Beware of the soaring dragon: China's military power takes off

Last week, two events focused the attention of China watchers. The first was the test flight of the second copy of the Chinese fifth generation fighter, the J 20. The second was the release of the latest version of the Pentagon's annual report that tracks the rise of Chinese military power.
While releasing this report, a US official confirmed that the Chinese fifth generation programme was not only on track, but was likely to deliver its product by 2018, two years in advance of the originally estimated date.
The reports in the series have noted the disconcerting rise of Chinese power, fuelled by the massive resources and effort that China has put into its defence sector.

Danger In March, in his report on the work of the government, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao noted that China's defence budget was of the order of 670 billion yuan, which was about $106 billion, the second largest in the world.
Since the mid-1990s, Chinese defence budgets have increased by double digits, and even so, they do not tell the whole story.
US specialists say that China's defence spending is as much as 50 per cent higher than the official figure since it does not include R&D and foreign procurement costs.

The Chinese, by their own account, are preparing their armed forces to fight and win 'local wars under conditions of informationisation'; in simple terms, this means short, high-intensity regional wars where information technology will be a key factor.
Almost all foreign analyses of Chinese intentions say that their focus is on a cross-strait war against Taiwan, or the need to enforce claims in the South China Sea.
But the description of the kind of war the Chinese are readying for-a sharp, short 'local' conflict- could also fit India in relation to the dispute over our border.

All this is bad news for us because we are unprepared. Almost any close observer of the situation knows that the Indian Army and Air Force, the two key forces that may have to face the situation on the northern borders, are not ready and are plagued with huge gaps in their critical holdings.

Military might: The Chinese have tested a fifth generation fighter called the J 20

Efforts are being made to fill them, but looked at any way, there seems to be a ten to fifteen year window of vulnerability before the gaps can be plugged.

And if the situation today is any indication, there is nothing to guarantee that even the self set goals will be met.
The DRDO continues with its eccentric ways, mistaking its self-generated hype for achievement, while the defence public sector units and ordnance factories act as milch cows for corrupt officials and complacent trade unions.
The revelations from the BEML scandals are only the tip of the iceberg; almost all defence public sector units have been working more as representatives of the foreign companies that provide knocked down kits for them to make, rather than original equipment manufacturers.
Pakistan As for the ordnance factories, their situation is worse, as testified to by the scandal that has led to its former Director General being charged by the CBI and six prominent companies, including Singapore Technologies and Israel Military Industries being blacklisted.

As if this were not enough, the government's worst fear-that of increasing Pakistan-China military cooperation-is becoming a reality.
According to recent reports, Islamabad may also receive the J-10 fighter, Beijing's most advanced home-made machine, in addition to the 50 JF-17 fighters already contracted for.

China has supplied Pakistan with AWACS aircraft, as well as the Babur cruise missile.

Cooperation in the area of strategic weapons-nuclear reactors, ballistic missiles and so on is ongoing and now there are indications that Beijing may provide Pakistan with a nuclear propelled submarine.

This seems to be the import of the recent announcement that the Pakistan Navy had established a new Naval Strategic Forces Command, an event attended by the chief custodian of Pakistani nuclear weapons, Lt Gen (retd) Khalid Kidwai.
At the event, Vice Admiral Tanveer Faiz who is the commander of the NSFC said that they were 'the custodian of the nation's second strike capability' - as broad a hint as you would want for a submarine-based nuclear capability.

There is no need to get into a moral high dudgeon over this. If the Russians can assist us with our nuclear propelled ballistic missile submarine, the Arihant, so can the Chinese help the Pakistanis. And you can be sure that they are doing so.
Reform The secret of the Chinese success has been to act in the areas which are our notable weakness- the defence R&D and manufacturing sector.
Pentagon study of 2011 noted that since the late 1990s, 'China's state and defense related companies have undergone a broad based transformation.
'Beijing continues to improve its business practices, streamline bureaucracy, broaden incentives for its factory workers, shorten developmental timelines, improve quality control and increase overall defense industrial production capacity.'
Equally important, as another report noted, the Chinese defence sector has achieved 'relative integration into the globalised production and R&D chain'.

These paragraphs succinctly sum up what India needs to do to get out of its present rut where it remains dangerously vulnerable, even while it has become one of the largest importers of armaments in the world.

