In a World That’s Always Been America First, Trump’s Way May Undermine US Power

So President Donald J. Trump wants to put America first everywhere. There should be no surprise in this. Every leader of every country, presumably, puts his or her national interests first on every issue. This, as the early 20^th century revealed, leads to intense competition – and sometimes war. For this reason, the community of nation states got together to moderate and regulate conduct among themselves, first creating the League of Nations and, eventually, the United Nations.  But even so, there have been countries like the United States which refuse to be regulated and play an out-size role in world affairs.
Without venturing into the controversial nature of the phrase in 1940, even a cursory look at recent US history will demonstrate how things have been ‘America First’ for a long time. The issue is of definition. While US presidents since Truman put forward a broad interpretation of the meaning of the term – where the US assumes the role of a leader – Trump & Co want to put across a hard line, narrower vision.
In ancient Chinese political thought, there is a concept of “all under the heaven” – signifying the rule of an emperor who is supreme, moral and humane and accepted so by everyone. “Hegemony” is the second category of rule which is indeed supreme, but maintains itself so through the obvious exercise of power.
After  the Second World War, the US exercised hegemonic power but was also seen by many as an exemplar of humane authority – a state which was powerful, but also moral in some sense. Its concepts of democracy, trade policy, human rights – though not always evenly adhered to or advocated – had wide acceptance. Its challengers –the Soviet Union and China – never quite managed to move up from the third category, which is that of “tyranny.”
It was a world where America was First. The US shaped the monetary order, its dollars were the world’s reserve currency, its universities dominated the world of the sciences and arts, its popular culture was widely admired and  emulated. There was a lot of US benevolence – the Marshall Plan in Europe, the PL 480 grain supply and economic aid to India, the re-industrialisation of Japan and South Korea – but all this enriched the US and also shored up  a system whose biggest beneficiary was the US itself. The American grand strategy of reshaping the world in its own image was as much an expression of  liberal altruism as a means of securing America and its dominance by creating a world order where everyone lived by rules set largely by the US, with a little prodding from the United Kingdom.
Though the US military was deployed all over the world, there was little doubt that the security of CONUS, or the Continental United States, was its primary concern; American soldiers fought battles in far off lands to ensure that they did not have to fight them in their own. Further, in providing security guarantees for allies in Western Europe and East Asia, the US also checked the ambitions of regional hegemons like Russia and China.
So it is a bit difficult to understand just what Trump’s  America First slogan really means. The US remains the foremost military and economic power in the world today. It is not that other countries have become rich at America’s expense, the US, too, has become richer. It is not that in securing others, the US has not enhanced its own security. It spends more on defence than the next five countries on the list. The problems have arisen when the US chose to fight wars which had no real relation to American security and, in the case of Iraq, were based on fictitious grounds. A contributing factor to the weakening of its economy was the excesses of its own bankers and investment houses, who brought about the 2008 financial meltdown.
These two self-inflicted wounds – both the product of an America First mindset – have brought on a sense of crisis which Trump is massaging.  Even the US could not afford the $2 trillion cost of the Iraq war. Worse was the impact that US unilateralism had on the world order, especially when it became clear that the american intelligence manufactured evidence to justify the war. Its baleful consequences have been evident in the rise of the Islamic State, which Trump now says is the principal enemy.
Trump’s critique of the Washington establishment, of American corporates who have enriched themselves while the middle class and workers have stagnated, is generally accurate. However, it is not just the economic system that has failed a large number of Americans who elected him, but the political system which is dysfunctional.
Take for example, the US Congress. Barely 5-10 incumbents lose an election to the 435-member House of Representatives which takes place every second year. One major cause of this has been the gerrymandering of constituencies. But, stagnation in a key branch of US government has an overall negative impact on the policies of the country. The US Senate moves at a glacial pace on every issue because it has created procedures and processes that require the consent of all all 100 senators to do anything. And, then of course, there is the presidential election system that sent Trump to the White House even though he got 3 million fewer popular votes.
The great US  workers’ unions have been eviscerated with the decline of American manufacturing industry and today even the middle class is fearful that they are entering an era where jobs will be scarce. US hospitals may be the best in the world, but its healthcare system keeps more people out of it than anywhere else in the rich world. US life expectancy is 27th among the 34 industrialised OECD countries. US universities are so expensive that they are losing  their function of being the core of the liberal democratic state.
So, if Trump means that he will reform the political system to make it more responsive to the concerns of the middle class and workers, rebuild its infrastructure and keep special interests in check, the US does indeed have a vast America First agenda. But if it means abandoning allies, tearing up trade treaties and disrupting the international system, America First is a recipe for disaster, not just for the world, but the US itself.
In hindsight, Barack Obama’s presidency was all about seeking to balance issues. He was the one who insisted on pulling the US from Iraq and Afghanistan, minimised the commitment in Libya and refused to get involved in Syria beyond a point. He was able to pull the US from its economic crisis and also sought to build multilateral coalitions on a range of issues from taking on China in the South China Sea to getting Beijing to cooperate in the Paris climate change summit.
Self-created circumstances are making it difficult for the US to maintain its role as being “all under the heaven.” That is why the country appears to be slipping into the lower rung of being an ‘ordinary’ hegemon that will seek to use its raw power to maintain its primacy. Casting itself as a humane authority has meant accepting some constraints on its behaviour but, backed with the power of the American military and economic system, the strategy has been a winning one for the US until now. Trump is now threatening to upend that but if he goes down that path, he will soon realise this is a more difficult role for the United States to assume.
The Wire January 22, 2017

