How an India-Japan alliance can help counter Chinese dominance

India's Act East policy has an obvious dilemma — China. How does India cope with the position of strength it occupies in the ASEAN and beyond and the unfolding of the Belt and Road Initiative? China’s trade is more than five times that of India. Further, China has important leverages with most ASEAN countries because of its pole position in the South China Sea and as an upper riparian of the Mekong river.

The answer that is emerging is: a partnership with Japan. Over the decades, Japan has built up huge equities in Southeast Asia. This is through its official Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) loans and grants, Japanese private sector investment, as well as the activities of the Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB). Typical of the Japanese, their approach has been low key and emphasised developmental and economic goals over geopolitics.

Investments

However, Japan is now being pushed to a leadership role in Asia following the election of Donald Trump as US President. His pull-out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) undermined the economic basis of the biggest planned pushback against China’s expanding footprint in the region. So Japan took the initiative to revive the gathering minus the US. Further, it has announced several measures to promote the construction of “quality” infrastructure, an obvious dig at the flaws in many Chinese projects.

At a side event at the UNGA meeting in New York in September 2017, Kentaro Sonoura, special adviser to the Japanese PM, outlined his country’s initiatives for promoting “quality infrastructure investment”. He announced that Japan would boost the $110 billion (Rs 7,06,434 crore) fund it had created in 2015 for a five year period in Asia, to a sum of $200 billion (Rs 12,84,426 crore) that would be offered for the same period, but globally. In addition, Japan’s concessionary yen loans had been doubled to 2 trillion yen (Rs 1.18 lakh crore) since 2015. This would provide access to large sums of financing for economic and social projects on terms more favourable than the market.

Japan has been a huge economic presence in the region for decades and a major factor in its prosperity. The attraction of ASEAN region for Japan has only grown in recent years as Japanese businesses have faced difficulties in operating in China. More important, perhaps, is the fact that wages in many ASEAN countries are lower than those in China. So observers note there is a transfer of Japanese firms from China to the ASEAN region.

In 2014 and 2015 Japanese FDI to the region has steadily grown, and is usually more than double of that of China. Japan has long led the Manila-headquartered Asian Development Bank to aid development of the Asian region. It offers money at near-market terms to lower to middle-income countries and at very low-interest rates to lower income countries.Transport corridors

Besides Japanese governmental initiatives, the ADB is itself making moves to counter the power of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. With the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the ADB has created Leading Asia’s Private Sector Infrastructure Fund (LEAP) in 2016 with the aim of leverage and complementing money to non-governmental projects which can range from public-private partnerships to joint ventures and project finance. The focus is to be on energy, water, transport and health.

There are a number of connectivity schemes unfolding in the ASEAN region and the Japanese, whether through ADB or their ODA, have been playing a significant role. For example, the EastWest Economic Corridor funded by ADB is creating a road transport corridor linking Da Nang port in Vietnam with north-east Thailand through Laos. A southern economic corridor links Bangkok with Ho Chi Minh City and the port of Vung Tao through Cambodia. There are several such ongoing projects.

In India

The Japanese have been active in connectivity projects in India such as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and have recently begun funding road construction in the Northeast, emphasising linkages to Myanmar and Bangladesh and are studying the feasibility of the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor.Indian schemes such as the Kaladan Multimodal Project or the Trilateral Highway to link the Northeast to Thailand via Myanmar are anemic. With the infusion of Japanese money and expertise, we can put some real life into our Act East slogan. India and Japan’s ambitious strategic partnership is not limited in trying to link South and South-east Asia, but make a broad thrust from towards Africa. The Asia-Africa Growth Corridor has a canvas that rivals that of the Chinese BRI stretching as it does from Japan to Southeast and South Asia towards East Africa.

