the next year, “a conscious embedding of competent officers within key ministries will take place”. Also, “the meandering journey of files will be shortened so that decisions take place not in years or even in months, but in weeks, as in other countries”. Officials in favour of reform add that overall there is optimism that during 2016 itself, Prime Minister Modi will deliver on his promise of transformative administration. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/2457-2016-modi’s-year-governance-reform

Budget session likely to see fireworks (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical notes from India

M D Nalapat

Friday, January 01, 2016 - For the first time in his four decades of political prominence, Union Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting Arun Jaitley is facing a serious and sustained attack from within the BJP as well as from other parties. Expectedly, in view of the reality that Jaitley is the most accessible of the ruling party’s leaders to press persons, almost the entire media has spoken out in defence of Jaitley. 

Indeed, in a press conference on the subject of corruption in the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) called by the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a correspondent from a television channel otherwise known for its hard-nosed reporting was apoplectic as she sought to defend Arun Jaitley from the chages hurled by the organisers of the press conference, refusing to cease her repeated barbs at the AAP despite disapproving looks from other correspondents eager to have their turn at questioning the AAP leaders holding the press conference. 

The BJP has been making error after error in its political strategies. Given that there are hundreds of corrupt senior officials in Delhi, including several whose families own properties worth millions of dollars, the most likely explanation for the raid by central anti-corruption officials on the Principal Secretary of the Chief Minister of Delhi is that it was an effort to show up the AAM asc orrupt. The party is on track to unseat the BJP and its ally (Shiromani Akali Dal) from Punjab in the state elections falling due in that state, and hence it has become imperative for the BJP to blacken the image of the AAM and its quirky albeit charismatic leader, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

In any government, the Finance Minister has to be above suspicion. During the time when he was the Leader of the Opposition, Jaitley took care to ensure that no charges of corruption were laid by the BJP against then Union Finance Minister Palaniappan Chdambaram. This despite the fact that there have been whispers for long about the way in which Chidambaram’s son Karthik has become super rich during the period when his father was handling the Finance portfolio. Of course, it is possible that it was business genius rather than any other driver behind Karthik’s progress to the ranks of the super rich. Unfortunately for Jaitley, the Congress has not reciprocated his generous gesture to Chidambaram, with the party’s parliamentary leadership voluble with invective against a politician who has never in the past faced a single charge of impropriety.

India is changing, even while its laws remain regressive and its governmental structures committed to control rather than to the encouragement of innovation. Each day, instances multiply of some official agency or the other seeking to choke to death activity by citizens that would be not simply permitted but welcomed in less regressive governmental structures. Arvind Kejriwal has watched as Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi seems set to walk away with the prize of being the NOMB (Number One Modi Baiter), a sobriquet sure to ensure a plentiful harvest of votes in the 2019 national elections. He has therefore sought to fire at Modi by hitting at the minister closest to him, Arun Jaitley. 

The AAP has announced the setting up of a commission of enquiry comprising of one of the country’s most accomplished lawyers, Gopal Subramanium, to probe into the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) finances. Because of the fact that there has been much talk of mafia money i cricket, especially in matters of betting and match fixing, Subramanium has asked National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to provide “honest” police officers to help in determining the truth behind the allegations made against the DDCA,a request unlikely to be complied with. 

It has been the stand of the BJP that the very setting up of the commission is illegal, and the Lt-Governor or Delh, Najeeb Jung, is certain to uphold that view. Although appointed by the Congress Party Jung has proved to be as obedient to the dictates of the present central government as he was to its predecessor, and has repeatedly sought to corner the AAP government in Delhi despite the latter’s crushing (67 out of 70) majority in the Delhi assembly. Jung has a good reputation as a scholar and as a bureaucrat, and going against his bosses is clearly not in his guidebook. Indeed, a grateful BJP may make him the Vice-Presidential candidate of the ruling NDA when the present incumbent, Congress-leaning Hamid Ansari, demits office in 2017. 

Opposing the DDCA enquiry commission is another of the missteps of the BJP, for should the central government declare it to be illegal, Gopal Subramanium would nevertheless go ahead and hold public hearings on the matter. In the future, hopefully every court proceeding in India will be streamed online, as transparency is the most effective guarantor of integrity. The Subramanium Commission has announced that its hearings will be open to the public, including the media, and it is expected that tens of millions of television viewers would watch the proceedings, thereby nullifying the efforts of Lt Governor Jung to kill the enquiry. 

Friends and admirers of Arun Jaitley are hoping that the cricket scandal will die down, but this is unlikely, as the Congress Party and the Aam Aadmi Party know that damaging the credibility of the Union Finance Minister would hurt the credibility of the economic team of Prime Minister Modi at its heart. Economic success is at the core of the electoral appeal of Narendra Modi, who has to deliver double digit growth by 2017 at the latest if he is to create a Feel Good factor sufficient to ensure a repeat of his 2014 feat of winning his party a majority in the Lok Sabha (House of the People). For that, his economic team has to have global credibility, especially to attract the billions of dollars of investment needed for the economy to zoom. 

