Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar have understood the intractable nature of the policy followed by China’s leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping, towards the world’s most populous democracy, soon to be the world’s most populous country. That is, unless Xi has another brainwave and threatens to put any couple in jail if they fail to have three or more children. Of course, just as his lockdown strategy has failed to ensure Zero Covid, even such a draconian measure would not succeed in persuading most couples in the PRC to adopt the example of zealots in Germany in the 1930s, who believed that it was their duty to the state to have as many children as possible to later get spent as cannon fodder in the wars that the country was then planning under its leadership at the time. Over the decades, more and more Chinese people have travelled abroad, and have understood the benefits that a government less than all powerful would bring to the country, were such a system to replace the stifling control of all aspects of Chinese life that is the objective of the CCP led by Xi Jinping. In schools and in the media, the supremo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) figures as the wise leader, the guide and teacher, and the only individual who can ensure safety and prosperity for the 1.4 billion citizens of the PRC. Xi is only popular among the millions of citizens of his country who have failed to better their living standards, and who relish the fact that those more successful are living in constant dread of an early morning hammering on the door, followed by incarceration and sometimes, not just temporary but permanent disappearance. In China, individuals are picked up, entire families are ruined, for reasons that are opaque, although the usual formulations are trotted out whenever such detentions or disgrace takes place. Corruption, disloyalty to the party, inefficiency, harm to the national interest. These are huge boxes that are capable of being used to fit almost any individual.
China under Xi is not similar to the USSR under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. Those in charge of the NKVD knew that they had quotas to fulfill in the matter of rounding up and disposing of Soviet citizens, and that unless they met them, they themselves would join the ranks of those whose lives they destroyed. Once he gets the assent of the higher councils of the party leadership to be General Secretary for Life, the numerous acts of repression and muzzling of opinion are likely to proliferate, as those down the line seek to follow the example of the General Secretary. This is the country whose military is sitting down for negotiations with their Indian counterparts. Xi has lavished money and attention to GHQ Rawalpindi on a scale not seen before in the annals of the PRC, a bad bet. Just as Joe Biden seems not to realise that the travail of his country is directly related to his policy of the self-destructive Ukraine sanctions imposed by him in conjunction with Boris Johnson and European leaders who ought to have known better, Xi Jinping has failed to understand the lack of wisdom in his pouring resources into GHQ-run Pakistan at the cost of alienating India. For Xi and, therefore, the PLA, dealing with India is a Zero Sum game in which border negotiations get used to win on the conference table what could not be secured on the battlefield, even as its trade surplus with India grows. PM Modi and EAM Jaishankar understand that, as do our military commanders. To expect Xi to understand that only a full withdrawal by the PLA to the positions they had occupied in 2019 would best serve the Chinese interest (of having India as a friend and not a foe) is to expect the impossible. Given the certainty of another conflict with China, what needs to be done is to prepare sufficiently in terms both international and domestic to ensure that this time around, most of the fighting takes place on PRC-controlled rather than on Indian territory. MDN
Takeover of Taiwan by the PRC would upend the security of the Indo-Pacific.
It remains to be seen whether Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, will continue in that office once the two-year term of the present batch of legislators ends. The decision may not necessarily be hers to take, in that she would have to make way for a new Speaker of the House, were the Republican party to wrest the majority from the Democrats. The inflationary and recessionary trends caused by the Biden-Johnson sanctions on Russia as a consequence of its war on Ukraine have made the current US President unpopular. Instead of rewarding lower income voters, who backed him in large numbers during the Presidential poll, Biden is showering money on Ukraine. In the process, he is delighting weapons manufacturers not just in the United States but worldwide. Not to mention the oil industry, which is reaping the benefit of a huge spurt in oil and gas prices as a consequence of US-led sanctions on Russia that have been added on to those imposed on major oil producers such as Venezuela and Iran. Thanks to such policies by the US and some of its allies, the cost of oil is far above what it needs to be to ensure global economic health. Countries in Asia are starting to be worried about the quality of leadership exhibited within NATO. Such worthies are coming up with Alice in Wonderland plans such as enforcing a price cap on Russian, but not on US or UK, oil. The manner in which the Atlantic Alliance has reacted to the war in Ukraine appears to have dealt a death blow to any hopes of recovering its primacy within the international system. At the same time, NATO has proved unable to prevent the dismemberment and destruction of Ukraine. In the fantasy world that the present occupants of the White House and Number 10 Downing Street live in, their performance during the Ukraine war is taken as a deterrent to China’s attempting a takeover by force of Taiwan. Given the economic pain to NATO member states that its own sanctions on Russia are causing, the thinking within the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing is veering around to the view that (after being mauled by their own sanctions on Russia) there is likely to be zero appetite within NATO to impose similar sanctions on China. After all, the other superpower is a country that is many times more closely linked in commerce with the Atlantic Alliance than Russia. In Ukraine, there has since 2014 been an indoctrination designed to create Russophobic mindsets in those elements of the public that do not speak Russian as the mother tongue. Yet even within convinced Russophobes, hopes for the entry on Ukraine’s side of NATO during the war with Russia have faded. Instead, fatigue has set in as a consequence of the damage that the country has suffered by continuing its senseless war rather than working out a peace settlement with Moscow. Neither President Biden nor Boris Johnson appears to be concerned about the fact that the longer the war continues, the harsher will be the peace terms insisted on by President Putin as a condition to stop the fighting. Should Liz Truss be the next PM, the Cowboys and Injuns approach of Boris Johnson to the Ukraine conflict is likely to continue, to the detriment of the UK. Public opinion within NATO is not what it was during the intoxicating days in the initial weeks of the conflict, when it was accepted wisdom that (a) Russia would soon be forced to withdraw, and (b) Putin would be ousted from the Kremlin. Instead, the Russian leader is moving towards fulfillment of his stated aim of ensuring that Ukraine never again becomes a threat to Russia, something that even the embedded media in NATO countries is no longer able to cover up. Given the rapid decline within the broader public within NATO of the earlier appetite for continuing the war with Russia over Ukraine, the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing is developing the conviction that citizens in Taiwan would not follow the Ukrainian example and themselves take up arms to throw out invaders from the PRC. As for intervention by the US, according to President Biden, his generals in Washington are terrified even by the prospect of Speaker Pelosi visiting Taiwan. Given the rising unpopularity of Xi as a consequence of the mismanagement of the economy, diplomacy and handling the pandemic, pressure on him to follow the example of Putin and attack Taiwan is mounting. Of course, the Russia-obsessed fantasists in the White House believe the contrary is true, just as they believed that Russia would be easy prey for a Ukraine boosted by NATO firepower. A Commander-in-Chief, who walked away even from confronting a ragtag force such as the Taliban, does not inspire confidence as an ally. It is in the context of declining confidence in the value of a security partnership with the US led by Joe Biden that a probable visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ought to be seen. Mike Pompeo showed the courage to brave the wrath of not just the CCP leadership but the well-resourced PRC lobby in the US to visit Taiwan. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper is following in his wake, as will perhaps Mike Pence later. Pompeo met with that country’s leaders as a former Secretary of State. There is a world of difference between Speaker Pelosi going to Taiwan as distinct from a later visit by ex-Speaker Pelosi. The US Speaker is showing spine, which is more than can be said for the leader of her party and the nation, President Biden. Neither he nor the current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are known for the firmness on matters relating to China of Shinzo Abe. The death of the latter has removed from the highest councils of Japan a voice that would have been steadfast in calling for steps to repel any military invasion by China across the Taiwan Straits. The reason being given by the assassin seems to be a cover story, given that there are dozens of politicians in Japan who are far closer than Abe ever was to the religious group identified by the killer as being the trigger for his act. Abe’s killer is a traitor to Japan and not just a murderer, and a comprehensive investigation into the ecosystem he drew sustenance and inspiration from is essential rather than a cover-up of the truth as took place in the “enquiry” by President Biden’s commission to investigate the origins of Covid-19. Takeover of Taiwan by the PRC would upend the security of the Indo-Pacific, and severely compromise that of not just Japan and South Korea but of all democracies in the Indo-Pacific immediately. The world would move closer to a situation where the PRC is dominant. Should General Secretary Xi believe that the consequences for his country would be temporary and bearable, he would be inclined to allow the PLA to fulfill its longstanding goal of attempting a takeover by force of a tech superpower. Taiwan is to East Asia what Israel is to West Asia. By braving the ire of the White House (and, if Biden is to be believed, the Pentagon) and going ahead with her visit to Taiwan, Speaker Pelosi would show the world that she understands the importance of the country at the centre-point of the global tech industry with a resoluteness yet to be demonstrated by President Joe Biden.
