A blow to national interest

In journalism there are dividing lines that define when a news report informs, analyses, titillates or sensationalises. But there is just one line which separates a report which serves national interest from one which does disservice to it.
The report in a national daily, which talks about the movement of two crack Indian Army units towards New Delhi on the night of January 16, not only makes unwarranted conjectures, but in the process, damages the body politic of the country.

 

Indeed, what the report reveals is not that the Army had planned some bizarre show of force or a coup, but the terrible state of civil-military relations in the country which led the civilian establishment to fear the worst. Somewhat too cleverly by half, the news report itself does not use the 'c' word, even if its reportage, and the unprecedented display of the story, points to that direction.
It does note that on January 16th the Army Chief General V.K. Singh had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Ministry of Defence view that his date of birth was May 10, 1950, not 1951, as he had claimed. The infirmities of the account are obvious.
It is possible that the Army units were where they should not have been without prior notification.
But from there to leap to a conclusion that led to the issuing of a terror alert to slow the traffic on routes to New Delhi, the summoning of the Defence Secretary back to the capital from Malaysia to interrogate the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), points to a cynical exercise of trying to show up the armed forces in a bad light.
Had the Army really intended to do something sinister, they did not need two units moving in from outside. Delhi itself has a brigade plus of combat troops; further there were additional forces that had come in for the Army Day parade on January 15, and the January 26 parade thereafter.
These forces included tanks which are traditionally the core of any military overthrow of power. The report is identical to a news item that was run by rediff.com on March 13. All the facts are there relating to the movement of the forces from Agra towards Delhi, en route to Hindon, including the detour to pick up weapons and missiles from Bharatpur.
But the rediff account says that the aim of the exercise was 'to understand real-time problems they [army's parachute and armour units] may encounter because of both fog and traffic,' in the winter months in northern India. But the newspaper account of Wednesday, which speaks of the Prime Minister himself being informed at the crack of dawn on January 17, has an entirely different, sinister connotation.
More than anything else, the report does great disservice to the Indian armed forces, and it is probably designed to do that. In the context of the fierce 'war' being waged with regard to the age of the chief of army staff, the lack of preparedness of the armed forces and the charges of corruption in defence deals, the news item seems aimed at checkmating the armed forces.
By purporting to show the Army as an unreliable, and possibly dangerous, entity, the report undermines the calls for better integration of the civil and military leadership in the MoD.
Among the countries of the Third World, the Indian Army has a sterling reputation for being apolitical and loyal to the Indian state and Constitution. Indeed, only once in India's millennia old history is there an instance of a military coup-when Pusyamitra Sunga, the commander-in-chief, assassinated the last Mauryan emperor, Brhadratha in 185 BC.
Of course, we don't count Pakistan here. The real 'villains', as it were, are two writers. Humphery Evans wrote a glowing biography of the then Indian Army chief K.S. Thimayya titled Thimayya of India: A soldier's life in 1960. Welles Hangen penned a book After Nehru Who?
in early 1963, wherein he included Lt Gen B.M. Kaul as one of eight potential successors. With military men being written of in this way and the example of Pakistan next door, the Indian deep establishment-the IAS steel frame and the Intelligence Bureau who see themselves as the guardians of our Constitution-were in a blue funk. The crisis arose when Pandit Nehru passed away in May 1964.
Gen J.N. Chaudhry, the army chief had been a witness to the chaos during Mahatma Gandhi's funeral in 1948. So, in anticipation, he ordered the movement of some Army units to assist crowd control on the day of Panditji's funeral.
This was enough to trigger a panic in the IB and the civilians of the MoD. In 1987, this establishment poisoned Rajiv Gandhi's mind against the Army when they accused it of making unauthorised movements on the Chinese border in Exercise Chequerboard. But the Army was able to remind the PM that the Cabinet had authorised the movements as part of another operation and that the civilians had lost track of the order.
Sadly, years of loyal and disciplined service do not seem to have mattered to our deep establishment.
The events of January 2012 are not simply a farcical repeat of the 1964 alarm, they actually reveal the sick depth of the distrust of the armed forces that still prevails in the civilian bureaucracy of the country.
The ugliest fact that emerges from the story is that most badly kept secret- that the IB maintains an elaborate lookout system to track the units of the Indian Army in a 400 sq km zone around New Delhi.