Mail Today February 12, 2018

The BJP Is Playing With Fire, It's the Decency of Ordinary Indians That's Saved Us So Far

The fact that communal violence is rising in India is not hidden. Even the government acknowledges that there has been  a steady uptick in communal incidents. In response to a question in parliament on Tuesday (February 6), minister of state Hansraj Ahir disclosed that as many as 111 people were killed and nearly 2,500 injured in 822 communal incidents in 2017, as compared to 751 incidents in 2016 that took the life of 97 people and 703 in 2016 when 86 were killed.

It is not surprising that this is happening , given the deliberate strategy of polarising the populace through a variety of means ranging from cow protection to tiranga yatras, where gangs of young men barge into Muslim localities armed with the national flag (and a sprinkling of saffron ones as well) and raise anti-Pakistan slogans to taunt Muslims.

Even foreign policy is being held hostage to this, in the manner that Pakistan is consciously conflated with Muslims and a drumbeat of hostility is being maintained towards Islamabad for what are clearly electoral purposes, as became evident during the recent Gujarat assembly elections or earlier through the so-called surgical strikes in the Uttar Pradesh poll.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this, what is striking is the common sensical and decent approach of the common man. This has come out most recently through two incidents.

In the Kasganj incident, a tiranga yatra clashed with a flag-hoisting ceremony in a Muslim neighbourhood on Republic Day, leading to the death of a young Hindu man, Chandan Gupta. Thereafter, Muslim houses and businesses were deliberately attacked and set on fire. The situation was so troubled that even the governor of UP, senior BJP functionary Ram Naik termed it a ‘blot’ on the state.

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Whatever the Adityanath government may have said or done since to control the situation, what stands out is the steady refusal of the Gupta family to use the incident to promote communal hatred. Gupta’s bereaved sister Kirti told the Times of India that “there should be an end to ‘tiranga yatra’ if it’s leading to violence”. For her pains, Kirti said that her family had been threatened by unknown persons.

The other incident relates to an honour killing in Raghubir Nagar, New Delhi. A young Hindu man, Ankit Saxena was stabbed to death by the family of a Muslim girl he was in a relationship with. Once again, the bereaved family has gone out of its way to insist that the incident should not be given a communal tone. Efforts are being made by some communal elements to demand the expulsion of Muslims from the locality, but they are being stoutly resisted by residents.

What has been happening  has been graphically brought about by two courageous district officials. In the first instance, a district magistrate in Bareilly Raghavendra Vikram Singh spoke of  the “very strange trend” where people “take out processions by force through Muslim dominated localities and raise anti-Pakistan slogans” in a Facebook post. Subsequently the post was deleted.

Another young officer, Rashme Varun, posted on the provocative tactics of hiding behind the tricolour and the mask of nationalism to promote the “bhagwa (saffron)” agenda. No doubt, the officers exceeded their brief in posting on a political issue in this manner.

A breakdown of communal peace in UP and this part of northern India can only have the most serious consequences for the region and the country. If a handful of militants in Punjab, a state where the Hindus are a large minority, could hold the north hostage for an entire decade between 1985 and 1995, consider the consequences of militancy in a region from New Delhi to the Nepal border comprising of the districts of Saharanpur (Muslim population 41.95%), Meerut (34.43%) Moradabad (47.12%), Bijnor (43.04%), Jyotiba Phule Nagar (40.70%), Muzaffarnagar (41.30%), Rampur (50.57) and Bareilly (34.54) – which would together constitute the area of a country as large as Albania.

This is a fraught region, historically. Its elites played a significant role in the creation of Pakistan, but the average Muslim voted with his feet and remained in India. Yet, for the role of a handful of their co-religionists, their descendants have been placed in a permanent purgatory, with their religion and culture derided and their nationality questioned.  The region has witnessed repeated instances of communal violence – Moradabad in 1980, Meerut in 1982, 1987 and 1990-91, Bijnor in 1990, and Muzaffarnagar in 1988 and 2013. In many instances, the clash arose out of trivial events, but in some, there was deliberate provocation.

So far, these instances have been in the form of cycles of violence. Even though there was significant loss of life, they were brought under control. But given the current dispensation in the state, which is seeking to create a vote bank of the majority, there is danger of mass violence which would be nothing but disastrous.

