From soft to ectoplasmic state (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER M.D. NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/m-d-nalapat

	P. Chidambaram salutes BSF officers in New Delhi. PTI n April 2001, nearly two dozen BSF jawans were first tortured and then killed by units of the Bangladesh Rifles. Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee did nothing, and life moved on. Ten years later, two dozen Pakistani soldiers — each of them perhaps up to no good — got killed by US fire. In retaliation, Islamabad denied the use of the Shamsi airbase and blocked NATO convoys from crossing the Durand Line into Afghanistan. In Kashmir, several dozen Indian soldiers have been killed as a result of the ISI's covert war, but Manmohan Singh follows the Vajpayee precedent and merely shrugs his shoulders. In contrast, Pakistan has set a very different benchmark on the response it will launch to a perceived hurt. Action even against the US, the country where even a former President of India, Abdul Kalam, gets subjected to repeated body searches, without any retaliation barring a few gruff comments by S.M. Krishna or Kapil Sibal on television. Contrast Pakistan's response to the situation in India, where Afzal Guru and Amir Ajmal Kasab continue to pursue their (formally closed) cases through the numerous channels open to them. In the 1960s, Gunnar Myrdal used the term "soft state" to describe governance in India, but clearly, the Swede believed in understatement. After all, the term "soft" implies structure and a modicum of cohesion, albeit soggy. In fact, the governance system in today's India, despite its horrendous cost to the taxpayer, best resembles ectoplasm, a slithery mass that takes on new shapes and sizes at the slightest prod. Ectoplasm gives the appearance of form while lacking substance. An example is the requirement for elected representatives to periodically file a declaration of their assets. This should be an annual requirement, rather than get filed every five years. Also, the information filed should include the income-tax paid each year. If we were to match the asset declarations of our legislators with the taxes they pay, it will be seen that several have perfected the science of acquiring assets out of thin air. They need to explain just how they are able to perform such feats of wizardry, so that the rest of the population can follow their example and become as wealthy as our politicians have become. Judging by the assets our rulers declare, the numerous visits to Dubai and London (often in private jets) made by their offspring and the expensive watering holes they frequent there and in this country must be funded out of the charity of friends and relatives. As for those who share the privilege of Cabinet rank, they seem to be using 1911 values while pricing the properties they own, judging by the figures they have provided in their returns. Both at State and Central levels, each member of the Council of Ministers as well as each secretary-level official should give an annual account of his or her own assets and income, including tax paid. This group also need to make transparent similar details about spouses and children. A provision needs to be made that any citizen has the right to purchase any of the assets of the public servant concerned, by paying 50% more than the value given in the asset declaration. Since the time when Jawaharlal Nehru (in the estimation of Amartya Sen and Sunil Khilnani) brought democracy to India, "public service" has in practice usually meant private pleasure. Until those holding high public office get subjected to a high level of accountability and transparency, the people of this country will continue to have to endure a governance system that retards rather than promotes welfare. In the Nehru system of governance, the people suffer, while the overlords have a comfortable time, a seamless continuation of the situation that existed when London was in charge of India's destiny. This ought to get reversed, with public service being made a high-risk occupation except for the competent and the honest. In India, it is usually such individuals who suffer. Honest IPS officials get transferred repeatedly, disrupting their families and preventing them from gaining detailed knowledge of the locations in which they get posted. "Obliging" officers, in contrast, have their pick of assignments, even if this means making the (innocent) husband a prime scapegoat in a sex case, as is now happening in Rajasthan with the ersatz investigations into Bhanwari Devi's disappearance. As for the IAS, here too, the more greasy the pole, the faster "adjusting" folk make it to the top, leaving the honest to slide down.
	ven the Fourth Estate appears to have got converted to Deng Xiaoping's maxim, "To get rich is glorious." Niira Radia has done a public service in informing us about how easy it is to manipulate media persons. By trading credibility for access to power, a perception has developed among readers that the news and views appearing in media outlets is "fixed". Fortunately, despite the efforts of the UPA to muzzle them, internet outlets are still operating in India with a freedom not exercised by print and even television journalism. However, it does not require much research to know that matters are seriously awry in India. When Manmohan Singh took office in 2004, he correctly identified energy, communications and infrastructure as critical to economic success. Unfortunately, not only has he has been unable to improve the situation, but during his time in office, matters have gone from just bad to unbearable. Coal remains a preserve of the mafia, whether in the western or the eastern fields, and because of an absence of clear-cut policies (fog being the best way of ensuring bribes), industry in India imports coal from Australia, China and even Indonesia, despite the fact that this country has immense deposits of coal. As for the power sector, there has been near-zero growth in operational capacity, and because of environmental and other blockages, each of which requires the services of an approved fixer to remove, power projects are taking as long to go online as it takes to decide a case in courts in India. Getting assured supplies of fuel for such plants is a nightmare under the UPA dispensation, where the only track that moves is that which involves a lot of "goodwill" to be handed over. Other decisions simply pile up, ignored by an establishment where the lower levels have contempt for the spineless behaviour of their superiors. As for the education network, what is one to say about a system where a single state, Maharashtra, is estimated to have as many as two-crore bogus names listed for the midday meal programme, much of which is run by politicians themselves? From a soft to an ectoplasmic state in three decades. That's progress. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/from-soft-to-ectoplasmic-state