Mail Today April 5, 2012

UPA government must act against V K SIngh immediately

On a day when the country ought to have put its best foot forward as the host of the BRICS summit in New Delhi, we have had, instead, a comedic show where the Army chief tells the world how ill-prepared for war his army is, and the defence minister bemoans the leakage of a top secret communication. W

We are truly the jokers of the BRICS grouping. The latest in the long-running theatre to which General Singh has taken the august office of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) is the leaked letter he wrote to the prime minister on March 12, talking of enormous obsolescence in the Army, and the shortage of vital ammunition and supplies.
The letter has almost certainly been leaked from the army chief's camp. This is evident from the barely concealed, but hapless, anger with which Defence Minister A.K. Antony told a bemused Parliament that publishing "secret communication within government cannot serve our national security."
It is evident, too, from the frustration of members of Parliament, several of whom have openly questioned General V.K Singh's motives. Sitaram Yechury somewhat obliquely declared that the government must act against the leakers and act against them, "irrespective of the position they may hold in the defence forces or the civilian administration."
Ram Gopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party was more pointed. General Singh, he said, was "talking too much," while Shivanand Tiwari of Janata Dal (United) was forthright in demanding that the Army chief should be "removed from his post".
This was echoed by Lalu Prasad Yadav who, too, called for his dismissal. Such comments are highly unusual for politicians who hold the institution of the COAS in high regard. It is difficult to believe that Gen Singh is not working to a plan. 

Position of power: Singh has claimed that the Army are not prepared for any forthcoming battles

His carefully engineered petition to the Supreme Court demanding an amendment to his date of birth came apart when the court indicated in February that it was inclined to side with the government.
At that point many of his supporters thought that he would put in his papers, but clearly, the General had other ideas. The letter of March 12, in succession to another he had written to the Defence Minister in January, came shortly after the government announced that Lt General Bikram Singh, would succeed Singh as the COAS. V.K.
Singh has long believed that it was on behalf of Bikram Singh that he had been made to eat humble pie by his predecessor General Deepak Kapoor. On Monday, General V.K. Singh took the field himself through two interviews to the media with the charge that in 2010 he had been offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore to pass the purchase of 788 Tatra trucks.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister A.K Antony confirmed to Parliament that he had indeed been told by Singh that a retired officer, Lt General Tejinder Singh, had visited him in 2010 and offered him a kickback. The minister said he asked the Army chief to take action, but General Singh said he did not want to pursue the matter.
In an interview on Tuesday, General Singh claimed that the offer of the bribe did not prompt any follow up action on his part other than to complain to the Defence Minister because, "It was not like he was giving me bribe in my hand. This was an indirect method and that is why no arrest was made."

Leaked: A.K Antony admitted that he had been told about the alleged allegations

It is strange that General Singh felt that the offer was direct enough to warrant a complaint to the Defence Minister, but too indirect to require that the CBI be informed. The sad victim of the tragicomic drama being played out is the country itself.
Of course, it is no secret as to how poorly off we are with regard to the readiness of our armed forces. In January 2009, in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack, MAIL TODAY had run a series of articles pointing out just how unready the Army was to act against Pakistan.
There were shortages of artillery shells, tank ammunition, air defence guns, trucks and tanks. In a presentation to the Standing Committee of Members of Parliament on Defence in 2011, the Army itself acknowledged that in terms of armour, the country's preparedness was 71 per cent, combat helicopters (17), mechanised infantry (62), artillery (52), air defence systems (44), engineers (60), infantry (65), and Special Forces(69) and that full modernisation could be achieved only by 2027.
It would be interesting to see how much General V.K. Singh was able to dent this problem during his tenure as COAS. The fact that he was shooting off letters to the Defence Minister and the PM indicates that he is more interested in muddying the record.
There can hardly be any doubt that the morale of the armed forces has been affected by the issue being played out in public. The spineless handling of the situation by the government has been all too apparent.
The issue is not who is right, but the perception that a man in uniform is mocking at the civilian government, and that should never be acceptable in any democracy, anytime.
How much more damage can the lame duck chief do to the credibility of the government? They probably don't have the faintest idea.
General Singh is clearly a frustrated man and is now beyond all concern for the institution that he heads, leave alone the interests of the country he serves. It is too late to sack him, but the government could well consider sending him on compulsory leave pending retirement.