US Ambassador to Afghanistan is making steady, and deadly, progress in a GHQ inspired crusade to install the Taliban within the Ashraf Ghani government.
Anybody at the level of high policy would have come across the truism that only a mentally challenged individual would believe that the same thing done the same way over and over again would produce a different result. And yet, Prime Ministers and Presidents choose with metronomic regularity precisely those individuals who have failed multiple times earlier to handle the same tasks. President George W. Bush was a disaster where Afghanistan was concerned, and not just because he was always more interested in taking revenge on Saddam Hussein “for trying to kill Poppy” than in setting right the land of the Taliban. Both he and Dick Cheney accepted the conventional (Pakistan army-centric) wisdom of the CIA and the Pentagon, entrusting the battling of Wahhabi extremist violence to the very institution that was motivating and assisting such violence, GHQ Rawalpindi. From the day the duo rejected A.B. Vajpayee’s offer of assistance in favour of riding on Musharraf’s coattails, the war was lost. The Taliban was revived from near-death by the ISI, which helpfully suggested thousands of “moderate Pashtuns” that the US could fund, choices that accepted without any fact check on whether those being promoted by Musharraf’s men were indeed “moderate”. They were not, they were hardcore Taliban, and the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that went to them ensured that the US and its allies went on the defensive in Afghanistan by 2007.
Among the prime boosters of GHQ Rawalpindi and the “benefits of doing a deal with the Taliban via the medium of the ISI” (as during the 1979-89 Afghan war with the Soviets) was Zalmay Khalilzad, a favourite of the Bush administration and now ensconced as the Oracle on Afghanistan by the White House. Say this for Khalilzad, he is reliably predictable, and has not changed his views since the 1990s on how Washington should manage the situation in Afghanistan. Exactly as he told Bush and Cheney in 2001, he has persuaded John Bolton to get President Trump to send Khalilzad to Kabul as the High Representative of the Unipolar Superpower. In this task, he is making steady—and deadly—progress in a GHQ-inspired crusade to install the Taliban within the core of the Ashraf Ghani government, thereby destroying it from within. In the meantime, the loss of morale and the confusion in policy created by Khalilzad has led to a steady accretion in the extent of land controlled by the Taliban. In these areas, women are once again told to remain at home (or else), while young girls are shooed away from even the most rudimentary of formal education. Law is what a local Taliban mullah defines it to be, while any deviation from Wahhabism is met with torture, if not death. Should this ragtag militia of extremists once again retake Kabul, the “credit” will go to Khalilzad, just as their earlier rise to power in the mid-1990s was in large part because of their Fairy Godmother, Robin Raphel, a favourite of both the Pakistani diplomat Shafqat Kakakhel as well as President W. J. Clinton. Every fresh terror attack by the Taliban morphs into yet another flurry of activity by “Our Zal” to force Ashraf Ghani to accept Taliban representatives in the elected government, rather than show him the folly of asking Trump to continue on the sterile paths of Presidents Clinton and Bush in Afghanistan.
Those who ran US policy towards Afghanistan in the past continue to remain the very domain specialists recruited by the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council to formulate policy on a country wrecked by errors made by the three agencies. Of them, it is only the Pentagon that seems to be coming out of the haze of toxic policy options pushed by Khalilzad and others anchored in the past, who have remained unscathed in their careers despite their policies having ended in disaster. Both the NSC as well as State are foursquare behind “our man Zal” in Afghanistan as he acts as the ventriloquist’s dummy for GHQ Rawalpindi. Distracted as he is with the fallout of the Mueller probe and the upcoming 2020 elections, President Trump has not been able to ensure a new approach that would protect the people of Afghanistan from the Wahhabi fanatics being promoted so obsessively by Khalilzad. The people of Afghanistan are overall moderate, as witnessed by the profusion of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist places of worship even in the Pashtun heartland, structures that were subsequently torn down by Raphel and Khalilzad’s heroes, the Taliban. Toxic policy concocted in Washington by those nostalgic for the Clinton-Bush years has resulted in a betrayal of the people of Afghanistan, especially women, youth and moderate Pashtuns. Unfortunately, probably as a consequence of hints from Washington, the policy of India towards the Taliban has wobbled on occasion. Such equivocation must stop, Ashraf Ghani must by now have understood that Hamid Karzai was correct in his view that following Washington’s dictates would lead to his whole country entering the hell that is Taliban rule. Another Wahhabi state must not be allowed to form in South Asia. Khalilzad may have made a habit of betraying the Afghans, but India needs to stand on the side of the moderate majority in Afghanistan who seek the Rule of Law, rights for all, and equality of treatment for women with men and not this extremist militia. Adopting Khalilzad’s nostrums will only multiply the number of victims of extremism in Afghanistan, a figure that is rising by the day as the US High Representative continues with his leaps into the policy quagmires of the past.