White Paper on Asia-Pacific Security Reveals China’s Regional Ambitions

The paper discusses issues like the Korean nuclear crisis and the South China Sea dispute, as well as ties with the US and India. But it is important to read between the lines to understand the Chinese perspective.

China’s policy white paper on Asia-Pacific security cooperation, its first ever dealing with the region, signals the country’s desire to put its own stamp on the region’s security order. The central thrust of the document, issued on Wednesday, January 11, is security cooperation. The document mentions, but does not dwell, on “hotspot” issues like the Korean nuclear crisis, the Afghan reconciliation process, the South China Sea dispute or, as it is often called, the Senkaku-Diaoyu issue.
Nevertheless, the paper provides a clear outline of the realist basis of Chinese security policy. For instance, it explicitly warns  that “small and medium-sized countries need not and should not take side among big countries.”
India will be happy that it is listed among the “major countries”, along with the US, Russia and Japan, who are, in turn enjoined to “treat the strategic intentions of others in an objective and rational manner, reject the Cold War mentality [and] respect each other’s legitimate interests and concerns.”
This peculiar formulation – coming from a country that has long espoused equality of nations big and small – is eminently practical advice in some ways, with echoes from China’s past.
A retired Singapore diplomat posted a tongue-in-cheek reference from a book by scholar Wang Gungwu. The quote is about the advice Emperor Hung-wu gave to the Srivijaya king of South East Asia in 1392: “should the Son of Heaven become violently angry…This petty little country, by daring to be wilful and refusing to submit, seeks its own destruction.” Earlier the same emperor had in a policy statement told the smaller kingdoms, that “If they do not trouble China, we will definitely not attack them.”
With the US itself knocking out the key foundation of its Asian pivot – the Trans Pacific Partnership – China has gained ground in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia, thus effectively neutralising the ASEAN. This despite China’s humiliation in 2016 when the UNCLOS arbitration tribunal effectively declared China’s extensive maritime boundary claims in the South China Sea null and void.
China’s take on international law
The South China Sea issue appears to be an important influence on the white paper because the Chinese position – which includes a rejection of a mandatory award by the arbitration tribunal in 2016 – runs counter to the theme of the document, which seeks to project China as a country that wishes to “promote rule-setting and improve institutional safeguards for peace and stability” of the region.
So, the white paper insists everyone in the Asia-Pacific should discuss and formulate the international rules for the region.