Mail Today March 29, 2012

Henry Kissinger interview

I have had a couple of conversations with Henry Kissinger in the past weekend. Always found him lucid and hard-headed even at 89. This is the only one for the record. 

According to the arch-priest of US foreign policy, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,  an India pursuing a policy of “strategic autonomy” is the preferable option for the United States.

He was clear that the India-US relationship “ should not be conceived as a military relationship but a political and economic relationship [where] each side looks at its security interests, but they do not have to be merged in a common structure.”

Speaking to the Mail Today in an interview on the sidelines of the India Today Conclave that ended on Saturday, Kissinger said “ I think that India should pursue its own perception of its national interest. And I hope that key issues we (India and the US) can find a parallel policy.” He went on to add that cooperation was “ most effective if both partners pursue policies based on their own convictions.”

In this context Kissinger said that he was leaving India with “really warm feelings.” He said the  people he spoke to “spoke with characteristic articulateness but in an atmosphere of friendship and with a positive view of the future that was very inspiring.” 

Asked to explain his concept of parallel policies and whether they could converge, Kissinger noted that they were already converging in many areas. He explained his parallel concept by noting that “I would like to think that each side following its own convictions leads to results that are compatible and cooperative, and each side should be able to express itself in terms of its own history and own internal structure.”

He said this was not quite the same thing as pursuing national interests and observed that in the American context speaking of national interests was often equated with pursuit of selfish policies. “But that fact is that statesmen have to calculate risks and opportunities at every stage. They don’t have the right just to follow their own ideas regardless of consequences. Ideally the national interests should include values that are universal. But when you have responsibility for the future of your society, you cannot just entrust them to idiosyncratic ideas. So in this sense [you can talk of ] national interests, not in the sense of power, selfish calculations.

In response to a question about  a London School of Economic Study which said that India could never become a world power because of its many internal problems, the former US Secretary of State said that he was personally very optimistic about India. “My impression of the leadership I know in India is that it is very capable and thoughtful.” He said that he compared to the India that he had seen in the 1960s, India had made an enormous amount of progress. Even so, he said he would not like to belittle the enormous challenge India confronts in moving “from an agricultural society to an industrial society [which] has been a huge problem everywhere. He said he was confident that India would overcome the challenges, even while conceding that “there are going to be difficult periods.”

Asked to comment on when political reform was likely to be initiated in China, Kissinger, who has had an abiding interest in the Middle Kingdom, was emphatic that things would happen sooner rather than later. “I think the beginning of this is going to happen with the change of administration (at the end of 2012 and beginning 2013).” He envisaged that initially, there would be an emphasis on more transparency, more accountability. “From my observation of the Chinese leadership they are thinking hard and constructively on how to do it.” He noted that India, with a comparative population and size could well understand the dimensions of the task.

When  asked whether or not his realist framework would argue for an inevitable clash between the US and China, Kissinger took on a professorial air in expounding his critique of how realism was being mechanically applied here.

He said that conventional theory of realism would argue that there would be a clash,  but “realism would also teach you that if this clash pushed to its ultimate conclusion, then there will be no victor and it will end up with the exhaustion of both societies .”

In his view this was the realistic approach to foreign policy. “The other approach that mechanically goes to confrontation.” He said that this was also part of his debates in America where he differed “from those  who think we must treat China like the Soviet Union. If that becomes necessary it would have been a failure of realistic policy.”

When it came to Pakistan Kissinger was somewhat restrained. In response to a question on how we could deal with Pakistan, he noted that there was a great deal of frustration with Pakistan in the US. He hopes that a way would be found that Pakistan and India “which have so many cultural connections [would]  reconcile enough to deal with their common problems.” He said this may not be easy or look feasible at this juncture, “But this is something that must be resolved by India and Pakistan, not something in which we can play a major role, except extend our goodwill to both sides.”

Mail Today March 19 2012

Rahul had no traction over the UP voter

The one clear indicator that marks the extent of Rahul Gandhi’s failure to make a dent in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is the poor showing of Congress candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, the Gandhi family pocket boroughs. Since 1977 when Sanjay Gandhi made a failed attempt to capture its Lok Sabha seat, Amethi has been mainly held by the Gandhi family. Rae Bareli’s antecedents are even older since Feroze Gandhi won the seat in the very first General Election in 1952. Currently, Rahul Gandhi is the MP from Amethi and Sonia from Rae Bareli.
But in the recent state assembly polls, the Congress won just two of the 10 assembly segments that constitute the two Lok Sabha constituencies, and even stalwarts like Amita Singh, wife of former Amethi MP, Sanjay Singh, came second. In four of these constituencies, the Congress nominee came third. Had there been a wave against an incumbent government such a loss would have been understandable. But the Congress has, even if marginally, actually improved its overall position in the state.

