Losing Hearts and Minds in Kashmir, the ‘Innovative’ Way

Tomorrow, the use of human shields could become standard operating procedure. Instead of the difficult process of flushing out militants by armed assault, the army could line up civilians and use them to breach a position.

At first sight, army chief Bipin Rawat’s comment in an interview to PTI – “I wish these people, instead of throwing stones at us, were firing weapons at us. Then I would have been happy. Then I could do what I (want to do)” – makes it seems as if the general is eager to shoot protestors.
What he is actually saying, in a somewhat convoluted way, is that he would rather not shoot at unarmed people. But in seeking to give his reiteration of the army’s long-standing position a somewhat macho touch, he has ended up making a statement that can, at best, be called confused.
This confusion represents his frustration at dealing with the phenomenon of violent civil protest riding on the back of a violent separatist insurgency.
But instead of directing his ire at the protestors, the general should reflect a bit on his – and the Indian army’s – predicament.  Military intervention, as Clausewitz pointed out a long time ago, is only a means to achieve a political end. “War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means” implies that war or armed action cannot be divorced from the political context. The logical extension of this is that the government gives the direction as to the end state it desires, and the military provides the means of achieving that end.
The problem here is that the politicians, and this means the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party-coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Union government at the Centre, have created a situation and dumped the problem on the lap of the armed forces.
There is a PDP-BJP government running the state and presumably directing the security forces operations but we see no signs of any political direction. Defence minister Arun Jaitley has declared that there is a “warlike situation” prevailing, but the Union government has not yet imposed martial law and given the Army a free hand that Gen Rawat says he would like to have.
Rawat should be wary of a “free hand” because it will bring grief not just to the state but the army whose morale the general says he is worried about. The big problem actually lies with the army’s  assessment of the J&K situation. The corporate view, bought by a large section of the government, is that there is a proxy war going on there. In other words, a conflict entirely directed, financed and armed by Pakistan. This is simply not true. The Kashmir situation is a mix of proxy war, indigenous separatism and Islamism layered by local grievances. This requires a sophisticated politico-military response, something that is absent and the army is, unfortunately, being forced to bear the brunt of this lack.
In themselves, Gen Rawat’s remarks are a classic Sunday-for-Monday news item. Editors know that if you want column space, the best day to push a story is on a Sunday. General Rawat wanted to make a point to the critics of his action in rewarding Major Gogoi, but he need not have worried: he made so many controversial remarks in that one interview to PTI that they have hit the headlines any way.
Take for example his belief that “your people must be afraid of you [the army].” This statement is completely over the top. First and foremost, the army must command the respect of the people; the word “fear” is inappropriate and ill-advised. This is why, when the army comes in aid of civil authority, the very first thing it does is to conduct a flag march – aimed at using its prestige to calm a situation.
The army chief has spoken of “innovative” means of dealing with the situation. He is probably right, since the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is itself quite complex and unique. But if the use of hostage taking is part of the innovation, then there is a problem.
His explanation for awarding Major Gogoi a commendation even while a court of inquiry into the legality of his action is on holds no water. As chief, he must uphold army procedure, which he clearly did not because he acknowledged that he had decided to award the major based on a general sense of the direction in which the inquiry is going. Given the way the army works, Gen Rawat virtually foreordained the outcome. There can be no excuse for what Major Gogoi did, and it would have been better if the chief had left the issue alone, instead of condoning what was an illegal act.
Tomorrow, the use of human shields could become the standard operating procedure (SOP). Instead of the difficult process of flushing out militants by armed assault, the army could simply line up a number of civilians and use them to breach a position they are hiding out in. This would also be “innovative” but it would also be a violation of the laws of war which Indian forces have upheld till now.
In much more trying conditions in the early 1990s, the army acted against its personnel for wilful abuse of civilians. As I have documented in my book, Lost Rebellion: Kashmir in the Nineties, an officer was cashiered and given a seven-year prison sentence for stealing Rs 8,000 in a search operation; a soldier of the 9th Field Regiment was dismissed from service and given six months in prison for molestation; punishment for rape was draconian and usually quickly delivered through a court martial. Three officers responsible for arresting and interrogating a journalist received severe reprimands. The Army has largely kept quiet about the punishment it meted out for excesses, but that does not mean it did not act. Army officers are aware of just how counter-insurgency situations undermine the good order of military units unless soldiers are kept within the straight and narrow.
It is because of this attitude that the security forces were able to defeat the militancy and bring sufficient peace to restore an elected government in the state by the late 1990s. Virtually all specialists will tell you that winning the hearts and minds of the people is an irreplaceable component of any counter-insurgency strategy, especially one such as we are witnessing in J&K today – where there are just a handful of armed militants operating in ones and twos, but a large pool of disaffected people sheltering them.
The Wire 29 May 2017

