Why Did India and China Sign Their New Security Agreement?

The signing of an internal security agreement by India and China last Monday is an indicator of the special nature of their relationship. This features competition, conflict and cooperation. We all know the points of conflict – the disputed 4,000-km border, Pakistan, the Masood Azhar issue, and the question of India’s NSG membership.

Lesser known are areas of cooperation – India’s membership in the Beijing-sponsored Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, our membership in BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and in various international bodies on a range of issues.

China is India’s biggest trading partner and a large market for Chinese products, and Indian retailers are keen to acquire cheap Chinese goods to market

The New Trend

The new agreement can be seen as part of the new trend in Sino-Indian relations initiated by the Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping earlier this year.

The pact focuses on terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, intelligence sharing and disaster management. The significance of the agreement is obvious from the fact that the signatory on the Indian side was the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and the Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi.

Zhao is a politician and police officer who was elevated to his current office in the last Communist Party Congress in November 2017. China’s Ministry of Public Security is responsible for the internal security and day-to-day policing of the country.

Negotiations for the agreement began in 2015 following Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to China. Initially, the Chinese wanted separate agreements for the different issues, but in the wake of Wuhan, they accepted the idea of an umbrella agreement.

The Wuhan summit itself came after the two-month standoff between the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army in the India-China-Bhutan trijunction on Doklam plateau.

Besides Doklam, Sino-Indian relations had been roiled by the Chinese refusal to support India’s candidacy to the Nuclear Supplier’s Group and to put a hold on India’s efforts to have Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar put on a UN list relating to terrorism.

In turn, the Chinese were unhappy over New Delhi using the Tibet card by inviting the head of the Tibetan Central Administration Lobsang Sangay to Prime Minister Modi’s inauguration, and to have a Union Minister welcome the Dalai Lama to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

What Are the Issues?

Having used megaphone diplomacy to assail China for not supporting our NSG or Masood Azhar case, New Delhi is now using an orthodox diplomatic approach to persuade the Chinese of its case. So far, Indian officials say, the Chinese have not budged on these issues. But it is possible that some patient diplomacy will yield results.

China, too, has worries about terrorism, emanating from separatists in Xinjiang. The Chinese are making extraordinary efforts to stamp out Islamist ideas in their western province and are sensitive to the movement of Uighurs around the world.

Recall the episode in 2016 when India granted and later withdrew a visa given to Dolkun Isa, an Uighur activist who was scheduled to attend a conference of Chinese dissidents in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama resides. Subsequently, some other Chinese dissidents, too, were denied visas.

Beyond these high-profile issues, the agreement will be of practical use to deal with issues of mutual interest, such as narcotic smuggling, human trafficking, and disaster management.

With the movement of Indians and Chinese in each other’s countries, there are often issues relating to arrests and imprisonment of their respective nationals. The agreement can pave the way for dealing with such issues and lead to the signing of an extradition treaty between the two countries.

A Sidelight of the Meeting

Beyond terrorism, India also wants an agreement to deal with transnational crimes and cyber crimes, and to deal with white-collar criminals, as China has well-known capabilities in the cyber area. The agreement will feature an important component of exchange of information that will help in pre-empting criminal acts. Towards this end, the plan is to set up a 24x7 hotline to facilitate the exchange of information.

The agreement has little to do with the Sino-Indian border dispute, which is handled through other mechanisms and agreements. But it will definitely deal with cross-border infiltration and, more importantly, disaster management. Because rivers flow from China into India, there are often situations where forewarning is vital to prevent casualties from floods or landslides downriver.

An interesting sidelight of the meeting were the activities of Kiren Rijiju, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh – a state claimed in its entirety by China.

Rijiju was kept out of the meetings, but called in at the last minute to participate in the formal signing ceremony.

His absence had provoked questions from the media and it is believed that he was told at the last minute to participate in the signing ceremony.

The Wuhan summit has set the tone of the Sino-Indian relations in the current period. It is aimed at getting the two countries to manage the difficult areas of their relationship and find areas of convergence, and also promote better coordination between them.  The summit also sends an important signal globally, that the two countries are quite capable of handling their differences through dialogue and discussion.

