The first United Progressive Alliance government’s most substantive failure was in the area of security. Its most obvious manifestation was in the horrific Mumbai attack last November, but there were equally worrying signs in the poor handling of the Naxal problem, or the management of the country’s defence portfolio.
Mumbai happened. The Naxal issue was left to fester. As for defence, the armed forces were simply not ready to act against Pakistan in the aftermath of 26/11.
The Mumbai terror attack did bring the UPA-I government back on to the track. But since only a few months were left of its tenure, all it could do was to take some urgent measures — which it did — and hope for the best.
P. Chidambaram’s appointment as Union Home Minister for the UPA-II government is a good sign. The tough measures that UPA-I was finally compelled to adopt after 26/11 will continue. Mr Chidambaram may have his faults, but the lack of decisiveness is not one of them. And the one thing that the humongous Home Ministry desperately requires is leadership.
Intelligence
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of A.K. Antony who returns as the Union Defence Minister. Saint Antony’s honesty is an important attribute for a ministry which has been dogged by huge scandals and which is likely to issue some high-value equipment contracts in the coming years.
But our defence management does not require honesty alone. We need a political leader who will undertake drastic and decisive reforms that ensure that we have efficient, battle-ready forces at all times and against all adversaries.
The biggest danger that the country confronts in the coming period is the threat of another Mumbai-type terrorist attack. Knowing how the terrorists operate, it is more than certain that the next attack will not be anything like the last.
Mumbai has initiated action on one front at least. Under the new maritime security plan, the Navy is now the “designated authority” for overall maritime security. The most important task, one that will take years to accomplish, is to be able to knit together all the elements that constitute the maritime security system — the Coast Guard, state marine police forces, the state and central intelligence organisations.
Besides ships and boats, the system will require a comprehensive infrastructure of air, sea and land-based radar and data management systems that track every ship and boat in our waters.
The reform of our intelligence system is long overdue. The Research & Analysis Wing and the Intelligence Bureau have successfully deflected the effort to reform them by the National Democratic Alliance government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should not waste any time in undertaking a deep restructuring of the intelligence system.
The system is in dire need of modernisation. The IB must be prodded to abandon its colonial-era task of spying on political parties. By now it should be clear to all that this benefits no one but the intelligence bureaucracies.
There is need to make the R&AW more productive, get the National Technical Research Office going and set up new institutions to exploit internet and space-based systems. The most difficult and important task is to knit together all the elements of the intelligence system — IB, R&AW, NTRO, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Narcotics Control Bureau and the state intelligence agencies.
There is also need to address our weaknesses in foreign languages and international studies programmes which result in poor utilisation of hard-earned intelligence data.
The way forward in defence has been laid out partially by the NDA’s Group of Ministers proposals which had been given Cabinet approval. The UPA-I’s failure to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff has blocked all efforts towards integrating the armed forces. This integration is vital if we are to exploit the Revolution in Military Affairs which, in our times, means the fusing of sensors to obtain total information on the adversary and the ability to employ the most effective and appropriate force to neutralise him, regardless of whether the weapon “belongs” to the army, navy or air force.
Defence
India will spend some Rs 170,000 crore on its defence forces this year. This roughly comes to the entire sum the Union government will spend on Health (Rs 18,808 crore), Home Affairs (Rs 38,601 crore), Rural Development (Rs 62,615 crore), Roads (Rs 19,764 crore) and Human Resource Development (Rs 41,978 crore).
The country with the highest rate of infant mortality and malnutrition in the world cannot, or should not, be able to afford this. But the issue is not the size of the expenditure, but its efficacy.
Twice in recent times — in the wake of the Parliament attack in December 2001 and after Mumbai last November — the government needed to use coercive diplomacy with Pakistan. But it soon realised that its principal instrumentality of coercion — our armed forces — were simply not up to the task.
This is not to argue that the government should have attacked Pakistan. What the government did need was the option of the efficacious use of force. Here it is not enough to say, well, our Air Force was ready to go. The government would have been irresponsible if it sent in the IAF for a so-called surgical strike without being prepared for a wider conflict in which case, as it turned out, our army was not quite prepared.
In all this we have not even factored in China. In a recent statement the Air Force chief Fali Major declared, “We know very little about the actual capabilities of China, their combat edge or how professional their military is.” This is a pathetic admission of our weakness. It echoes the defeatist talk that was common in the early 1960s when Chinese and Indian forces began to face-off across the Himalayas.
Clearly India desperately needs to do something about its defence management system. But there are no indications that it hopes to do something about it. In UPA-I, neither the National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan nor Mr A.K. Antony showed any inclination to touch the subject of the reform of the armed forces and the intelligence services.
Leadership
Unfortunately, this work can only be done by people like them, the political class. Left to themselves the defence bureaucracy — civilian and uniformed — will do nothing about it because they have it good anyway. When disaster struck, as it did in Namka Chu in 1962, and in Mumbai in 2008, jawans, policemen and civilians died, but it is the political class that was held accountable.