Barring Bhutan and India, every other country in what is termed South Asia has succumbed to the snare of loans from the PRC for projects that fail commercial tests of viability. Now that Shahbaz Sharif has taken over as Prime Minister of Pakistan, he is contacting country after country to provide assistance to an economy that is nearing the stage of meltdown. The problem he is facing is what has at last been understood by his predecessor Imran Khan, which is that it is the army that is draining Pakistan of its economic viability. The generals have from the 1950s claimed an outsize share of national resources in order to protect the people of the country from a non-existent threat, that India wishes to take over Pakistan. The country born out of the partition of India does indeed have some political leaders who are not linked to the extremist ideologies of the parties committed to converting Pakistan into a larger version of Afghanistan. Were such leaders to have united in the past, it may have been possible for them to throw out the post-Zia military commanders who are committed to Wahhabism, and replace them with those who are professional soldiers rather than religious zealots. Only after he has been removed by the military from office has former Prime Minister Imran Khan become a foe of the generals. The reality is that the Two Nation theory on the basis of which Pakistan was created is an absurdity. Hindus and Muslims are not two nations, they are in India at least joined together to ensure that the country prospers. GHQ Rawalpindi, has, through its networks, sought to spread hatred of India among the Buddhists of Sri Lanka and the Muslims of Bangladesh. If the logic of the Two Nation theory is followed, each faith would constitute a separate nation, a formulation that was used in Pakistan to drive out almost all Hindus and Christians from that country, together with the Sikh community. Fortunately, as seen in recent agitations in Sri Lanka, Buddhists joined hands with Muslims, Christians and Hindus to oust the Rajapaksas from government. Rather than the division that is at the root of the Pakistani state, it is unity of people around common issues that is central to progress and democracy.
Unfortunately, Imran remains a friend of the extremists. What perhaps goes unnoticed is that Imran Khan is the favourite of those lower down the chain of command of the Pakistan military, who seek to return to the days of Zia-ul-Haq, when the spreading of Wahhabism became the dominant motif and operational focus of GHQ Rawalpindi. The ousted PM’s popularity in the lower ranks helps explain why thus far, the top brass of the military have hesitated in using the time-tested instruments of corruption cases. Given the record in money-making of Shahbaz Sharif, once the generals understand that he too is incapable of unlocking the purses of western nations, he is destined to follow the path of his brother Nawaz and be hit by a volley of corruption cases so as to distance the public from him. India, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a target of GHQ Rawalpindi together with the PLA, and so long as such hostility continues, Pakistan will continue to slide towards chaos. For unless the country accepts the finality of Kashmir’s accession to India and normalises relations with its neighbour to the east in the manner that an increasing number of West Asian countries have, its economy will not step back from the quagmire that it is in. The toxicity of reliance on the PRC that supersedes cooperation with India has been shown by the Sri Lankan crisis. What is needed is for countries in South Asia to work together with India rather than assist other countries against their largest member state. Bangladesh is an example of the revving up of the economy that such ties bring. A South Asian common market that has the Indian rupee as legal tender together with the local currency would ensure that the region prospers. Those that are willing should go ahead. The rest will follow in time, once they see the benefits of cooperation with the largest economy in South Asia. What is happening in Sri Lanka is a wake-up call pointing to the risks involved in cosying up to an authoritarian power. Across South Asia, the Sino-Pakistan lobby is seeking to foment divisions and generate chaos. A closer relationship with India would provide a vaccine protecting against that. MDN
A lion heart committed to democracy and against expansionist powers may yet emerge in Colombo.
The shark is a predator that presents a danger to the unwary. As are loan sharks. Millions of citizens in India have had to give away the family home and jewellery in order to satiate loan sharks from whom they sought financial accommodation. Many years ago, while still very young, this writer was walking on the lakeside in Kolkata and came across an elderly individual, one of the lenses in whose pair glasses was broken, politely asking for alms. His dress, although dirtied through continuous use and lack of cleaning, was the attire of a middle class individual. When asked about why he was in a situation very different from that which he was seemed to have been born into, the reply was that he had fallen into the hands of a loan shark, who in the beginning seemed a caring friend. Money was freely given, stamp paper after stamp paper was signed without the victim ever glancing at the fine print, for after all, a friend would never cheat. Soon afterwards, the attitude of the loan shark towards his victim changed. Threats and abuse became commonplace, followed by physical violence that the local police seemed indifferent to, when asked by the wife and daughters to intervene. Ultimately, goons took over the home of the victim, and afterwards, local records showed that the place had been transferred to a nominee of the loan shark, at a price much in excess of what had been given as loan. Once thrown out of their home, his wife took their daughters to the home of her parents in a different town, while the victim himself was too ashamed to join them, preferring to eke out an existence seeking alms in a hesitant manner by the lakeside. After a few weeks of living on the streets, he acknowledged that staying with his family at the home of his in-laws was a better option than the emotional decision he had initially taken to be on his own sans any money at all, and he would relocate there soon, once he had scrounged enough money for a rail ticket. The problem facing Sri Lanka and the other countries that have fallen into the habit of drinking at the fountain of predatory loans given by the PRC is that there are few countries willing to play the role of its in-laws, now that bankruptcy and its attendant chaos has occurred. Most major democracies would balk at giving assistance to Sri Lanka, a country that has mortgaged its ports and other assets to a power hostile to many of them, and which shows no sign of reclaiming its sovereign rights. It is unclear what form of government will be formed in Sri Lanka, but given its present parliamentary configuration, the new PM is unlikely to take the lion-hearted decisions needed to escape the ditch into which the country has fallen. The only way out of this crisis is to take back control of Hambantota and Colombo ports. Rather than be unhappy at the crisis in Sri Lanka, folks in Beijing may be looking towards scooping up huge amounts of physical assets across Sri Lanka in a distress sale, now that the country is in free fall. Only a leadership that is not in any way beholden to Beijing would be able to assert its sovereign authority to (a) repudiate clearly unsustainable loans, and (b) seize assets taken over through 99-year leases by the PRC. This is feasible, provided the Quad stands by the island country and protects it from the PLA and GHQ Rawalpindi. While India, Japan and Australia are resolute in ensuring that Sri Lanka become another pillar in the evolving architecture of security of the Indo-Pacific, the US is witnessing an effort by a Europeanist State Department and NSC to wrest control of strategy in the Indo-Pacific from the Pentagon. Should that effort of the State Department succeed, the White House may be advised by a Russia-obsessed State Department to look askance at those in Sri Lanka striving to shed the coils of a loan shark but to China. President Biden seems not to able to shed the mindset that he had while in the US Senate, despite the hugely changed circumstances facing the world and his country. His withdrawal from Afghanistan has emboldened those within the Central Military Commission who seek to follow the example of Russia in Taiwan, now that Washington and its NATO allies are enmeshed in a quagmire largely caused by their own faulty tactics. The PRC is seeking to hold on to its illicit conquests at the expense of countries that favour a free and open Indo-Pacific. The betting in Beijing is that Biden (and therefore Kishida) will step back from militarily confronting the PLA on the field of battle, were China to follow the example of Russia and invade Taiwan. The hesitant, cautious Biden won because his persona is the opposite of Trump’s, but having won, voters in the US wanted to witness a transformation in office of Joe Biden that has yet to occur. Politics in a democracy can work in welcome ways. Roosevelt and Churchill were thrown up as the leaders of their respective countries, US and UK, during wartime. Narasimha Rao became PM at the time when the Indian economy was stumbling towards what Sri Lanka has now become. In 2014, Narendra Modi got the popular support needed to become PM in a country that had tired of the discriminatory policies of the UPA. A lion heart committed to democracy and against expansionist powers may yet emerge in Colombo, and if she or he does, deserves the assistance of India, the US, the EU and Japan as the new leader wrests back control of Sri Lanka’s destiny from a predatory power that conceals a gun behind its chequebook.