In the coming decades, New Delhi needs to fix its defence R&D and production sector and encourage its integration with the civilian manufacturing establishment.
And, since it does not have its big guns quite ready, it needs to undertake some smart diplomacy as well. The worst response to the situation would be to do nothing.
Mail Today May 24, 2012

Protest over cartoon shows politics at its most tasteless

The real problem was the initial response. Mr Sibal could have said: ‘We have seen the cartoon, and understood what it is trying to say - that the Constitution making process needs to be speeded up.
There is absolutely nothing derogatory to Babasaheb Ambedkar there, and so there is no need for any action on our part.’
After all what does the cartoon depict - Babasaheb and Pandit Nehru trying to get the constitutional process to move faster. Babasaheb is not the snail, he is not the object of the whipping, he is justly seen as the driver of the process and hence sitting on the snail. 

 

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal speaks as a members show photocopies of a cartoon of BR Ambedkar in an NCERT text-book, in the Lok Sabha

Instead, Sibal joined the lynch mob of protesting MPs and said that he had already written to the NCERT to withdraw the cartoons and that he would not allow Dr Ambedkar's image to be ‘disparaged.’
And to compound the crime, declared that all cartoons needed to be removed from NCERT textbooks, and that the Union government would institute an inquiry into the role of NCERT officials in including the ‘offending’ material in their textbooks.
In one casual decision, a key element of a democratic culture - satirical visual art - has been tried, condemned and executed. Almost every newspaper, big or small, well known or obscure, has relied on cartoons to tell the story.
Cartoonists like Thomas Nast, Herblock, and our own Shankar, R K Laxman and O V Vijayan have, through history punctured the vanity of politicians and commented on issues of the day. But only in India of the 21st century have they been told they can't do it anymore, and that their actions are criminal.
There are several forces at work here. First, the tendency of political correctness among the liberal elites and second, the culture of political cynicism. Political correctness, of the type that will not allow you to accept that a significant chunk of young Muslims have been influenced by radical ideas. More insidious is the kind where the death penalty is abominable, but not the murders, rapes and kidnappings that bring on such a penalty.
Not surprisingly, some of our most politically correct responses come in relation to Dalits.
Given the long history, and continuing, discrimination faced by them, there is a tendency to avoid passing judgment on the likes of Mayawati who passes off her massive accumulation of assets as gifts from her followers.
That she ran one of the most corrupt administrations that Uttar Pradesh has known was something that was routinely glossed over by the media. And now we have a situation where in the name of Dalit pride we are being asked to reinterpret cartoons that were drawn over sixty years ago and famously not objected to by the object himself.
The problem is that ministers of today are wont to not merely get into, but virtually second-guess politically correct postures.
Sibal thought that an abject apology with some administrative action would do the trick; instead, just like the late and unlamented Mandal commission report, it has unleashed a Frankenstein.
That is because this kind of thinking threatens to upend the entire structure of the freedom of speech and expression. If cartoons and satire are the target today, what is to prevent straightforward opinion from being targeted tomorrow?
It goes without saying that satire and cartoons are targeted in authoritarian countries. Yet, without the slightest bit of hesitation we had other parliament luminaries like Yashwant Sinha, Sharad Yadav, Harsimrat Kaur Badal support Sibal's actions.
It is not India alone that suffers from this problem. Take the Public Order Act in UK. Under Section 5 of the 1986 Act 'insulting words or behaviour' are outlawed. But just what constitutes insulting words or behaviour can have a very wide interpretation.
An Oxford University student who asked a policeman whether his horse was gay, found himself prosecuted under the Act. A 16 year old who said ‘woof’ to a dog within earshot of a policeman was arrested and fined 200 pounds, though the decision was later overturned by a jury.
This, mind you, in Britain which is supposed to be the home of free speech and democratic liberties, and which has the famous Speakers corner in Hyde Park where anyone could say anything.
If the creeping disease of political correctness is one thing, the bigger problem is of a new breed of politician who believes that getting and staying ahead is more important, and political principles and ideals are strictly for the birds. Sibal, an outstanding lawyer and otherwise decent human being, typifies this tendency. He is also the man who is behind the assault on the freedom of the internet. It began with his summoning executives of Google and Facebook and demanding pre-censorship from them.
This has now culminated in the framing of Information Technology rules which would create a system of censorship and pre-censorship in the internet. The rules are so draconian that many legislators and activists believe that they go well beyond the legislation upon which they are supposed to be based and have called for their annulment.
It is an irony that the heirs of Nehru and Ambedkar are wilfully encouraging the tendency to censor, block, ban and banish political thought and expression. Democracy is not a Christmas tree where you pluck the gifts you like and leave those that you are indifferent to. It is a complex structure whose defining feature is that it protects, indeed encourages, the right to dissent and to be different.