Media in NATO follows the line (PO)

M D Nalapat
Although the media in most of the countries that comprise NATO claim to be free,the reality is that they follow a line set for them by the geopolitical establishments of the countries that they are located in. Thus,even to this day,they persist in repeating the untruth that Saddam Hussein and his officials “hid the fact that Iraq has no WMD”. As even a cursory check of the headlines of the period before the 2003 US/UK-Iraq war would show,both Saddam Hussein as well as his key officials kept on repeating the truth,that Iraq had destroyed its WMD stockpiles.Indeed,it was that action of theirs that ensured subsequent destruction at the hands of a collection of countries from North America,Europe and “civilisational cousins” of the two,such as Australia,all of whom participated in one way or the other in the occupation of a once-sovereign country,and thereafter systematically destroyed what was left of its infrastructure after a decade of UN-mandated sanctions (which killed off hundreds of thousands of civilians,without of course receiving any attention from NATO-located “human rights” brigades. The media in the NATO countries ignored the fact that Saddam Hussein presided over a secular regime,in which religious zealots were prevented from inflicting their preferences over the restof the population.

That Hussein was ungrateful in occupying Kuwait in 1990 was a fact. The State of Kuwait had generously funded his equally indefensible 1980 military attack on Iran, anoth act of folly that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. George H W Bush was morally justified in launching Operation Desert Storm in August 1990,although he was wrong in listening to those in his administration who advised him to do nothing while Kurds were massacred by Saddam Hussein immediately after the Iraqi defeat at the hands of the US.Rather than stand idly by while Kurds were targeted for obeying the suggestion of President Bush himself that they rise against Saddam,the US armed forces ought to have enforced a quarantine of the Kurdish region,something that took place only in 2003. However,coming back to the media, the steady drumbeat of reports in US and EU publications about Saddam Hussein backing religious zealots was the opposite of the truth.In fact,such elements were opposed to him,often violently,because of his secular nature.Indeed,it can be said that in this respect at least,Saddam Hussein was a good follower of the Prophet (PBUH). It has been forgotten even within much of the Ummah that the early - golden - period of Islam was precisely the time when those of other faiths were given dignity and protection,unlike in the present,where Christians and people of other faiths are discriminated against in a manner that flouts the explicit commands of the Prophet (PBUH) that they be treated with respect

Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Libya under Muammar Kaddafy were countries where people of all faiths were treated equally. In a travesty of the truth,the media in NATO countries painted a different picture,characterizing them as fanatics.This columnist has gone on record (in both this newspaper as well as in outlets such as www.gateway house.in and www.the-diplomat.com) in the early weeks of this year,pointing out the untruth behind such depictions. judging by their coverage,it would appear that a almost tribal,primal loyalty pervades media in the countries comprising NATO, forcing them into a straitjacket that directs their vision only onto “approved” paths. It is probably this tribal loyalty that has thus far prevented the media in either the US or the EU from reporting on the foreign relatives of the most powerful family in India, the trio of Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul and Priyanka. Not a word about the many relatives of the family that runs the government of India has appeared in media outlets abroad,including in the country where they spend a lot of their time,Italy. Indeed,coverage of Sonia Gandhi has usually been breathlessly fulsome in the media in NATO countries , with admiring depictions of the way in which a lady with only a middle-school education has been able to ensure the obedience of people such as Manmohan Singh,who have far greater qualifications in a multitude of ways,yet are dominated by the Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance government in a way that must be the envy of President Zardari,who has nowhere near the same influence in Pakistan as Sonia Gandhi enjoys in India. Had President Zardari been of EU ethnicity,he may have escaped the numerous unflattering depictions of himself that appear in the media in that continent,which has given the world 99% of the saints whose lives are celebrated in Rome,to the exclusion of all other continents and peoples, each of which are presumably far less saintly than the tribes of Europe

Take the case of the terrorist Anders Breivik,who massacred 68 innocent people in Norway this year. Had he been of Afghan descent,or from another country outside the charmed civilisational circle of the “West”,he would - correctly - have been classified as a mass murderer. However,because he is Norwegian,Breivik cannot by definition be anything other than “civilized”.After all, Norway is a country that eases its conscience at making money from polluting the world through petroproducts by spending millions of euros “civilizing” barbarians in Asia and Africa. So it is hardly a surprise that Breivik has been found to be not a criminal but insane. Was Osama bin Laden merely a kind-hearted and ageing soul who had a few neural ganglia mixed up,or was he an international terrorist? Had the Yemeni been of the same ethnicity as Breivik, he woud have found many whi would have classified him too as being “unable to function in a responsible way”. Conversely,had Breivik been from Yemen, it is very unlikely that the medical team that so conveniently ( for the reputation of the civilized people of Norway) found him to be mad would have been as indulgent. Just as it is only the European relatives of Sonia Gandhi who deserve their privacy,and the exclusion of media snooping into their sources of wealth and their lifestyle,it is only “civilized” people who should be given the benefit of the doubt rather than be labelled as “terrorist”

Had the EU been less concerned about religion and ethnicity than it in fact is,the group would have welcomed Turkeyand Israel as members. Turkey is a country with very noble traditions and culture,and would be an adornment to the European ideal,once that concept gets divorced from the narrow parameters it has been pushed into by Germany and France. As for Israel,this is a country that was founded - in its modern avatar - by European Jews who sought to escapethe intense persecution that they suffered in their home countries. Israel is culturally a part of Europe that is located in Asia,even more so than Australia or New Zealand.Going back to Germany,the single most consequential mistake made by Adolf Hitler (who in modern Norway would probably get labelled a mere crank,on the Breivik model,rather than mass-murderer ) was to seek to eliminate people of the Jewish faith.The Jewish stratum was what had contributed the most to German arts and science,and its elimination weakened the ability to Germany to fight the war forced on it by Hitler and his party. Similarly,keeping at arm’s length the vibrant peoples of Israel and Turkey will also weaken Europe, which needs to go beyond its mono-faith identity and become a continent that includes countries with majorities other than Christian.Indeed, the profound teachings of Jesus Christ mandate such a universalist approach.The very word “catholic” means an individual who accepts different streams, a mindset that is not being followed by those who are totally opposed to even Turkey (a country substantially located in Europe) becoming a part of the EU,much less Israel

Rather than always looking outwards when being dismissive and hyper-critical,the media in NATO countries needs to escape from the tribal mindset that sees no evil in oneself but only in others. Unless the NATO powers have media that are objective,they will continue to land themselves in quagmire after quagmire because of misperceptions about their own capabilities and lack of knowledge about others. Being self-critical is to be truly civilized.This is what those in Europe (and to a much lesser extent in the US) who believe in a mono-ethnic and mono-faith spirit ought to accept and follow.