The primary lesson of the bloodletting of Partition should have been the importance of learning that for the subcontinent to flourish, its various communities must be at peace, something that is as much the responsibility of its minorities, as its huge majority community.

The Indian Muslims of today are not going anywhere. According to a study conducted at the University of South Australia, the population of Hindus in India will rise 36% to 1.03 billion in 2050, while that of Muslims will go up 76%  to 310 million, the largest in the world. The Hindus will still be a huge majority comprising 77% of the population, even though nationally the proportion of Muslims will rise from 14% to 18%.

By now it should be clear that high population growth is a function of backwardness. The challenge this presents is obvious.

The lesson from these figures is that people will simply have to get along. Fantasies of “ghar wapsi” or expelling Muslims to Pakistan and Bangladesh, are precisely that – illusions. In this crowded region of South Asia, we must find sufficient space to swim together, or we are doomed to sink separately.

Short-term polarisation for electoral gain is the worst of the options that our politicians confront. But, sadly, unless they soar to the level of statesmen like Jawaharlal Nehru,  they usually tend to take the lowest path.

The Wire February 11, 2018

NDA Govt Has No Reason to Be Secretive About Rafale Deal

Having cut my teeth as a defence reporter, I dealt with the so-called Bofors and HDW procurement scams from their inception. Even though no one has been convicted for anything in either case, all I can say is that I suspect every deal involves money beyond the actual cost of the product. Some call it a commission, facilitation money, and yet others, a bribe. The fact is that the defence business is cut-throat.

Even minus bribes or facilitation, because of the effort that goes in long design and development cycles and years of hawking your product around arms exhibitions across the world, companies find a way of 

 The only category that is probably free from this taint is a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) deal with the US because there the US government is the buyer and usually an American company is the seller as well. No one dares cross Uncle Sam, through the “Fat Leonard” scandal suggests that crooks can often find ways around the tightest of situations.

There is another category of acquisitions where costs and details are hidden because they relate to strategic programmes, such as those relating to the development of a nuclear propelled submarine or missiles. Other government-to-government deals are not sacrosanct either.

How the Rafale Deal Unfolded?

There have been several cases where no questions were asked and none given — Mirage 2000 or the Sukhoi MKI. Some years ago, the government blacklisted companies from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Singapore, and Israel on charges of bribing an ordnance factory official. One would imagine that these companies’ products would not require “other considerations”, but clearly they do.

As for the Rafale deal, it is important to separate the old and the new. The old deal to fill the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) requirement was for 18 aircrafts in a flyaway condition with 108 to be made in India progressively through transfer of technology.

This won the competition against the Eurofighter, the Boeing FA18, F-16, Gripen and the Mig 35, and was ready for price negotiation. In 2011, Rafale and Eurofighter were shortlisted, and the former named the winner in 2012.

Thereafter price negotiations began on a complex deal, but in 2014, a new government came to power in New Delhi and short-circuited the old deal.

On a visit to France, Prime Minister Modi personally took charge and announced that the IAF would now buy only 36 aircraft off the shelf, no technology transfer would be required.

Same Aircraft, Two Different Deals

The same fighter is in the picture, no new variant or model. So price comparisons are not difficult and made easier by the fact that the Defence Ministry itself disclosed in 2016 that the basic price per aircraft would be approximately Rs 670 crore per aircraft, with the price going up to Rs 1,640 crore if you add weapons, spares, costs for special fitments asked for by India, and a commitment by Dassault that for five years, it will supply all the spares, components and technicians to keep the aircraft flying 75 percent of the time.

Those familiar with the issues know that there is nothing unusual in the “bells and whistles” costing more than the aircraft.For instance, take the Storm Shadow, a long-range stealthy ground attack missile or the Meteor air-to-air missile. According to a British Parliamentary question, each Storm Shadow fired in Libya cost Rs 7 crore each.