The Quint October 24, 2018

View: It's time to reform the CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is looking more and more like a slow-motion train wreck. On Monday, there were reports that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had summoned CBI director Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana. A day earlier, the agency had booked Asthana as prime accused in a bribery scandal. 

At the same time, it arrested its own deputy superintendent of police Devender Kumar, for allegedly forging a statement to assist Asthana, who had initiated his own corruption complaint against Verma. 

It would be difficult to find a saga as sordid as the one that is unfolding in India’s apex investigation body, where the No. 1and No. 2 are locked in a struggle to the end, accusing each other of corruption. Normally, in such circumstances, the easiest thing to do is to ease out No. 2. But that has not happened. Why? 

The alleged reason is that Asthana, a Gujarat cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, is considered close to the top BJP leadership. Incidentally, he happened to be the man who supervised the 2002 Godhra investigation. The Narendra Modi government had sought to position Asthana as the head of CBI, once called ‘a caged parrot’ by the Supreme Court. As the country’s premier investigating agency, it has been used as a political instrument by governments down the years. The present administration, too, may not have held itself back from unleashing it on political opponents, perceived or otherwise. 

Asthana was appointed additional director, CBI, in December 2016, and promoted to the rank of special director last October. This took place over the objections of CBI director Verma, who had been appointed in his current position in January 2017 and is believed to have informed the selection committee of the serious corruption charges against Asthana.

Efforts to reform the CBI have been going on since the famous Vineet Narain judgment of 1997 through which the Supreme Court gave a set of directions to the government to ensure the autonomy of the organisation. By 2013, it was clear that reform efforts had failed. This is when the Supreme Court had made its infamous observation that the CBI “was a caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice”. 

The apex court then sought an undertaking from the then-UPA government that it would provide more autonomy to the outfit. But such are the powers and political uses of the organisation that no government has been willing to give it the autonomy it needs to function as a professional investigative agency. 

Read more at:The real problem for the CBI lies in its charter of duties. These are not protected by legislation. Instead, its functions are based merely on a government resolution that draws its powers from the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, which makes the CBI the premier investigative arm of the Union government. 
Every successive government has found it useful to keep the ‘parrot in the cage’ to make it do its (dirty) work. The present government seems to have been no exception. 

Corruption in the CBI has always been spoken of in undertones, for the simple reason that it is the nation’s apex anti-corruption investigation agency. Its action — or inaction — can make or break a major case. Obviously, if there are corrupt officers in its midst, they are in a position to benefit illegally. 
So far, the prime minister has not spoken of the shambolic goings-on in an organisation that reports directly to him. Indeed, it’s not clear whether he will do so at all. Modi is walking a tightrope. He has made claims that he runs a corruption-free government. 

But if the CBI has filed an FIR charging its No. 2 with alleged corruption, then a proverbial can of worms could open up. 

Prakash Singh, former director general of the Border Security Force (BSF) — who has been trying to push the government to reform India’s police forces for the last 20 years — has noted that whenever there are no political overtones to the case, the CBI does a good job. But when politics comes in, things appear to go ‘round and round’. 

IIn Singh’s view, besides appointing the head of the CBI through a collegium, as recommended by the Lokpal Act, the government must ensure financial autonomy for the outfit. Essentially, he has rightly suggested that the CBI should be given statutory status through legislation equivalent to that provided to the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) and the Election Commission (EC). 

Maybe, this sorry episode will trigger the long-sought-after reforms in the CBI that have been ‘postponed for decades.. 

The Economic Times October 24, 2018

New Bhutan government's attitude towards India is not clear. This should worry India

It’s a measure of our attitude to neighbours that the outcome of the third, and possibly most consequential general elections in Bhutan that took place last Thursday, hardly figured in the Indian media the day the results came out, last Friday.

Bhutan Election hardly figured in the Indian media. (Photo: AP)

The decisive victory of a party, Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT), which was set up only in 2013, is a signal that the voter is looking for change, both within the country, as well as in its relationship with the outside world.

Indo-Bhutan relation

The DNT, headed by surgeon Lotay Tshering, won 30 out of the 47 seats to the National Assembly, while its rival Druk Phuenseum Tshogpa got the other 17 in a run-off, which is limited by the Bhutanese law to just two parties that got the maximum number of votes in the first primary round of the election that was held September 2018 and that saw the shock exit of the ruling People’s Democratic Party.

