Manmohan breaks out

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is, to use a quaint Americanism, “breaking out of the reservation”. In other words, he is beginning to break the bonds that have confined him to being a surrogate for Congress party president Sonia Gandhi. Approaching the second year of his second term as the Prime Minister of India, the 78-year-old Singh has become acutely aware of the finite nature of his time in office. So he seems to have decided to do things his way and break the bonds that have made him appear to be a mere puppet for Ms Gandhi.
In a Prime Minister who is into his second term, you would say that this is not unexpected. But then, Dr Singh is not your usual PM and neither is his rebellion quite a rebellion. He has been uncommonly loyal to Ms Gandhi, a loyalty not born out of obsequiousness that comes naturally to many in the Congress party created by Indira Gandhi, but more an innate sense of duty to the person and party who have propelled him to the high office.
Dr Singh’s breakout is more complex; it is not seen as a rebellion, as such breakouts were seen in the case of American Indians aka Native Americans. What he is seeking is more space to carry out policies close to his heart in the areas of administration and governance, though, not politics. Though he is now a seasoned politician in his own right, there is absolutely no indication that.




Mr Singh seeks to challenge the political primacy of the party president, even by implication. He has no stakes in the politics of the party.
For him, the party will be over the day he demits office and that day is finitely determined—at best, in early 2014, about four years from now. At worst, of course, it could be any time, given the vagaries of heading a minority government in a Parliamentary democracy.

Driver
The relationship between Ms Gandhi and Dr Singh was an unusual one to start with, since, in India, at least, no one has voluntarily shied away from taking the office of Prime Minister that comes as part of being the leading political party in the wake of a general election; indeed, to the contrary, many have avidly sought it. Mr Singh was clearly Ms Gandhi’s nominee once she decided that she would not take it up. Since in a parliamentary system, the prime minister is also the de facto, if not
de jure, leader of the party, the relationship had to either progress, or regress.
Six years down the line it has clearly advanced and evolved to a point where Manmohan wants to be Manmohan, and Ms Gandhi is not standing in the way. At this juncture, Ms Gandhi doesn’t have too many choices.
First, Singh is clearly not challenging her political authority. Second, even if he were, what options does she have? To be seen to be removing a successful Prime Minister would be politically disastrous. Third, she doesn’t really have an alternate figure who is a first rate administrator, politically unambitious and as widely respected as Dr Singh. Fourth, the person that she wants as PM, young Rahul Gandhi, shows no inclination to accept ministerial responsibilities, leave alone the burden of prime ministership.
And, most important, the break out is all about policies that the Gandhis can live with —a dogged insistence in making peace with Pakistan and China and a determined nudge to the economy to the high growth path by carrying out the so-called second generation reforms. In almost all these areas, Dr Singh is on the same page as Mr Gandhi, if not his mother and the party old guard.
The first breakout was in the term of the first UPA government when Dr Singh took the Indo-US nuclear deal in his teeth and ran the race alone till the party decided to back him to the point of facing a high-risk no-confidence vote in the Lok Sabha. The victory of the party set the stage for the election outcome of 2009 which was not just about the departure and decimation of the Left and Lalu Yadav, but also about the revelation of the enormous potential the Congress had for re-establishing its once firm hold across the country.
When he took office last year, Singh was no longer looked on as some kind of a puppet. Indeed, he made that clear by putting his own stamp on the Union Cabinet where he ensured that “difficult” ministers were left out and people who owed some loyalty to him were promoted.
With his chosen P. Chidambaram in the Union Home Ministry, Singh shunted Pranab Mukherji to the Finance hot seat (remember this was at the height of the economic downturn), put a relative nonentity, S.M. Krishna, in External Affairs and promoted Anand Sharma to full Cabinet rank in Commerce. He also sent clear signals to allies that the government would be less accommodating of corruption and inefficiency. M.K. Narayanan did last out for a while, but probably only to wait for his chosen successor Shivshankar Menon to retire as Foreign Secretary.
The second breakout has been in the area of foreign policy, especially in relation to Pakistan. It is no secret that India’s Pakistan policy has been driven—first by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then by Manmohan Singh. The two have personally taken decisions that have cut through bureaucratic obstruction time and again. Sharm-el-Shaikh was the first indicator that the Prime Minister was ready to resume serious efforts to engage Pakistan.