KPS Gill (1934-2017): The man who finished Khalistani terrorism in Punjab

In the annals of Indian policing, Kanwar Pal Singh Gill has a unique place of his own. And that is largely because of the leadership role played by this tall and imposing 1957-batch Indian Police Service officer of the Assam cadre in eliminating Khalistani terrorism in Punjab.
The story, however, is not as straightforward as that. There were ‘collateral casualties’ and controversies along the way. But the fact remains that terrorism in Punjab, which was at a peak when he began his second term as Director General of Police in November 1991, was completely stamped out, by the time he demitted office in December 1995.
It needs to be pointed out, however, that the Khalistani movement in Punjab never went beyond the level of small groups and, sometimes, individuals carrying out attacks on the minority community – Hindus. But it should also be remembered that he was brought to Punjab as Inspector General of Punjab Armed Police at a most difficult time in the state’s history. In September 1984, Punjab was still nursing the wounds of Indian Army’s Operation Blue Star in June to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The army’s use of tanks, artillery, helicopters, armoured vehicles and tear gas had left hundreds dead and caused damage not only to the Sikh’s holiest shrine, the Akal Takht, but also the Sikh pride.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination on October 31, 1984, that followed as a direct consequence, and the widespread anti-Sikh riots that followed in its wake in Delhi and other parts of the country, added to the state’s problem. As Gill was later to note, the two most significant victories for the cause of Khalistan were not won by the militants, but inflicted – through acts both of commission and omission – upon the nation by its own government.

Image: Hindustan Times

Four stints

His first stint in Punjab till 1985 elections in August which saw Surjit Singh Barnala’s faction of Akali Dal assume power with him as chief minister, was rather uneventful and the second one followed in 1986 when he was sent back as Inspector General of Central Reserve Police Force and IG Border Range, Punjab Police.
But Gill’s success must be carefully deconstructed because it wasn’t success all the way. He came to prominence as Director General of Police, in what was his third stint, replacing Julio Ribeiro as the chief of Punjab Police, who sums up Gill thus:

When KPS first approached me with his offer to serve with me in the troubled state, I immediately agreed. I had asked many others but none was prepared to risk life or limb. KPS was a master in the operations field. I knew I did not possess that expertise or even the intrinsic ability to hunt down the desperadoes. I could motivate men under my command but not guide them in specific details of intelligence gathering that was essentially required to neutralise the miscreants. KPS was the man for that task. That job I left entirely to Kanwar Pal. He did the job with verve and panache. He really enjoyed it, even enjoyed being harsh at times though on that score I would often differ. I certainly differed from him on the core issue of how this ‘nationalistic’ form of terrorism could be put to rest.

“The turban must always be held high,” he told Harinder Baweja. Image: Hindustan Times

Gill was brought into office as DGP for the first time in May 1988 as the killing of civilians hit double digits (per month) at the beginning of the year and peaked at 343 in May. His immediate and great success was Operation Black Thunder which liberated the Golden Temple from the militants without the kind of devastation and killings of Operation Bluestar.
It ensured that the Gurdwaras were not used by the militants thereafter. Here, Gill displayed his talent for counter-terrorism, combining force with psychological operations and dynamic leadership.
Ribeiro noted in his memoirs, Bullet for Bullet:

He had spent many sleepless nights and had been working almost without any rest for the past five days. His energy was tremendous, his presence imposing. The foreign media persons were very impressed with his control over the situation, his command of the English language and his demeanour. Despite [then minister in charge] Chidambaram’s misgivings, Gill had given ringside seats to television crews, and the entire operation was relayed live to the world.