“Rules of individual countries should not automatically become ‘international rules’ still less should individual countries be allowed to violate the lawful rights and interests of others under the pretext of the ‘rule of law.’ ”

It would appear that China is calling for re-writing established canons of international law, especially the ones that do not suit it.
In any case, to square the circle on the South China Sea issue, China says that countries in the region should resolve disputes peacefully, “sovereign states directly involved should respect historical facts and seek a peaceful solution through negotiation” on the basis of international law and modern maritime law, including the UNCLOS. Essentially, China is reiterating its stand that it is willing to bilaterally negotiate on the South China Sea issue with the various disputants, but will not accept the UNCLOS arbitration award.
Returning to the subject late,r the document declares unequivocally, “China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha (Spratly) islands and their adjacent waters.” It goes on to reiterate that “no effort to internationalize and judicialize the South China Sea issue will be of any avail for its resolution; it will only make it harder to resolve the issue, and endanger peace and stability.”
Much of the white paper is anodyne stuff about China’s desire to promote peace and stability in the region, resolve issues through negotiation, promote the resolution of other “hotspot” issues like Korean nuclearisation, the Afghanistan imbroglio and “non-traditional security threats” like terrorism, natural disasters and transnational crimes. In all this, China would play a lead role, befitting its size, status and interests through its bilateral relationships, as well as through multilateral mechanisms.
What to expect from China’s various bilateral engagements
However, the talk of consensus, cooperation and common security does not mean that China will not act unilaterally, sometimes with military force, to protect what it considers its interests. The best example currently is China’s effort to coerce South Korea into not hosting Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors on its soil – China has refused to approve large consignments of Korean cosmetics, banned highly popular Korean stars from its TV networks and refused to allow Korean airlines to run charters in the coming Chinese new year period. Earlier this week, ten Chinese military aircraft flew in and out of the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone.
Singapore is still reeling from China’s decision to seize nine Terrex infantry combat vehicles which were transiting on a ship from Taiwan to Singapore, but were seized while the ship made port in Hong Kong.
The Chinese see themselves as the US’s successors in the Asia-Pacific region but they are not directly challenging the US-led mechanisms as yet. For the “foreseeable future”, the practical Chinese say outfits like ASEAN-led mechanisms, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and military alliance structures led by the US will continue to operate. What Beijing is seeking is not some new security architecture, instead, according to the paper, “China promotes the building of a security framework in the Asia-Pacific region, which does not mean starting all over again but improving and upgrading existing mechanisms.”
But with US itself waffling on a range of issues, China has to simply wait it out.
The future framework, the white paper notes, should be based on consensus and be “multi-layered, comprehensive and diversified.” During the May 2014 CICA summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new Asian security concept and there was little doubt among observers that the Chinese saw CICA as a possible new regional framework.
The white paper speaks of a possible regional platform that looks at security in its widest form, involving common security for all states large and small, comprehensive security involving both traditional and non-traditional issues, cooperative security through dialogue, and cooperation and sustainable security to focus on development and economic growth for all. CICA, mooted originally by Kazakhstan, does have the widest membership among the Asian regional organisations at present, and meets the other criterion as well. For the Chinese, another valuable point is that the US is merely an observer, not a member.
Again in an ever-practical way, the white paper deconstructs (to the extent diplomacy will permit) China’s relations with the big countries.
With the US, China wants the “new model” relationship mooted in 2013 by Xi which involves non-conflict, non confrontation, mutual respect, including for each other’s core interests and concerns, and mutually beneficial cooperation.
So far the US has not obliged, but the white paper says that their relations are stable and have “made new progress” and have maintained close cooperation and coordination on the Korean and Iran nuclear issues, Syria and Afghanistan.  They also have maintained good military-to-military ties and China has expressed its willingness to “work with the new administration”  on the principles of the new type of great power relations and “to manage and control divergences in a constructive way.
With Russia, China is committed to “deepening its comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination”, which means a level of relationship that India has with the US, and not an alliance. With Japan, the obvious agenda is “for improvement of relations.”