Defeat
No, this was a defeat of the Gandhis, plain and simple. These were the constituencies which were the special focus of Priyanka Vadra, who is more of a natural politician than her brother. In fact on February 13, at a rally in Rae Bareli, Ms Vadra had declared that “we will get 10 out of 10 seats in my home area.”
The rejection of the Gandhi brand, is a major development which could influence the course of Indian politics in the future. The question in many minds is: Why? Just why have the voters been so unkind to India’s first family? All of them  put in considerable efforts in the campaigning and because of them, the Congress effort in the UP elections did not want for funds or, as Sonia Gandhi put it in another context, leaders.
The reason seems to be that
Mr Gandhi and Ms Vadra did not appear as credible figures to the UP electorate which has changed and is changing in recent years. Neither of them make any bones about the fact that they live in Delhi and use UP as a political playground. They periodically foray into the state and expect that their aura will do the rest. While the average voter is, no doubt, awed by the Gandhis, he or she also sees them as alien figures who do not touch their everyday lives. By way of contrast, there is Akhilesh Yadav, a boy who grew up in the state, went to the local school in Saifai, later military school in Rajasthan, and who married a local Lucknow girl. Instead of showing up in UP in publicised visits from his MP’s residence in Delhi, he spent long stretches of time in the state traveling extensively on bicycles and his Kranti Rath caravan, systematically rejigged the party organisation and revitalised it by leading protests against Mayawati’s rule through 2010 and 2011.
Another factor seems to be that none of the issues that Rahul seems to take up ever has a clear outcome. Nothing came out of visits he made, such as the one to Medhki village near Jhansi in October where he ate dinner at a Dalit’s house, also holding a chaupal where there was a discussion on issues like the availability of water, power and fertiliser.

Delivery
His dramatic Bhatta Parsaul foray last year, too yielded nothing—the Congress candidate lost to the candidate of the Bahujan Samaj Party, whose government  was accused of all manner of atrocities there by Rahul and others. People complain that there is only hype that accompanies his visits, no substance.
The third reason for Rahul being unable to gain traction in the state lies in the very style of Congress politics. The party seems to believe that people want doles, rather than opportunities to better their prospects. Instead, to paraphrase social scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta, voters prefer empowerment over patronage.
The Congress strategy seems to be to spell out a string of sops which they think will attract the voter. In the case of the recent elections, one of the sops was the 4.5 per cent quota in central jobs for the minorities, and the promise of 9 per cent reservation for Muslims within the existing 27 per cent quota for the OBCs. As the results showed, the Muslim community was not too impressed and voted in large numbers for the Samajwadi Party.

Rootedness
In all fairness, some of these issues are beyond Mr Gandhi’s control. It is too late for him to develop a sense of rootedness in the state. In fact, many would say he is not rooted in Delhi either, staying as he does in a cocooned atmosphere and interacting only with a select group of friends and cronies who frequently holiday abroad. Where friends and the extended family play a major role in the life of an average Indian, the Gandhi family seems to be a unit unto itself with seemingly little interaction with its larger Indian kin group. In great measure this is the outcome of the multiple tragedies the family has suffered—Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassinations. But the family needs to compensate, rather than wallow in this.
But where Mr Gandhi can change things is in the approach of his party. He needs to abandon the feudal Indira and Sonia Gandhi approach of giving doles to the people, and instead focus on the politics of empowerment where people are provided opportunities to overcome poverty and illiteracy to better themselves, rather than be handed food, jobs, health care and education as patronising sops.
Rahul has been suitably humble and forthright in saying that “this (the election defeat) has been a very good lesson for him.” If the learning process is genuine, there is no doubt that defeat can be turned into victory. It would be foolish to write off any politician in India; ask Mayawati, who virtually termed Mulayam as the dead man walking, after the SP’s defeat in the 2007 state assembly elections.
Mail Today March 15, 2012