Reform
But that came a cropper since the formulations he authorised on Balochistan and the Indo-Pak dialogue turned out to be too far in advance of the Mumbai-bruised public opinion back home. Singh, the economist, knows his business well, but, Singh the realpolitik practitioner still has some learning to do.
The third breakout is visible in pushing the economic reform agenda. The moves to remove subsidies in oil and fertiliser prices clearly puts the PM against the conventional wisdom in his party, as does the decision to begin privatisation of profit-making public sector units.
Singh is aware of his place in the country’s iconography as the driver of the first stage of economic reforms that have inaugurated a period of high economic growth in the past decade. With the Left hobbling him, he was unable to move an inch. But now he is free and he is determined to push in all the areas that he can.

Legacy
Usually when American Indians, or Native Americans, broke the reservation, they came to grief. History and the big guns were against them. Singh, on the other hand, is convinced that he is on the right side of history. 2014 is his finite limit.
He will be 82 then. If he wants to leave a stamp of any kind, he must strike out now. There is no tomorrow for him. His two chosen areas are a desire to be the first PM to put India on the path of double digit growth, and the one to make durable peace with Pakistan.
A reasonable analysis at this point in 2010 would suggest that the former task is more doable than the latter, at least in the time span available of the good doctor’s leadership. But you can’t quibble with his vision: All the boats must rise together in the South Asian harbour. Any state left behind will drag the others down.
But Pakistan of today seems more inclined to hurl its jihadist armies to foil India, rather than make peace, and this is where Dr Singh’s problems really lie.
But you have to hand it to him. He is determined to succeed.
This article first appeared in Mail Today March 13, 2010

Brains needed, not just brawn

The Ministry of Home Affairs must hassle the bad guys, not the good

The resumed talks with Pakistan have made one thing clear: Peace will remain a long haul. It was important that the dialogue be resumed, but it is clear that we are far from even reaching the pre-26/11 stage, leave alone the one in 2007 when we had managed to narrow our differences in a range of areas, most specially Kashmir. So, even while the step-by-step process towards that goal has begun, there is need to go back to the bigger challenge — secure the country
against the threat of Pakistan-based, or inspired, Islamist terrorists.
Everyone is agreed that P. Chidambaram has worked wonders with the Union Home Ministry. But in one year he has only dealt with the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A Ministry which has been indifferently managed for decades is unlikely to be tuned to perfection in such a short space of time. Larger challenges remain, as is evident from the Minister’s efforts to reform the structure of the internal security mechanism of the country.


But an even bigger issue is to have a work-force which can best the terrorists at their own game. As things stand, things are not too good. Some recent examples show just what the problem is — a dull and unimaginative bureaucracy which is more interested in covering its butt, rather than anticipating real threats and neutralising them. Some recent steps would have been classed as comic, were it not for the needless inconvenience on foreign nationals visiting India, or worse, being arrested for infringement of rules that are either not clearly notified, or simply gratuitous.

Visas
Take the case of David Coleman Headley. Despite a yearlong investigation into the Mumbai case, the Indian security system failed to find any trace of the man who carried out the reconnaissance for the Mumbai attack. Till alerted by the US, they continued to insist that the terrorists acted alone. In reaction, as it were, officialdom has altered the visa rules to decree that no multiple entry visa holder can enter the country more than once in two months. Just why that two month figure is sacrosanct is not clear. But officials say it is to prevent the likes of Headley from repeating their act. All that the next man to do the reconnaissance has to do is to stay on, finish his work and go back.
Given the threat that the country faces, India does need tough regulations and fool-proof screening systems. But so does it need to show its people and the world that it will not allow itself to be rattled by the terrorist threat. And the first item on its agenda ought to be to ensure that rules and regulations are not knee-jerk reactions, but well-considered and logical steps that will yield an efficacious outcome.
If the Headley visa rule gets the first prize for stupidity, the second prize goes to the prosecution of Green activist Andy Pag, who was arrested for possessing a satellite phone in Rajasthan. Pag, entering through the border in Punjab, did not hide his phone. But because such phones are banned, he has been charged with violating the Telegraph Act.
Why are sat phones still banned in the era of Skype? No one knows, perhaps only those in what has been christened as the Department of Bad Ideas in the Ministry of Home Affairs do. The sat phone was indeed a headache once because we did not have the ability to intercept conversations through them. But that is no longer so, as evidenced by the fact that another foreigner’s phone call was intercepted in Rajasthan and he was arrested, but happily, unlike Pag, he was let off.
Of course, because if sat phones are banned for you and me, there is no problem for terrorists, including those who were involved in the Mumbai attack and in Kashmir, to use it freely. Neither, of course, are terrorists likely to be discommoded by restrictions on visas; most of those affected will be innocent travellers.