That round saw the DNT and DPT neck and neck, but in the final round, the DNT has surged ahead.

The DPT had won the first election in 2008 and sat in the Opposition in the 2008-2013 period.

It is a measure of Bhutan’s size that the total electorate is 4,38,663 only, of which 3,13, 473 cast their votes.

Dr Lotay Tshering (Right), the Prime Minister-designate, is an MBBS from Dhaka University. (Photo: Facebook of Dr Lotay Tshering)

The DNT’s slogan “Narrow the Gap” focused on the need to reduce inequalities, promote affordable healthcare and restructure the economy. It clearly struck a chord with the electorate.

Dr Lotay Tshering, the leader of the party and the Prime Minister-designate, is a noted urologist who worked at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital till 2013.

Selected by the party to contest the elections, he paid the equivalent of Rs 60 lakh indemnity to leave the Royal Civil Service. It was only in May 2018 that he was elected as the head of the DNT. Tshering is an MBBS from Dhaka University, Bangladesh and has another degree from Australia.

Reports suggest that India was not a factor in the elections this time, though there should be no doubts that the elections can and will have consequences for Indo-Bhutan relations.

In 2013, Bhutan was hit by high fuel prices when India withdrew subsidies for kerosene and gas on the eve of the elections. The move was seen as a signal of New Delhi’s annoyance with the Bhutan PDP. The party lost the election that year, even though India claimed that the subsidy withdrawal was a ‘technical lapse’. The DPT, which was seen in the past to be leaning towards China, made it clear in its election manifesto that it sought to maintain and further “excellent relations with the people and government of India.”

The voters were looking for change, both within the country, as well as in its relationship with the outside world. (Photo: Facebook of Dr Lotay Tshering)

Doklam problem

It proposed to enhance electricity production through three new hydropower projects, which would boost Bhutan’s primary exports — electricity to India.

The DNT had no section on external affairs in its manifesto.

However, it pointedly sought to focus on internal affairs such as balancing the economy, which, in its view, was too dependent on hydropower exports.

The Bangladesh, Bhutan India (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement did not figure in the elections.

It may be recalled that in 2017, the Bhutan PDP government had failed to pass an enabling legislation in the National Council, Bhutan Parliament’s upper chamber. There was clearly popular sentiment against the agreement which would have smoothed the motor vehicle movement between the three countries.

The defeat of the incumbent government headed by Tshering Tobgay could not have been comfortable for New Delhi. This is especially because along with the Bhutanese government, New Delhi had managed the crisis over Doklam successfully last year.

The DNT’s attitude towards India is not clear, and neither is its position on Bhutan’s border problems with China that gave rise to the Doklam problem. But it is seen as a party that seeks to focus on economic change.

Chinese connect

Bhutan’s politicians have observed self-restraint in not openly discussing relations with India or its other giant neighbour China. Doklam, which was ostensibly about Bhutanese territory claimed by China, did not figure in the elections.

But Bhutan is in the social media age, and there has been a lesser degree of restraint.

Foreign policy issues have been raised, even though Bhutan election officials have levied fines on candidates, some for making charges relating to ties with India.

Bhutan presents a unique challenge for India.

On the surface, relations between the two countries are excellent and Bhutan’s geography ensures that India holds it tightly. Nevertheless, things are not exactly what they appear, and so, the upset defeat of the PDP, which was seen as being close to India, must be carefully analysed.

The DNT is a new factor and New Delhi must resist the temptation to look at relations with Bhutan through only the lenses of security.

Mail Today October 23, 2018

Greek shadow on US-China ties

IN 2015, Harvard scholar Graham Allison penned an article in the Atlantic monthly. Its theme, later developed into a book published in 2017, was that the US and China could be at war at some point in the near future. This, he said, was because of the ‘Thucydides trap’, an idea developed from a 431 BC observation of the eponymous Greek writer, apropos Athens and Sparta, that a rising power will inevitably clash with the established one. In the article, Allison said in 12 of 16 cases he had studied in the past 500 years, such a clash occurred, mostly to the detriment to both the challenger and the challenged.