For reasons of his own, Trudeau has on multiple occasions shown himself to be not just Hinduphobic but Indiaphobic.
The different standard followed by the government headed by Justin Trudeau in Canada on issues affecting the Hindu community as well as India as a whole is clear from its silence over the attempt by individuals involved in a Toronto cultural festival to pander to those who exhibit frank Hinduphobia. This was the phobia evident in a poster featuring a documentary film touching religious issues which was somehow exhibited on the website of the prestigious Aga Khan Foundation. The documentary picturises in a distorted way the Mother Goddess revered within the Hindu faith. Followers of the Aga Khan are known not just for their spirit of enterprise but for their tolerance, so it was a surprise to see such a documentary being scheduled for screening in a cultural festival run by his foundation. The incident illustrates the manner in which infiltration of elements of the Sino-Wahhabi lobby into key institutions has been taking place. Another example may be the fact that soon after the Taliban were handed over Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 by President Joe Biden, YouTube removed a Center for Security Analysis (CSA) video in which the present writer had pointed out that the Taliban had not changed since 2001, and that only US policy towards it had. Some of the platform’s filtration algorithms appear to have been covertly designed through infiltration by certain elements to provide traction to Sino-Wahhabi views while smothering views of those who opposed this axis, which is waging an overt and covert war to subvert major democracies. Whether in YouTube, Twitter or in other global social media platforms headquartered in the US, those in sync with the interests and ideology of the Sino-Wahhabi alliance have managed to embed themselves. In the process, they work against the very principles that such platforms take pride in championing. Fortunately, the biases created by such algo warriors became too apparent to ignore by the senior managers in such online platforms. As a consequence, there has been a reduction in algorithms deliberately introduced that in effect favour extremists and authoritarians. The Aga Khan Foundation needs to find out who initially took the initiative to get approved for public viewing a documentary film apparently reeking of Hinduphobia. The US is not Pakistan, where in schools and homes the Hindu community is openly the subject of unflattering epithets. Screening by a reputed platform of a documentary distorting the truth about the Mother Goddess would have strengthened such ignorant and often irrational prejudices against the Hindu faith. Instead, what is needed is to break down rather than build barriers between individuals who belong to different faiths. Efforts through infiltration at feeding the flames of Hinduphobia indicate the need for institutions respected by the public to ensure that closet extremists who are intolerant of the followers and beliefs of other faiths are kept out of positions of responsibility in such institutions. The Aga Khan Foundation acted swiftly once the attention of its top tier was draw to this documentary. However, expecting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada to join them in battling phobia against a faith may be a vain hope. For reasons of his own, Trudeau has on multiple occasions shown himself to be not just Hinduphobic but Indiaphobic. Under him, Canada has become a shelter for declared Indiaphobes, especially those who are Hinduphobes. It has become a country where Hindus are in some places sought to be made to feel as unwelcome as they are in many parts of Pakistan. Fortunately, in Canada the community meets with consequences far less deadly than what they have contended with in Pakistan over the decades. This country, which is the favourite of groups such as SFJ, has almost totally rid itself of its minorities, including Sikhs. Which is why it is unfortunate that more than a few ministers and MPs in Canada have close links with it. Teaching the truth about India would diminish the risk of Indiaphobia. Explaining the essentials of Sanatan Dharma would prevent many unwary minds from falling prey to Hinduphobia. The episode involving that documentary has shown the need for those who are cognizant of the essentialities of Sanatan Dharma to ensure that its teachings get much more widely disseminated. Especially in India, national epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, philosophical treatises such as the Upanishads, stories useful in the development of character among the young such as those in the Panchatantra or the Hitopadesha should no longer remain outside school curricula. In contrast to India, the epics in countries with an ancient cultural lineage such as Greece and Italy are widely taught to the young. Even Justin Trudeau may change his approach, once the fog of prejudice is dispelled in the Canadian PM’s mind by explaining to him the meaning of Shakti, the force which the Mother Goddess embodies. Who knows, even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may someday understand the importance of having a strong and prosperous India as a partner, and appreciate the contribution the people of India, of which more than a billion are Hindus, make not just in Canada but in the US, the UK and in other countries where they settle.
Just days after the killing of two Hindus in India as retaliation for posts backing a former BJP functionary, as a diversion, marches took place in some US cities calling for an end to “genocide of Muslims” in India. Even websites supportive of the claims of the marchers show that from 2015 to 2018, there were 48 attacks on Hindus or Muslims in India, of which 34 were attacks on Muslims and the rest were on Hindus. Each murder of an innocent caused by hate for those of another faith is an act of terror, and merits the severest punishment available in law. Only prompt action by state agencies in every such situation can stop the fires of hate from burning away at the fabric of unity of our people. Interestingly, the charge of hate towards Muslims was also levelled against Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who introduced the reforms that changed India. Rao lost in the 1996 Lok Sabha polls through sabotage by those in his party loyal to Sonia Gandhi. He made the mistake of obeying the counsel of then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, and rejected the plea of scientists that another round of nuclear tests be conducted so as to ensure a safe and reliable deterrent against a particular nuclear weapons power that actively indulged in hostile behaviour towards India. The patriotism of Manmohan Singh is unquestioned, and it was his genuine belief that the sanctions that would be imposed on India by a vindictive Clinton administration after a nuclear test would extinguish the economic recovery that the reforms introduced by Rao had generated since 1992. It is probable that going ahead with a second series of tests of nuclear devices at Pokhran may have ensured that Rao secure a second term, which would surely have been an improvement on the political upsets that followed until 1999, when A.B. Vajpayee secured for the NDA a comfortable mandate in the Lok Sabha polls of that year. This was the consequence of the favourable public reaction caused by the retaking in an army-air force operation of the Kargil heights from the Pakistan military, not to mention Pokhran II in 1998. At that time as well, months before the tests took place, there were repeated warnings from the US, Canada, Australia and UK of the crippling effect that their sanctions following the nuclear tests would bring. Swaminathan S. Aiyar warned in the Economic Times that the US and other sanctions would finish off the Indian economy. This appeared on the front page on the same day that a front-page report by the present writer appeared in the Times of India, that such sanctions would not have a significant impact on the Indian economy. It was the Times of India that later events proved right, not the Economic Times. After Pokhran II, President Clinton, weary from unsuccessfully arm-twisting PM Narasimha Rao to hand over Kashmir to Pakistan, not to mention scrapping the nuclear and missile program, finally began to take India seriously as a major power, much to the dismay of the Indiaphobes in his administration. Narendra Modi has secured a majority for the BJP in two consecutive Lok Sabha polls, and seems on the way to a hat-trick in 2024. Is this why there are several within the Democratic Party who have bought the false narrative being peddled that India under Modi is a cauldron of hate towards minorities? Or that those minorities who have not yet been genocidally disposed of are in mortal danger of meeting the same fate? This is the falsehood being peddled by the Sino-Wahhabi lobby in the US, and eagerly picked up by a section of opinion makers in the US. Most are upset that the Sonia-era visas have been cancelled of those who used to come to India during the days of the UPA and hold public meetings in which they and others abused in unprintable language divinities sacred to Hindus. Their example is now apparently being followed by filmmaker Leena Manimekalai, who (judging by a tasteless poster featuring her film) appears to have no knowledge whatsoever of the significance of the manner in which the feminine gender is sought to be empowered through the depiction of Shakti (strength, energy) in the persona of the female deity that has apparently been traduced and caricatured in a documentary. This was to be screened in Toronto by the Aga Khan Foundation, much of whose revenue comes from citizens of India or those of Indian descent who are among the most tolerant and syncretic of human beings in the world. Such an attitude of tolerance and moderation was evident in the decision of the Foundation to cancel the screening. Whether Hinduphobia, Islamophobia or Christianophobia, all such phobias are alien to a civilised mind. Pride in one’s faith is normal, mocking another is not. MDN
Adhering to the legacy of Shinzo Abe would mean a strengthening of the Quad and the creation of a Quad Plus with the possible addition of France, Vietnam, the UK, Philippines and Indonesia.