Harinder Baweja recalled the operation in the Hindustan Times:

He ordered water and electricity to be cut off and finally forced the terrorists to surrender in the full glare of television cameras. The sight of ‘khadkus’ walking out with their arms up broke the proverbial back of the Punjab militancy... Gill walked ahead of us and as we went in tentatively – stepping on glass shards and ammunition empties. He made most of us crouch as we approached the Harmandar Sahab – the sanctum sanctorum – for fear that some terrorists may still be in hiding... Gill walked straight, without once crouching and a few evenings later, when I met him again, for a one-on-one chat, he said, “The turban must always be held high.”

But the situation in the state did not really improve. That period coincided with political instability at the very top in New Delhi where the Rajiv Gandhi government got embroiled in the Bofors case and lost the 1989 General Elections. The succeeding VP Singh government was unstable, as was that of Chandrashekhar. The country was wracked by the Mandal and Mandir agitations and came to the brink of economic collapse. The country’s army was involved in the Sri Lanka operations, besides trying to cope with the challenge from Pakistan and the ULFA in the North-east.
After a relative decline in 1989, the figures again started rising in 1990, reaching a monthly peak of 364 in November. Gill was transferred to Delhi by then Prime Minister Chandrashekhar to facilitate negotiations with Khalistan groups in December 1990. The first term was thus clearly not all success.
The shift came with the election of 1992, which was probably the peak of the Punjab militancy. This was the time when the nation’s fortune’s were at an all time low and the army stretched in Kashmir, North-east and Punjab had to finally deploy its vaunted strike corps for election security duty in February 1992.
In the Indian Express, Praveen Swami quotes Dinkar Gupta, now Additional Director General of Police in charge of intelligence in Punjab, as saying that what truly distinguished Gill was his ability to think big.

 “Faced with the 1992 elections, he decided, more or less by himself, that we’d get a platoon of police to secure each and every candidate. It was a preposterous idea – but that preposterous idea was implemented, and the end result was we didn’t lose a single candidate”.

The election of Beant Singh as Chief Minister and the confirmation of Gill as Director-General was important. But the key catalyst was the Indian Army at that time. The Army had learnt from the fiasco of Bluestar and regained its prestige in the minds of the Sikhs who did not care much for the Punjab Police. It was only when the Army was deployed that information began to flow in leading to the elimination of a succession of terrorists. It must be mentioned, as an India Today story of the time noted, Gill had experience of working with the Army in Assam and, with his aggressive personality and general air of informality, struck a good rapport with Lt General BKN Chhiber, former corps commander at Jalandhar. The Army played a careful role in letting the Punjab Police take the credit and contented itself in providing the outer cordon in search operations. Killings began a downward slide through 1992 and by September came down to double digits and January to one digit.

Later Gill was resentful at suggestions that the Army played any major role. But by this time he had become the “Super Cop” and the “Lion of Punjab” and the myth of his invincibility was built. Gill’s free hand to the police also meant excesses on an epic scale. And sure enough the Punjab Police was accused of all manner of crimes from torture to custodial killings. Some of these were simply extortion enterprises that had nothing to do with terrorism or terrorists, many of the excesses came after the real danger of terrorism was over and the anti-terrorism machine ran out of control. The most notable of the killing was that of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human rights activist who listed the disappearances of people in the state.
Gill himself, however, offered no remorse over any of the allegations, writing:

The ‘liberal’ mind has always remained ambivalent when confronted by the fact that the State, among other things, is a coercive instrument, and that it must, from time to time, exercise its option of the use of force – albeit of judicious, narrowly defined and very specifically targeted use of force – if it is not to be overwhelmed by the greater violence of the enemies of freedom, democracy and lawful governance. To fail to exercise this legitimate coercive authority is, thus, not an act of non-violence or of abnegation; it is not a measure of our humanity or civilisation. It is, rather, an intellectual failure and an abdication of responsibility that randomises violence, alienating it from the institutional constraints of the State, and allowing it to pass into the hands of those who exercise it without the discrimination and the limitations of law that govern its employment by the State. In doing this, it makes innocents the victims of criminal violence, instead of making criminals the targets of its own legitimate and circumspect punitive force.