China and India
As for India, China wants to establish “a closer partnership”. The white paper says that since 2015, “China-India strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity has been further deepened.” This is a formulation that many Indians may find difficult to recognise. But it is par for the course of a diplomatic document.
Indians may also not quite recognise that the Chinese commitment to fighting terrorism is as clear-cut as has been made out in the white paper, which recognises that “the region faces severe security and stability challenges posed by violent and extremist ideologies spreading at an ever-faster pace….” So, the white paper makes it clear that China opposes terrorism in all its forms and seeks cooperation in fighting it. Without irony, it declares, “there should be no double standard in fighting terrorism,” but goes on to say, “which should not be associated with any particular country, ethnicity or religion.”
Reading between the lines is mandatory for understanding the Chinese perspective.
The Wire January 14, 2017

'Men in the shadows': How the appointment of Lt Gen Rawat left a bad taste

The Government was well within its rights to appoint Lt Gen Bipin Rawat as the Chief of Army Staff.Even in Pakistan, where the army actually runs the show, the prerogative of appointing the chief rests in the hands of the civilian government.

This is how it should be. But the appointment left a bad taste in the mouths of many after the remarks of Lt Gen Pravin Bakshi surfaced.Taken in conjunction with the controversies that rocked the nation when General VK Singh was Army chief, they are not a good sign for the health of one of the world's largest armies.

New Army Chief General Bipin Rawat after a guard of honour at South Block in New Delhi

Controversies

This should not be seen as a critique of General Rawat; he does not lack anything in comparison to those who he superseded.

But the remarks of Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi, the Eastern Army commander who was superseded, are somewhat shocking.

According to media reports, in a New Year video broadcast to the 3,00,000 men in his command, Bakshi said 'there has been a malicious campaign to smear my name, a very deeply rooted conspiracy' carried out against him by 'men in the shadows.' 

According to reports, in recent months, anonymous complaints were filed to the defence minister against the General, alleging irregularities in procurements in his command.

These were investigated by the Controller General of Defence Accounts and found to be untrue.

The general said he was not resigning so that he could expose these shadow men who, as his remarks implied were from within his own command.

The country has had to face controversy over Army chiefs in the past decade and some have found themselves in deep controversy.

Outgoing chief Dalbir Singh had a discipline and vigilance ban slapped on him by General VK Singh, allegedly aimed at preventing from becoming the chief.

Likewise, Singh, now a minister in the current government, sought to extend his tenure so as to allegedly prevent Bikram Singh from becoming the chief.

A lot of this came out in the open last August, when Dalbir Singh, the then serving chief formally accused his predecessor General VK Singh of trying to stall his promotion 'with mala fide intent.'

In an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, he said that as chief, V K Singh tried to 'victimise him' with the aim of 'denying promotion.'

Grievance

Behind these charges lay an even murkier story relating to the deaths of three informants allegedly by military intelligence officials, one of whom was reportedly close to another former chief JJ Singh who it has been alleged wanted to manipulate the line of succession to deny VK Singh his turn to be chief.

The controversies over the appointment of the chiefs are only the tip of the iceberg of grouses, complaints and grievances that afflict the military.

The government has created Armed Forces Tribunals to take away the pressure of promotion-related complaints from the courts and provide a channel to air grievances.

The appointment left a bad taste in the mouths of many after the remarks of Lt Gen Pravin Bakshi surfaced

But this does not take away the fact that unfortunately, a culture of malice, deliberate manipulation of rules and regulations to promote favourites and undermine the chances of others exists.

You can create systems and rules and grievance redressal processes, but what is needed is a restoration of the ethical culture which the forces used to be so proud of.

The politicians have, by and large, stayed away from the issues relating to promotion after the disaster of the 1962 war.

But the same cannot be said of the MOD bureaucracy or the national security bureaucracy who believe that they are the true custodians of national interest and can and do get involved.

Discretion

In every system, democratic or otherwise, politicians have the discretion of making high-level appointments.

This is necessary to underline the principle of civil control of the military. In the Indian system, there is a tendency to misuse discretion and deep selection, which is actually desirable.

It is for this reason that previous governments decided to appoint the senior-most officer as the COAS unless there was something clearly negative against him. 

In the case of Bakshi and Lt Gen P M Hariz, there was nothing in their career that required them to be superseded. 

The government of the day must have the ability to make a choice. However, it would be helpful if that choice was made transparently and the government does not take recourse to false claims, as they did by saying Gen Rawat was chosen because of his counter-insurgency experience.