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Forget freedom of expression, we are Indian after all (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER M.D. NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/m-d-nalapat

	Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister for Communications & IT, Kapil Sibal at a a function in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI ome days ago, a television show mentioned that of the top five supercomputers in the world, two were Japanese, one American and the remaining two Chinese. And now comes the Hindu telling us that only two out of the world's 500 top supercomputers are located in India, down from seven the year Manmohan Singh took over as PM. Given the lack of ambition of his team, it must come as a relief to them that the figure is not zero. Although that is probably what it will be well before the PM's second term in office ends in 2014. Although Jairam Ramesh loves comparisons with the People's Republic of China, making them is a depressing business. The PRC has leapt ahead of India in almost every segment of the knowledge industry, including in education, where not a single Indian university makes it to the top 500. And while Brazil and China have joined Russia in being able to locally design and manufacture aircraft, the Indian Air Force is on the cusp of giving a $12 billion order for just 126 military aircraft. The share of domestic procurement in key defence items has fallen steadily since the 1980s, and even within the "domestic" component, much of the output originates in assembly of foreign parts. Does this bother the minister who is tasked with looking after the education system of the country, Kapil Sibal? Not at all. His attention is focused on the depictions of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh on the internet. Some go so far as to allege that Sonia Gandhi's family became hugely wealthy after Indira Gandhi took over as PM in 1966, while a few make an equally absurd claim about Manmohan Singh, that he is ineffective when it comes to managing the economy. Clearly, such reports are a national calamity. It is intolerable that citizens of a republic blessed with honest government, a superb social security system, excellent infrastructure, full employment and stable prices should bad-mouth the two responsible for such a felicitous state of affairs. Crass ingratitude, and Sibal is right in trying to stop such nonsense. Why can't our multiplying population of bloggers write about the fact that our political leadership lives in such humble surroundings? Just look at such dumps as 10 Janpath, 5 Race Course Road or even the poky official residence of Sibal and other hard-working, ferociously dedicated ministers in the Manmohan — sorry, Sonia — team? Not only do they live in cramped dwellings that even a respectable cockroach would avoid, but they commute to work on public buses, when they are not on bicycles or walking. Why is it that such obvious facts are never mentioned by bloggers? Clearly, they have an agenda, which is to destabilise the country and reduce it from prosperity to decrepitude. No wonder admirers of the ruling establishment want internet service providers to block "offensive" content, or in everyday language, any view of the Congress leadership that Abhishek Manu Singhvi would frown on.
	lthough Kapil Sibal hates the very concept of internet freedom, he forced his offspring to go and study in that cesspool of depravity, the UK. Every day, each child would have been exposed to the many less than flattering comments made about Good Old Liz aka Queen Elizabeth. Despite her angelic qualities, most superbly expressed in her reactions following the death of Princess Diana, both British blogs as well as the regular media lampoon her and her family with an abandon that must horrify the Union Telecom-HRD Minister. If he and his family nevertheless go to even that depraved city, London, so often, it must purely be to conduct a study in what India ought never to be, a creative, vibrant democracy. Such a hell must never befall the people of this country, who need to be forced into silence about their rulers, in the same admirable way that Saudi Arabia or North Korea do. Before this latest effort at sanitizing the internet, Chidambaram and others in the "reformist" government of Manmohan Singh got passed a bill that is more draconian in its provisions than any legislation dreamed up by Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler. Although most of the regular media in India seldom goes beyond what the I&B Ministry (and the advertisement-gifting DAVP) want it to be, yet the internet has seen a swelling tide of both comment as well as documentation, and clearly a lot of this is upsetting to Kapil Sibal's bosses, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, for it is in their name that he has followed the Chinese government in seeking to censor the internet. Amazingly, the members of the NAC seem speechless about such actions, even while getting voluble about Anna Hazare and others who challenge an establishment led by NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Why is the Opposition silent about the axe that Chidambaram and Sibal are taking to civil liberties? Perhaps because they are aware that the RBI will, by its lunatic policies, ensure that the Congress party gets defeated in the next general elections, and that it will be a Prime Minister Narendra Modi who can wield the restrictive regulations brought in by the UPA. Apart from the RBI, another doughty fighter for the cause of bringing the BJP back to power is the Union Environment Minister. Because these ministers interpreted their mandate literally, today a country that has huge reserves of coal and iron ore has to depend on imports to feed its generating plants and its furnaces. Only in India would nuclear power plants be allowed to fade away in terms of utilisation, because a handful of protestors (and that staple of the NGO, the Court Order) have over the decades ensured that the country's uranium reserves largely remain untapped. And now, when imported uranium has started flowing in, another small group has shut down Koodankulam. That the country is losing Rs 24 cr worth of power and Rs 6 cr of interest each day because of the non-commissioning of the Koodankulam nuclear power plant bothers few people. Certainly to Kapil Sibal, unflattering depictions by his fellow-citizens of his bosses are a far more serious matter than the holding hostage of the country's future by a clutch of NGOs. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/forget-freedom-of-expression-we-are-indian-after-all