Mail Today May 17, 2012

How to cope as New Delhi fumbles

One of the key characteristics of a failing state is the decline of central power and the need to engage multiple authorities.
India may as yet only be a stumbling, rather than a failing, state but already countries have decided that they need to engage the satraps, in addition to New Delhi. 
 
This is evident from the recent visits of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with West Bengal state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

Last week, she was in Kolkata having a pow-wow with Mamata Banerjee and, less than a year ago in July 2011, she took the opportunity of an Indian visit to meet Jayalalithaa in Chennai.
In April, U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman made a well publicised visit to Patna to check out Nitish Kumar. Narendra Modi remains a problem, and currently, the only official contact the U.S. has with him is through their consul general in Mumbai.
In visiting Kolkata, Ms Clinton was killing two birds with one stone. First, she was sending a signal to that other alleged failing state, Bangladesh, that the U.S. could be an interlocutor for its interests with New Delhi.
Second, she was building bridges to a person who is likely to play an important role in Indian politics in the coming years. Just by-the-way, it was also a 'thank you' visit to a political formation which had bested America's bête noire in India, the arch 'anti-imperialist' Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The United States has always had a keen understanding of Indian regional politics. Some of its best scholars teach in American universities. Whether it is the Dravidian movement of Tamil Nadu, or the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Lohiaite politics of northern India, the U.S. has measured them all.
There have been allegations as well of U.S. covert support to one or the other of these entities in their turbulent history. But it is not every day that the U.S. singles out one of them for interest, as in the case of the Trinamool Congress.
The clearest signal that comes from these visits, therefore, is that the U.S. is watering down its expectations from the United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi, and hedging its longer term bets.
The keen watchers that the American diplomats are, they could not have missed the fact that the UPA is unable to push through its legislative agenda, leave alone its governmental programme and that it seems to have run out of stamina.
The casualty here, first, is the nuclear liability bill through which the Americans had hoped to cash the monetary part of the payoff from the nuclear deal of 2008.
Then, there is the vexed issue of liberalisation of foreign direct investment in a range of areas from retail to insurance. Then, there is the issue of Afghanistan. Though India has obliged by entering into a strategic partnership pact with Kabul, well ahead of the U.S. itself, it is clear that New Delhi's appetite for a foreign commitment is not particularly strong.
While there is sufficient Indian self-interest to ensure a low level Indian commitment to the Karzai government, there isn't enough that would befit a wannabe world power.
One problem is Washington's own tendency of taking up issues almost whimsically. Whatever may have been the inner discussions, what emerged in the public seemed to indicate that the primary U.S. focus was Iran, with the bit about the U.S. bounty on Hafiz Saeed thrown in for good measure.
It is true though that the Indo-US agenda on many of the issues will form part of the Indo-US strategic dialogue in June.
The difficulties of the U.S. in comprehending the Indian future cannot be gainsayed. This is a period when the centre seems to be fraying in India. If the UPA is punch drunk with corruption charges and electoral losses, the NDA seems to be little better.
Foreign interlocutors complain about the lack of coherence in the government. Diplomats of one country, for example, told this writer that a bilateral dialogue was undermined because two Indian Cabinet ministers participating were working at cross-purposes.
There is no dearth of instances where it seems that the Union Cabinet functions as individuals, rather than a collective as they are meant to be. Indians have gotten used to the policy paralysis, but many foreign countries are learning about it now.
There is, in addition, the question of ministerial competence. Some of the issues which are bedeviling the Union government today are a result of poor handling by the respective ministers.
Take the case of the Teesta waters; surely the Union government should have undertaken systematic consultations with the West Bengal government on the issue prior to the PM's visit. Likewise, instead of simply announcing that a National Counter Terrorism Centre would be up and running by a certain date, the Home Ministry needed to have undertaken a thorough consultation with the states instead of a token conference that took place after several chief ministers protested.
When the Union government is weak, regional satraps flourish. This seems to have been India's story from time immemorial. We are an open society.
We cannot conceal our faultlines, or the differences between our leaders on policies and issues. We can hardly blame foreign countries from trying to use these as a lever to push their own interest in one particular area or the other.
The only way to fight this is to repair our own polity where the Union and the States play their role as assigned by the Constitution and convention.
But for this we need a leadership that does not rule by abdicating responsibility or kicking the can down the road.