However, there should be no doubt that while Gill did not finish off Punjab terrorism single-handedly, the winning strategy was his. And it came from his mind, rather than the force he commanded. Because he was able to take the demoralised Punjab Police force, give it that crucial aggression and direction that eventually took care of the kharkus, as Sikh militants of the time were called. He had never formally studied counter-insurgency, but was a well-read and educated person with an enormous sense of certitude, and he successfully transmitted this to his force making him the great leader that he was. As Ribeiro puts it:

He was not convinced and hence, not concerned with winning over hearts and minds, which was and still remains the classical method of ending this form of terrorism, as opposed to the ideological form. Yet, KPS will always be remembered as the principal terminator of Khalistani terrorism.

A proud Sikh

Gill had clear ideas about the cause of Khalistani terrorism and the way it should be dealt with. He believed that though the preachers and leaders of the Akali Dal had played a key role in distorting the Sikh faith and injecting a needless sense of grievance in the minds of the Sikhs, the key role in the militancy was played by Jat Sikhs, and to defeat it required the iron resolve of the Jat Sikh police force, and a knowledge of the tough Jat Sikh ethos, which of course, he was familiar with, coming from that community himself. As Ribeiro recalls,

“He once ventured to tell my wife that I was too soft to be a policeman in Punjab! Only a Jat Sikh, like him, knew how to handle other Jat Sikhs, who incidentally formed the bulk of the terrorist cadres we were fighting.”

One of the ways he instilled courage into his men was through Operation Night Dominance, in which he led the process of moving around Punjab at night in his convoys, daring the militants to attack. The result was that the police who had earlier barricaded themselves into their police stations at night, ceding the ground to the terrorists, quickly regained their elan and made life difficult for the bad guys. Ambassador cars with jugaad armour fitted out in the workshops of Ludhiana became a prestige symbol in Punjab. Swami notes:

The preposterous ideas piled up. Faced with terrorists hiding in high sugarcane fields, which made locating them dangerous business, Gill’s in-house research unit invented the armoured tractor, a crude but effective armoured vehicle that could drive into the slushy fields. Forensic tools and jammers were built from scrap.

Gill had very clear ideas about the nature and origins of the terrorist challenge in Punjab which he outlined in his book Knights of Falsehood. The background lay in the competitive religiosity and distortion of the Sikh faith by militant preachers and writers of the Akali movement through the early part of the 20th century who seized control of the shrines. “I saw what secularism could have been and what communalism did”, Praveen Swami recalled Gill saying, referring to Partition, “and I was determined not to let it happen in Punjab”.
In the 1980s, the Akali Dal was led by the Parkash Singh Badal, Gurucharan Singh Tohra and others. In other words, these men sowed the dragon’s teeth that led to the militancy of the 1980s and 1990s. A lot of this was not far from the truth – the Akali Dal’s shameful role in the events of the 1980s is now conveniently forgotten, but it should be an ever-present reminder of what happens if you mix religion with politics.
Scroll.in May 27, 2017

Rise of war porn: The hyper-nationalism being unleashed today has electoral rather than strategic considerations

By its excesses of display and stimulation, pornography is doomed to failure. Aimed at sexual arousal, it gratifies, but fails to satisfy. That’s the way it is, whether it is food porn, with lustrous displays that never quite fulfil, car porn, or travel porn. Those addicted can never have enough, but the end consequences are a constant sense of frustration, akin to neurosis.
There is another dark category that this country is exploring these days – war porn. Hour on hour some TV channels loop clips of jawans charging through the pine studded landscape at the enemy. Rocket and guns are fired at distant targets, all bound together by a narrative suggesting that war is the best way of resolving our problems with Pakistan.
Some of the clips are clearly training videos; no videographer would have had the courage to take the angles presented if live bullets had been flying around. Others are old releases of the army’s PR team.
War porn, like the regular thing, gratifies but never satisfies. It indulges the fantasy of those who think that war is the solution to the many problems they confront, personal and social. Its empowerment works the way quack pills advertised to promote vigour do – entirely in the mind.
Why has this affliction come to us today? Because some politicians believe that talk of war – not war itself – is a ticket to deliver votes. Bashing Pakistan, and, to an extent, China has played well with the electorate and could do so over the next two years.
So, war porn featuring our western neighbour and his perfidious activities has become the chosen narrative.
The narrative of porn is always contrived. It does not tell you the real story, indeed, it does not tell any story, all it does is to provide vicarious gratification. And that is what makes war porn dangerous.
It all began with the so-called surgical strikes, which was touted as a military victory at par with Waterloo. As long as this war is fought on TV screens, the worst it can do is to promote a certain phobic behaviour.
The danger arises when it enters the realm of reality which is always more complicated and less prone to manipulation. This is the stage we are at today.
The air force chief has warned his personnel to be ready for action, the army is releasing videos of Pakistani posts being blown up and says it is conducting area domination operations in the Valley and aggressive domination in the LoC.
The defence minister says that the army must have a free hand in a war-like zone, and he is right to say that. But then the government must declare martial law, as it did in the case of Operations Bluestar and Woodrose in 1984.
All this appears somewhat unreal. The last major terrorist attack in India – one aimed at unarmed civilians – took place in 2011. There is no obvious casus belli today, figures show that cross-border violence is actually down. One can only conclude that the hyper-nationalism being unleashed has electoral, rather than strategic considerations.
But the politicians should beware. History has shown that it is easy to start a war, but very, very difficult to figure out how it will end. Ask Nehru.
We do not have to use the N-word, modern conventional weapons are destructive enough and their effects are very different from the TV fare we are getting. India has not known a real war since 1857, featuring large-scale indiscriminate killing and widespread destruction. It should not know it, ever. This fantasy lust for war must end.
The Times of India May 27, 2017