Refusing to learn lessons of 1962 (PO)

Geopolitical notes from India

M D Nalapat

In the closing days of 1961, the armed forces of the Republic of India launched Operation Vijay (“Victory”), which in 38 hours eliminated the Portuguese presence in Goa. Portugal’s crusty dictator, Antonio D”Oliveira Salazar, had refused several requests from Delhi that he emulate the example of France and the UK, both of which bid adieu to their colonies in India with dignity. As the small Portuguese garrison had no air force, and only an outdated sloop as its navy, it was a simple matter for the Indian army, navy and air force to defeat the forces mustered by Governor Vassalo e Silva, who had been ordered to hold out for as many days as possible, so that Salazar could bring to bear international pressure on India to withdraw. The US ,since the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, favoured Europe even in the matter of colonies (for example seeking to preserve French privileges in Vietnam). Hence there were angry noises even from the Kennedy administration about the effrontery of an Asian country resorting to force against a European. The Europeans were, of course, completely on the side of Salazar, saying that India ought to have continued to accept Portuguese rule in Goa, despite an overwhelming majority of citizens there wanting to be free.

Less than a year after their triumph over a force that was best described (in media at the time) as Lilliputian, the military was faced with a much deadlier foe, the Peoples Liberation Army. After two attempts to get Jawaharlal Nehru to accept the status quo as the international boundary failed in 1961,and the tensions created by the Red Carpet welcome given to the Dalai Lama and his followers since 1959, Mao Zedong decided to accept the advice of Defense Minister Lin Biao to “teach the Indians a lesson”. In October 1962, waves of PLA soldiers overwhelmed one under-manned and ill-equipped Indian army position after the other, and began sweeping down towards the plains of Assam. Sadly, while the Goa operation had been left to the military to handle, the Chinese move was handled directly by Prime Minister Nehru, who had earlier appointed a close relation, Lt-Gen B M Kaul, as the Corps Commander in the east, with orders to “throw out the Chinese”. Despite his impressive lineage, the general was clueless when it came to warfare, being concerned mainly with logistics and supply during his none-too-distinguished career. General Kaul and “Commander-in-Chief” Nehru launched one disastrous move after the other, all of which ended in a comprehensive defeat that is even today a stain on the military. For obvious reasons, the failure of the Higher Command in 1962,which was documented by Lt-Gen Henderson-Brooks and Lt-Gen P S Bhagat soon afterwards. Unlike the Goa - or earlier - operations, where different wings of the military were involved,the conflict between the PLA and the Indian army was conducted on both sides only through use of the army. The Indian Air Force was not used at all to push back the PLA, despite the fact that at that point in time, the PLA had only a few obsolete MiG-15s and an even smaller number of MiG-19s in operation in the sector.


