Delhi police: Handmaiden to powers that be

The arrest of JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar for sedition, and its accompanying fallout is now descending into a tragicomic farce. The tragic happened on Monday when BJP party men and lawyers attacked JNU students at the Patiala House courts, reportedly with the police standing by. The comic happened on Saturday when seven students belonging to a theatre group were detained and interrogated in New Delhi, allegedly because they “looked like” JNU students. They were taken to the Parliament Street Police Station and let off later in batches. More than the alleged charges of abetting terrorists, the degeneration of the Delhi Police into a partisan body bodes ill for the future.

Leave alone reflect on issues, the police leadership has shown a marked tendency to adopt a completely partisan position on them. This is evident from the promptness with which the police arrested the JNU Students Union president on the basis of a complaint by a group of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students. Anyone with even the faintest acquaintance of Indian politics would know that Kumar, an activist of the All India Students Federation, close to the Communist Party of India, is unlikely to make common cause with any group of separatists. The AISF has been staunchly mainstream and has been a strong backer of the government on issues relating to separatism, unlike its cousin the Students Federation of India which has a nuanced stand supporting states’ rights.

Not surprisingly, the Patiala House incident was dismissed as “minor” by Delhi police chief B S Bassi, who has remained centre-stage in this whole affair. On Sunday he said that a Delhi Police alert based on a tweet allegedly from Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was issued to warn students to stay away from “anti-India” slogans.” The tweet on an account @HafeezSaeedJUD, spells Hafiz as “Hafeez”. Analysing the tweets, Praveen Swami pointed out in the Indian Express that it was not networked with other Jamaat ud Dawa accounts and that the @HafizSaeedJUD account had been suspended earlier along with some other accounts by Twitter.

Now, Bassi says that even a fake tweet merited attention because it was “sinister.” The uncharitable thought comes to mind that Bassi retires at the end of the month and has expressed his willingness to serve the nation even after retirement, if called upon to do so. As police chief, he would have served his office better by educating the public on the manner in which social media can be manipulated, rather than using a patently fake tweet to threaten students.

This is not the only controversy that has marred his term. At the end of last month, they were allegedly involved in bashing up a group of students protesting Rohith Vemula’s suicide in front of the RSS office in central Delhi. The brutal beating became public when a video showing some policemen, possibly, plainclothesmen beating up the students. Bassi says he has ordered a probe. A BJP-friendly daily next day showed pictures of police personnel who were allegedly injured by the students. So you can imagine where that inquiry is headed.

One feature that would be of keen interest to any police organisation that had a modicum of professionalism left, is to note how the social media is being used and manipulated to stoke protest. In the process tweets are being faked, and possibly video footage. It is unlikely that Kanhaiya Kumar was shouting any slogans in support of Afzal Guru, leave alone those allegedly calling for the destruction of India. Likewise a video purporting to show some ABVP activists shouting Pakistan Zindabad (Long live Pakistan) seems to be equally improbable.

These events have transpired in a university that is extremely small and diverse. But should this be repeated in other places and in a different setting, you could have a major law and order problem in your hands.

However, our police refuses to become a professional force and remains a hand-maiden of the powers that be. That suits the politicians and it is they who have consistently prevented any serious reform of the police system to take place. For this the BJP alone is not responsible, all political parties from the Congress to the CPI(M) have used and misused the police for their partisan purpose.

The saddest aspect of the whole situation is a word that will not be understood by our rashtravadi (nationalist) BJP. It is the word “bullying”. Taking on a handful of students and stomping all over them is no great sign of bravery. They show little of it in neighbouring Punjab, where the BJP forms part of the ruling coalition with the Akali Dal, and every now and then there are public functions where slogans in favour of Khalistan are raised, and killers of an Indian prime minister and a state chief minister honoured, yet, we don’t get a peep out of the bravehearts of the party.

Mid Day February 16, 2016

India has bigger issues than a few protesting students

At least when the police hit JNU on that hot summer night in July 1975, following the imposition of the Emergency, they came surreptitiously in the night. This time around their raids have been in broad daylight. 