Phones
An even more farcical case has two British plane spotters, Stephen Hampston and Steve Martin in detention and charged with violating an Act that was passed in 1885 when aircraft had not even been developed. Plane spotting is a well known hobby in the developed world and it is not uncommon during week-ends to see people lazing near the airports with scanners and listening on to Air Traffic Control communications with pilots of aircraft. Websites like flightradio.com or liveatc.net can give you, over the internet, the live feeds from scores of airports around the world, even of the so-called sensitive ones like the JFK in New York or the Ronald Reagan airport in Washington DC. Plane-spotting-hotels.com will give you a list of hotels, including those in India which are ideal for plane spotting and specify the rooms that you may like to occupy.
Section 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act, under which the two plane spotters are being charged, basically says that only the government can run a telegraph or wireless in the country. This antiquated act prevented wireless technology taking root in India in a significant way and it was only leap-frogged by cellular technology after over a century. But there have been incidental benefits as well as the following story will reveal.
When, in the wake of the first Gulf War in 1991, cable TV came to India, the government was petrified. It meant that people could receive TV signals from other countries without the ability of the government to interfere. Many well-off people and some five-star hotels put up C-band antennas and people saw the CNN’s coverage of the war first hand. And this was just the beginning. Soon, building blocks and residential colonies got cabled up.
A meeting was convened by the Union Home Ministry to do something about it. Two questions were posed. First, can we jam the signals? The response from the technical specialists present was that it would take a forest of transmitters to do so across India, as well as a good bit of the
electric power generated in the country.
Second, can we block the cable-wallahs? The answer was that the Telegraph Act is silent since the cables do not cross main highways and government land. So, there was no legal device to block the cables. Given the fact that India was also in the midst of an economic crisis, the government just looked the other way and, voila !, the age of cable TV began.
The government came up with the Cable Network TV (Regulation) Act in 1995 and has since then been trying to win back the ground it lost.

Bureaucrats
Given the stringent competition, only the best and the brightest become babus in this country. Many of them now are IIT and IIM alumni. Something happens thereafter to make the bureaucracy inward looking and ignorant. Living in their sarkari ghettoes, the officials become pompous and detached from the people and are impervious to learning through the so-called mid-career courses they are put through. Chidambaram’s guidance of the Home Ministry has shown why it is important for specialists to be guided by the good politicians.
He has already outlined the need for the Ministry to shed a great deal of its historical baggage and focus on internal security in all its dimensions.
But now he needs to ensure that he is able to get a set of officers and specialists who have an educated and sophisticated understanding of security, and are able to meet its increasingly complex demands.
This piece appeared first in Mail Today March 4, 2010

Who is afraid of Cold Start ? Certainly not Pakistan

At the end of December last year, Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor’s told a closed-door seminar at the Army Training Command in Shimla that not only did India have to prepare for a two-front war, it had to firm up the “Cold Start” strategy of launching a number of quick and simultaneous shallow hard-hitting offensives, presumably against Pakistan “under a nuclear overhang”. Brave words and an interesting strategy, but the problem is that not only is it dangerous, it is actually some way from even being implementable.
But that has not stopped Islamabad from cashing in on what its Foreign Office claimed was a revelation of India’s “hegemonic and jingoistic mindset”, one that was out of touch with present-day realities. Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani has declared rightly that the proponents of conventional warfare in a “nuclear overhang” were charting “an adventurous and dangerous path, the consequences of which could be both unintended and uncontrollable.” The thing he did not point out was that the new Indian doctrine was the response of a country frustrated by its inability to deter the Pakistan Army from using proxies to launch horrific terrorist attacks. In other words, the Pakistan Army’s own criminal support for terrorism was breeding instabilities that are inherent in the Cold Start doctrine.



What began as a criticism of Cold Start has now fed into Pakistan’s complex regional strategy to outflank India on Afghanistan and come out tops with the United States. In mid-January, the National Command Authority meeting to mark the deposition of President Asif Zardari and take-over of the body by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, declared the “offensive doctrines like Cold Start… tend to destabilise the regional balance.”
Its origins lie in the thinking on limited wars by Indian generals in the wake of Pakistan’s Kargil operation. The reasoning as the then chief of Army Staff General Ved Malik noted, was that if Pakistan could launch an offensive operation against India despite the threat of nuclear war, the Indian Army, too, needed to find out that space in which it could conduct operations without its degenerating into a mutually destructive nuclear exchange.