Can the OBOR Project Be Made to Work for Countries Other Than China?

Given the quantity of investments, China can’t afford to have the OBOR initiative fail. Sceptics like India can use that to persuade China to make modifications.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently added another $124 billion to the already massive commitments to OBOR’s schemes.

Around the world, and especially in India, there is a lot of disbelief and suspicion about China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) scheme. Many of its projects have actually been around for years, but its economics are questionable, as are its aims. However, it is clearly attractive to countries looking for development. So while critiquing it is legitimate, there is also need to ask why there is no comparable vision emanating from other countries.
In a speech at the recent Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China’s President Xi Jinping put across the initiative as one aimed at promoting global development and trade liberalisation and as a factor in boosting peace and security. He added another $124 billion to the already massive commitments to the initiatives’s schemes of connecting China to other parts of Asia, Europe and Africa.

Looking for comparisons
Countries like the US, Japan, Germany, the UK and others have provided (and continue to provide) tens of billions of dollars in development assistance and grants through national agencies or through institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for decades. Not many people know that India has been one of the biggest recipients of US economic assistance in the period 1946-2012. And India and China have been, and continue to be, major recipients of funds from these multilateral banks. But in recent times, the US has preferred to fritter away its great economic powers in military ventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and in propping up Pakistan.
Japan remains important in the developmental narrative, with its generous Overseas Development Assistance and other schemes run by agencies like the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Following OBOR, in 2015, Japan said it would provide $110 billion over five years for financing “high quality and innovative infrastructure.” Half this sum would be spent through the ADB and the other half through other Japanese official aid agencies.
But comparing them with the OBOR is difficult because the Chinese goals are more complex. They are not just development assistance or investment. The OBOR is a mix of economic planning, market development, market dominance and political assertion – geoeconomics combined with geopolitics. Its schemes are shaped by its goals and those are layered.
At one level, it is to export China’s over capacity in the infrastructure industry, at another, develop markets and routes for high-end goods that China intends to produce in the next phase of its economic growth, this means the rich European market. Several projects and naval activity in the Indian Ocean littoral suggest that one of its aims is to overcome the so-called Malacca Dilemma, or the possibility of its oil sea lanes being blocked. Then, there are schemes which work on the traditional plan of helping China access commodities from resource-rich Africa.
There is no comparable vision, because there is no other country that has the political economy of a rising China. In contrast, the US has been moving away from its past global commitments. A lot of its money has been frittered in wars.
In the past decade and a half, Japan’s focus has become more political. Japan has been active in overseas development since the 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, Japan has played a significant role in China’s modernisation by providing the latter with $24 billion in loans and $7.7 billion in grants, mainly in the period 1980-2000.
Now, Tokyo’s focus has shifted towards South and Southeast Asia. It has been playing a major role in India’s infrastructure development in the last two decades. It has many high-profile projects to its credit, including the Delhi Metro and the Delhi-Mumbai Freight Corridor. In 2014, Japan committed $33 billion for the next five years in a range of areas like transport systems, river development, clean energy and skill development.
Japan is also now taking up the challenge of developing India’s northeast region, with $744 million road projects in Assam, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Another project focuses on the development of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. India and Japan are also in discussions for cooperating in Chabahar and the Trincomalee port development schemes. In its own way, Japan’s assistance to the development of India’s infrastructure is no less than what is said about OBOR. Japan may have geopolitical objectives in aiding India, but its schemes, whether in India or Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, are not seen as overwhelming in scope and size.
On the other hand, that is exactly what worries people about OBOR. The indebtedness issue has already begun to rankle in Sri Lanka and Central Asia. There has been little consultation in the various schemes China has taken up and it is difficult to get away from the impression that OBOR investments are by China and for China.