UPA-II is in a grace period. The electorate did not buy the BJP’s critique of the UPA-I on security because it was patently self-serving, coming as it did, from a party with a longer list of failures.
But the people may not be so forgiving the next time. Especially if it appeared that the UPA had been wilfully negligent.
manoj.joshi
This appeared in Mail Today May 28, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
New Delhi gets a mandate to handle a changed world
(This is my first piece after the general election results. Readers of this blog know that I am a strong supporter of the Congress for systemic reasons. I believe that a strong, centrist and secular party is the best option for a country that is so diverse in terms of ethnicities and religions.)
The world changed while we were in election mode. Change is, of course, constant. But there are periods in time — during war or some disaster — that it gets accelerated. That is what seems to have happened as a result of the global economic meltdown in the last eight months. Besides that great catastrophe, we have also had tumultuous events in our neighbourhood.
Sri Lanka stepped up its war against the LTTE, the post-civil war peace process in Nepal collapsed, the barbarians arrived at the gates of Islamabad, the US’ and western financial system imploded, and China suddenly became that much more important on the world stage.
But New Delhi was distracted. There was some half-hearted diplomatic action. The stimulus packages were there, but the overwhelming focus of the government was on the issue of elections. So satraps like Reserve Bank governor D.V. Subba Rao sat on the file and refused to take key decisions that would have accelerated recovery.
Almost everyone recognises that we are living in an era of great flux. Many of the countries affected are not conscious of the shift, others are, but are unable to alter the course of events. Some are trying to ensure that they are able to retain control after the buffeting, others have gone down. In the Indian case, we have been a largely direction-less ship as we went through the needlessly lengthy exercise of choosing a new government.
But the elections and their outcome have provided a great payoff for the six months of drift. Instead of a weak government, brutalised by dealing with the Left and having to rely on the somewhat sleazy Samajwadi Party, we have a government which is stronger than we have had in a while.
Since this government was re-elected with a vastly greater majority it can treat the verdict as a mandate of sorts for its policies. Principal among these is its strategy of close ties with the United States and the west, of flexible containment of Pakistan and competitive engagement with China.
But even as the government savours its mandate and tries to comprehend its meaning it will find that the world it was dealing with in October 2008 has changed. In America, an election brought into place a government that has self-consciously set its policies in contradistinction to those of its predecessor. At the same time, the US virtually lost an arm and a leg. Its vaunted financial services sector collapsed and even today, as the new administration picks up the pieces, it is not clear what is going to take its place. A big hole has been blown on to America’s side and the world’s sole superpower has come down a couple of notches on the global totem pole.
China
On the other hand, in China, acting with a sense of urgency and efficiency that characterises the Communist “democratic centralist” system of governance during a crisis, the leadership has contained its worst elements that have seen a dramatic decline of Chinese exports and huge unemployment in its manufacturing sector. With a stimulus package that rivaled that of the US’ in size, the Chinese have begun the process of restructuring their economy, seeking out opportunities for mergers and acquisition abroad, and planning for a world in which they have suddenly climbed a couple of notches up that totem pole.
The rise of China is the single greatest challenge for India, but I am not clear whether it is seen in this way by most of our political class. As you can see, in the recent elections, we had Mr Mulayam Singh put forward the view that all that mattered to him was the dismissal of Ms Mayawati’s government. Not to be outdone, Ms Jayalalithaa wanted the Indian armed forces to invade Sri Lanka.
In the recent months, China has acted with great perspicacity to establish itself as a leading economic power which is willing to enter into a relationship of partnership with the United States. This was the subtext of Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao’s remark in mid-March, that he was “worried” about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in US government treasury bonds. He called on the US to “maintain its good credit, to honour its promise and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.” One significant consequence of the crisis is that the Chinese have made it clear that they are interested in a gradual transition to some other regime, perhaps one in which special drawing rights can play the role of the international currency.
The 60th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army Navy happened to take place last month. It was a good occasion to see how much China had changed from the time when it followed Deng Xiaoping’s 24-character injunction to “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”
America
The parade of naval vessels, including the spanking new Chinese nuclear propelled submarines was as impressive as the news that China had begun work on its first aircraft carrier, based on the hulk of the erstwhile Varyag which it has bought from Russia.
What happened with the United States is very different. India was lucky in the UPA’s first term to have had a president who was ideologically against the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and had a great fascination for India. The result was that these two seemingly insurmountable obstacles were simply brushed aside when the US agreed to enter into a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India. As a result of this, the Nuclear Suppliers Group has opened the doors of all member countries for trade with India. Now that so many doors are open, it does not really matter if the US wishes to close its door. The nuclear pill that was stuck in the Indo-US face for an entire generation has been washed down and digested.