CI is a subsidiary part of the Army's job. Its real job is to fight external enemies. 

Perceptions matter a great deal in managing men. For this reason, the government must not only be just, but appear to be so.

Mail Today January 15, 2017

India’s so-called new policy on Tibet is neither new nor effective

When the Sikyong (Prime Minister) of the Central Tibet Administration, Lobsang Sangay, was invited to attend the inaugural ceremony of incoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, many thought that New Delhi planned to re-charge its Tibet card.
Two years later, that initial signal has not quite yielded any new policy. There has been no dramatic meeting between the Dalai Lama and Modi, who has otherwise sought to promote India’s role as the home of Buddhism and who had met the Tibetan religious leader as chief minister of Gujarat.
A meeting between the Dalai Lama and BJP president Amit Shah was cancelled at the last minute last May for fears that it would upset Beijing on the eve of Modi’s visit to China.
Last year also saw another strange episode when the government of India took a last moment decision in April to deny permission to some participants to attend a conference of anti-Chinese activists in Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibet Administration. Among the intended participants was Germany-based Dolkun Isa, an Uighur leader originally from China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, whose visa was cancelled. Though some participants of the conference were permitted to enter India and did hold a meeting, the government claimed that no conference had taken place.
More recently, last October, the government of India approved a proposed visit of the Dalai Lama to the monastery town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh to attend a religious festival in early 2017. The announcement came around the same time that US Ambassador Richard Verma visited the northeastern state and the town, the first visit by a US envoy. Both these events had drawn the usual protests from Beijing, which considers the state to be disputed territory.
In December, the Dalai Lama met President Pranab Mukherjee in Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on the sidelines of a summit titled ‘Laureates and leaders for Children Summit’ organised by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation. While the summit was clearly non-political, it was the first meeting between a serving Indian president and the Dalai Lama in decades.
Almost a week after the event, China expressed its “strong dissatisfaction” at the meeting, but India insisted that the event was non-political and that the Dalai Lama was “a respected and revered spiritual leader”.
If the Modi government is playing its Tibet card it does not appear to be doing so particularly strongly. After all, it was the Manmohan Singh government that first permitted the Dalai Lama to visit Tawang in 2009, exactly 50 years after he had passed through the town on his way from Lhasa in Tibet to exile in India. It was again the Manmohan Singh government that had, since 2010, taken the decision that India would no longer reiterate in joint statements, as it had done till 2005, that Tibet Autonomous Region was a part of China.

A brief history

When it comes to the Dalai Lama, Tibet and Tawang, things are not that simple. Tibet neighbours India and has had historic links with it. It was through Tawang that the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet following the Chinese crackdown in 1959. He was followed by tens of thousands of refugees. India says that it has given refuge to a spiritual leader who is revered in India as well, and that the Tibetans are not permitted to conduct political activity in the country. The Chinese, however, maintain that the Dalai Lama “is a political refugee” who is engaged in activities to split China in the name of religion. Needless to say, this goes against the Dalai Lama’s oft stated position that what he seeks is autonomy for his country, within Chinese sovereignty.
India’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh rests on a tripartite agreement that the British anchored in 1914 between themselves, Tibet and China. While the Tibetans agreed to the McMahon Line, which India says is the border, the Chinese initialled the document but did not sign it.
India’s handling of Tibet has been somewhat contrary. In 1949, Jawaharlal Nehru contemplated aiding the Tibetan rebellion, but the Indian Army quite categorically told him that it was in no position to take on the People’s Liberation Army were there to be a direct clash between India and China. Subsequently, India took up the British fiction that Tibet was a suzerain or an autonomous unit within China.
In the Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai period of the 1950s, the issue was brushed under the carpet. Indeed, Tibetan refugees and residents were told that they should not undertake political activity.
In the mid-1950s, revolts broke out in the eastern parts of Tibet proximate to China. In 1956, Dalai Lama came on a visit to India and expressed a desire to stay on, but was pressured by Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to return. This was the period in which India surrendered its extra-territorial rights in Tibet and recognised that it was a part of China, albeit autonomous. Nehru kept reassuring the Tibetans that he would use his good offices to persuade the Chinese to reduce their forces in Tibet and to deal with them in a better way.
Nothing happened. Indeed, the Chinese stepped up their repression and sought to arrest the Dalai Lama, but a rebellion broke out and he escaped to India, which welcomed him and gave him asylum. This was the time that the Sino-Indian border dispute came into the open and the tensions began to develop between the two countries leading to war in 1962.
It was some time in the mid-1950s that the Central Intelligence Agency of the US established links with the Dalai Lama’s elder brother Gyalo Thondup and began to train small groups of Tibetans. After the Sino-Indian war, India also got into the act and created a force of Tibetans that could be used in a possible future war with China.
As records show, the Central Intelligence Agency assistance was minor, and its primary gain was intelligence gathered by Americans. But the Chinese response was very heavy, with tens of thousands of Tibetans being killed in the futile resistance. The US assistance ceased on the eve of US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1971. As for India, its actions, even the raising of Establishment 22, the special frontier force, was largely defensive.
Looking back at the events, Thondup wrote in his poignant memoir, The Noodlemaker of Kalimpong, published last year,
“The CIA goal was never independence for Tibet. In fact, I do not think that the Americans ever really even wanted to help. They just wanted to stir up trouble, using Tibetans to create misunderstandings and discord between China and India. Eventually they were successful in that.”