Politicians
These ideas were layered over by another experience. In 2001, in the wake of the attack on the Parliament House by terrorists, the government authorised the armed forces to strike Pakistan. However, by the time the army mobilised, nearly a month later around January 9, 2002 or so, the western powers had sufficiently twisted Pakistan’s hands and in his January 11 speech, President Pervez Musharraf announced a limited crackdown on terrorist groups and declared that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist acts against other countries.
By the time the Mumbai attack took place, in November 2008, the Army had worked out the theoretical underpinnings of the doctrine through a set of annual exercises along with the other wings of the armed forces. However there are still large doctrinal gaps, such as the lack of integration in operations with the Air Force.
Along with this are three other gaps that ensure that the doctrine remains a paper exercise for the present. The first, and most important, is is the lack of a political imprimatur on the doctrine. For the past quarter century, the armed forces have operated on the political directive that enjoins them to maintain a posture of “dissuasive deterrence” vis-à-vis Pakistan. This doctrine has become outdated ever since India acknowledged the Pakistani nuclear threat, at least since the early 1990s.
But there is no indication that the political class has applied its mind to the kind of political instructions that will be needed to ensure we do have a doctrine that can deter Pakistan’s use of proxies to carry out attacks such as on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and at the same time ensure that its “shock and awe” aspects does not trip the nuclear trigger.

Capabilities
Since there is as yet no political consideration, leave alone actual support for the Cold Start doctrine, the army has not yet begun restructuring its organisation and acquisitions to meet the demands of the doctrine.
We can assume that the integrated battle groups envisaged by Cold Start will be division-sized forces. But how will they be employed and supported? Classically, Indian division commanders will put one brigade in reserve, while committing the other two for the operation, but for Cold Start one would assume that the entire division would be committed to a particular objective and other formations be tasked to support them thereafter.
Therein could lie a problem. The IBGs represent an equivalent of the old Soviet Operational Maneuver Groups (OMGs) to counter which the NATO had developed the concept of Follow On Forces Attack (FOFA) which would isolate the OMGs through attacks using precision guided munitions. Cold Start requires a much higher level of operational skill than has been visible in India, to go by the army’s experiences in the western front in the 1965 and 1971 wars.
At present, India’s corps sized strike forces suffer from severe equipment shortage. According to a briefing to the standing committee of Parliament in December last year, the Army pointed out that its modernisation plans were so far behind schedule that they would meet their current targets only by 2027. This does not convey the real picture which is much more abysmal, especially in relation to plans like Cold Start. The Army’s towed artillery is a quarter century old, two-thirds of its tank fleet comprises outdated T-72s which joined service some 30 years ago. The Army has no self-propelled artillery or attack helicopters, and mobile air defence in the form of Tunguska systems is limited. A Comptroller & Auditor General’s report of 2007 revealed that a serious shortfall in meeting targets is the norm, rather than the exception in the Ministry of Defence.
The Pakistani armed forces leaders have a pretty good idea of India’s capabilities. Yet they persist in seeing a threat where there is none. Of course, they are helped by the tendency of Indian armed forces leaders and defence scientists to boast about their own prowess well before there is anything to boast about.
Pakistan’s own “offensive defence” doctrine is in many ways a mirror image of India’s existing “dissuasive deterrence” doctrine which envisages deep strikes into the adversaries’ territory. What worries Islamabad is that India has decided to break out of the comfortable zone where the ratio between the Indian and Pakistani army capabilities was effectively equal. Even though the Indian Air Force and the Navy had a distinct edge over Pakistan, the lack of integration of Indian combat power had allowed Pakistan to practise its brinkmanship.