Terrorism
There is every indication that the new Obama administration and New Delhi may find themselves on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to his disarmament and climate change plans. Mr Obama is likely to be pre-occupied with PakAf through his entire term and New Delhi is likely to play only a peripheral role in American calculations. This is likely to involve the maintenance of peace on the India-Pakistan border, for which New Delhi needs no prompting, because the boot on this issue is really in the Pakistani foot. In addition, the US would want India to maintain its aid and reconstruction programme in Afghanistan, again something for which New Delhi needs little prompting, since it is fully in our national interest.
But the crises in the neighbourhood brooks no delay. New Delhi must immediately get involved in the rehabilitation and relief of the beleaguered Tamil community in Sri Lanka. It must build on the Maoist decision to persist with the political track to repair the situation in Kathmandu. Then, there is need to respond to Pakistan’s predicament, without necessarily pandering to Islamabad’s usual neuroses relating to Kashmir or alleged Indian activities in Afghanistan.
Above all New Delhi must not forget that the possibility of another Mumbai-type terrorist attack remains its first short-term national security priority. Another attack would stain the new government’s reputation, regardless of the mandate. Some hurried measures were taken last year in the wake of 26/11. The new government must move vigorously in the domestic and international arena to counter the terrorist threat.
This appeared in Mail Today May 18, 2009
The world changed while we were in election mode. Change is, of course, constant. But there are periods in time — during war or some disaster — that it gets accelerated. That is what seems to have happened as a result of the global economic meltdown in the last eight months. Besides that great catastrophe, we have also had tumultuous events in our neighbourhood.
Sri Lanka stepped up its war against the LTTE, the post-civil war peace process in Nepal collapsed, the barbarians arrived at the gates of Islamabad, the US’ and western financial system imploded, and China suddenly became that much more important on the world stage.
But New Delhi was distracted. There was some half-hearted diplomatic action. The stimulus packages were there, but the overwhelming focus of the government was on the issue of elections. So satraps like Reserve Bank governor D.V. Subba Rao sat on the file and refused to take key decisions that would have accelerated recovery.
Almost everyone recognises that we are living in an era of great flux. Many of the countries affected are not conscious of the shift, others are, but are unable to alter the course of events. Some are trying to ensure that they are able to retain control after the buffeting, others have gone down. In the Indian case, we have been a largely direction-less ship as we went through the needlessly lengthy exercise of choosing a new government.
But the elections and their outcome have provided a great payoff for the six months of drift. Instead of a weak government, brutalised by dealing with the Left and having to rely on the somewhat sleazy Samajwadi Party, we have a government which is stronger than we have had in a while.
Since this government was re-elected with a vastly greater majority it can treat the verdict as a mandate of sorts for its policies. Principal among these is its strategy of close ties with the United States and the west, of flexible containment of Pakistan and competitive engagement with China.
But even as the government savours its mandate and tries to comprehend its meaning it will find that the world it was dealing with in October 2008 has changed. In America, an election brought into place a government that has self-consciously set its policies in contradistinction to those of its predecessor. At the same time, the US virtually lost an arm and a leg. Its vaunted financial services sector collapsed and even today, as the new administration picks up the pieces, it is not clear what is going to take its place. A big hole has been blown on to America’s side and the world’s sole superpower has come down a couple of notches on the global totem pole.
China
On the other hand, in China, acting with a sense of urgency and efficiency that characterises the Communist “democratic centralist” system of governance during a crisis, the leadership has contained its worst elements that have seen a dramatic decline of Chinese exports and huge unemployment in its manufacturing sector. With a stimulus package that rivaled that of the US’ in size, the Chinese have begun the process of restructuring their economy, seeking out opportunities for mergers and acquisition abroad, and planning for a world in which they have suddenly climbed a couple of notches up that totem pole.
The rise of China is the single greatest challenge for India, but I am not clear whether it is seen in this way by most of our political class. As you can see, in the recent elections, we had Mr Mulayam Singh put forward the view that all that mattered to him was the dismissal of Ms Mayawati’s government. Not to be outdone, Ms Jayalalithaa wanted the Indian armed forces to invade Sri Lanka.
In the recent months, China has acted with great perspicacity to establish itself as a leading economic power which is willing to enter into a relationship of partnership with the United States. This was the subtext of Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao’s remark in mid-March, that he was “worried” about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in US government treasury bonds. He called on the US to “maintain its good credit, to honour its promise and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.” One significant consequence of the crisis is that the Chinese have made it clear that they are interested in a gradual transition to some other regime, perhaps one in which special drawing rights can play the role of the international currency.
The 60th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army Navy happened to take place last month. It was a good occasion to see how much China had changed from the time when it followed Deng Xiaoping’s 24-character injunction to “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”
America
The parade of naval vessels, including the spanking new Chinese nuclear propelled submarines was as impressive as the news that China had begun work on its first aircraft carrier, based on the hulk of the erstwhile Varyag which it has bought from Russia.