China policy floundering

So what does the Modi government hope to achieve through what it calls its “new” policy on Tibet? As it is, its current China policy is floundering – the border talks are going nowhere and the only goal New Delhi seems to have is to persuade Beijing to accept India’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group or allow the proposed ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar in the United Nations to go through.
The danger in the policy of needling China is that India has its own vulnerabilities. In the last couple of years, China has waffled on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir as was indicated by the stapled visa issue, in which Beijing issued stapled, not stamped, visas to Indians from Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh to ostensibly indicate that it questions India’s claims over the two states.
However, as of now Beijing’s official stance remains that it views the status of Jammu and Kashmir as being disputed, subject to a settlement through dialogue between India and Pakistan. This is an unexceptional position adopted by other countries as well. However, if Indian meddling in Tibet did begin to trouble China, it has the option of shifting its stance and coming out openly in support of Pakistan or, worse, recognising a government in exile to pay India back in its own coin.
Clearly, the Tibet card, if one can call it that, has not been a particularly useful one in the past with the Tibetans ending up paying a disproportionate price. Today India’s options are limited since covert operations in Tibet are well past their use by date. Having recognised that Tibet is part of China and having repeatedly stated so in official statements, there is little value in using Tibetan refugees to protest against Chinese rule.
In 2008, hit by economic crisis, perfidious Albion [a pejorative term used to refer to acts of diplomatic duplicity by Britain] decided that Tibet was not a suzerain but sovereign part of China.

Growing Chinese influence

Though China’s harsh response to greater rights for the people in Tibet and Xinjiang appear neurotic and overdone, it remains firmly in control of both regions. Politically, it is China which is pouring money into South Asia – in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Since 2014, the frequency of Chinese submarine sightings in our neighbourhood ports has increased. Indian efforts for a counterpoise through enhancing ties with countries like Vietnam are as anaemic as its allegedly new Tibet policy.
The only hope for change is through developments in China itself where the Communist Party-led authoritarian system is facing challenges of legitimacy. More than agents and armies, what China fears are ideas, and it is more than likely that its present system will be undone by them, just as the Soviet Union was.
As for the Dalai Lama, he is 81 and in good health. But he is not immortal. As long as he is around, the Tibetan cause has a powerful unifying figure and moral authority. But what happens once he is gone?
Those who revere him will lose a beloved leader and the world a moral statesman. India will also lose what it considers an important piece on its diplomatic chessboard. A reincarnation could be found in India, but another one is bound to pop up in China. There is also an alternative endgame where his Holiness could pre-decide his reincarnation, or decide that he will not reincarnate at all. For their part the Chinese, somewhat bizarrely insist that he cannot reincarnate without their permission.
Scroll.in January 10, 2017

BSF Jawan’s Video Has a Simple Message: India Should be Ready to Pay for Security