Strategy
But, as is evident from the above, Cold Start is, as of now, a paper doctrine. Even if the Indian Army gets political approval, it will be two decades before it can be effectively used. If the past is any indicator, Pakistan is likely to use this period to step up its own military acquisitions and restructure its forces to counter any Indian Cold Start capabilities with their own plans and forces. This would mean a greater militarisation of Pakistani society, with its attendant baleful consequences.
The salient issue, however, is the need for the political leadership to closely work with the armed forces to evolve a strategy to deal with Pakistan. It is not enough to tell the armed forces “to go” as was done in 2001 and considered in 2008. But to work with them on all aspects of a strategy that will deter Islamabad. As the cliché goes, war is too important a matter to be left to the generals.
This appeared in Mail Today February 17, 2010

America is on the path to self-destruct

Hardening of the arteries is a disease of old age. Humans suffer from it, so, apparently, do nations. Broken Britain is one example of a grand nation in its dotage. But what should worry us are the problems of the world’s oldest Republic—the United States of America— which remains, and will do so even in the near future, the world’s greatest power.
The developments in the US are of great concern to India. For the past 10 years, the linchpin of the policy of the governments led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his successor Manmohan Singh has been to use America’s outstretched hand, to get a leg up for India on to the high table of the world’s great powers. In turn, India aligned its policies, be they towards China, Iran, Pakistan or Afghanistan, closely to that of the US. An increasingly dysfunctional US has important implications for the world, but especially so for India. We are already witnessing some of the consequences of this unfolding crisis in the growing incoherence of US policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And this is just the beginning.

Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner during a recent meeting where the President debated healthcare issues with a gaggle of Republicans

In the past year we have seen Barack Obama, The One who was expected to take it out of the free fall begun by George W Bush (with a little assist from Osama bin Laden), come a cropper. His popularity ratings at 47 per cent are at the lowest for any president at this point in his term. The key figures in the polls are revealed by Rasmussen Reports, a tracking poll going back to the day he took office. At the time 44 per cent of the people “strongly approved” of him, and only 16 per cent “strongly disapproved.” Over the past year, the figures have not reversed, but are close enough to that— 27 per cent “strongly approve” of Obama and 40 per cent “strongly disapprove.”
It was always fashionable in Left circles to run down America and see capitalism collapsing at every turn. But the recent performance of the US has been so dismal that some commentators are wondering whether China’s “soft authoritarian” model is likely to prove superior to the market-driven liberal democratic system of the US and the west.

Congress
But why blame the President? The Congress’ approval ratings are abysmal, but in all fairness they have always been low—70.2 per cent disapproval and 22.4 per cent approval. More than the presidency, it is America’s vaunted Congress comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate that needs a fix. The first suffers from the problem of electionitis— all Representatives are up for election every other year. What happens when you are constantly in election mode is something Indians understand well, though the problem here arises from the fact that one or the other state of the Union, or the entire nation is in for elections almost every year resulting in a populist skew to the policies of big parties like the Congress.
Just how the Senate works, or doesn’t, is apparent from the fact that despite having a comfortable majority, the Democrats are hamstrung and need a 60-40 majority to get any work done. The device of filibuster is well known—a Senator or a group of them can speak for as long as they like on any topic, unless 60 out of 100 members vote for cloture. Though the US Supreme Court has said that the rule can be changed by a simple majority, the current rule requires 67 votes for a rule change.
Lesser known, though equally potent is the “hold” through which a Senator, or Senators, can stop temporarily and sometimes even permanently, floor consideration of measures or matters to be scheduled by the Senate.
Last week, Senator Richard Shelby a Republican from Alabama placed a hold, (lifted this week), on all Obama Administration appointments which have to be ratified by the Senate. He was seeking a contract for the setting up of a refueling tanker for the US Air Force and an FBI explosives lab in his state. As Paul Krugman pointed out, the Senate approved the appointment of Martha Johnson as the head of the General Services Administration (the American equivalent of CPWD) after nine months because Senator Christopher Bond, Republican senator from Missouri, wanted to pressure the government on a building project in Kansas City.
Besides institutions, the parties themselves are in questionable health. The Democratic predicament is evident from its massive defeat in its heartland where it lost the seat of the sainted Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts to a Republican neophyte. Suddenly the bottom seems to have dropped out of Obama’s platform.

Parties
The Republicans can take little comfort from the victory considering how deeply they are divided between the rabble-rousing Sarah Palin fans and its conservative wing. Had the divisions been ideological it would be one thing. But the reality is that the divide is based on religious affiliation, race and fixed ideas that may not even have a basis in reality.
Though US parties tend to be election coalitions that take shape during elections, in recent years, the ideological positions within the parties have hardened to a point where they contribute to the political gridlock, rather than resolve it. The problems with the US healthcare system is one such instance. Almost everyone is agreed that the US needs to reform its bloated healthcare system which, if not reformed, will not only deny many Americans healthcare, but also further enhance the cost to the people who are entitled to it. Yet, as the Obama experience shows, there is no agreement on what should be reformed and how.
The dysfunctionality of the US system is most apparent with regard to its fiscal health. The US budget deficit for fiscal 2010 is expected to be $1.6 trillion. Obama has projected a growing economy to argue that the deficit will come down by 2014, but most experts disagree and say that with the current gridlock in the US political system, the situation will, if anything, worsen.
It is not as though the Republicans have any clear strategy to deal with the problem. Indeed, the party did not make much of a fuss when George W Bush decided to fight two wars through public borrowings, and by slashing rather than raising taxes. Given current trends, the US economy will be in far greater trouble by 2020 than it is in today.