What happened with the United States is very different. India was lucky in the UPA’s first term to have had a president who was ideologically against the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and had a great fascination for India. The result was that these two seemingly insurmountable obstacles were simply brushed aside when the US agreed to enter into a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India. As a result of this, the Nuclear Suppliers Group has opened the doors of all member countries for trade with India. Now that so many doors are open, it does not really matter if the US wishes to close its door. The nuclear pill that was stuck in the Indo-US face for an entire generation has been washed down and digested.
Terrorism
There is every indication that the new Obama administration and New Delhi may find themselves on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to his disarmament and climate change plans. Mr Obama is likely to be pre-occupied with PakAf through his entire term and New Delhi is likely to play only a peripheral role in American calculations. This is likely to involve the maintenance of peace on the India-Pakistan border, for which New Delhi needs no prompting, because the boot on this issue is really in the Pakistani foot. In addition, the US would want India to maintain its aid and reconstruction programme in Afghanistan, again something for which New Delhi needs little prompting, since it is fully in our national interest.
But the crises in the neighbourhood brooks no delay. New Delhi must immediately get involved in the rehabilitation and relief of the beleaguered Tamil community in Sri Lanka. It must build on the Maoist decision to persist with the political track to repair the situation in Kathmandu. Then, there is need to respond to Pakistan’s predicament, without necessarily pandering to Islamabad’s usual neuroses relating to Kashmir or alleged Indian activities in Afghanistan.
Above all New Delhi must not forget that the possibility of another Mumbai-type terrorist attack remains its first short-term national security priority. Another attack would stain the new government’s reputation, regardless of the mandate. Some hurried measures were taken last year in the wake of 26/11. The new government must move vigorously in the domestic and international arena to counter the terrorist threat.
This appeared in Mail Today May 18, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
A good night-watchman can also help win a match
( Some one has termed Dr Manmohan Singh as a night-watchman, a low order batsman who is sent higher up in the order to keep the play going till the next day, even if he is one, he is serving a useful function)
There is something in democratic politics that makes governments run out of breath in about year four of their term. An election not only provides correctives to the political process, it also gives the politicians renewed stamina to run the next course of four or five years. On May 16, the proverbial slate would have been wiped clean. Old alliances would have been dismantled and newer ones put on the drawing board, past slights will have to be forgiven, or put away in a safe place at the back of the mind.
The Congress has repeatedly emphasised that they will continue with Dr Manmohan Singh. The BJP had, earlier, categorically declared L.K. Advani as its prime ministerial candidate. Even so there was the brief wobbly moment when the politics of succession of the octogenarian leader was played out, even before he had become prime minister. Whether Narendra Modi’s name came forward as the move of a pawn or a king is unclear, but the last word has yet to be said about this.
Referendum
By May 16, old issues, too, would have receded, to be replaced by new ones. One of these is the Indo-US nuclear deal. Though it was not an issue in the elections it has left a residue of bitterness in the CPI(M)- Congress ties. The BJP has made vague noises about renegotiating the deal if it comes to power. However, we are not sure what specific clauses they wish to renegotiate. Nor do they seem to be aware that Mr Obama is pushing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. Any reopening of the 2008 agreement could end up with the US imposing more conditions, rather than offering any new concessions.
As is its nature, the election result will be as much a referendum on the government of Dr Manmohan Singh as an election of the regime that will rule us for the next five years. A positive outcome could well see Singh back in the saddle because the Congress party has declared that he remains their prime ministerial candidate. Should the numbers not favour the party, Dr Singh could recuse himself so that the party can put forward another
candidate.
The Manmohan Singh government came to power through what was seen as the shock outcome of the 2004 general elections. There were a number of issues — the Sino-Indian border negotiations, the India-Pakistan peace process and the Indo-US nuclear dialogue — that were premised on the near-certain return of the NDA. In that sense, the path of the country’s foreign and security policy was clearly laid out, and by and large, the UPA played to the script.
But the UPA also came to power with the belief that it needed to buttress Indian secularism, battered by the years of BJP rule, as well as to provide a corrective to the economic policy of the NDA that had, in their view, focused on “Shining India” and ignored the aam admi. In many ways the UPA has succeeded in achieving these objectives.
The period 2004-2009 has been singularly free of large-scale Hindu-Muslim communal riots that have disfigured the Indian polity. Indeed, communal violence has scarred almost every government going back to Indira Gandhi — Nellie massacre of 1983, the Sikh pogrom of 1984, Bhagalpur killings of 1989, 1992-93 riots in Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Kanpur and Malegaon riots of 2001and the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.
The UPA has also managed to take the first tentative steps towards creating a social safety net. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has offered the promise of some kind of a job for the poorest of the poor, for at least some part of the year. The extension of the OBC quota to higher education has inadvertently led to a vast expansion of the higher education infrastructure in the country. The Right to Information Act is a pioneering piece of legislation to provide transparency — where none existed — in the government’s work.