The Border Security Force constable Tej Bahadur Yadav who uploaded a video complaint about the quality of food that the forces get on the India-Pakistan border is, by the standards of his force, a trouble maker. The BSF may not be misleading us when it says that he has been a difficult jawan all through his 20 years of service because his action in uploading a video is not in keeping with the rules and regulations of either the BSF or any other police force.
But then, he is only the product of a new political culture which has sought to use the military to push their own political agenda.  A popular meme to people who complained about demonetisation or, for that matter, anything else, is to remind them of the difficulties faced by the jawans who guarded the LoC. So instead of pulling up the constable for rank indiscipline, union home minister Rajnath Singh and his deputy Kiren Rijiju are scrambling to defend themselves and declaring their commitment to the welfare of the jawans.




That said, there is need to point out that the lot of the police and paramilitary personnel in this country is indeed a tough one. By the standards of this poor country, the jobs they get are coveted, paying them reasonably well and providing a pension at the end of it.
However, their working conditions, especially when compared to the Indian Army are rough. The CRPF is overused in all manner of contingencies from superintending elections, to fighting Maoists in Chattisgarh and countering militants in Jammu & Kashmir. There is little time for rest and training and often the jawans have to do without their annual leave. All this is despite the fact that the size of the BSF and CRPF continues to grow over the years. In 2004, the BSF was roughly 210,000 strong, today it is 260,000 and the CRPF which was 230,000 in 2004 is now nearly 310,000.
The responsibility for this state of affairs rests squarely with the home ministry and the leadership of the respective forces. It is up to the leadership to tell the ministry that if they want a well-trained, well rested force to be used for internal security duty, they need to tell their ministers the size of the manpower they need to ensure that. Recruiting people and then keeping them on short-leash affects both the morale and effectiveness of the personnel.
The army takes care of its jawans. All soldiers, for example, get two-and-a-half months of leave per annum and their officers make sure that they avail it. Further, the army follows a system of rotation of its units to ensure that between every operational deployment, a battalion is given a “peace” posting where the jawans can enjoy some kind of a family life.
Second, the Indian army rations are not purchased locally, as is probably the case with the Central Para Military Forces (CPMF), but procured and distributed at a more centralised level and the disbursement is, again, generous – a specified amount of meat, atta, rice, dal, eggs and vegetables. There have been scams at the central procurement level, but on the field, the jawan gets his due and his officer has to make sure he gets it. In the army, the failure to ensure that your man is getting his rations and is taking his leave is docked against your record.
The real difference between the CPMF jawan and the Indian Army soldier is the quality of leadership they receive – and that is the root of many of the problems. The young lieutenant who leads his 30-man platoon at the beginning of his career roughs it out with them on the picket on the Line of Control and in patrols along the Line of Actual Control with China. He rises to a company commander, battalion commander and then may go on to command a brigade, a division or an army. And so, even the top-most officers are familiar with the issues and problems of the lowly jawan. He also knows the tricks of the trade that malingerers and trouble-makers may employ, and he is also aided by the tough military justice system to enforce discipline. But he knows that in the end that he may have to lead these men into battle, so it is not discipline alone, but the quality of his leadership that must carry the day.
This is very different from the CPMF, where the senior positions above a DIG are occupied by Indian Police Service officers  who arrive laterally at their command positions with  little knowledge or experience of the field. As it is, the CPMF are often deployed in penny-packets making their command and control difficult.
Rajnath Singh and others may claim they worry about the welfare of the jawans, but in all fairness, the BSF and, especially the CRPF, often get the short end of the stick. The locales of BSF deployment are sometimes extremely trying, but they do not get the standards of ration or leave and rest that army personnel get. As for the CRPF, its jawans have termed the force – with a touch of black humour – the “Chalte Raho Pyare Force,” (Keep Moving, Beloved Force) for their continuously shifting deployments.
All this, of course, pales into comparison to the quality of life of the ordinary civil policeman and policewoman. We are not talking about the caricature corrupt cop, but the ordinary constable who gets little or no facilities of any kind. Housing is often in slums and even police stations lack basic structure or furniture in many cases.
The simple message that comes out from Tej Bahadur Yadav’s complaint, howsoever wrong-headed it was, is that if you want security, you must be ready to pay for it.
The Wire January 10, 2017