Mail Today May 11, 2012

The U.S., India and the Af-Pak endgame

The U.S./Afghanistan strategic partnership pact is a major development for the region and has important implications for India.
In a speech during his six hour stay in Kabul, U.S. President Barack Obama asserted that the U.S. had achieved its military goal of defeating the Al Qaeda and reached a position where it could transfer the responsibility of security in the country to the Afghan forces, keeping only those U.S. and NATO forces there which would assist in training and counter-terrorism operations.
While the financial and military commitments to Afghanistan have not quite been spelt out, it is clear that the U.S. is not going to precipitately abandon the region this time around. 

Firm friends: Afghan President Hamid Karzai (right) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama after signing a strategic partnership agreement earlier this month

The U.S. has spoken of the pact as a means towards constructing 'an enduring partnership' with Afghanistan. Recall, that last November, India signed a strategic partnership pact with Afghanistan, becoming the first country to have such an agreement with that country.
There seems to be clear congruence between India and the US on Afghanistan. Were the U.S. to leave Afghanistan in a hurry, there would be eddies that could seriously destabilise countries of the region and have an impact on our security as well.
Now, it is clear that the U.S. intends to be around, in one form or the other, beyond the formal 2014 date of its troops pullout. And, no doubt, that forces, friendly and inimical to the U.S., will now be redoing their calculations.
To allay fears in countries like Iran, Russia and Pakistan, the U.S. has made it clear that it does 'not seek permanent military bases in Afghanistan'.
But the agreement does commit the Afghan government to permit U.S. personnel to use Afghan facilities.
The U.S. will also designate Afghanistan a 'major non- NATO ally' to facilitate the supply of equipment to the Afghan forces.
The biggest challenge that the NATO confronts is to make the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police into viable units.
Till now the ANA has been fighting as an auxiliary to the NATO. But things are changing rapidly. Last month, the U.S. agreed to let the Afghans take the lead role in the controversial but effective night raids that were being conducted by their Special Forces.
British forces in Helmand have already begun to put the ANA in command of operations in which they provide the planning and specialist support.
In a recent article in the Financial Times Andy McNab (pseudonym of a former SAS officer) described how the 2 Rifles of the British Army is associating itself as an adjunct of a force led by Brigadier Sheren Shah, the Afghan commander.
The British offer tactical advice and have the facility of bringing down American artillery and air support when required. According to McNab, the British, by letting the Afghans take the lead and acting as advisers, "rather than instructors" are nearly two years ahead of their American counterparts in training the ANA.
But this is where the rub will lie. Before the U.S. and NATO leave combat operations to the Afghans, not only will they have to have an army capable of undertaking large operations at the brigade and division level, but also one equipped with artillery, helicopter gunships, strike aircraft and the like.
As of now the ANA is a purely infantry force and most of its officers have, at best, the ability to lead battalion-sized forces. In addition, the ANA will have to develop skills in logistics, communications and so on. These are the areas where India can play a role.
Earlier this week, during the visit of Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul, New Delhi reasserted its commitment to long-term strategic relations with Kabul, as well as to increasing the training and capacity building of the ANA and ANP, besides equipping them.
India has already been training ANA attack helicopter pilots and can easily take up the task of providing training to other specialist elements of the ANA as well. It would be difficult to ignore the obvious synchronicity in New Delhi and Washington's actions on Afghanistan.
There is indeed a deep congruence of interests in both nations trying to create a stable Afghanistan, free from the control of religious extremists of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In this effort the joker in the pack remains Pakistan.
Washington and Islamabad have had a round of dialogue to reset their relations. As of now things remain unchanged and the blockade imposed by Pakistan on the movement of NATO supplies through its territory remains.
Of greater consequence, of course, is the role Pakistan wishes to play in Afghanistan in the wake of the withdrawal. The fact that the US and the NATO will continue to retain a strong presence, albeit through advisers and Special Forces, cannot but create discomfiture in Islamabad.
Reports of executions of some Quettabased Taliban leaders, who were trying to hold a dialogue with the U.S., suggests that Pakistan is still against a political settlement anchored by the U.S. Unfortunately for Islamabad, it lacks the clout, military or political, to do anything else but play the role of a spoiler.
Given the deteriorating political and economic situation in Pakistan, it may be worthwhile for the country to become part of a regional solution to the Afghan problem, rather than remaining a dissenter, and a destructive one at that.
Through the fog of war and uncertainties inherent in the future, it is difficult to see how things will turn out in AfPak in the coming period.
You can be certain of one thing, things will not revert to the past, especially the one where Pakistan held all the cards, as in the period 1996-2001.
There are simply too many variables in the new equations. We must be prepared for a new and unsettling future.
Mail Today May 5, 2012