New Delhi: With the assassination of Shinzo Abe on 8 July, Japan lost its most powerful voice in favour of robust military intervention in defence of Taiwan, were that country to be attacked by the PRC. Any transfer of control over the island would be a deadly blow to the security not just of Japan but to every country backing a free and open Indo-Pacific. Japan’s most popular politician would have reacted not in the way Neville Chamberlain did during 1937-39 to the aggressive behaviour of Germany, but as Churchill from the start wanted the UK to take. Shinzo Abe knew that the only way to avoid war was to seen to be prepared and able to inflict defeat on an aggressor, not to continuously conciliate it in the manner favoured by a section of Japanese politicians and businessmen. Whether the assassin acted alone and what his motives were, remains unclear. What is obvious is that the assassination of Abe removed from the highest level of policy formulation in Tokyo the leader who most clearly understood the danger posed by the effort of an openly expansionist superpower to resort to force wherever needed to establish its dominance in the Indo-Pacific. In 2001, Ahmed Shah Massoud had been killed by Al Qaeda a short while before that collective carried out the 9/11 attack on the US. Engineer Massoud had the popularity and the ability to stitch together a united front that, once it was assisted rather than ignored by the US, defeated the Taliban. After the Taliban was defeated in Afghanistan with air support, logistics and weapons supplies by the US, the Afghan nationalists who did so were subsequently unable to come together to run the country effectively in the way Massoud would have done. Shinzo Abe was the best wartime Prime Minister of Japan that the country never had. Although there was no replacement for Massoud in Afghanistan, followed by serial errors committed by NATO in that theatre that ensured that GHQ Rawalpindi brought the Taliban back to life by 2006, there is need to have a capable replacement for Shinzo Abe in the eventuality of a kinetic conflict endangering Japan. It is now up to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to show himself to be the worthy torchbearer of the Abe legacy, and if not, for the LDP to replace him with a leader more in sync with the legacy bequeathed by Shinzo Abe to his party.
THE REBIRTH OF QUAD It was while Prime Minister of Japan that Abe mainstreamed the concept of the Indo-Pacific, linking into a single entity the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Abe ensured that the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) was brought back to health from the deep freeze into which then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia had consigned it in 2008, just months after taking over as Prime Minister. Former PM Rudd has relatives who are from the PRC, but it would be unfair to say that this was the cause of his lack of enthusiasm for the Quad, a concept that a successor Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, backed in 2018, soon after taking office. President Donald J. Trump of the US had the previous year become an enthusiastic supporter of the alliance of India, Japan, the US and Australia, much to the displeasure of the PRC, although it must be said that the world’s other superpower had and continues to have a substantial network of sympathisers in the US who constantly sing the refrain that the PRC needs to be given more time in order to show that it is not the expansionist power that it has transparently become under CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.
OBJECTIVE ENQUIRY INTO SHOOTING NEEDED During Abe’s tenure, the official spokesperson of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs had warned in Beijing during a briefing for the global media of a “bloodbath”, now that then PM Abe had “entered the path of militarism” by the then Japanese PM vowing to defend Taiwan against attack by the PRC. All the more reason why PM Kishida needs to ensure a comprehensive and objective enquiry into the actual motive and network behind the murder that was carried out by the trained hand of a brainwashed former member of the Japanese military. This would be in contrast to the US, where President Biden began his descent into unpopularity by covering up for the PRC by refusing to give a conclusive account of how the Covid-19 coronavirus began its existence. This was done by Biden even while respected thought leaders such as Jeffrey Sachs along with many others were vocal that the pandemic was the consequence of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Being perceived as wobbly on China marked the start of the descent into unpopularity of Joe Biden, who (unlike the Japanese PM) has a fixed tenure of four years. Those who know Kishida say that he is a man of honour, who would not cover up the truth about the roots of the successful conspiracy to assassinate Abe. The LDP is expected to do well in polls in Japan, not least because of the sympathy wave created by the Abe assassination. In case this was planned in the first instance by those seeking a sharp turn away from the security and foreign policies that were put in place in Japan when Shinzo Abe was Prime Minister, this needs to be brought out rather than covered up in the manner that the White House investigation did about the origins of Covid-19. Its conclusions were no different from those favoured by Beijing. The sharp reaction of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping to then Australian PM Scott Morrison’s support for an impartial investigation into the origins of SARS-Cov2 is revealing. Why would there be anger in the CCP resulting in a trade and diplomatic boycott of Australia at Morrison’s call for an impartial and expert investigation? Perhaps this may go some way to explain the caution of Joe Biden in matters concerning China, in view of the immense financial stakes that so many in the US have in continuing good relations with that country, something that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been striving hard to accomplish. However, security for a country trumps, or ought to trump, financial bonanza for a few, and those who know PM Kishida say that he would act the way Abe would have in not allowing considerations of commerce to override national security interests. We will know in time.
ABE SETS PATH FOR KISHIDA There is a possibly erroneous perception in some parts of the world that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan has reverted to the pre-Abe policy of reflexively tailoring the policy of the Japanese government to whatever line is pursued by the US. This is doubly problematic, as under President Biden, US foreign and security policy has been tied to whatever line is favoured by the major European powers. Such a coupling of US policy with European desires (as distinct from interests) has been evident in Ukraine. While Abe as PM sought to mend ties with Russia, even meeting Putin several times in an effort to wean Moscow away from its foreign policy coordination with Beijing. In contrast, Kishida was quick to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation. The repercussions of such sanctions are by now evident across the world, and have not added but subtracted from Kishida’s popularity. Among the consequences of Japan moving in lockstep with the US and the EU has been the loss of rights by Japanese companies Mitsubishi and Mitsui in the Sakhalin II oilfields, while those Japanese companies that are active in Sakhalin I, and which are partnering with Indian companies, remain free of trouble. Meanwhile, the US and the EU appear to be working overtime to give China a near monopoly over the immense natural resources of Russia. This would have taken place were Prime Minister Modi to have agreed to the demand (these days mostly articulated through accessible journalists rather than directly by western governments) to break off commercial ties with Moscow. As a consequence of Modi holding firm in his determination to pursue the Indian interest, Japanese companies, including those owned by the state, are the beneficiaries in the Sakhalin I project together with ONGC Videsh. The expectation in capitals that are visibly not sad at Abe’s murder may be that Japanese policy will now turn away from the line the assassinated leader favoured to defend democracies in the Indo-Pacific against aggression. Should PM Kishida bring into his government more voices such as that of Sanae Takaichi and others committed to the Shinzo Abe line, misperceptions about him would get dispelled. After all, the expectation was that the new Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, would revert back to the Kevin Rudd line on the PRC. However, the first Quad meeting attended by Albanese put such fears to rest, and Kishida is expected by his supporters to follow the same path as Abe did.