As for the Meteor, it is recognised as one of the most lethal Beyond Visual Range missiles around the world. Reportedly, India has sought other electronic enhancements each of which cost money. As for the 75 percent availability, this is crucial in a country whose fighter availability has sometimes dipped to 30 percent, and it comes expensive.

In 2015, speaking to the media, the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had spoken of a figure which added up to around Rs 714 crore per fighter, considerably lower than the Rs 1,640 crore India is paying now. Of course, these are two different deals, but it is inconceivable that the Air Force requirement for “bells and whistles” have gone up so sharply in two years.

Opposition is Right in Demanding Answers

It is essentially the same aircraft and the same country buying them, so questions about its details are legitimate even if there are valid answers. Unfortunately, the government has decided to take recourse to a secrecy clause to block information, even to Parliament.

The Opposition is right to demand information on the pricing.

Providing information on the cost of an aircraft, its engine, missiles, radar warning receivers, radars, does not undermine the country’s security. What is secret is what is inside the sensors, its capabilities, algorithms and so on, which no one is asking for.

There should be no surprise that we are paying premium prices for the acquisition of one of the world’s best fighters. Certainly we will pay more than the French themselves are paying for it. That is because we will retrospectively also pay for its design and development. That is the price we pay for not having developed our own military aviation industry. Barring the US, all countries use exports to subsidise their domestic armament acquisitions.

IAF Should Get Its Priorities Right

The primary blame for the current state of affairs rests with the Indian Air Force, which ridiculously, and probably deliberately, combined six different kinds of fighters for a single requirement which was a cheap interim machine till the Light Combat Aircraft was developed. The two American fighters were 1970s vintage, the Gripen, Mig-35 and Rafale from the 1980s and the Eurofighter from the 1990s.

Of these, three were twin engine and the rest single engine. Of these the Gripen was probably the most suitable, but when you take two engines into account, the Eurofighter and Rafale were clearly superior.

If the old deal was about equipping several squadrons of the IAF with a cheap multi-role fighter, what is the new deal about ?

To me it would seem it’s about providing two squadrons for a nuclear weapons strike. Since the 1990s, that function had been served by rewired Mirage 2000s, which were, by 2014, obsolete. Penetrating hostile airspace with nuclear weapons is fraught business, and so only the best and specially equipped machines will do.But these are top secret matters, usually done with some subtlety, but Modi’s personal cancellation of the old deal and its preemptory replacement by the new did arouse suspicion.

Some of the suspicion around the current deal is because its offset clause would have Dassault spend some Rs 30,000 crore or 50 percent of the amount in developing manufacturing, design, training and maintenance facilities in India. The charge is that this money is destined for the Dassault-Anil Ambani joint venture that is coming up in Nagpur to make components for civil aircraft made by the French major.

The Ministry of Defence’s statement on Wednesday, however, insists that as of now Dassault has not chosen an offset partner. There is speculation, though, that some of the money may actually be used for a DRDO-SNECMA deal to create a powerful new jet engine as a successor to the Kaveri, which was revealed in November 2016.

Going by experience, it is next to impossible to determine whether there has been corruption or not. As the Bofors or the Westland helicopter deal revealed, the ways of the arms merchants are next to impossible to follow. You may get some low-level functionaries who got some “business development” money, but you are unlikely to reach the big bucks.

The Quint  February 9, 2018

India Needs a Far More Focused Approach to Dent China’s Influence in Southeast Asia

There is a great deal of talk in India of a new, rejuvenated relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) following the historic commemorative summit after which all the leaders of the Southeast Asian regional organisation participated in the Republic Day celebrations. There is little doubt that India scored an imaginative coup by inviting all ten leaders of the organisation as chief guests for the Republic Day celebrations. But what’s needed is a foreign policy approach that thinks beyond event management.

The participation of the ASEAN leaders is indicative of their interest in greater Indian involvement in their region. No doubt, many of the countries view New Delhi as a means of offsetting the enormous gravitational pull of Beijing. And this is not a moment too soon. In the past decade, the ASEAN has been buffeted by China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and the inability of their erstwhile protector, the United States of America to check Chinese behaviour. Notwithstanding the so-called pivot to Asia, the US and ASEAN have not really found a way to check China’s steady expansion into South China Sea by creating and then militarising artificial islands.