Then, as now, they came invoking the law of the country. But where the Emergency, howsoever wrong, came through a Presidential proclamation under Article 352(1) of the constitution adopted by free India in 1950, the raid on February 12 to arrest JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was on the basis of a sedition law passed by our colonial masters in 1870. 

Disloyalty 

This was a law drafted by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1833, so there is great irony that a political tendency in this country which constantly inveighs against “Macaulay ki aulad” (children of Macaulay) is today invoking laws that originated with him. 

Sedition cannot be applied to mere words and statements, but only to actually waging war against the state

Not to forget, of course, that “disloyalty” in that law was to the Empress of India who sat in London. 

More than anything else, the incident reveals the immaturity of the ministerial team of the Modi government. 

Where Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has taken the seemingly high road by calling for action against anti-national elements, his HRD counterpart Smriti Irani has taken the low one, claiming an insult to an abstract non-legal concept called ‘Bharat Mata.’ 

Both missed the point that, as it exists in the Indian law, sedition cannot be applied to mere words and statements, but to actually waging war against the state or abetting it.

In no way did slogans in favour of Afzal Guru, or even those allegedly calling for the destruction of India, meet that test. 

Indeed, given the very limited nature of the protest, there are no indications that the group of students were inciting the group to attack anyone. 

As for the barbad (destroy), it is used in public protests as a catch-all word like zindabad. So a slogan “x ho barbad”, where x can be the management of a factory, a vice-chancellor, America, Pakistan or whatever, means little. 

The two ministers have no understanding that young students will be volatile, excitable, rebellious, often irresponsible, and always ready to take up a cause. It is up to the government to channel their energies, not use the sledgehammer to swat them out. 

Neither do these ministers have the slightest inkling that dissent is central to democracy, not a peripheral issue. 

Authority 

The Sangh Parivar members, who have been thrust into important positions of authority in the country, are all afflicted with a great desire to exercise their power, never mind the spirit of the constitution and the law. 

You cannot get a better example of this from the Maharashtra BJP government’s September 2015 order that virtually conflates sedition with any attack on the government itself. 

In Gujarat, the BJP government has invoked the sedition law against Hardik Patel, who is leading an agitation favouring reservations for the Patel community for sending messages that use “offensive language against the Prime Minister, the state chief minister and BJP president Amit Shah.” 

This is the same tendency of using power that lead to the suicide of Rohith Vemula after being expelled by the University of Hyderabad. In that case, too, the ABVP which is leading the charge in JNU, was involved, claiming that Rohith had participated in the protest against the death penalty to Yakub Memon. 

Constitution 

What is really under threat is the right of the freedom of speech guaranteed by our constitution. By declaring people ‘anti-national’ or ‘seditious’, efforts are being made to abridge these rights. 

Where in the Emergency, the government invoked a provision of the Constitution to deny the right, albeit temporarily, here the effort is to shape the discourse in such a way that any view contrary to that of the Sangh Parivar becomes seditious. So you cannot oppose Afzal Guru or Yakub Memon’s hanging, and nor can you express contempt for BJP notables. 

Amazingly, this great defence of ‘nationalism’ and ‘nationalist values’ comes from a political ideology which had little role in the national movement that brought freedom to the country. 

At that time nationalism actually meant something, including the hardship of long terms in prison. Today all that it seems to be is a cudgel to belabour your adversaries. 

In the 69 years since India gained Independence, we have been through a lot - separatist movements in the North-east, Kashmir, Punjab and even for a while Tamil Nadu. There were wars, covert and overt, famine, economic distress and so on. 

Today in 2016 we have largely defeated all these challenges and stand tall as a nation. Our real task is the economic transformation of the country at the earliest. We need to get down to dealing with that, rather than get caught in hysterical protests against imaginary enemies.