NEXT STEPS BY JAPAN AND ALLIES Adhering to the legacy of Shinzo Abe would mean a strengthening of the Quad and the creation of a Quad Plus with the possible addition of France, Vietnam, the UK, Philippines and Indonesia. That would be contrary to President Biden’s Europeanist desire to make NATO the security guarantor for the Indo-Pacific. This despite that institution’s shoddy record in each of the 21st century wars in Asia and Africa that it has been active in. Rather than revive memories of European colonialism through White House efforts at making NATO the keystone of Indo-Pacific security, what is needed from the US and its Quad partners and possible Quad Plus partners is more attention and resources devoted to the Quad itself. The killing of Ahmed Shah Massoud did not prevent the rout of the Taliban in 2001 by those who had fought together with the felled leader, although subsequent errors made by NATO ensured the comeback of the Taliban in 2022. The assassination of Shinzo Abe at Nara is a wake-up call reminding countries in the Indo-Pacific that peace in the region and absence of threats to sovereignty remain far from assured. As had been predicted by this analyst at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war of 2022, every leader of those countries that are keeping alive delusions of reconquest in Kiev is paying a heavy political price. Such is the inevitable consequence of the economic fallout of the strategies on sanctions adopted by Joe Biden and others who are ranged against Russia in Ukraine and the consequent steep rise in commodity prices and collapse of logistics. An additional factor is the disastrous effect of the war on Ukraine itself. President Biden has lost support even within his own party, which has begun to consider the White House and its policies a liability during elections. President Emmanuel Macron has lost his majority in the French Parliament to foes on the left and right, while Boris Johnson, the man who is even more of a cheerleader than Biden for the emotional rather than rational way that NATO is prosecuting the Ukraine war, is fighting for his political existence. Visiting Volodymyr Zelenskyy multiple times is not helping the disgraced Prime Minister at all. Once winter comes, a similar fate may fall on Chancellor Scholz, who seems to act in a manner unlike an SPD leader, perhaps because of his longtime alliance with the CDU. Given the importance of his country in the security matrix of the Indo-Pacific, it is essential for the region that PM Fumio Kishida of Japan embrace the Abe legacy, now that the latter was assassinated for reasons that Kishida needs to relentlessly discover and reveal, including not just the motivation and support system but the manner in which an armed killer got within point blank range of the most consequential leader in Japan since 1945.
Central Military Commission may calculate that if they move in force across the Himalayas, reassurances from Washington to Delhi notwithstanding, India would be on its own in facing a country far bigger in economic size than the Russian Federation.
New Delhi: In common with Mao Zedong, PRC supremo Xi Jinping has been more closely involved with military matters than his predecessors Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. It may be mentioned that Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun had extensive connections with the military, as still does the First Lady of China, Peng Liyuan. It was not Xi but his rival Bo Xilai who sought support through the banner of upholding “Mao Zedong Thought”, the very factor that doomed his chances of succeeding Hu Jintao. Given the experience of the top rungs of the CCP leadership during the period in power of Mao, there was no appetite among them for a repeat performance. This smoothed the way for the outwardly emollient and accessible Xi to ascend to the top of the CCP. Unlike his predecessor Hu who allowed Jiang Zemin to remain Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman for a couple of years after the General Secretaryship of the party had been transferred from him, from the very start of his tenure as General Secretary, Xi Jinping took formal charge of the Central Military Commission as well as taking on the protocol-heavy (while visiting foreign countries) job of President of the PRC. More than the party secretariat or the civilian side of the central government, it is the military that has the most influence in the thinking of the present CCP General Secretary. As a consequence, the three “active” fronts of the PLA have witnessed an acceleration of attention and activity since Xi took charge of the PRC in 2012. These are the South China Sea, the Himalayan massif and Taiwan.
EMULATING MAO Mao took the decision to intervene in Korea in 1950 as a consequence of his belief that General Douglas MacArthur was planning to cross into the PRC from North Korea to set up a base area for operations by the KMT. In contrast, the PLA invasion across the Himalayan massif into India in 1962 worked as a diversion drawing attention away from the economic woes (including famine) that were sweeping across China at the time. Instead of growth and a rising standard of living for the Chinese people, the opposite was taking place during the years prior to the 1962 war with India. The conflict gave a respite to Mao in the context of efforts by some CCP leaders to whittle down his powers before removing him altogether, an interval that Mao used to strengthen his position (with the help of the Army) sufficient to clear the top and middle rungs of the CCP of all those suspected of being unhappy with the CCP Chairman’s stewardship of the state and party. This was accomplished through the brutal “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” that began in 1966 and lasted almost until Mao’s death a decade later. In the case of “Mao’s heir” Xi, although almost all such activity remains hidden from the outside world, criticism of the functioning of the Office of the General Secretary (OGS) has been growing inside the higher ranks of the CCP. Since Xi took charge in 2012, the OGS and the CMC have far more influence over policy than the Central Committee or even the Standing Committee of the CCP, not to mention the Prime Minister of the PRC. In the past, the PRC PM used to be in charge of economic policy, but that responsibility was transferred by Xi to him and the Office of the General Secretary (OGS). This secretariat serves as the enforcer of what has been officially proclaimed to be “Xi Jinping Thought”.