The 2004-2009 period has seen the highest rate of economic growth the country has ever seen since its independence, though the global trends have now slowed it down. But a more important consequence of growth has been the increase in the revenue receipts of the government which went up from Rs 230,834 crores in 2002-03 to Rs 486,422 in 2007-2008. The average annual growth of revenue receipts of the Central Government was of the order of 16.2 per cent.
Strength
This has enabled the government to undertake vast expenditures related to the NREGA, the loan waiver of Rs 70,000 crore for farmers in 2008-2009, and fund ambitious schemes for eradicating illiteracy, the mid-day meal scheme, the schemes for enhancing rural and urban infrastructure and, in recent months, the various stimulus packages. Those who sneer at economic growth as a means of poverty alleviation would be hard put to explain where they could have come up with those sums in the absence of a flourishing economy.
The UPA government’s report card must be seen from the perspective of its political circumstance. It did not have a majority in Parliament and it spent its last year quarreling with its Left ally. Then, unlike the past, the Prime Minister was not the leader of the party. In that sense he operated with reduced authority. Yet, as the record shows, it is unfair to call Dr Manmohan Singh a “one issue” prime minister, or for that matter, a weak leader.
The Left learnt, to its cost, the stubbornness with which the PM pushed a policy he believed in — the Indo-US nuclear deal. Prakash Karat’s recent revelation confirms this. According to Mr Karat, the PM single-handedly faced down his own council of ministers and party and refused to sanction the dismissal of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in UP in 2006 because he felt that the move was politically wrong.
Those in government can recall several such instances that bring out the exceptional qualities that Dr Singh brought to the PM’s office, qualities that are not easy to come by even in a billion strong country.
Alliance
Later this month, the country may end up with the old prime minister, but the issues he confronts will be new. These are the ones that have emerged in the six month hiatus that the country was compelled to take because of the elections and the ones that have emerged through the process of elections. Domestically, the need to shore up growth in the face of the global melt-down is an obvious challenge. Globally, we have witnessed a distinct upward movement in the world order by China, and the proportional slide back of the US. This has implications for India.
It also could have important political consequences. The Left's major critique of Singh was that American imperialism had gained ascendancy in New Delhi. The last six months have seen an America deeply wounded by the collapse of its financial system and a new president who has shown no special inclination towards New Delhi.
In such circumstances, the Left must decide whether they want to continue pursuing the American chimera, or back the Congress once again to take on the most important domestic political challenge — the shift of the leadership of the BJP towards Narendra Modi.
The Congress has made it clear that it would want Manmohan Singh to serve as Prime Minister for some more time, if it can form the government. Rahul Gandhi’s emergence as a full-fledged leader is an indicator that the new order is already here.
There is nothing pejorative in terming Manmohan Singh as a “night watchman”— the batsman of a lower order who is sent up to guard the wicket till the play resumes the next day. He has already played his heroic innings, though you can be sure he can still wield a useful bat.
Appeared first in Mail Today May 9, 2009
There is something in democratic politics that makes governments run out of breath in about year four of their term. An election not only provides correctives to the political process, it also gives the politicians renewed stamina to run the next course of four or five years. On May 16, the proverbial slate would have been wiped clean. Old alliances would have been dismantled and newer ones put on the drawing board, past slights will have to be forgiven, or put away in a safe place at the back of the mind.
The Congress has repeatedly emphasised that they will continue with Dr Manmohan Singh. The BJP had, earlier, categorically declared L.K. Advani as its prime ministerial candidate. Even so there was the brief wobbly moment when the politics of succession of the octogenarian leader was played out, even before he had become prime minister. Whether Narendra Modi’s name came forward as the move of a pawn or a king is unclear, but the last word has yet to be said about this.
Referendum
By May 16, old issues, too, would have receded, to be replaced by new ones. One of these is the Indo-US nuclear deal. Though it was not an issue in the elections it has left a residue of bitterness in the CPI(M)- Congress ties. The BJP has made vague noises about renegotiating the deal if it comes to power. However, we are not sure what specific clauses they wish to renegotiate. Nor do they seem to be aware that Mr Obama is pushing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. Any reopening of the 2008 agreement could end up with the US imposing more conditions, rather than offering any new concessions.
As is its nature, the election result will be as much a referendum on the government of Dr Manmohan Singh as an election of the regime that will rule us for the next five years. A positive outcome could well see Singh back in the saddle because the Congress party has declared that he remains their prime ministerial candidate. Should the numbers not favour the party, Dr Singh could recuse himself so that the party can put forward another
candidate.
The Manmohan Singh government came to power through what was seen as the shock outcome of the 2004 general elections. There were a number of issues — the Sino-Indian border negotiations, the India-Pakistan peace process and the Indo-US nuclear dialogue — that were premised on the near-certain return of the NDA. In that sense, the path of the country’s foreign and security policy was clearly laid out, and by and large, the UPA played to the script.