Now, China has taken another tack of reaching out diplomatically to ASEAN partners to soothe their concerns. At the beginning of December last year, Myanmar State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi was feted in Beijing, in November, Premier Li Keqiang visited Vietnam where the PLAN and its Vietnamese counterparts held naval drills in the Gulf of Tonkin, a region where the two countries have no maritime dispute. According to the South China Morning Post, this has paid off in the fact that the ASEAN summit of November 2017 held in the Philippines did not mention China’s militarisation of the South China Sea. Earlier in that year, the ASEAN statement had referred to “land reclamation and escalation of activities.”By itself India cannot do much. It has few equities in the region. The figures are quite stark. India’s trade with ASEAN was $71 billion in 2017, China’s $571 billion. More important perhaps is the fact that the ASEAN nations have become part of the value chains linked to China. In the past couple of years, rising wages have pushed low-end manufacturing from China to countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. Many Chinese products assembled in China have components primarily from Southeast Asia. Take hard disks, Seagate and Western Digital produce 85% of the hard disks in the world. They have units in Thailand where half their output is produced with inputs from other ASEAN nations, and the product is sold to a computer assembly plant in China.

More important, perhaps, in contrast to India, China also has leverages in dealing with the ASEAN. First, of course, are those that arise from over-the-top  maritime claims through which it throws its weight around against Vietnam and the Philippines.

Its second lever, which usually received less attention, is the Mekong river which originates as the Lancang in Tibet and then flows through Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.As in the case of the Brahmaputra, China uses its upper riparian status to lean on the lower riparian states. While in the South China Sea there is still resistance to Chinese activities, most of the Mekong States have acquiesced with the Chinese leadership. In December 2017, foreign ministers of six countries through which the Mekong-Lancang flows met in China to approve a five-year development plan under the auspices of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation arrangement initiated by China in 2015. China (along with Myanmar) has stayed out of the older Mekong River Commission where countries are agreed that their dam-building project proposals be discussed with all member states. Not surprisingly, China has several dams on the Lancang and is funding projects the lower Mekong basin as well.

Beyond this, China is actively involved in promoting overland connectivity with Southeast Asia. Using Kunming as the hub, China has ambitious plans to develop rail and road links to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. While high-speed rail projects in Myanmar and Vietnam have been shelved, China is pushing ahead with construction in Laos and projects in Thailand, and Indonesia. One analysis of the projects says that in contrast to their reputation, the Chinese have proved to be flexible and compromising.

India needs a far more focused approach to make a dent in China’s influence in the region. Connectivity is an important area which will undergird the economic thrust. But so far, its approach has been tardy. It needs to complete the Kaladan multi-modal project the Trilateral Highway to Myanmar and Thailand. Though begun in 2002, the highway has not come up for a variety of reasons, likewise delay has dogged the Kaladan scheme.Recently, New Delhi announced a $1 billion Line of Credit to promote digital and physical connectivity, as well as a Rs 500 crore to create manufacturing hubs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. We have also committed tens of millions of dollars in past ASEAN summits for economic cooperation, science and technology development, and green projects. What is really needed, to go by the experience of the Kaladan and the Trilateral Highway project, is to put in a new mechanism through which scores of smaller schemes in Bangladesh and ASEAN countries are run through a special overseas projects management outfit which would be run out of the Prime Minister’s Office itself.

And, in the context of India’s pivot, what is needed is a sharp scaling up of the size of the schemes, perhaps, in coordination with our other partners, Japan, Australia and the US, the first two are major trade partners and investors in the ASEAN, while the US remains the key security provider for everyone. This partnership needs to percolate deeper towards relations between the government aid and investment agencies of these countries, as well as their corporates.