A delivery worker rides near a giant screen showing Chinese President Xi Jinping at an event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Youth League, in Beijing, China on 10 May 2022. REUTERS
PRC HAPPY WITH BIDEN’S RUSSIA FOCUS Xi has been fortunate in the Europeanist policy of the Biden White House and its obsession with “teaching Putin a lesson”. This has greatly increased the degrees of freedom available to the PLA in the three “active” theatres mentioned earlier, the South China Sea, the Himalayan massif and Taiwan. An example of the Euro-focus of the Biden administration is the fact that weapons on an almost daily basis are being gifted to Ukraine, a country much less significant for overall US interests than India. Although the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India has come under attack multiple times by the PLA and its satellite GHQ Rawalpindi, neither the US nor the rest of NATO appears overly concerned about this. In contrast to Ukraine, India is asked to pay top dollar for essential defence purchases from the US, thereby sharply limiting its ability to access such platforms in quantities sufficient to ensure a desirable expansion of “offensive defence” capabilities against the PLA. Ensuring such a capability for India ought to have been among the highest priorities of the Biden administration, but this is still not the case. President Biden and the rest of the leaders of NATO are lavishing resources and attention towards an ultimately futile effort at preventing the Russian military from overcoming Ukrainian resistance. Prolonging the bloodletting in that unfortunate country by giving false hopes to its leadership by the US and the rest of NATO through life-support weapons supplies is creating a window of opportunity for the PLA to attack any of the three “active” fronts it has been engaged in. This may happen should Xi calculate (as Mao did in 1962) that the resistance to his policy decisions and over-centralisation of the twin machinery of government and party can best be solved through a military diversion. In the case of Mao, the Cuban missile crisis ensured that Washington’s attention was taken away from the Himalayan front, while for Xi, the prosecution of the Ukraine war by NATO is serving a similar purpose. Given the blowback from domestic constituencies within NATO at the pain being inflicted on them by the sanctions imposed on Russia by their own governments, the CMC planners in Beijing may be forgiven for assuming that after experiencing such a shock, there would be almost no appetite for similar sanctions by NATO against the PRC in view of the severe economic consequences of such a move. Such consequences are inevitable until sufficient decoupling from the Chinese economy takes place, a process that is proceeding at a snail’s pace, in contrast to the lightning speed with which western companies have been exiting the Russian Federation. The good news for India is that the country needs no assistance in the form of troops to tackle fresh assaults by the PLA. Supply of US weapons platforms and other assistance on a Ukrainian scale would ensure that the PLA regret for a long time to come any expansive adventurism against India. However, such stockpiling and resupply by the US of India seems far from assured, given the obsession of President Biden with punishing Russia under Putin in a war on Ukrainian territory that NATO leaders apparently seek to prolong indefinitely. The CMC may calculate that if they move in force across the Himalayas once again, reassurances from Washington to Delhi notwithstanding, India would be on its own in facing a country far bigger in economic size than the Russian Federation. The PLA is known to be working on military options that involve action across both the eastern as well as the western fronts with India. Significant investments in personnel, weaponry and infrastructure have been created by the Chinese side so as to kinetically gain fresh territory in India along the frontier in order to silence Xi’s critics within the CCP. Such a move would fail, for under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is prepared to tackle such an attempt even on its own. Whether such a capability is known to the CMC or not is unknown. Under Xi, that institution has developed a sense of hubris that may cause it to take actions including against India that would ultimately lead to disaster, but which would also entail damage to other countries.
BIDEN’S CREDIBILITY GAP ON INTENT The South China Sea is fast becoming a Chinese lake, given the density of PLAAF and PLAN military bases created within its waters. While the US and other Navies routinely sail the seas in a symbolic gesture, leaving PLA structures unmolested, the reality is that the PLAN and PLAAF are building up sufficient strike power to block such access, should that option be chosen by CMC Chairman Xi. This has been the consequence of lack of substantive rather than symbolic efforts at clearing the waters of such obstructions by both Presidents Obama and Trump, a policy continued under Biden. Should Xi decide on setting up a zone within the South China Sea that excludes naval vessels save those given permission by Beijing to enter such waters, it remains to be seen whether the calculation of the CMC is accurate that President Biden (who ordered the 2021 Afghanistan pullout) would do little to challenge the PRC in the South China Sea as a consequence of his wariness about provoking a war with that country. Even in the case of Taiwan, the calculation of CMC planners may be that the US would not act in force and enter into a direct kinetic conflict with China. Neither, so goes this thinking, would Japan, were its partner in the US-Japan alliance to not take an active role in the conflict but confine itself to outside assistance to Taiwan, as is happening in Ukraine. The problem is that the same messages and events are read differently by the two sides. In the case of Ukraine, President Biden believes that his supply of weapons to Ukraine is giving pause to Xi over Taiwan, when in Beijing, what may be counting for more is the lack of NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine, as well as growing public resistance to the domestic impact of sanctions against Russia in the US, UK and France that is causing a cratering of the popularity of the leaders of the three countries.
THE TAIWAN PRIZE The greatest prize for Xi would be the conquest of Taiwan. Choosing the Taiwan option would necessitate the takeover of the entire country by the PLA rather than just its offshore islands. Just taking control of such limited spaces would not be able to satiate the hunger for the conquest of Taiwan of the Han nationalists, emotions that have been brought to a high pitch since Xi took over as CCP General Secretary. In the South China Sea, a kinetic objective could be an active enforcement of the existing reality on the waters by making passage subject to Beijing’s nod. The objective of military operations across the Himalayan massif would be to gain control of significant slivers of Indian territory in the east and west of the Sino-Indian frontier, a limited objective. In the case of Taiwan, unless the entire country is occupied, there would not be the required political dividend for Xi. Should the Taiwanese people resist the invading army in the manner that the Ukrainian-speaking people of Ukraine have since the start of the February 24 “Special Military Operation” by Russia, the island would become a sea of quicksand for the PLA. The CMC is betting (as the Russians initially appear to have in Ukraine this year) that the Taiwanese people would acquiesce in the occupation of the island by the PLA after seeing the havoc that is being wreaked on Ukraine. However, the securing of a second term by President Tsai Ing-wen indicates that the people of Taiwan are unlikely to surrender their freedom as tamely as the CMC wishes them to do. Even within the KMT, the pro-US wing is gaining at the expense of the pro-PRC wing. Such a division did not matter when the US and the PRC were close to each other, but does now.
INDIA IS ON GUARD The stakes in Taiwan are the highest for Xi, as failure to succeed in the event of a military conflict would doom his rule. As conditions in China continue to deteriorate and patience within the public as well as those in the ranks of the party diminish, the CMC under Xi is studying a possible military diversion in any of the three “active” fronts. This would be a way of deflecting public anger away from the CCP General Secretary (to whom each soldier has pledged his personal loyalty) to an external entity. Given a situation when Xi may resort to the military option to draw the focus away from the economic woes and reduction in freedoms of PRC citizens, India under Prime Minister Modi is on guard. A similar preparation for the worst is in progress in Taiwan under President Tsai Ing-wen. The problem for democracies in Asia is the Putin obsession of US President Joe Biden, who together with European leaders is eager to continue seeing Russia as Enemy Number One even though that country is not what it was in the Soviet era, and has been replaced as the primary systemic challenger by the PRC. Rather than deter the PRC from military action against any of the three “active” fronts, the rising level of adverse consequences of the war by Russia in Ukraine and the attendant sanctions by NATO countries is boosting the view that exhaustion from the Ukraine conflict makes even such limited intervention by the US and its allies unlikely in the event of the PLA launching a conflict within what the CCP considers Chinese territory (Taiwan and the South China Sea) or its backyard (the Himalayan massif).
Going by the logic of six justices of SCOTUS, women’s right to vote could be revoked as it too went unmentioned in the Constitution.
