Modi's faultless footing in foreign policy

Whatever you may say about the slow pace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promises on the economic front, his stepping in the area of foreign policy has been faultless. The recent tour to the Indian Ocean region is a case in point.

He was the first PM to visit Seychelles in 33 years, the first to go to Sri Lanka in 28 years, and the first to Mauritius in a decade. Modi believes that India’s foreign policy must pivot on strong ties with its neighbours on the land or across the seas. But it is also a response to the strong surge of Chinese interest, which has manifested itself in substantial infrastructure investment, high-level visits and naval movement in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Prime Minister Modi with former cricketer Arjuna Ranatunga. Events and actions of countries in the IOR littoral have security implications for India. Pic/PTI

It is not just that 90 per cent of our overseas trade passes through the IOR, that makes it important for us. Events and actions of countries in the IOR littoral have security implications for India. In addition, we have an interest in the welfare of significant chunks of the Indian diaspora who are scattered across the region from South Africa to Oman.

There was a time when naïve India sought to keep out foreign navies from the Indian Ocean. But today it realises that in a globalised world, others too have important reasons to be in the IOR, even the Chinese. Yet, we have a paramount responsibility to keep peace and promote stability in the region because of our location. The Chinese or the Americans can, if compelled, do without the IOR; we don’t have that option. Developments in the ocean and its littoral have a direct impact on our security and well being.

An important building block of our efforts are plans to establish coastal surveillance radars in a number of island states-8 in Mauritius, 8 in Seychelles, 6 in Sri Lanka, 10 in Maldives. These will be linked to the 50-odd sites on the Indian coast and, in turn, linked to the Gurgaon based Integrated Management Analysis Centre and be part of the Navy’s Maritime Domain Awareness project.

India’s security ties with Mauritius gathered steam following the 1981 attempted coup in Seychelles by South African mercenaries, which nearly led to the hijack of an Air India aircraft at the Seychelles airport. To prevent such an action in Mauritius, India helped it create a Rapid Mobile Force, as well as strengthen its police force and coast guard.

India is now seeking to consolidate its relations with Mauritius, a key gateway for foreign investment in India. This involves plugging the loopholes in the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement and the deferment of the anti-avoidance tax rules till 2017, besides providing an additional $ 0.5 billion line of credit for infrastructure development in the island.

On the security front, the Indian built CGS Barracuda, launched by Prime Minister Modi, was only the latest manifestation of the long-standing security ties between the two countries going back to the mid-1970s when India gifted the INS Amar to the Mauritian Coast Guard. It is significant that during the Modi visit, the two sides signed an MOU to develop the aviation and port infrastructure of the strategic Agalega island.

In the case of the Seychelles, India has been involved in a security partnership since 2003, when the two sides agreed to have the Indian Navy patrol its territorial waters. In 2003, the Indian Navy presented the Seychelles coast guard the INS Tarmugli to do the job itself and also gifted some helicopters and Dornier surveillance aircraft to the island nation.

Modi announced the gift of another Dornier aircraft this time. The two countries also signed an agreement for a hydrographic survey of the islands, as well as one for developing the air and sea infrastructure on Assumption Islands. There was no offer of a Line of Credit, since an earlier one of $ 75 million remains to be fully utilised.

The most complex visit was to Sri Lanka because of its importance to India’s economic and security interests. Here, the effort was two-fold. First, to reinvigorate ties that had stalled during the presidency of Mahinda Rajpakse and, the second, to reconnect with the Tamil minority of the island, which has an important emotional connect with India. A $318 million Line of Credit will be used to modernise the Sri Lankan railway system and India has committed to develop the port of Trincomalee as a petroleum hub. In the early 1980s, the Sri Lankans baited India by offering the old petroleum tank farm there to a US company. Modi’s visit to Jaffna, the first by an Indian PM was an important signal that India would stand up for the rights of the Tamil minority which has been battered by the brutal civil war.