As a result of Chinese pressure, Japan has stepped up its activities in the region. New Delhi and Tokyo have already announced their decision to cooperate to create an Asian Africa Growth Corridor which will link the Southeast Asia and Australia with India and Africa. This ambitious scheme involves mobilising financial resources and developing quality infrastructure, even while avoiding the pitfalls accompanying the Belt and Road Initiative.

Connectivity schemes only have a meaning if they are based on a foundation of good internal connectivity. India has many schemes, especially in its Northeast, but almost all of those are working at snail’s pace. Even the 1,504-km Delhi-Mumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor has seen “excruciatingly slow progress.” This corridor is, crucially linked to the success of the larger Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor project.

The  Wire February 6, 2018

The China angle

China is getting set to play a bigger role in Afghanistan. It is in talks with the Afghan government to establish a military facility in the narrow Wakhan corridor which separates Kashmir from Tajikistan and borders Xinjiang. It has also appointed a new ambassador to Afghanistan.

The Chinese motives are two fold. First, to block Uighyur militants from entering Xinjiang from Afghanistan. Second, play a larger regional role to safeguard and further its interests as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. According to estimates, China has already provided Afghanistan $ 70 million worth of military aid in the past three years. Last December, Foreign Minister Wang Yi  said that Beijing was open to the idea of linking  Afghanistan to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Among the projects discussed in this context are an expressway to link Peshawar and Kabul, a trans-Afghan highway linking Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.    

According to an Afghan defence ministry spokesman, discussion on the proposal for a base has been on since December. Broadly, he noted, the plan is to have the Afghans build the base with the Chinese helping finance it and also provide the equipment and training for the Afghans. According to some reports, Afghan and Chinese forces are already conducting joint patrols in the area.

The Wakhan corridor itself has not been affected by the war that has been fought in Afghanistan since the late 1970s. But from China’s point of view it is an important point from where Uighyur militants, many of who have escaped from the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria, can enter Xinjiang. The Chinese have for years kept a wary eye in the region because of the presence of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement militants in Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.  It is this factor which has also motivated the Chinese activities in the Gilgit Baltistan region.

The new Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan Liu Jinsong is a familiar face in New Delhi  where he has been an Acting Ambassador who has not hesitated to address tough questions on Sino-Indian relations, including the Doklam issue. According to the South China Morning Post, Liu was born in eastern Zhejiang, but raised in Xinjiang. He was previously deputy director of the international cooperation office and one of the directors of the Silk Road Fund.China has claimed that it faces an increased threat from returning jihadists. One official claimed that the number of those intercepted on the border in 2017 had gone up ten fold, but he refused to provide actual numbers. Last November, the Syrian ambassador to China had claimed that there had been 5,000 or so Chinese fighters in the IS.

As a result of the threat, China has undertaken an unprecedented crackdown on the Uighyurs. Restrictions have been placed on the teaching of their language, as well as on their Islamic religious practices. Last week China’s Defence Minister Chang Wanquan said that Beijing would uphold Xinjiang’s stability and “build an iron wall to enhance border defence.” Most of the police personnel recruited in Xinjiang come from the Han provinces of the country.

Since 2010, China has sharply enhanced its economic aid and investment in Afghanistan. One important area has been a pledge for a  $ 3.5 billion dollar investment in the Aynak copper mines. But to take advantage of Afghanistan’s rich natural resources, there must first be peace and stability in the country. In 2016, as a gesture signalling its interest, China sent a railway train through various Central Asian countries to the northern border town of Hairatan in Afghanistan.  