These would have been no match for the Hunters and Mysteres of the Indian Air Force, which could have been used against Chinese troops coming into the plains through the narrow mountain passes. Although more junior IAF officers wanted to do battle with the PLA, their seniors went along with Nehru’s view that “We could not risk the bombing of Calcutta in retaliation” for Indian use of the Air Force. Such a fear was baseless, as the PLA (at that point in time) did not have bombers capable of reaching Calcutta from the much fewer bases that were then present in those parts of China that fronted India. If in the 1947-48 war with Pakistan Nehru relied on a foreign advisor (Lord Louis Mountbatten), this time the “military expert” consulted by him was US ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, whose only knowledge of the military came from war movies. The sage Glabraith warned Nehru that there would be “remorseless bombing” by the Chinese on Indian cities, if he dared unleash the IAF on the PLA. A jittery Nehru thereupon instigated the notorius command to “blow up all civil aircraft” in the eastern sector and “fly out all serviceable (military) aircraft”. The IAF was made to exit the battlefield without undertaking a single sortie, despite its superiority over the PLA air arm active in the conflict. Had the IAF been used, the PLA would not have been able to enter Tawang and other regions, thereby humiliating the Indian armed forces, and in particular the 4 Division. As Brigadier J P Dalvi wrote, it was a “Himalayan blunder” by Nehru, for which he placed the blame on Defense Minister Vengalil Kumaran Krishna Menon, who had to quit.


It was Nehru who was responsible for refusing to allow professional military expertise into the functioning of the UnionMinistry of Defense, which is staffed purely by civil servants with no knowledge of the requirements of an armed force. Even fifty years ago, war needed the seamless working together of the army, navy and the air force, something that the present bureaucratically-created walls between the two services make difficult. The 21st century mandates an armed force very different from that of the early part of the previous century. In view of India’s location and coastline, the navy needs to be the pre-eminent force, exactly as was the case with the UK in the past and is the case with the US now. However, this is a capital-intensive arm, and the only way that it could ever get the number of ships needed to fulfill its continental tasks would be if the US were to hand over about forty vessels to the Indian navy, including at least two aircraft carriers. Such a move will need to await regimes in Washington and Delhi that better recognize the need for the US to play with India the same role as it did with the UK during 1939, of giving the tools needed to “finish the job”. However, at present, such cooperation is a long way off. Years ago, when a group of strategists from both sides called for the USS Kitty Hawk to be handed over to India, the lobby in Delhi that wanted the huge benefits that came to them through purchase of the carrier “Admiral Gorshkov” from Russia combined with India-phobic elements in the Pentagon to veto the move. Unfortunately for India, neither the career civil servants nor the politicians who run the Defense Ministry have any strategic vision. Their attention span is only from deal to deal, of which there have been several. More than $40 billiion has been committed by India in recent times towards defense purchases, while local production continues to be the monopoly of the state sector, which is known for inefficiency. The Defense Research & Development Organisation has turned into a place where scientists and others hibernate, with projects taking tens of years to get completed. By the time they finally get completed, they are out of date. In 1962,India was far ahead of China both in technology as well as economically. However, poor management from the Indian side has resulted in Beijing now being far in advance of Delhi in almost every particular. Unlike the Indian side, which is content to buy technology and materiel from foreign providors without allowing the Indian private sector to compete, in China every foreign collaboration has been finalised with an eye to self-reliance. As a result,the items being produced in China are in many respects equal to that being turned out in the US and Europe, including stealth fighters and nuclear submarines. In India,the state-run defense production establishment functions as an assembler of items procured from abroad, and which may be stopped at any time. The importance of the defense establishment to the political class may be gleaned by the fact that the Sonia-led UPA has appointed a former Defense Secretary as the Central Vigilance Commissioner, despite the fact that the ministry is a cesspool of graft. The new CVC can be expected to look after the interests of his patrons as diligently as he did in his previous assignment.


Only in the Nehru system of administration do administrators monopolize the entire machinery that has been set up to identify corruption in their ranks. In each public enterprise, the anti-corruption department reports to the Top Management, which in almost all cases is itself mired in graft. Corrupt officials and politicians find it convenient to have only one of their kind holding all sensitive posts, as both have come together for their common benefit. If in the process, national interests suffer, so what?

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