Many say that when President Biden assured the world last year that “America is back”, what he meant was that the US was back to the 1950s. The use of the reverse gear has been evident in the White House, which has returned to the Cold War 1.0 era. The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been particularly eager to push back the US into what had been a dead past. For 50 years, citizens of the US had the right to decide whether to go ahead with a pregnancy or not. Women undergoing abortions were often underage, black and poor. Those opposed to abortion talk about being in favour of life. The life they are talking about is not that of the mother but that of the embryo during the stage when it has not reached viability, or the stage until which abortions were permitted in the US as a consequence of the Roe v Wade decision handed down in 1973 by SCOTUS. The court held that abortion was a right guaranteed by the US Constitution. A few days ago, SCOTUS, by a six to three majority, held that such a right was in fact in violation of the Constitution, as such a procedure was never mentioned in the document that was ratified in 1788. Millions in the US believe that the fair sex had its origin in the rib of the first man. Small wonder that in some states in the US, teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is banned. Women and men apparently did not evolve, they sprang up from nowhere. Which means that there could not be any difference between those born a million years ago and those born now, something Darwin would have disputed. These millions, among whom appear to be included six Justices of the US Supreme Court, believe that every human being has her or his origin in the pair that was rescued in the distant past together with other life forms from a boat. However, belief in a common pair of ancestors has not prevented several such individuals from simultaneously believing in racial supremacy, which holds that those of a particular race are far superior to those of other races. These days, now that the hold of those of European descent is diminishing across the world in contrast to 1788 when the US Constitution was ratified, a rising number of individuals of Sinic descent in the new superpower China believe their ethnic group to be superior to all others. Feelings of racial or religious supremacy (assuming other faiths to be lacking in a pathway to the divine) is impossible to justify. Such views have caused wars and societal turmoil that cost the lives of hundreds of millions across much of human history. The SCOTUS Justices who sent Roe v Wade into the wastepaper basket have a right to their personal beliefs, but should not impose that view on the rest of society in the manner that they are seeking to do. As has been mentioned, not just abortion but women were not mentioned in the US Constitution. This may be among the reasons why the vote was granted to women in the US only in 1920. Going by the logic of six justices of SCOTUS, this right too could be revoked as it went unmentioned in the Constitution. Was the Supreme Court mentioned in that document? Apparently not, although it is unlikely that Justice Alito and the other five Justices who reversed Roe v Wade would decide that the institution which they now control should be abolished. Justice Clarence Thomas is the prime mover behind the reversal of rights that has characterised the Supreme Court of the US, especially since the entry of the three Justices appointed by President Donald J. Trump. Although the court is known as the Roberts Court, a more appropriate title may be the Clarence Court, given the influence that the views of Justice Thomas have on the majority in SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). In his then role as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden gave short shrift to Anita Hill, who came up with testimony against Thomas in much the same way as another female witness did during the confirmation hearings of Brett Cavanaugh, another Trump appointee. Choosing an African-American who thought in the limiting way that Thomas did about judicial matters, was an inspired move by President George H.W. Bush, who soon afterwards lost the Presidential polls to Bill Clinton. A second George H.W. Bush term may have done more for the US than Bill Clinton did in his two terms, given the understated way in which Bush removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 without going overboard in the manner that his son George W. Bush did in 2003. It was George H.W. Bush’s quality of being understated and emollient that reduced the chances of Mikhail Gorbachev being ousted as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until he had completed the meltdown of the USSR. Yet this is what cost him a second term, once Clinton supporters began to mock him as “Chicken Kiev” for his outwardly soft approach to a superpower nearing meltdown. Under Clinton, both the Wahhabi International as well as the PRC prospered, while he stymied Yeltsin’s efforts to integrate the Russian Federation into the EU and NATO as a consequence of a nudge from the UK, Germany and France, who did not want that behemoth in the “common European home” that both Gorbachev and Yeltsin thirsted to join. The sorry exit of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021 can be tracked to Clinton’s installation of the Taliban in 1996 as the masters of Afghanistan. The damage being caused to US interests by the SCOTUS rollback of rights long enjoyed by US citizens may not be as stark as the Afghanistan pullout in August 2021, but it is in many ways more severe. Rather than healing divisions, the US Supreme Court is widening them, that too by interpretations of the law that could conceptually at least be used to bring back the burning of witches that was carried out in the US in 1692-93. Omar Khayyam’s warning that the “moving finger having writ, moves on” is clearly unknown to the six Justices who rolled back Roe v Wade, not to mention other retrogressive decisions. In the process, they have lit a fuse that could lead to turmoil in the US greater than any seen thus far in the history of that country since the 20th century.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that was founded in 2001 is centred around the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as indicated by its very name. The SCO has played a prominent role in the efforts of Beijing to replace Moscow as the lead outside player in Central Asia, although the influence of the Russian Federation remains strong within this region. Through the Sino-Wahhabi alliance, the PRC has chipped away at Russia’s primacy, assisted by the fact that after the meltdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US under Bill Clinton unwisely facilitated the replacement of the existing Russian-style model of school and university education with the Wahhabi model that was in vogue during that period in much of the GCC. After 9/11, the risk to the national interest of permitting such a model of education became clear, and changes began to be introduced in curricula such that a more moderate culture was promoted in place of the radicalisation that had been taking place in young minds as a consequence of the copious flow of both funds and ideas from parts of West Asia. While Russia has, largely by default, become an ally of the PRC, its leadership has not signed on to the PRC’s policy of cosying up to radicals. The consequence has been that Central Asia has entered a period of competing ideologies, where radicalism and the resultant extremism compete with the moderate ideology of the leaders of the countries in the region. As a consequence of the burgeoning of the Sino-Wahhabi alliance, the SCO has drifted far away from being a forum where radicalism is condemned rather than condoned as it is by Beijing in cases where it affects the targets of its hidden or expressed ire. As a consequence, efforts by India to use the platform as a vehicle against radicalism and its offshoots such as terror have met with little substantive success. Of course, those who define “success” in terms of statements issued and glitzy meetings held would disagree, as both remain plentiful so far as the SCO is concerned. As for BRICS, the intention of Beijing appears to be to expand the group to include Iran and Argentina in the first instance, even before relations between the BRICS countries themselves are far from satisfactory.
In contrast to the SCO, in each of the countries in that small but significant club (BRICS) has the potential to graduate from Big Power to Major Power status (in the way India has progressed under Prime Minister Modi), and from then onwards, at least where India is concerned, to superpower status. The flexible format of BRICS makes it resistant to efforts by any single member to tailor the association into a forum that reflexively backs positions taken by that single country. Given the way in which territory in India has come under threat, and the South China Sea has been almost wholly taken over and militarised by Beijing, it is a surreal experience to listen to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping talk during the BRICS meeting of leaders against efforts at hegemonism (of the kind being witnessed in the South China Sea) or intimidation (of the type being carried out almost on a daily basis against Taiwan). Despite the infringement of the sovereignty of India on multiple occasions since the 1950s, there remains a way for the PRC to demonstrate in practice the sentiments expressed by the CCP General Secretary at the BRICS meeting. This is to work within the UN to promote the candidacy of the three members of BRICS that are not permanent members of the UNSC. As permanent members, Russia and China could support Brazil, South Africa and India for a permanent seat at the UNSC. It is possible that not all three may succeed in such a quest, but support from the PRC in particular for such a change would show that Beijing is finally being sincere not just in word but in deed. If the PRC declines to do so (in a context where Russia has already supported the inclusion of India in the UNSC), it would show that there remains a wide gap between platitudes and performance where the world’s other superpower is concerned. MDN