China
The US is still the richest and most militarily powerful country in the world, with the best education system you can think of. But China is moving fast to catch up, and doing so systematically across a range of areas. The rise of authoritarian China and the decline of democracy’s great champion America, pose the question (with apologies to Churchill): Is democracy really the least imperfect way to govern people?
Those who argue for democracy have one major point to make—it is a self-correcting system (and less murderous). But the big question that we must confront is whether the ossified arteries of the US will be up to coping with the political medicine required to cure it of its multiple ills.
This article appeared in Mail Today February 11, 2010

What is India, and who is an Indian ?

After decades of lassitude, a battle is being joined. The outcome could be momentous because the goal is to reclaim Mumbai for the country. It has taken a diverse cast of characters — Mukesh Ambani, P Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi, Mohan Bhagwat, and even Baba Ramdev — to vociferously emphasise that Mumbai belongs to all Indians. Now the country needs to determinedly put the Thackerays, who have held India’s premier commercial metropolis to ransom, firmly in their place, in jail.
People will say that Ambani’s all-India business interests are the reason for his stand or that Rahul and Chidambaram are eyeing north Indian votes. Perhaps that’s true, but in the past sixty years the idea of India has been endorsed by the people of the country, as electors who help form governments, soldiers who fight to secure it, entertainers, educators, doctors, pilgrims, tourists and workers who move their skills and labour across thousands of kilometres to enrich a region or an industry.


Diversity is what marks out the Indian nation state from others. Other multi-ethnic and multi-lingual states like the USSR and Yugoslavia have foundered, but the Indian project is flourishing, and getting stronger by the day. By and large the nation is based on political consensus and provides an enormous amount of political freedoms for all its citizens. The Thackerays represent a throwback of sorts, highlighted by the fact that even M Karunanidhi, the product of a one-time secessionist movement, has condemned their approach to Indianness.

Bhindranwale
The controversy had its beginnings in a Maharashtra government requirement that taxi drivers in Mumbai would have to be fluent in Marathi to get licenses. Had this been an administrative measure, you could have questioned its efficacy. But it is a pernicious political gesture, aimed at showing Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in good light with the Maharashtra chauvinists.
Pandering to extremists with a view of outflanking political rivals has an old and infamous history in this country. It was in the 1970s that Indira Gandhi and Giani Zail Singh began to cultivate Sikh religious extremists to embarass the Akali Dal which makes no bones about its connections to the Sikh faith. In 1981, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale of the Dam Dami Taksal was taken into custody for involvement in the murder of Lala Jagat Narain, the proprietor of Punjab Kesri newspaper. But he was released after 25 days, and Giani Zail Singh, then Union Home Minister, declared that there was no evidence against him. It took more than a decade of blood and iron thereafter to set things right again in Punjab.


Something similar has been afoot in Maharashtra for a while and could have similar baleful consequences if not dealt with now. The Congress party has encouraged and condoned Shiv Sena’s breakaway faction, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by Bal Thackeray’s nephew Raj Thackeray. It was the nephew who launched the most virulent attacks against North Indian taxi drivers and then topped it up with an attack on candidates for a Railways recruitment examination. The Congress-NCP alliance government of the state did little to curb the MNS, and the reason for this became apparent in the 2009 state assembly polls, when Raj’s party played spoiler and ensured the return of the Congress-NCP alliance in the state.
After having watched his cousin steal his father’s thunder, Uddhav Thackeray has got into the act and is hurling threats and invective all around. The consequences of pandering to this chauvinism should be apparent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his union government. Not only could the situation make India’s first metropolis dysfunctional, it could lead to terrorist violence of the type that Punjab witnessed in the 1980s. Prolonged pandering to chauvinism has already gained an extremist edge as evident from the activities of the likes of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, both of whom have received vociferous support from the Shiv Sena and the BJP.