But the UPA also came to power with the belief that it needed to buttress Indian secularism, battered by the years of BJP rule, as well as to provide a corrective to the economic policy of the NDA that had, in their view, focused on “Shining India” and ignored the aam admi. In many ways the UPA has succeeded in achieving these objectives.
The period 2004-2009 has been singularly free of large-scale Hindu-Muslim communal riots that have disfigured the Indian polity. Indeed, communal violence has scarred almost every government going back to Indira Gandhi — Nellie massacre of 1983, the Sikh pogrom of 1984, Bhagalpur killings of 1989, 1992-93 riots in Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Kanpur and Malegaon riots of 2001and the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.
The UPA has also managed to take the first tentative steps towards creating a social safety net. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has offered the promise of some kind of a job for the poorest of the poor, for at least some part of the year. The extension of the OBC quota to higher education has inadvertently led to a vast expansion of the higher education infrastructure in the country. The Right to Information Act is a pioneering piece of legislation to provide transparency — where none existed — in the government’s work.
The 2004-2009 period has seen the highest rate of economic growth the country has ever seen since its independence, though the global trends have now slowed it down. But a more important consequence of growth has been the increase in the revenue receipts of the government which went up from Rs 230,834 crores in 2002-03 to Rs 486,422 in 2007-2008. The average annual growth of revenue receipts of the Central Government was of the order of 16.2 per cent.
Strength
This has enabled the government to undertake vast expenditures related to the NREGA, the loan waiver of Rs 70,000 crore for farmers in 2008-2009, and fund ambitious schemes for eradicating illiteracy, the mid-day meal scheme, the schemes for enhancing rural and urban infrastructure and, in recent months, the various stimulus packages. Those who sneer at economic growth as a means of poverty alleviation would be hard put to explain where they could have come up with those sums in the absence of a flourishing economy.
The UPA government’s report card must be seen from the perspective of its political circumstance. It did not have a majority in Parliament and it spent its last year quarreling with its Left ally. Then, unlike the past, the Prime Minister was not the leader of the party. In that sense he operated with reduced authority. Yet, as the record shows, it is unfair to call Dr Manmohan Singh a “one issue” prime minister, or for that matter, a weak leader.
The Left learnt, to its cost, the stubbornness with which the PM pushed a policy he believed in — the Indo-US nuclear deal. Prakash Karat’s recent revelation confirms this. According to Mr Karat, the PM single-handedly faced down his own council of ministers and party and refused to sanction the dismissal of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in UP in 2006 because he felt that the move was politically wrong.
Those in government can recall several such instances that bring out the exceptional qualities that Dr Singh brought to the PM’s office, qualities that are not easy to come by even in a billion strong country.
Alliance
Later this month, the country may end up with the old prime minister, but the issues he confronts will be new. These are the ones that have emerged in the six month hiatus that the country was compelled to take because of the elections and the ones that have emerged through the process of elections. Domestically, the need to shore up growth in the face of the global melt-down is an obvious challenge. Globally, we have witnessed a distinct upward movement in the world order by China, and the proportional slide back of the US. This has implications for India.
It also could have important political consequences. The Left's major critique of Singh was that American imperialism had gained ascendancy in New Delhi. The last six months have seen an America deeply wounded by the collapse of its financial system and a new president who has shown no special inclination towards New Delhi.
In such circumstances, the Left must decide whether they want to continue pursuing the American chimera, or back the Congress once again to take on the most important domestic political challenge — the shift of the leadership of the BJP towards Narendra Modi.
The Congress has made it clear that it would want Manmohan Singh to serve as Prime Minister for some more time, if it can form the government. Rahul Gandhi’s emergence as a full-fledged leader is an indicator that the new order is already here.
There is nothing pejorative in terming Manmohan Singh as a “night watchman”— the batsman of a lower order who is sent up to guard the wicket till the play resumes the next day. He has already played his heroic innings, though you can be sure he can still wield a useful bat.
Appeared first in Mail Today May 9, 2009
Saturday, May 02, 2009
There can be no closure for murder
People have been saying that Election 2009 is devoid of issues. That is not really true. There is no strong central theme such as the need for a stable government or tougher measures against terrorism. But there are powerful undercurrents — national parties versus the regional and caste formations, criminalisation of politics, issues like Pakistan and Sri Lanka and so on. In the past week, another important issue has come up which, because of the pusillanimity of the Congress party, has remained sub-surface as it were.
The Supreme Court which had set up a Special Investigation Team to look into the nine most heinous post-Godhra cases, has now ordered it to probe the role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues and senior police and administration officials in the 2002 Muslim pogrom in the state.
Complicity
Only last week a chorus of voices from the second-rung of the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership articulated what had, till now, been spoken of in whispers — that Narendra Modi would succeed L.K. Advani as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the next election. This was as much a verdict on the octogenarian Advani’s ability to reach the highest office in the land in this election, as it was an exercise to cut Rajnath Singh to size.