As a signal of its newly assertive regional policy, Beijing has also sought to cut out a role for itself in bringing stability to Afghanistan. IN December 2017, China hosted the first China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue where it expressed its willingness to play a “constructive role” in improving Afghanistan-Pakistan relations and extending the CPEC to cover Afghanistan as well. Earlier this meeting had taken place at a lower level. Last year, China was also part of the revived SCO contact group on Afghanistan. In a meeting attended by the SCO member states at the deputy minister level, the Afghan delegation was led by the deputy foreign minister Hikmat Karzai. Afghanistan is seeking full membership in this organisation. China is also part of the currently defunct Quadrilateral Coordination Group along with Pakistan, US and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is naturally keen to be drawn into the regional integration plans being mooted by Beijing. It is aware that with the CPEC, Chinese influence has, if anything, increased in Islamabad. And where the US has lost leverage, China has gained. For their part the Pakistanis are fine with the Chinese role because Beijing usually goes out of its way to accommodate Pakistan. More important, an increased Chinese presence in Afghanistan will offset India’s influence. The US is also supportive of China and has said that it would like to encourage all regional partners to play a positive role and support the Afghan government.

Though there is generally positive attitude towards China’s efforts to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan, there are questions about its capacity to deal with the situation. With its stance that it does not like to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, Beijing has lacked the experience of dealing with such situations. Dealing with the complex Afghan situation and the slippery Pakistanis will not be any easy task for the Chinese.

Greater Kashmir February 5, 2018

So many Kasganjs: Prolonged intimidation of Muslims will shred the social and political fabric of India

Listing the books on Xi Jinping’s desk during his annual New Year telecast has become an internet meme. This year, among other books, netizens noticed The Gray Rhino, a bestseller by Michele Wucker, whose theme is the need to recognise and act against dangers – fiscal, social or political – that are in plain sight in front of us, but often ignored.

A major danger confronting this country these days is the fraught communal situation. The violence in Kasganj should alert us to the consequences of using political polarisation for winning elections. In this case, a rally by a group of young men triggered the violence which, the senior BJP leader and governor of Uttar Pradesh Ram Naik has termed as “shameful” and a “blot” on the state. In a Facebook note (since removed) Raghavendra Vikram Singh, the district magistrate of Bareilly, observed a “strange trend” where people entered areas dominated by Muslims and raised slogans against Pakistan. The intention, he implied, was clearly to provoke.

Provocation has taken many forms. On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on their alleged failure to comply with an earlier court order to check instances of vigilante violence over cow protection. It does not take a genius to figure out that these actions are linked to the politics of our times, call them majoritarian or communal or whatever. People are, of course, free to choose their politics, but they and their leaders urgently need to consider the dangers that are now increasingly manifest.

The partition of the country in 1947 was a Black Swan event. Many of its actors, including some say Jinnah himself, did not believe that it would actually happen. Populist politicians think they are in control of the narrative and one day we discover that they have taken us over the brink. Today, despite the obvious train wreck we confront, there is a strange silence at the apex of the government. Though senior leaders like Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu obliquely, and Ram Naik directly, have raised the alarm.

In 1947, millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. India has not yet recovered from that trauma. A communal breakdown today would result in an entirely different kind of a disaster. Across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and into Bengal and Assam, Muslims constitute 10-30% of the population with some districts in western UP, east Bihar and Bengal going even higher. These 80 million or so are simply too many to be “sent to Pakistan”. Prolonged violence, intimidation and vigilantism against them would eventually lead to counter-violence. Given their numbers they would not prevail, but the ensuing conflict would surely shred the social and political fabric of the nation.

What is unfortunate here is that India has had one of the most peaceable Muslim populations anywhere. In the past decades, as the high tide of Islamist radicalism lashed the world, Indian Muslims stood out for their moderation born, no doubt, from the environment in which they lived. There were none found in the multi-national Guantanamo prison; the figure of those with IS are less than 10. Taking into account those involved in the Bombay blasts of 1993 and Indian Mujahideen strikes, the number of those killed or convicted for acts of terrorism in the past three decades does not probably exceed 200, an astonishing figure considering our Muslim population is around 176 million. Terrorism here has largely been a state-sponsored event run by Pakistan.

India cannot say it has not been warned. As recently as December 2017, former President Barack Obama called on India to cherish and nurture its well-integrated Muslim population. The Gray Rhino is standing in the middle of the road to our future. It’s up to us to avoid him, or bear the consequences of the crash.

Times of India Feb 3, 2018.