The IOR tour was not just about declarations and MOUs, proof of this is that New Delhi has put down money through Lines of Credit for infrastructure development in various island states. The challenge now is to ensure that it is effectively utilised. This is one area of weakness on our part which must be remedied by creating appropriate project management vehicles. 2014 marked just the beginning of Chinese naval forays into the Indian Ocean. In the coming years we can see a marked increase as its $40 billion Maritime Silk Route initiative gets underway. Countries of the IOR will not hesitate to play off New Delhi against Beijing, we would be naïve to think they won’t. They will seek to advance their national interests, just as we must serve our own.

Mid Day March 17, 2015

Whatever you may say about the slow pace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promises on the economic front, his stepping in the area of foreign policy has been faultless. The recent tour to the Indian Ocean region is a case in point. - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/modis-faultless-foreign-policy/16067197#sthash.ojp8wi44.dpuf

Why the PDP was right to release Alam

This country is a nuclear weapons state, with a huge standing army. 

Terrorism is in remission, and the country most responsible for it is itself mired in violence. 

Yet, the sense of insecurity rides high in India. Indeed, there seems to be a touch of hysteria in the public discourse. 

Its more malign manifestation has been the mob lynchings that have taken place in two disparate parts of the country – Nagaland and Uttar Pradesh. But equally it was visible in the over-the-top response to the release of Masarat Alam, a separatist leader in Jammu and Kashmir. 

Grounds 

When Alam was released on March 7, the new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was attacked for ordering his release as part of his alleged separatist agenda. The word “traitor” resounded in some TV debates. 

As the issue rocked Parliament, few bothered to note that his release was based on a letter from the state’s Home Secretary Suresh Kumar to the Jammu District Magistrate on February 4, before Mufti took over as the CM, saying the September 2014 detention order against Alam under the state’s draconian Public Safety Act (PSA), had become void. 

His release was ordered when the district magistrate determined that there were no fresh grounds to keep him in jail. 

 

The guidelines of the Supreme Court prohibit the detention of any person for the same offence more than once. Alam had to be released as no charge under the state’s Public Safety Act could be reframed against him, and there was a limit to detain someone under the Act. 

Alam has spent nearly 15 years in jail without any criminal charge ever since his detention under PSA for the first time in 1990. To keep him in jail, successive state governments slapped PSA on him from time to time. Since 2008, the PSA had been slapped on him more than 13 times. 

This is clearly against both the letter and spirit of the laws, and the Constitution. 

There is no doubt that the stone-pelting incidents that rocked Kashmir in 2010 were a serious challenge to the authorities, as was Alam’s alleged role in encouraging them. But stone pelting is not the same as firing guns and setting off explosives. It had several causes, not in the least the lack of adequate training and equipment of the local police to deal with street protest. 

In any case, 2015 was not 2011. The purpose of Alam’s detention had been served once the uprising wound down by 2012. 

Punishment 

Another political prisoner, dedicated to a movement that wants to overthrow the state, Kobad Gandhy, has been in jail for five years without being convicted of any crime. He belongs to a banned organisation, but nothing in our law says that you can incarcerate any person indefinitely without trial. 

In any case, he has already served the maximum punishment of 2 years imprisonment prescribed in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for being a member of a banned organisation. 

There is another category of people jailed for long periods before being imprisoned of any crime. These are under-rials who do not have the means of posting their bail. 

In yet another category comes the likes of Sahara chief Subrata Roy, who is presumably in jail on grounds of contempt of court. But the proceedings appear more a means of extracting Rs 10,000 crore from him, whereas the proper course would have been to try him for fraud, convict him and attach his assets. 

Repeated judgements of the Indian courts have made it clear that detention without trial goes against the law of the land, which has been shaped by the long stretches of imprisonment that our freedom fighters had to endure at the hands of the British. Bail is viewed as the right of a person. 