Compact
There is a blithe assumption that the India we see today has been immutable through history. Nothing could be further from the truth. The May 1947 appropriately named Plan Balkan would have had the British giving all the provinces of British India—Madras, Bombay, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Central Provinces, Orissa, Ajmer-Mewara and Coorg— an option for independence. Punjab and Bengal would be divided and the Princely States could negotiate with any of the units to whom the British devolved the powers.
Pandit Nehru’s vehement protest led to the last-minute cancellation of this plan and the acceptance of the simpler Partition scheme. The present boundaries of India may be the outcome of Partition, but it was the Congress-led interim government team of Nehru and Sardar Patel which deftly wove together the crazy quilt pattern of British India and the nearly 600 Princely States into the nation we celebrate today.
But the glue that has kept the country together is the Indian Constitution that came into force on January 26, 1950. By declaring India to be a sovereign, secular and democratic republic, it enabled people of all faiths and communities to be a part of India. Minus the commitment to secularism, for example, six states—present day Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh— may not have remained part of the country for long.
The founding fathers also wrestled over the issue of the federal and state rights. In its size, India is not only as large as western Europe, it is probably more diverse. On the other hand, the received wisdom from nationalist historians was that every time India had been divided, it had been overwhelmed by foreign invaders. So the founding fathers put in place an oxymoron—a unitary-federal nation state. In other words, a federal constitution with a strong dash of unitary power.

Chauvinism
In the last sixty years, the politics of the country has seen a tug-of-war between the Centre and the states. At first the battle was between Congress Chief Ministers and the Congress union government. Later after Indira Gandhi’s supremacy, regionalism became a means of challenging Congress supremacy. In the 1990s, caste and religion were thrown into the equation and the country’s polity was even further divided.
By itself, there is nothing wrong with regional parties, even strongly regional ones like the DMK. But there is a problem when regionalism degenerates into chauvinism. In Tamil Nadu this tendency is only visible at the fringes of the Dravidian movement today which argues that the interests of Tamils world-wide trump those of the Indian state. In Maharashtra the chauvinists are also approaching a similar conjuncture and that is why it is important to confront the Thackerays and politically destroy their pernicious spoiler role in the politics of the state.
This is an opportune moment because Bal Thackeray is in his dotage and his son and nephew are divided. Unfortunately, the unbridled and unprincipled three-way competition between the Congress, the NCP and the BJP has provided the space for the Thackerays to flourish.
Having helped to shape the character of the Indian Republic at the outset, the historical responsibility of confronting this threat has once again devolved on the Congress party. India today stands at the threshold of transformation. The coming decades represent perhaps the last opportunity to destroy the monster of poverty and deprivation that have dogged this country in the past three centuries.
But to reach out to our destiny, we need to, once and for all, settle the issue of what is India, and who is an Indian.
This appeared in Mail Today February 5, 2010

A wimpish Republic Day show reveals a failure of the UPA

The media reactions to our 61st Republic Day parade have been purblind: “The nation once again displayed its armed might” has been their theme. You would have had to look really hard to see any “armed might”, and that was not just because of the fog. Never in recent memory has there been a parade as wimpish as the one we witnessed on Tuesday. A light fighter and a missile system still in the development stage, two Arjun tanks of somewhat questionable ability, two Russian-origin multiple rocket launching systems, a couple of infantry combat vehicles and an invisible flypast of two fighters and a tanker about summed up the armed might on display, if you discount the ceremonial marchers.
Other countries also have military parades—France, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and China to name a few. Since they are about the military, they do them well. The French combined the ceremonial and the practical in the parade last July where an Indian contingent also featured. The Chinese celebration of their 60th anniversary was designed for shock and awe and it did achieve its purpose.


In its essence, the Republic Day parade is meant to be a military show. The floats and the marching children are meant to be an adjunct to it. The show of military might is meant to evoke awe in adversaries and provide reassurance to the citizens of the country who look on. Tuesday’s parade, admittedly washed out by the fog, did neither. The news that the tricolour was not hoisted at Lal Chowk in Srinagar only underscored that image.
What would it have cost the country to have put a squadron of T-90S tanks, some towed artillery (because the mighty Indian Army has yet to acquire a real self-propelled gun) and a few more BMPs ?