China’s investment strategies
In a bid to calm those concerns, Xi announced in his speech inaugurating the Belt and Road Forum that among the new institutions China will set up to boost the OBOR will be a Multilateral Development Financial Cooperation Centre, in cooperation with various other multilateral development banks like the World Bank and ADB, and an IMF-China Capacity Building Centre. Presumably this is with the view of promoting international best practices in the OBOR investments as well.
Despite this, concerns over the lack of commitment to social and environmental sustainability and transparency prevented the EU from endorsing a statement on trade prepared by China as part of the Belt and Road summit outcome.
There is a lot of hype with OBOR. Some of the schemes are enormous in scope, but they will only prove their value in decades, not years. This is especially true of the centrepiece of the project – closer economic integration with the European economy. Investments being made in rail connectivity to Europe seem to defy the fact that marine transport is by far the cheapest way of shipping goods. It is true that some trains have been successful because of the respective businesses they service, but a lot of them are not economical as yet and may never be. Countries in Central Asia worry that they will merely be way stations on the Chinese route to Europe and not receive much investment. The Belt and Road Initiative bandwagon has also led to a number of unviable projects being funded that will in time be abandoned.
Yet Chinese investments offer a powerful allure and have already-visible geopolitical consequences. For example, the Chinese aid and investment programmes have more or less sundered ASEAN unity. Likewise, the Chinese have succeeded in luring Eastern and Central Europe with investments sufficient to get them to water down the EU statement on the South China Sea arbitration. In the end, the EU merely acknowledged the decision, rather than supported it. More recently, Australia refused to go along with the EU in rejecting the trade statement after the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.
Among the more interesting aspects of OBOR are Chinese activities in the relatively poorer Eastern and Central Europe. They have created an entity called the 16+1 grouping or the China-Central and East Europe cooperation arrangement which have held five summits so far, the last in Suzhou attended by Chinese premier Li Keqiang.
Besides a China-CEE think tank in Hungary, there is a China-CEE Investment Cooperation Fund funded at $435 million for investing in CEE countries. In 2016, a $11 billion Sino-CEE Fund was created by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China which aimed at raising 50 billion euro to finance projects in infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing and consumer goods.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB’s) total lending is now around $2 billion. Recent loans included $125 million for dam improvements in Indonesia co-financed by the World Bank. Another $100 million, again, along with the World Bank was approved for developing regional infrastructure. A $60-million loan was given to Bangladesh for developing natural gas infrastructure. Earlier this month, the AIIB approved the first loan of $160 million to support the Andhra Pradesh 24×7 Power for All scheme. Andhra Pradesh is also seeking money for developing its new capital city of Amaravati. There are several other projects from India on the AIIB table.
It is difficult to argue that all of them are there to serve Chinese interests. Indeed, when it comes to financing projects which have a strategic content, China uses the option of its official policy banks such as the China Development Bank or the Export Import Bank of China which, in turn, fund the big Chinese state-owned enterprises involved in projects such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or the Jakarta-Bandung and Kunming-Vientiane railway projects. These banks have already put up $200 billion worth of loans in Asia, Middle East and Africa.
In addition, there are commercial banks such as the Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China which offer money at commercial rates.
There is also the $40-billion Silk Road Fund controlled by the Chinese government, which has funded part of the Nairobi-Mombasa railway, the Karot hydropower project in Pakistan and the acquisition of an LNG project in Siberia. It has committed some $4 billion.
There is also an interesting financing mechanism for Beijing’s European ventures. Of the additional $124 billion announced by Xi in Beijing at the forum, $14.50 billion will go the the Silk Road Fund, also the CDB and ExIm bank have been authorised to set up special loans of $36 billion and $18 billion respectively for infrastructure, industrial capacity and financing. Another $40-50 billion will be spent by the commercial banks.
With investments of this scale, clearly China cannot afford to fail. And this is the point of entry for the sceptics like India. The need to succeed can persuade China to modify the OBOR in a way that limits its single-minded commitment to Chinese goals. In other words, projects can be shaped and modified in such a way that they serve a wider purpose than to merely meet some perceived need by Beijing. This can set the stage for a more equitable framework of globalisation. China may still be a big, if not the biggest, winner, but others too will gain.
The Wire May 23, 2017