Pure red herring

Purity versus pollution have been part of the Indian way of life for millennia, manifested most perniciously in our caste system, which divides people between the highest, who are ritually the purest, and the lowest who are the most polluted. Ritual purity is the feature of many religions, but nowhere has it had the malign impact that it has in India.
Confined to religious and social practice and scientific practice, the concept now seems to have leapt across social and religious practice into the contemporary political discourse. Speaking to the nation on New Year’s Eve, Prime Minister Narendra Modi weighed in, terming the whole demonetisation exercise as ‘a historic rite of purification’ aimed at ridding the society of the ‘badness’ and ‘evil’ that had crept in in the form of corruption, black money and counterfeit currency.
‘Purity’ is fine as a scientific concept, but applied to religious, political, social and economic categories it is troublesome. We often hear of temples being washed after Dalits have entered them, or Dalits being segregated from upper castes in schools, villages and eating places. The ‘ghar wapsi’ movement calling for the reconversion of those whose ancestors had allegedly converted from the Hindu faith is another manifestation of this, as are movements to dictate dietary choices. Most crippling remain the notions of purity applied to the female body, which are the foundation of the poor status of women in our society.
But what is ‘purity’ when it comes to economic development and growth? Modi’s words suggest that it means a society without corruption and an economy where everyone pays his/her taxes. This is perfectly fine as an ideal for a society, but to term them as a sine qua non (essential condition) for economic growth is both ahistorical and fraught with risk.
A glance back at the growth of capitalism will reveal that the industrial transformation of the West came along with crass exploitation, colonialism, robber barons and genocide. Subsequently these countries have cleaned up their act, though instances of corruption and bribe often pop up in countries like Sweden, Norway or the UK. The Chinese version of growth between 1990-2010, too, came with huge corruption, which Xi Jinping is now trying to fix. But wealth came before the cleanup.
Actually, the closest parallel to emphasising ‘purity’ in a society comes from the failed socialist experiments ranging from the utopians like the Saint-Simon or Robert Owen and the Marxist-Leninists. Indeed, in their zeal, the latter committed even greater crimes in pursuit of that ‘pure’ ideal called communism. There is, of course, our own version of a pure society in Ram Rajya, which is entirely mythical.
With the decline of communism, almost everyone agrees that some form of capitalism is the best means of economic progress. ‘Pragmatism’ in policy is the key word – once a goal is identified, appropriate ways and means are worked out to achieve it without being over-burdened by ideology. We are all agreed that India should become a developed economy, with a special thrust on inclusiveness, given our background of exclusion of large chunks of society. The issue of ‘pure’ versus ‘impure’ means, or ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’ of people or society are red herrings.
The essence of modern capitalism is the freedom of choice, constrained by rules and laws to make an otherwise brutal system, humane, efficient and inclusive. Certainly, India need not go through the terrible 19th century experience of capitalism. Fighting corruption and tax-evasion is important, but it cannot be a pre-condition to the growth process, but only part of a more complex process that irons them out over a period of time through appropriate policy.
India’s obsession with purity has cost us dear through history. The opportunity costs of denying social mobility to large segments of the population, especially the Dalits and women cannot even be computed. What we do know is that a society so divided was unable to offer resistance to repeated invasions of the country because purity rules demanded that only certain castes could wield weapons.
It almost seems that Modi is looking to create the New Indian, an uncomfortable echo of Stalin and Mao’s New Socialist. But there is also an echo of his fellow Gujarati, Mahatma Gandhi, who believed that impure means could never deliver pure ends. Our Independence had to be obtained through non-violence, the Mahatma believed, and our economy based on satisfying the minimal needs and a rejection of mass industrialisation. Eventually, Independence came because World War II bankrupted Britain. And, fortunately, Gandhi’s heirs rejected his ideas of a village-based economy which would have been a disaster of epic proportions.
Where will the current drive for a ‘pure’ means of attaining economic growth lead us? No one knows, probably not even Modi.
Times of India January 7, 2017