The state was defeated at the very outset in the Maoist crisis

There is an almost ritualistic feel to the twin hostage crises that the country is witnessing—the kidnapping of Alex Menon in Chhattisgarh and that of Jhina Hikaka, the MLA from Odisha. Maoists have taken taken them hostage, the media is beating the nation’s collective breast, the state is acting like the proverbial headless chicken.  
Of course, there are other coarser details that make the picture whole—the appeal, first by the chief ministers, then by an all party meeting, to the hostage takers; the emergence of civil society mediators ready to help organise the final stage of the ritual— the one where the state caves in to the demand of the hostage takers, and their relieved victims appear before the media.
Goals
But we should never forget the threat implied in the abduction—that the hostages will be killed if the state does not comply with the demands of the kidnappers. Liberals will say that we need to negotiate, not just the release of the hostages, but the issues which are being posed by the radical group. They refuse to take into account the fact that where one party is threatened with possible death, there is really no negotiation possible. What you are being asked to do is to work out the terms of surrender. And this has a price, which is usually paid by the community or society you live in.
The most vivid example of this was the kidnapping of Rubaiya Saeed. She was held by the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front for five days. The Cabinet Committee on Security, which included her father, Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Saeed, agreed to the release of three top JKLF leaders, even though this was vehemently opposed by Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah. The J&K chief minister knew that social pressure was building on the militants to release Rubaiya unconditionally. But the panicked CCS overruled him and forced him to release the three militants. The result, it can be said without any exaggeration, was the Kashmiri militancy that is yet to end.
The Maoists will no doubt argue that their action is not a terrorist act, but a response to the repression of the state. They are bound to get support from their sympathisers who will say that Menon and Hikaka are not innocent bystanders, but symbols and, indeed, instruments of the state. At this point, it should also be made clear that those like Swami Agnivesh, who want the state to negotiate with the Maoists are wasting their time. The Maoists have never shied away from declaring that their intention is to overthrow this state. They may participate in negotiations—such as the ones they are engaged in to free their comrades, or in certain circumstances to buy time and as an act of manoeuvre, but they have no desire, leave alone intention of negotiating with the state with regard to their overall goals, which are to overthrow the present state system and its machinery of governance.
Methods
The problem in India’s dealing with Maoists lies with our attitude towards socialism and communist parties. In the eyes of many, the Maoists are a kind of militant socialists, not very different from the Congress or the Communists who serve in our Parliament.
But in 2010, when the movement peaked, as many as 720 non-combatants were killed by the Maoists, in addition to the 285 security force personnel. In the same year, the comparable figures for Jammu & Kashmir were 47 and 69. In contrast to what is happening in J&K, the threat of radical Maoism is actually increasing, compounded by the infirmities of the government in ever larger swathes of our country.
In part the problem is an outcome of the confusion of the Indian state’s policy. One element of this is to promote development and self-government in the long-neglected regions of central India, the other is the use of police force to overawe the Maoists. 
Alex Menon can be forgiven if he saw himself as a kind of a government NGO, rather than what he really was—the chief representative of the Indian state in that district, and therefore a prime target of the Maoists. He may have exhibited raw courage in going around with minimal security on a motorbike, but I would call him foolhardy because he has probably  brought far heavier consequences on the state than his development activities  would have.
Lesson
There is, of course, the other issue. What do we do now? The options are few. Naveen Patnaik has, of course, already surrendered and Raman Singh is probably headed the same way. But don’t be too hard on them. Confronted with similar dilemmas, tougher men than them have given in. Last year, the Israelis, who have a reputation of sorts, released 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier held captive by the Hamas for five years.
Politicians are naturally inclined towards compromise, politics being the art of the possible. And this is not a bad thing. The problem is when your opponents are inflexible, as happened with the LTTE, or the jihadi terrorists and now the Maoists. For them ceasefires and negotiations are merely a means of regrouping and resting, and obtaining  tactical gains with a view of achieving their goal, 100 per cent.
Concern for human rights, negotiation, compromise for a human life, is what makes us who we are. So, our tactics must take them into account. This means there cannot be a single rule to determine things, except that the outcome of the two kidnappings should be seen as a lesson of sorts, and we are better prepared the next time around, since we lost the game even as it began this time.
Mail Today April 26, 2012

Dream scenario becomes worst nightmare

Imagine that you have won a football match and are celebrating.
Suddenly, the match referee comes up and tells you that he has decided that the penalty shot you won by is cancelled, because he has decided that handling of the ball was no longer a foul.
Well that is what the United Progressive Alliance government seems to be doing with regard to some recent decisions.