Terrorism 

Dealing with terrorism, or armed insurgencies such as those of the Maoists, does represent a challenge for a democratic polity. This is best evidenced by the dilemma of the US which has used a foreign territory – Guantanamo Bay in Cuba – to indefinitely incarcerate those it says were involved in terrorist acts. 

However, it is well known that the only crime of a lot of the detainees was to have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

That Guantanamo is a blot on America’s claim to be a country that lives under the rule of law is recognised by many Americans, including President Obama, but he finds it difficult to do anything about it. 

India has tried to grapple with the issue by passing tough legislation like TADA and POTA to deal with the threat. However, in both instances, the Ministry of Home Affairs came up with legislation which was so draconian and open to misuse, that it came apart under its own weight. 

In dealing with separatism, social protest and public anger, what the state requires is a subtle, rather than a heavy hand. 

In the era of instant communication and smart phones, the need for a refined strategy is even greater. Whether it is Kashmir or the Maoist heartland of Chattisgarh, using a sledgehammer to stifle protest is a bad idea. 

What is needed is a policy that combines elements of toughness, with strategies that promote trust and reconciliation. 

India faces no existential threat from either the separatists in the Valley, or the Maoists in Dantewada, so why the hysteria? By defining the discourse as between “nationalists” versus “traitors” and “terrorists”, a divide is created which cannot be bridged. After all, how can you reconcile such categories? 

Sadly, the TRP-driven media is oblivious to this. On one hand it enhances the paranoia and insecurity of Indians, and on the other it seems determined to tip the frazzled patient over the edge. 

Mail Today March 16, 2015

Restructure and reform the armed forces before buying hardware

The 2015-2016 budget shows a provision of Rs 310,079 crore for the defence services. If this looks different from what you read in the papers, it is because it contains a sum of Rs 54,500 crore which is paid out by way of pensions for the defence services, and Rs 8,852 crore which are listed for the MoD secretariat.

By a sleight of hand, these are excluded from defence expenditure - but that does not mean they don’t come out of the central exchequer.

Buying defence equipment without a plan, won't help our armed forces

Of this, just Rs 94,588 crore is for capital acquisitions or new equipment for the services. 

Therein lies the dilemma: Too much is being spent on pay, allowances, and maintenance of existing forces, and not enough is left over for the ever-increasing costs of modernisation. 

And this will increase as the Indian Army expands by another 90,000 personnel in the coming five years, and the Navy and Air Force grow. 

With the Services demanding top-of-the-line equipment, the question is: Can the economy can safely absorb the burden of defence expenditure? 

Manpower 

In 1978, China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping proposed “Four Modernisations” – in agriculture, industry, defence and science and technology – aimed at making China a great power by the early 21st century. 

We now know that they have succeeded spectacularly. What we may not be aware of is that defence was assigned the lowest priority. 

The Chinese made sure they became an economic power before undertaking military modernisation which has gotten underway in the last decade. 

India’s challenge is somewhat similar. Should it commit valuable resources to modernise its armed forces first, or should it get on the path of sustained high economic growth before doing so? 

India’s predicaments are somewhat different. We need manpower intensive forces to police our borders with China and Pakistan, we also need modern forces to deter a rising China whose nexus with Pakistan is only intensifying. 

How do we factor all this towards a defence policy that is successful and sustainable? Ideally, the Government’s national security goals should lead to a formulation of defence objectives which then yield a policy which is implemented. 

The first challenge is to have a national security doctrine prepared through interaction between the PMO, Ministry of Defence, Home, External Affairs and Finance. 

This would yield a strategy paper which prioritise our responses, identify the military capabilities required, as well pinpoint the industrial, scientific, technological and fiscal capacities required to meet the challenges. 

The problem is that if you ask five Indians what their national security strategies are, you will get five answers. 

What we need, instead, is an authoritative, official, assessment around which we can make our plans and policies. 

Take, for example, external threats. The one area which gets little attention is the Persian Gulf area from which we get 65 per cent of our oil and where 7 million Indians work and send back some $40billion worth of remittances. 