There have been inquiries on the killings in Godhra and its aftermath, but they have either been by a commission appointed by Modi himself, or through NGOs. That commission, headed by Justice H T Nanavati, has said that it could not find any lapse on the part of the Gujarat government in the riots.
The Supreme Court’s SIT will be able to access records of the police and the government itself and probably give us a better understanding of what happened during those horrific days. Did Modi lose control, or was he cynically manipulating things?
A case could be made that Modi, who took office in October 2001, was not really in full control of the levers of governance when the Godhra massacre of Hindu pilgrims took place in February 2002 and so he was not able to effectively check the violence that led to the massacre of Muslims in several parts of the state.
Whatever may have been the situation then, Modi has since left no one in any doubt about his attitude towards the pogrom. He has refused to acknowledge any guilt and, worse, his government has used every tactic in the book to prevent the prosecution of those guilty of the killings. Take the Best Bakery case. On March 1, 2002 the Best Bakery was attacked and burnt down by a mob. Fourteen people of whom 12 were Muslims died.
According to human rights activists, the police deliberately weakened the case by failing to collect witness statements and other evidence. The key witness, Zaheera Sheikh was subsequently suborned and all 21 accused in the case were acquitted in July 2003 by a fast-track court. When it became clear that the Supreme Court could intervene, the Gujarat government admitted that there had been lapses in the case and sought to file an appeal.
The case was retried outside Gujarat on Supreme Court’s orders, in Mumbai. Zaheera was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment by the court for perjury and in February 2006, nine out of the 21 people were convicted of murder and given life sentences.
More germane, perhaps, is the case of Maya Kodnani, a gynaecologist and Sangh Parivar activist whose name came up as one of the accused in the Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam massacres. The Gujarat police did question her, but said there was no evidence against her. By this time, she had become a minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet. But once the SIT began looking at those two cases, it became clear that she was likely to face charges. Fearing arrest, she went underground on February 2, but later at the end of March, she resigned from the Cabinet and surrendered. Till this point she had Modi’s full support.
Clearly, Modi is either guilty of the charges against him and would therefore go out of his way to protect the other guilty persons. Or, he has decided that he gets greater dividends by polarising the electorate.
Politics
This latter tactic is a cynical game practised by many politicians. But we are talking of Modi, the potential prime minister. While other Prime Ministerial hopefuls have also been accused of crimes, such as L.K. Advani for the Babri Masjid demolition, or Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav for corruption, none has been accused of being complicit in mass murder or of shielding those involved in that act. In this sense he is different. In the last six years, Modi has vehemently refused to acknowledge any guilt for the shameful killings that took place in Gujarat during his watch. At the same time, as if in expiation, he has gone out of his way to avoid any communal discourse and has promoted the development of Gujarat as his defining policy. He has recently appointed a Muslim as the Director-General of the state police. And there was an almost Orwellian touch to Modi’s visit to the Muslim areas of Godhra on the eve of Republic Day where he was welcomed and feted.
No doubt as someone looking at his own future prospects, Modi the politician realises that he cannot appear as a Muslim-baiter before a nation-wide electorate. But Modi, the politician, has to overcome Modi, the supreme egoist, who cannot admit that he can do any wrong. To compound this, is his macho self-image which he promotes by making all those tough statements about hanging this or that person, or justifying illegal killings by police officials.
During the Gujarat Assembly elections he justified the killing of Soharbuddin Sheikh because he dealt with illegal arms and ammunition, but Modi did not care to mention that Sheikh’s wife Kausarbi, too, was killed for no fault other than that she was the wife of an allegedly “bad” man.
Violence
Modi’s biggest mistake could be to misread the mood of the Indian electorate. While they will certainly be impressed by his developmental record in the state, they are becoming increasingly leery of people who are linked to violence. This is evident from the fate of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar. Modi’s tough guy image may work in Gujarat’s specific ambience, but it is doubtful whether it would be acceptable in other parts of the country. By and large people tend to be in the mid-stream politically, unless the polity itself is out of kilter, as in the case of Israel. Modi’s polarising ways may not even find full acceptance within his own party.
Modi has predictably dismissed the Supreme Court directive as a conspiracy against him. Like other politicians in similar circumstances, he is seeking to make the election outcome a referendum on his fitness for high office.
But it is not so simple. Modi was, after all, the Chief Minister of the state when there was a complete collapse of governance in which the mass murders took place. In that sense it is a big question-mark on his competence and self-proclaimed ability to create a safe and secure environment in the country.
This article appeared in Mail Today May 1, 2009
The Supreme Court which had set up a Special Investigation Team to look into the nine most heinous post-Godhra cases, has now ordered it to probe the role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues and senior police and administration officials in the 2002 Muslim pogrom in the state.