Going back on taxation rules, the promise of Telangana, fighting corruption with, and then against, Ramdev and Anna, the United Progressive Alliance has a history of sorts of changing rules, some, retroactively. But, more often than not, they have led to self-goals. 


Dividend 

This is not the time when we afford too many of them. India is currently looking into the maw of a balance of payments disaster. Nothing as serious as the one it was hit with in 1991, but nevertheless bad.
In considerable measure the crisis has been brought on by India's tendency to run large current account and fiscal deficits. It has been depending on foreign institutional investors, rather than direct investment to make up the gap.
Surging oil bills and the cost of its massive gold imports are adding to the pain. To top it all, growth is slowing and inflation remains high. And at this very time, the country has been hit by a slow-motion political crisis that has paralysed decision-making in the government.
Unlike in 1991, the country does have $300 billion in reserves, but the demand for foreign exchange, too, has boomed and this could hemorrhage in no time.
This was supposed to be our decade of opportunity. India's dependency ratio- the ratio of the dependent population to the working age population-was going down-and would go down till the 2020s. This has been accompanied by a rising savings rate.
The one area we have yet to finesse is FDI rules. The three combined would give us a population of a productive people who would, in turn, jack up savings rates even higher and encourage even more FDI.
But this presupposed certain things, principally, a government which took the policy decisions which would, first, create the infrastructure in terms of schools, training institutions and universities which would turn our young into skilled professionals.
Then, second, create the infrastructure upon which would come up the physical assets in industry, agriculture and services on which would rest the foundations of our world status. It is now becoming clear that far from a demographic dividend, India may be headed for a demographic nightmare. Instead of an army of young, educated and productive people, we could end up with a mob of unemployable young people, who have been educated enough to know that they have been betrayed by their government, but not skilled enough to hold down a proper job.
Such persons are more likely to swell the ranks of the Maoist guerrillas who operate in a vast swathe of east-central India. It is increasingly beginning to look like the end of the Indian dream. The reason for this is not that the US economy is down and the European one is on the verge of a disaster. 

UPA 
We are fully responsible for our own predicament. And the first prize for this achievement must go to the UPA government which has successfully snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Actually, their capacity to harm is not quite over and we will probably see more self-goals as the alliance heads for political catastrophe in 2014. The primary cause for the UPA's behaviour is something that goes back in human history-hubris. The Greek word typifies people and institutions whose overweening arrogance causes them to lose touch with reality and assume that their achievements are eternal and cannot be undone. In 2009, not only had the Sonia- Manmohan team steered the UPA-I  coalition to a successful conclusion, despite the desertion of the Left, they had also succeeded in persuading the voter to give them a second term.
The Congress party tally went up by an astonishing 61 seats, from 145 to 206. The voter seemed to be saying that do well in the next five years and we may actually give you the 272 seats you need for a majority of your own.

Hubris 

The problem is that almost immediately, the party began to function as though it already had 272 seats in the Lok Sabha. The reality, of course, was very different. These were the years, 2010-2011, that required considerable attention in terms of policy formulation.
Hubris declared that we had weathered the 2008 crisis without breaking into sweat, and so there was little need to get excited over what was happening in our own polity and economy.
So the roots of inflation-poor infrastructure constraining growth- could not be attacked. Illustrative of the problem are the issues with power generation and coal. We are blessed with abundant coal reserves, which are made available to industry at half the international prices and so they ought not have been affected by phenomena outside India.
But the problem at home could not be defeated-the coal mining policy has remained a mess. The result is that power plants across the country are starved of coal, which in turn has led to a disruption of industry.
And, since this is the way hubris works, all this has come at a time when the UPA has been struck by a slew of corruption charges that have left the Congress party ship dead in the water.
We, and above all our leaders, need to understand that all that history can give you is an assured opportunity, of the kind India had in the 2000-2007 period.
Beyond that your destiny lies in your own hands, dependent on the things you do, or don't do. Going back in history and changing rules, doesn't really work, except in science fiction. 
Mail Today April 13, 2012