Antony
Actually, the de-rating of the military component of the parade is only a metaphor for the larger message coming from the Congress-led UPA government: The armed forces are an inconvenient necessity, a financial encumbrance on the nation. This is the message that has resonated since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru and its central theme has been that government policy is aimed at conflict avoidance, not deterrence through strength.
At another level, it is not surprising that there was little displayed, because the country has not acquired anything new in recent years to display. The last artillery guns bought were 20 years ago, the self-propelled guns are yet to be bought, as is the case with new attack helicopters, light-weight howitzers and so on. It is also significant that it was the DRDO which displayed the Agni and Shaurya missiles and the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft; because these are still products under development. It would have been significant if this equipment had been paraded by the services. In all likelihood, the missiles in question were probably full-scale models, rather than the real thing that Pakistan and China are wont to parade.
A great deal of blame for this state of affairs must fall on Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony. His leadership of the department since 2005 has been uninspiring, if not downright disastrous. His sole aim, critics say, is to preserve his image as “St Antony”, the honest. So, no major defence acquisition has been finalised in his term as yet.
Antony’s two big failures have been, first, his inability to carry out the much needed deep reforms in the organisation of the armed forces; and second, to set in place a proper defence acquisition policy. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) came up with one policy in 2005, revised it in 2006, 2008 and again revised it last October. The problem with any policy is the bureaucratic culture of the MoD and the stranglehold that the DRDO and the Defence ordnance and public sector units have on it. The result is the strange contortions that occur when Tata and Ashok Leyland trucks are bought as knocked down kits and assembled in overstaffed ordnance factories.
The offset policy—where a foreign vendor is committed to invest or spend 30 per cent of the value of the contract in India—sounds nice, but is not easy to implement.
For example, the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, the only defence public sector unit in aviation, will receive offsets worth $0.5 billion per annum for ten years from the MMRCA fighter programme. But can a company whose annual turnover is $1.5 billion absorb that sum?
The task of channeling offsets in the desired direction of promoting the indigenous defence industry is challenging and complex and requires the kind of skill and flexibility that the MoD lacks.
As it is, its cavalier treatment of foreign vendors is leading to a great deal of heartburn. Take the case of Singapore Technologies Kinetic (STK). The MoD imposed a ban on it and seven companies after the May 2009 arrest of Ordnance Factory Board Chairman Sudipta Ghosh on corruption charges. The company was the only bidder left for the new generation towed howitzer. This month the MoD lifted the ban to allow the gun to participate in trials, but it has refused to lift the ban on STK’s Pegasus 155mm ultralight howitzer needed by our mountain divisions. The result is that there is only one vendor left—the American BAE Systems M777. STK has actually had the ignominy of having its Pegasus gun sent for trials in 2008 seized and put in army “custody.”
Another instance, this time the fault of the Finance Ministry, relates to the Indian Air Force. The MoD approved the IAF’s choice of the Airbus 330 to replace the Russian Il-78 as flight refueling aircraft. But the Finance Ministry deemed the choice inappropriate because of the cost. The argument that the Airbus had lower life-cycle costs because of its more sophisticated engine and systems did not wash.

Urgency
The Mumbai attack brought home to the UPA the need to strengthen the internal security mechanism of the country. Indeed, till the shock of the attack, the UPA government was carrying on with business-as-usual despite a mounting crescendo of attacks. Since then, a tough Home Minister has begun the process of overhauling the internal security mechanism.
Will it take another Kargil-like shock to do the same with regard to external threats ? There is nothing that the UPA has done in the past five years to suggest that it is taking serious note of the rising challenge, especially from China. Yes, there are plans and projects in the pipeline, but there is no sense of the needed urgency. No effort has been made to reform the armed forces organisation, recommendations of the NDA government on creating a Chief of Defence Staff to begin the process of integration of the armed forces have been ignored.

Demonstration
Acquisitions remain on a slow track. The situation is not dissimilar to the manner in which the Congress-led government handled the pre-1962 situation. Then, as now, there were important plans to establish a domestic arms industry, many plans and projects that fructified only after the war.
There are people who will argue that the Republic Day military parade is an anachronism for a peaceable, democratic republic like ours. In that case, it would be a good idea to drop the military portion of the parade altogether and celebrate the occasion like July 4 in the US, with citizen parades and fireworks. But keep in mind that India does not live in the peaceful neck of woods that the Americans do.
This republic confronts multiple threats from enemies within and without. One major military parade in a year has the value of saluting our armed forces who lose hundreds of lives every year in defending the country. It also has the not inconsiderable purpose of warning adversaries and reassuring citizens. The US does not really need to demonstrate its power. We do, at least, on occasion.
This appeared first in Mail Today January 28, 2010