Complicity
Only last week a chorus of voices from the second-rung of the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership articulated what had, till now, been spoken of in whispers — that Narendra Modi would succeed L.K. Advani as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the next election. This was as much a verdict on the octogenarian Advani’s ability to reach the highest office in the land in this election, as it was an exercise to cut Rajnath Singh to size.
There have been inquiries on the killings in Godhra and its aftermath, but they have either been by a commission appointed by Modi himself, or through NGOs. That commission, headed by Justice H T Nanavati, has said that it could not find any lapse on the part of the Gujarat government in the riots.
The Supreme Court’s SIT will be able to access records of the police and the government itself and probably give us a better understanding of what happened during those horrific days. Did Modi lose control, or was he cynically manipulating things?
A case could be made that Modi, who took office in October 2001, was not really in full control of the levers of governance when the Godhra massacre of Hindu pilgrims took place in February 2002 and so he was not able to effectively check the violence that led to the massacre of Muslims in several parts of the state.
Whatever may have been the situation then, Modi has since left no one in any doubt about his attitude towards the pogrom. He has refused to acknowledge any guilt and, worse, his government has used every tactic in the book to prevent the prosecution of those guilty of the killings. Take the Best Bakery case. On March 1, 2002 the Best Bakery was attacked and burnt down by a mob. Fourteen people of whom 12 were Muslims died.
According to human rights activists, the police deliberately weakened the case by failing to collect witness statements and other evidence. The key witness, Zaheera Sheikh was subsequently suborned and all 21 accused in the case were acquitted in July 2003 by a fast-track court. When it became clear that the Supreme Court could intervene, the Gujarat government admitted that there had been lapses in the case and sought to file an appeal.
The case was retried outside Gujarat on Supreme Court’s orders, in Mumbai. Zaheera was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment by the court for perjury and in February 2006, nine out of the 21 people were convicted of murder and given life sentences.
More germane, perhaps, is the case of Maya Kodnani, a gynaecologist and Sangh Parivar activist whose name came up as one of the accused in the Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam massacres. The Gujarat police did question her, but said there was no evidence against her. By this time, she had become a minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet. But once the SIT began looking at those two cases, it became clear that she was likely to face charges. Fearing arrest, she went underground on February 2, but later at the end of March, she resigned from the Cabinet and surrendered. Till this point she had Modi’s full support.
Clearly, Modi is either guilty of the charges against him and would therefore go out of his way to protect the other guilty persons. Or, he has decided that he gets greater dividends by polarising the electorate.
Politics
This latter tactic is a cynical game practised by many politicians. But we are talking of Modi, the potential prime minister. While other Prime Ministerial hopefuls have also been accused of crimes, such as L.K. Advani for the Babri Masjid demolition, or Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav for corruption, none has been accused of being complicit in mass murder or of shielding those involved in that act. In this sense he is different. In the last six years, Modi has vehemently refused to acknowledge any guilt for the shameful killings that took place in Gujarat during his watch. At the same time, as if in expiation, he has gone out of his way to avoid any communal discourse and has promoted the development of Gujarat as his defining policy. He has recently appointed a Muslim as the Director-General of the state police. And there was an almost Orwellian touch to Modi’s visit to the Muslim areas of Godhra on the eve of Republic Day where he was welcomed and feted.
No doubt as someone looking at his own future prospects, Modi the politician realises that he cannot appear as a Muslim-baiter before a nation-wide electorate. But Modi, the politician, has to overcome Modi, the supreme egoist, who cannot admit that he can do any wrong. To compound this, is his macho self-image which he promotes by making all those tough statements about hanging this or that person, or justifying illegal killings by police officials.
During the Gujarat Assembly elections he justified the killing of Soharbuddin Sheikh because he dealt with illegal arms and ammunition, but Modi did not care to mention that Sheikh’s wife Kausarbi, too, was killed for no fault other than that she was the wife of an allegedly “bad” man.
Violence
Modi’s biggest mistake could be to misread the mood of the Indian electorate. While they will certainly be impressed by his developmental record in the state, they are becoming increasingly leery of people who are linked to violence. This is evident from the fate of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar. Modi’s tough guy image may work in Gujarat’s specific ambience, but it is doubtful whether it would be acceptable in other parts of the country. By and large people tend to be in the mid-stream politically, unless the polity itself is out of kilter, as in the case of Israel. Modi’s polarising ways may not even find full acceptance within his own party.
Modi has predictably dismissed the Supreme Court directive as a conspiracy against him. Like other politicians in similar circumstances, he is seeking to make the election outcome a referendum on his fitness for high office.
But it is not so simple. Modi was, after all, the Chief Minister of the state when there was a complete collapse of governance in which the mass murders took place. In that sense it is a big question-mark on his competence and self-proclaimed ability to create a safe and secure environment in the country.
This article appeared in Mail Today May 1, 2009
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