Yet, for the security of sea lanes from the Gulf and its littoral, we simply depend on Uncle Sam. 

Security 

The second is to integrate defence planning with national plans – in other words, get the military and civilian Make in India programmes to synergise each other. 

Associated with this is the need to link plans with budgets. The way things happen right now are illustrated by the Government authorisation for the Mountain Strike Corps last year. 

The Corps were not in the Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) 2012-2017 and hence not budgeted for. 

The result is the Corps are up, by drawing personnel from existing Army units, and raiding the war wastage reserves for their equipment. 

The third big issue is the need for restructuring the apex level management of the armed forces by a) appointing a Chief of Defence Staff and b) creating an expert civilian bureaucracy for managing the MOD. 

Only then will we get realistic defence plans with proper inter-service prioritisation and which can be synchronised with the defence needs of the country, as well as its resources. 

Minus this, we get landed in situations where each Service pushes its maximal demand simultaneously, and not having an expert civilian bureaucracy to adjudicate them, these either block each other, or force the Government to take ad hoc decisions. 

The fourth challenge is to restructure our armed forces by integrating their functioning. There is no logic in having the eastern command of the IAF in Shillong, that of the Army in Kolkata and the Navy in Vizag. 

Acquisition 

The Lanzhou Military Region commander, one of seven commands in China, faces five Indian commands—the Northern, Western and Central Commands of the Army in addition to two Indian Air Force Commands. 

The Services also need to look into their own structures and forces and cut unnecessary manpower and organisations which may have served a function in the past, but are no longer needed. 

The Services need to look into their own structures and forces and cut unnecessary manpower and organisations which may have served a function in the past, but are no longer needed

The phased reduction of the Rashtriya Rifles is one case in point. The fifth is to leave behind the colonial heritage of our defence R&D and industry and progressively corporatize privatise ordnance factories and field workshops. 

They were needed in 19th and 20th century India but are not required now. In the coming years, budgets and acquisitions should be viewed in the perspective of longer term aims, rather than through bogeys of short-term demands. 

Indeed, the Government should hold off making big acquisitions till it can sort out some of the more basic issues. 

India is a nuclear weapons power and we do not face an existential threat from any state large or small, or for that matter from any non-state actor. 

Before the Government plunges into the physical modernisation of the armed forces, it needs to put in place the much needed modernisation of the way we think about, plan and manage our national security system. 

Buying or making shiny new hardware for the sake of looking modern neither enhances our security, nor helps our economy. 

Mail Today March 2, 2015

Mooring in foreign shores

In the second week of this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to visit Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles. This is another version of his South Asian neighbourhood diplomacy, only the neighbours here are long neglected oceanic ones. Modi will be the first Indian PM to visit Sri Lanka in 28 years, and first to visit Seychelles since Indira Gandhi, the last prime ministerial visit to Mauritius was in 2005 and to Maldives in 2011.

Concern mounted in India in 2007 when Chinese President Hu Jintao rounded off his eight-nation trip to Africa with a stop at Seychelles. Last year, they reached a crescendo with the berthing of Chinese submarines in Colombo, and the visits of President Xi Jinping to Sri Lanka and Maldives, as part of his South Asian tour that brought him to India.

China is using economic, military and diplomatic tools to gain influence over coastal states and small islands in the IOR and is using its investments and aid to consolidate its strategic positions. In addition, there is the reality of China’s steadily growing influence in the littoral through military and economic ties with our immediate neighbours, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Just how intense the competition is, became evident last month when Male’s main water desalination plant collapsed. Just a day after India sent five aircraft and two ships on an emergency mission to aid Maldives to overcome its water crisis, China pointedly sent a military vessel carrying 960 ton of fresh water and donated $500,000 for the repairs of the plant. Maldives is a particular area of concern to India since it was the object of back to back visits by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September and Defence Minister Chang Wanquan in November 2014. There have been persistent reports about China’s desire to construct a naval facility in the archipelago.