President Hasan Rouhani's landslide victory in Iran shows that elections alone do not make a democracy

President Hasan Rouhani's landslide victory in the Presidential elections is good news for Iranians as well as for India.It should assist Iran to become more democratic, moderate and prosperous over time, but that is not a given.

His challenge is to overcome significant hurdles on his path, which arise from domestic politics, and an equally difficult challenge thrown up by the Donald Trump-led United States.

Economic reforms

Rouhani came to power in August 2013 promising economic reform. Despite vast oil resources, Iran's economy has remained moribund because it has not been able to get technology to exploit its resources effectively, or exploit the market when oil prices were riding high.

He set about the process by working out the nuclear deal with the US and other Western powers so as to persuade them to lift sanctions, which badly affected the Iranian economy.

The sanctions have been lifted, but low oil prices are thwarting Iran's recovery. But the bigger problem is Iran's domestic politics. The country is, at best, a quasi-democracy.

Its system is structured so as to maintain the power of the clergy and their allies, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

At the top is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has a veto on virtually everything.The legislature has two wings - the lower house or Consultative Assembly and the upper house, the Guardian Council.

Newly re-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gestures during a televised speech after his victory in presidential election

The former is like a regular Parliament with legislators elected through secret ballot. 

The latter has 12 members, of which half are clergy chosen by the Supreme Leader and the other half are jurists chosen by the lower house.

The Guardian Council has a veto on all legislations. The Supreme Leader is elected for life by an Assembly of Experts, a group of 88 top clergymen who are elected once in eight years through direct voting.

In addition, there is the powerful Expediency Council of some 30-40 people chosen by the Supreme Leader to assist him in managing the system.

Ebrahim Raisi, the candidate Rouhani defeated, is a former judge and was spoken of as a potential successor to the 78-year old Khamenei.

Both Rouhani and Raisi are clerics, and the latter has been a member of the Assembly of Experts since 2006. 

Importance for India

The Iranian situation shows that elections alone do not make a democracy. The power of the Rouhani government is severely constrained at every step by the clergy. The IRGC, which is a parallel military organisation, complete with an army, navy and aerospace wings, have extensive business interests and serve as the storm troopers of the clergy.

They are involved in domestic repression, and support Assad's forces against the ISIS. Developments in Iran can have an important fallout in India.

Last year, oil imports hit record levels and Iran  became the fourth biggest oil supplier to India.

This was because of the lifting of sanctions. Given its oil and gas resources and proximity to India, Iran's importance in the energy sector cannot be underestimated. But oil is not the only factor in India- Iran relations - connectivity is.

India has two projects in mind - the Chah Bahar port and related development scheme aimed at developing links to Central Asia and Afghanistan, and the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) to connect western Indian ports through a multi-modal network to Europe via Iran.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's May 2016 visit, the two countries signed a $500 million (Rs 3,200 crore) agreement to develop the Chah Bahar port and fund a railway line to Zahedan.

Further India indicated its interest in building an LNG plant in Chah Bahar economic development zone.

New Delhi also returned $6 billion (Rs 3,900 crore), which was owed to Iran on the oil account during the sanction period.

Smoothing edges

The problem is that there are still rough edges to the India-Iran relationship. A deal to develop the Farzad B oil fields remains stuck.

Little or nothing has been done on the INSTC front, except the running of test cargoes to Russian destinations. Properly pursued it can be India's answer to China's One Belt One Road, which also aims to use Iranian routes and already exploits the Russian ones.