Both Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal can be expected to separately seek to ensure that the Modi-led government falters in matters of the economy. In such a war, there is no surprise that the principal target of opposition attacks is Finance Minister Jaitley, who must be feeling that such a painful twist in his hugely successful career is hardly cricket.

— The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=284157

http://epaper.pakobserver.net/201601/01/comments-1.php

Vituperative politics is India’s ‘New Normal’ (Sunday Guardian)

Union Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting Arun Jaitley, whose network of friends and admirers, especially in the media, is unrivalled, has adopted the path taken by L.K. Advani, that of using the blogosphere to express his views on a range of subjects. Jaitley’s lament about political debate in India having become too adversarial for his taste has been widely reproduced in the press. But here the media is concerned, a splash of “mirch masala” seems the ideal ingredient to whet public appetites for a news report or a commentary in a world where advertisers put their money where the readers and viewers are, with a few exceptions caused by pioneer status within the industry. An anodyne comment is likely to quickly get smothered by more astringent remarks, while a gladiatorial atmosphere within the ranks of the politically powerful is better conducive to the public interest than a collegial discussion of the weather among a group of senior citizens, important though such musings may be in the attempted creation of a climate of civility of the sort favoured by the Election Commission of India, whose numerous incarnations have been consistent in their distaste of the freewheeling verbal cut and thrust which forms the staple of television sound-bites in a hyper-competitive market.

The red lines marked out in verbal contests by those nostalgic for the old days of civilised discourse (assuming such a period existed) are being crossed with abandon these days, and sometimes to an extent where even proponents of free speech may wince, as when the Chief Minister of Delhi used an unusually unflattering adjective to describe the Prime Minister of India. However, the reality is that such a “gloves are off” situation is here to stay. Despite continuous commentary on the “ineffectiveness” of the Modi government, the PM’s political rivals are aware that his rule has the capacity to be transformational, upending seven decades of what may be termed the Nehruvian Consensus. 

Incrementally, usually without publicity, Narendra Modi is transforming the chemistry of administration, as well as strengthening those elements in the social fabric who have been in the shade since Sardar Patel passed away and left the governance of India firmly in the grip of Nehru. Being a democrat, in the hagiography of Amartya Sen, Sunil Khinani and other publicists for India’s first Prime Minister, the occupant of the former residence of the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army implemented exactly those policies which personally appealed to him, without even a pretence of consultation with the overwhelming majority within the Congress Party, who disagreed with many of the policies of Jawaharlal Nehru. Both foreign and economic policies were framed in the way they were in the USSR under Josef Stalin, implemented according to the prejudices and predilections of a single individual. The result was a cascade of lost opportunities and a rate of growth so low that to this day, more than 300 million citizens of India go to sleep hungry each night, and the creation of a structure built on governmental discretion and privilege based on a deep mistrust of the citizen of India being adult enough to take his own decisions and be trusted with discretion.

Even more than the policy measures taken thus far by Prime Minister Modi (and it must be said that they have been most innovative in the field of foreign policy and less so in matters of economics and education), the very gifting of a majority to a party led by Narendra Modi indicated that there had been a seminal change in the chemistry of the people, such that later analysts will divide time zones into Pre-Modi and post-Modi’s assumption of the nation’s most powerful office on 26 May 2014. Even should the BJP continue with its litany of mishaps and thereby lose its Lok Sabha majority in 2019, the change illustrated by Modi is irreversible. However, its depth and its spread would be far quicker and greater were Modi to win for his party a second term. It is the fear of such a transformation that is driving politicians across the nation into concentrating their attention on a single individual, the Prime Minister. 

There is no reason for surprise at the ferocity with which Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and to a lesser degree others such as Nitish Kumar are pillorying Narendra Modi. They sense that the 2019 contest will be a battle between those who favour Modi and those who oppose him, and both Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi seek to win the prize of the Number One Modi Baiter (NOMB), thereby attracting those voters with negative feelings about the PM and the party he leads. Vituperation is likely to be the New Normal in politics in India, no matter how uncomfortable sensitive individuals may be about such a trend, and it must be said that judging by the public record, the BJP is giving as good as it is getting, although a ruling party usually gets far less public sympathy than a group in the opposition. The fact that the BJP has morphed from Opposition to Ruling does not seem to have entered the consciousness of its many spokespersons, who are more into “attack” mode than into “explain” mode.

Although his rivals accuse him of “doing too little”, they know that the opposite is the case, that he is doing too much for their ease, and therefore, should he ensure victory for the BJP in 2019 as well, a third term in 2024 (as was the case in Gujarat) is very probable. Hence efforts will be continuous to derail him latest by 2019, but if possible earlier. Despite the roils and rumbles, Modi has changed Gujarat, and a second term — or an unobstructed first term — may change India in a direction far removed from the Nehruvian Consensus. Which is why PM Modi is likely to witness the same intensity of personal attack as did CM Modi. Those in his team who claim that an era of conciliation and cooperation with Modi’s political rivals is feasible are wrong. The gloves are off, and will be as long as Narendra Modi remains Prime Minister of India.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/2352-vituperative-politics-india’s-‘new-normal’