Chinese trade in the IOR has steadily grown in recent years. Beijing has important ties with resource-rich nations of East Africa and the Persian Gulf. It has a major role in the Gwadar port in Pakistan, at the mouth of the strategic Persian Gulf. Last November, China gave a call for the creation of a maritime silk route to enhance connectivity and trade among the Asian nations, and it has now operationalised a $40 billion fund to assist in the building of port and infrastructure in relation to it.

India can hardly object to the growth of Chinese trade and commerce in the IOR and its efforts to enhance connectivity. Indeed, it is not difficult to see why regional countries welcome Chinese interest and investment. But this has been accompanied by a significant stepping up of military activity as well. Last year, the PLA Navy carried out a special exercise on breaching the Lombok Strait that leads into the IOR from the Java Sea. It also sent a nuclear propelled submarine on a patrol across the Indian Ocean, ostensibly on an anti-piracy mission. Indeed, China’s robust participation in the anti-piracy task force off Somalia have given it a great opportunity to maintain a presence in IOR and familiarise itself with the region. But what has gotten New Delhi’s goat were the visits made by two Chinese conventional submarines to Colombo harbour. One of them, was clearly timed to coincide with the visit on September 7, 2014, of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an important Indian ally, to Sri Lanka.

Geography and culture favour India in the IOR. The Indian peninsula juts out into the ocean and gives us unparalleled location astride important sea lanes. The Indian diaspora is scattered across the region from South Africa to Myanmar and the Persian Gulf. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands sit at the head of the Malacca Straits through which 30 per cent of the world trade passes which includes 50 per cent of oil being shipped. For this reason, China has been exploring the alternate routes via Lombok and Sunda Straits, as well as developing over-land pipelines to connect via Kyaukphyu (Sittwe) in Myanmar and Gwadar in Pakistan. There is an even grandiose talk of cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Kra.

The Indian Navy’s Maritime Doctrine describes its “primary areas of interest” to include our territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone out to 200 nautical miles, the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and their “littoral reaches”, the choke points at Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, Hormuz, Bab el Mandeb, and the Cape of Good Hope. The southern IOR, Red Sea and its littoral, South China Sea and the West Pacific are areas of secondary interest.

The long-term goal of the IN is to exercise sea control and have the ability of power projects ashore in its region of primary interest. But India’s present challenge is to step up its game to maintain its presence in the region in the face of stiff Chinese competition. It has developed relations through naval diplomacy, which includes the transfer of patrol craft and reconnaissance aircraft and helicopters. Now it needs to consolidate these through enhanced trade and investment aimed at integrating the region into India's economic sphere.

New Delhi cannot match Beijing in terms of resources, but what it does have is location, a great deal of goodwill and also friendly allies, especially the IOR’s hegemon-the US. Even so, India needs to up the ante by finding money to put into strategic investments and projects across the IOR-whether it is Myanmar, Iran, Sri Lanka or Mauritius. The way to do it is not governmental schemes which are all running late, but to draw strength from India’s entrepreneurial class and the private sector.

Mid Day March 3, 2015

Building better connections

On Sunday, two newspapers ran reports that have a vital bearing on the geopolitical future of the country. Writing in the Indian Express, Praveen Swami lamented that a game-changer plan to link India with Afghanistan and Central Asia through the eastern Iranian port of Chah Bahar was in danger of being derailed because of New Delhi’s parsimonious attitude in putting up money at the scale that the ambitious schemes require. In the Times of India, Indrani Bagchi reported that India’s “Act East” slogan was being jeopardised by poor project management of its connectivity projects relating to Myanmar. India, she noted, had unilaterally shifted the deadline of completion of its projects from 2016 to 2019.

For Indian officials, these are really teething problems and New Delhi remains determined to pursue these schemes, if only for the fact that they are vital for India’s emerging geopolitical posture. New Delhi is also aware that should it falter, others, primarily China, are ready to take its place. The idea of developing Chah Bahar has been around ever since India and Iran collaborated in helping the Northern Alliance to take on the Taliban in the late 1990s.