Given the potential Iran offers, India has reasons to worry about the US-Iran dynamics. Should relations deteriorate, India may once again be forced to curtail its Iranian commitments, just as it had to do in the 2007-2015 period.

Given New Delhi's compulsions to maintain good ties with the US, it would not like to buck Washington, and will thereby cede the ground to China which is unlikely to follow any new US lead in Iran. 

Mail Today May 21, 2017

Jadhav Case: Return to India Will Need More Than ICJ’s Verdict

There are two aspects of the judgement of the International Court of Justice in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. One is legal, the other political. Despite all the legalese that goes with an ICJ judgement, Pakistan can completely ignore the verdict if it wants. As is well known, there is no way to enforce international law, except through the UN Security Council, and that too, on matters relating to peace and security.
 

But it can do so only at the peril of its own reputation. And, it has to reconcile the fact that it has actually participated in the proceedings till now. Had it ignored the hearing, it would have been one thing, but to have put up a case and lost, and then ignore the verdict will be a black mark with wider repercussions.

Tough for Pak Army to Flout ICJ Verdict

Not that people expect the Pakistan Army, which holds Jadhav, to bother about niceties, considering that it has long sponsored groups that conduct terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries.
Since Jadhav is in their custody, he can probably be executed at any time of their choosing.

But even the Pakistan Army has to think carefully if it wants to wilfully flout an ICJ judgement, since it is a creation of the United Nations. It’s one thing for the big powers like the US or China to flout international courts’ judgements and quite another for smaller countries like Pakistan.

Then, there is the matter of enforcement and this can only be done by the UNSC, where it is open to veto by one of the Permanent Five. In this case, it is more than likely that the UNSC will simply refuse to take up a matter which does not involve a threat to international peace and security, and only relates to an individual.

Legal Mis-Handling

 Pakistan’s legal handling of the case has been shoddy, considering that Jadhav has been tried by a military court martial, rather than a civilian court, and that too, in camera, rather than in public where he could have shown to have been defended and the evidence against him clearly laid out.

Military courts operate in an entirely different system and their evidentiary rules are questionable at the best of times.

Perhaps all that Pakistan has is the confession he has made. Everyone knows that in custody you can get anyone to confess anything, especially in South Asia where torture is prevalent. That does not necessarily mean that Jadhav is innocent of all the charges against him.
It is entirely possible that he was involved in an intelligence mission of some sorts. The fact that he had a passport made in the name of Mubarik Hussain Patel is something that has not been explained by anyone. No one has so far said that the passport was fake.
However, Pakistan has not provided any evidence that he was indeed arrested on Pakistani soil and involved in subversion and terrorism. If he was working in Chah Bahar and was doing something prejudicial to Pakistan, the matter could have been taken up with Iran which has given him a residence visa.

Fate of Jadhav

On the other hand, since the dhow that he owned has vanished with its crew, it is possible that he was in fact kidnapped on the high seas, which makes Pakistan guilty of an international crime.
All this would, of course, become clearer if Islamabad or Rawalpindi, to be precise, were to permit consular access to him. But that is what they have studiously avoided, hence arousing suspicions over the circumstances of his arrest.
What the court has essentially said on Wednesday is that pending a full hearing on the issue, Pakistan should not execute him.

Pakistan has two options – one to go the whole hog and present its case, and whatever evidence it has on Jadhav’s alleged role in terrorist activities. On the other hand, it is quite possible that it is unable to come up with any kind of a case that will meet public, leave alone, judicial scrutiny.

Return to India Won’t be Easy

Now, if Pakistan continues to participate in the hearings, it is almost certain that the court will ask Islamabad to give India consular access to him. If so, some of the details of the story may become clearer. If these are likely to significantly undermine the case that has been made against Kulbhushan till now, Pakistan is bound to refuse access and simply walk away from the hearings and not accept any verdict that emerges and weather the inevitable reputational damage.

It should be clear that even if the court has given some relief to India, and Pakistan stays the execution for the pendency of the hearing, Kulbhushan’s return home will not be easy. That will require more than the ICJ’s verdicts.

It would need direct, back-channel negotiation, and some kind of give and take. New Delhi cannot possibly be unaware of this. Presumably, the ICJ effort is just the first step in a more complex set of moves that New Delhi has in mind to get Kulbhushan Jadhav home, safe and sound.
The Quint, May 19, 2017