Coming in the years when China, with an assertive new leader Xi Jinping began to consolidate its presence in the South China Sea, built a modern navy that began forays into the Indian Ocean and laid plans to establish new global maritime and land links,  the idea took root. Despite the US push back through its Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea and its so-called pivot to Asia, most people discounted the notion of war between two nuclear armed adversaries whose economies were  deeply enmeshed in each other.  

 Indeed, shortly after Allison’s article appeared,  Xi Jinping went out of his way to actually mention the concept even while rejecting it. ‘There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world’ he declared at a public meeting in Seattle, though he did  warn against ‘strategic miscalculation’ that could lead to conflict.

 So, what are we to make of what sounds like the steady drumbeat towards war, with perhaps a Cold one to start with, but with always the danger of degenerating into a hot one.  

 Three decisions alone last week are a pointer to the rapidly deteriorating China-US relations. The first was the arrest and extradition from Belgium of a senior Chinese intelligence officer Yanjun Xu for economic espionage. He was charged with stealing trade secrets of a number of US aviation companies, including GE. Xu is said to be deputy division director with China’s Ministry of State Security, responsible for recruiting assets in the US aviation sector for industrial espionage.The second was the US treasury department’s announcement of new rules tightening national security reviews of foreign investment. The new rules are part of the overhaul of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) and the US export control system as such that were legislated in July. The new regulations bring in a much larger number of transactions into the purview of the CFIUS. The US will now require foreign investors to inform the committee of all deals relating to critical technology in 27 industries ranging from semiconductors, telecom and defence.

The third measure was the tightening of controls on nuclear technology exports to China. Though US officials say that the Chinese are seeking to enhance their military capacity through illegally acquiring nuclear technology, the real target are the civil nuclear exports of China which, the Americans say, involve the illegal diversion of American technology. In January 2017, an American of Chinese origin, Szuhsiung Ho, was sentenced to two years’ prison for helping the state-backed China General Nuclear Power Company to develop special nuclear materials based on his activities in the US.

According to SIPRI, the US was the biggest spender on defence in 2017 with $610 billion, while China was number two at $228 billion. All these developments are taking place after a slew of other moves such as the imposition of tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to the US, Vice-President Mike Pence’s blistering attack on China earlier this month, the imposition of sanctions on China under CAATSA for purchasing Russian Su-35 fighters and S-400 missiles, the cancellation of US-China military dialogue and a dangerous encounter between an American and a Chinese warship in the South China Sea. The jury is still out on another, potentially more serious development—the charge that Chinese spies have infiltrated the networks of several US companies by installing very small chips in the server boards manufactured in China that are used in the systems of these companies. If the US confirms this, it could lead to a major effort to remove China from the global supply chains.

 Having worked out trade deals with its neighbours Canada and Mexico as well as South Korea, and begun negotiations with the Japanese, it remains to be  seen whether the US goes for a deal with  China or presses on with its new confrontational approach.

So far China has not revealed its counter moves. It does not import enough from the US to match the tariffs. But it can take other measures ranging from restricting tourism, a $33 billion per annum business for the US, it could devalue the yuan, sell or stop buying the US treasury bills it holds, thus raising US borrowing costs, and finally, make it difficult for US businesses to function in China.

Xi and Trump are scheduled to meet on the margins of the G-20 summit in November. What Trump will do is not clear. His team is divided among those like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow supporting a deal and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and his National Security Adviser John Bolton opposing it. But the clock is ticking, from January onwards, tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports will go up from the current 10 per cent to 25 per cent.

 But perhaps too much water has flowed under the bridge to allow for a straightforward trade deal. It may reduce some of the tensions, but the events of the past year have revealed faultlines that cannot be easily papered over. The perception of China has fundamentally shifted in the US, and this cannot be reversed. China is now viewed as a peer competitor, one that does not, and will not, play fair. And so, we still have no answer whether the Thucydides trap is in play, or not.

The Tribune October 16, 2018

Ajit Doval's New Job Description Won't Change India's National Security Management

At first sight, the decision to make National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval the chairman of the Strategic Policy Group (SPG) of the National Security Council (NSC) would appear as though the government is working overtime to repair the rusted national security mechanisms of the country. 