However, the issue has also become entangled with the regional geopolitics as New Delhi has had to move carefully so as not to upset Uncle Sam. The Iranians, too, adept at hardball have sought to tap external investments for their infrastructure and development schemes. Many Indian players had, on the other hand, hoped to tap the Iranian oil riches which were being used by Teheran to subsidise fuel and food for its populace. In 2013, India came up with an offer of $ 100 million for the project, and the Chinese countered with a $75 million credit line to develop the port. This was somewhat strange since China runs the Gwadar port which is 76 kms down the coast, but across the border in Pakistan. Many observers believe that the effort was aimed at undercutting New Delhi.

It was only in October 2014 that New Delhi firmed up its offer and said that it would create a special purpose vehicle to invest $85.2 million to convert the existing berths at the port into a container and a multipurpose terminal. However, the Iranians say that the investments required to exploit the opportunity are much greater, perhaps something up to the tune of $ 500 million and more. This is because there are many vital missing links in the Iranian infrastructure in his region. For example, there is need to link Chah Bahar with Zahedan by a railway line which will then link up to the Iranian national railway system and the northern city of Mehshed. Railways between Iran and Afghanistan need to be built or upgraded along with better roads so that the region can play the role as a kind of an Indian Silk Route to Afghanistan and Central Asia
via Iran.

A major problem in developing connectivity projects has been the lack of higher direction. By virtue of being strategic, these tasks ought to be done in special quick time. But, more often than not, they end up mired in all kinds of problems. At the best of times inter-ministerial and centre-state coordination is poor. The Myanmar projects are led by the Ministry of External Affairs, but there are problems with this model since the Ministry is itself terribly under-manned and its diplomats are not really geared to be project managers.

This is compounded by the lack of specialised construction companies which can be used to run the projects. One would be tempted to call for revitalising companies like the Engineering Projects of India Ltd or the Engineers India Ltd for the job. But if the past is any guide, they end up functioning like typical public sector companies with low levels of efficiency and despatch. However, India does have good private sector engineering companies and the government can create special purpose vehicles by getting into joint ventures with them. As for running the directing the effort, there is no reason why a specialised ministry cannot be created, perhaps as part of the completely restructured MEA. Such imperatives have resulted in Canada’s foreign ministry being called the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development” and the Australian foreign ministry the “Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.”

To emerge as a powerhouse in its region, India will have to shape its politics as well as its infrastructure. A cursory look at a transportation or communications map will show the advantage that developed countries have in their first mover advantage in creating the world’s infrastructure undersea telegraph and fibre optic cables, pipelines, railroads, airline routes, maritime links all favour them. As a late comer, India needs to put in that extra effort to shape the connectivity paradigm in its neighbourhood. This requires both money and managerial skills. But more important, since the amounts are not significant considering India’s scale, it requires a vision, as well as higher direction.

This is what the Chinese are demonstrating with their Silk Road strategy. Last November, Xi Jinping put down $40 billion for furthering his goals in shaping the future communications and trading links of China with resource rich countries of Africa, as well as the markets of Europe. This is not a challenge where India can afford to fumble and falter.

Mid Day 17 February 2015

On Sunday, two newspapers ran reports that have a vital bearing on the geopolitical future of the country. Writing in the Indian Express, Praveen Swami lamented that a game-changer plan to link India with Afghanistan and Central Asia through the eastern Iranian port of Chah Bahar was in danger of being derailed because of New Delhi’s parsimonious attitude in putting up money at the scale that the ambitious schemes require. In the Times of India, Indrani Bagchi reported that India’s “Act East” slogan was being jeopardised by poor project management of its connectivity projects relating to Myanmar. India, she noted, had unilaterally shifted the deadline of completion of its projects from 2016 to 2019. - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/building-better-connections/15994199#sthash.6HECVEyT.dpuf