February 14, 2016

J&K's changing political scenery

Just how much difference an individual makes to a process is abundantly clear from the prolonged inability of the People’s Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party to form a government in Jammu & Kashmir following the death of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. It is apparent now, if it wasn’t earlier, that it was Mufti’s personality and political skills that had kept the unlikely coalition of the PDP and the BJP going. Now that he is no more, they are finding it difficult to connect.

Late J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, his daughter Mehbooba and PM Modi at a rally in November. The PDP went with BJP because of the efforts of Prime Minister Modi and Mufti. However, 10 months down the line, there is an estrangement and for this, New Delhi must accept the major part of the blame. Pic/AFP

On Tuesday, the Governor N N Vohra has called a meeting with both parties to ascertain their views. On paper they are still a coalition and there is no reason why the state needs to be under President’s rule. But behind the drama are longer range calculations of Mehbooba Mufti, the person who built the party with her grit and effort.

Most observers agree that Mehbooba would find it difficult to work with the BJP, but thought that the crisis would come a year or so down the line. But clearly they are wrong, and this also tells us a lot about her filial loyalty since now it becomes clear that she did not see eye to eye with her father on the alliance, but yet she stuck it out till it came to the stage when she had to take the decisions. Perhaps there is something more to the fact that Modi did not find it convenient to visit Mufti while he was in his death bed at the AIIMS in New Delhi.

There is a lot of talk as to the PDP’s unhappiness about the BJP not fulfilling on its promises under their common minimum programme. But PDP spokespersons have been somewhat vague in specifying what these are. In any case, the government is not even a year old and so the coalition partner can hardly be held to account. Word coming out of the PDP last week was that the party was unhappy on a range of issues, from relations with Pakistan to the revocation of AFSPA and development projects.

Actually, all the indicators are that Mehbooba may be readying to stake all in a fresh election, rather than depending on the vehicle of a coalition and, that too, with the BJP. This is evident from her reported remarks following her party meeting last week in which she has spoken of adhering to the “core ideology” of the PDP and going “back to the people”.

In great measure, the current emerging crisis is an outcome of the fractured verdict of the state Assembly election of 2014. In itself, the election was quite unique. For one, it was highly credible, with a 66 per cent turnout, with even some separatist-dominated constituencies seeing an enhanced vote. The PDP, which got 28 seats, was actually hoping to get at least 35 out of the total of 87 seats and make a coalition with the help of a junior partner, perhaps the independents or the Congress.

However, the BJP did spectacularly well and came second at 25, soaking up all the seats in the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu. But it did have the effect of consolidating the Muslim vote, and the National Conference, which was expecting a washout, actually got 15 seats. The Congress got 12, and became the only party to have a presence in all three sub-regions of the state — Ladakh, the Valley and Jammu. In other words, the election also indicated the huge divide that had taken place with two of the bigger winners confined to specific geographic areas — the PDP in the Valley and the BJP in Jammu.

The PDP could hardly ally with the NC, with whom it competes for the Valley Muslim votes. And the Congress was neither inclined to have a coalition with the PDP nor did it have enough seats to make this a stable coalition. In the end, the PDP went with the BJP because of the efforts of Prime Minister Modi and the Mufti. In any case, the stable formula for parties in states like J&K and Tamil Nadu is to go with the party that runs the country.

However, 10 months down the line, there is an estrangement and for this, New Delhi must accept the major part of the blame. Modi has been so busy with his domestic development agenda and his numerous foreign visits that he has had no time to devote to Kashmir affairs. The result is that the issues close to the political heart of the coalition leader, the PDP, remained unaddressed. These were primarily the need for political dialogue between New Delhi and Srinagar of the type that Manmohan Singh had inaugurated. There is a facile assumption that since violence is down in the state, there is no need for any special gesture towards the state. In any case, the BJP has always opposed any special status for J&K. However, realpolitik demands that New Delhi be seen to be addressing the issues raised by separatists, even if it does not actually do anything about them.

Mid Day February 2, 2016

 

China's new model Army

In January 2016, the world of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) turned upside down. This is not the consequence of revolution or coup, but a well-thought-out design to transform the land-centric PLA into a global force, patterned on that of the United States. 

For obvious reasons, this has implications not just for India, but the world. 

Restructured 

On December 31, 2015, Xi Jinping presented flags to the commanders of three new forces of the PLA. Of these, two were essentially restructured and remodelled - the PLA got its own headquarters like the Navy and the Air Force, and the Second Artillery Force which holds China’s nuclear and conventional missiles was redesignated as the Rocket Force. 

 

However the third, the new Strategic Support Force, is brand new and provides pointers to the future evolution of the PLA as a fighting force. 

The goal of the SSF is to prepare Beijing to fight the war of the future, where the weapons will be a computer terminal and space satellites. As a Chinese naval analyst Yin Zhuo pointed out in an article, it will be involved in “targeted reconnaissance and tracking, global positioning operations and space assets management, as well as defence against electronic warfare and hostile activities in cyberspace.” 

An article in People’s Daily said that the researchers of the SSF were focusing on cutting edge technologies such as big data applications, cloud computing, 3D printing and nanomaterials. The new forces are only the tip of the iceberg of the reform process that has gripped the PLA. 

On the block has been its apex headquarter departments - the four general departments of staff, politics, logistics and armament - which have been abolished, and replaced by 15 functional units which report directly to the Central Military Commission, chaired by Xi, which runs the whole show. 

In turn, these 15 units comprise of seven full-fledged departments, three commissions and five affiliated institutions. The new departments are the CMC General Office; Joint Staff office, and departments relating to Political Work, Logistic Support and National defenses Mobilisation.

The new commissions are the CMC Discipline, Political and Law, and Science and Technology Commissions; and the affiliated offices are the CMC Strategic Planning, Reform and Formation, International Military Cooperation, Audit Offices, and the CMC General Affairs Administration. 

Commands 

China’s seven military regions have now been reduced to five “battle zones” or theatre commands. This is of considerable interest to India since it is now “handled” by a single western battle zone, headquartered in Urumqi. 

Earlier operations relating to India were divided by the Xinjiang Military Region headquartered in distant Lanzhou, as well as the Chengdu Military Region headquartered in Chengdu. 

So, a single Chinese commander with all the assets of the Army, Air Force and conventional missiles of the rocket force will direct the battle against four Indian Army commands headquartered in Udhampur, Chandimandir, Lucknow and Kolkata, and three air force commands with headquarters in Shillong, Allahabad and New Delhi. 

Many of the things the Chinese are doing are things we in India have also tried to do. First, remodel the apex management of the system. Currently, our Ministry of Defence is run by generalist IAS officers and there is an urgent need to introduce specialisation here through two means. 

Second, introducing uniformed personnel into the MOD hierarchy, just as they are in the bureaucratic hierarchies of the ministries of defence of other nations. 

Third, creating a cadre of civilian officers who specialise in security issues. Currently, they exercise their power through the blunt sword of procedures by nixing or approving issues over which they have no domain knowledge. 

Recommendations 

India has sought to create a joint staff command under a chief of defence staff and restructure the existing geographical commands into integrated theatre commands. Unfortunately, after beginning with the experimental Andaman & Nicobar command set up through the far-reaching reforms of the Vajpayee government, the system seems to have lost its nerve. 

Recommendations made by the Naresh Chandra Committee have been shelved and the Modi government seems more eager to push defence procurement, rather than carry out the deep restructuring needed to make India’s military a war-winning force. 

The process of reform is never easy, and so it will not be smooth sailing for Xi & Co, but so far they have managed to ram through the key decisions whose implementation will unfold over the next five years. 

But if there is one lesson that we need to learn from the changes it is that whether a democracy or an authoritarian state, change can only be brought about through a process led by the political class. 

That accounted for the success of the reforms in the Vajpayee era, and their failure in UPA-2. We are still waiting to see what the Modi era will bring. But whatever it intends to, it better get going.

Mail Today February 1, 2016