The move has come along with other changes in the NSC system, and a couple of months after it took an even more consequential decision to appoint Doval the chair of the Defence Planning Committee, which virtually runs the Ministry of Defence.A closer look would, however, reveal that this is, to quote Shakespeare, a lot “of sound and fury signifying nothing”. The Modi government has a record of making announcement and grand declarations that turn out to be just that – announcements and declarations. The changes in relation to Doval’s job description also appear to amount to that.

Worse, they could also be part of an effort to paper over the real problems relating to the dysfunctional defence system and the government’s inability to adequately address them. This is manifested most clearly by a little-noticed decision to replace Major General (retired) B.C. Khanduri as the chairman of the parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence (SCOD). Earlier this year, under his leadership, the SCOD came out with an authoritative report revealing the extent of the problemsof the Indian armed forces.

To come to the latest decision on the SPG: the defence secretary was the designated chair of the SPG and now he has been replaced by the NSA. Some media commentary has gone over the top in suggesting that this gives Doval primacy over the entire government because key officials like the Reserve Bank of India governor and the cabinet secretary are also members of the SPG. That is simply not true, because the SPG carries out a specific function in relation to national security issues and there is nothing unusual in having the NSA chair it.

Actually, having the cabinet secretary in the chair was a bit of an anomaly, a holdover from the era when he was, indeed, the chief coordinator of India’s national security policy, including the nuclear weapons programme. That situation ended with the appointment of Brajesh Mishra as the first NSA.

A six-member NSC headed by the prime minister was set up in November 1998. The body comprised of the SPG consisting of senior officials like the chiefs of the intelligence agencies, the heads of the three armed forces, and other senior secretaries to the government as the key executive tier of the new body responsible for the inter-ministerial coordination of the national security system. At the second tier was the National Security Advisory Board comprising retired officials and non-government persons. Both these bodies and the NSA’s office were serviced by a National Security Council Secretariat.

The NSC was viewed as a body that would take a holistic view of national security issues based on the advice and specialist studies done by its constituent bodies, but the executive action on them would remain the purview of the Cabinet Committee on Security. The fact that the two bodies had a common membership helped the decision-making process.

In setting up the NSC, the government had hoped that it would bring a fresh angle to the traditional approaches to security. This would be facilitated by the independent advisers in the NSC system. But over time, things didn’t quite work that way. With former government officers dominating the alternate channels of advice, there was little by way of out-of-the-box thinking.

Also read: The Army Has Bared Its Iron Fist in Kashmir – and Wants Everyone to Know It

In any case, the NSC itself met fitfully over the years, and while the NSAB was always active, the SPG went through long periods when it simply did not meet.

Looking back, it is clear that the NSC system has not quite stabilised. To start with, the Joint Intelligence Committee was subsumed under the NSCS which was given the job of tasking the intelligence agencies. However under M.K. Narayanan, the JIC was again revived and the tasking system abandoned.

When Doval became NSA, he initially did away with the NSAB and chose not to have a military adviser, with the incumbent Lieutenant General Prakash Menon being re-designated Officer on Special Duty. Later a truncated NSAB came up with former ambassador to Russia P.S. Raghavan at its head, but without its crucial component of non-governmental experts. The chairman JIC R.N. Ravi, who was also the interlocutor for the Naga talks, has recently been re-designated as deputy NSA (internal). He is one of three such officials – Rajinder Khanna, former R&AW chief is deputy NSA looking after intelligence work and former diplomat Pankaj Saran deals with diplomatic issues. Whether the JIC has also again been subsumed by the NSCS is not clear.

The position itself has changed tenor since its first iteration. Its first incumbent Satish Chandra was “deputy to the NSA”, a notionally higher position. Subsequently, NSAs experimented with having one or two deputies. And now Doval has decided on three. According to a report, Lieutenant General V.G. Khandare, the former Defence Intelligence Agency chief, may now be appointed military adviser to the NSA.

Does the change of the chairmanship of the SPG amount to anything? Unlikely. As we have noted in the case of the Defence Planning Committee, the NSA simply has too much on his plate to devote time to issues of reform and restructuring that are needed in the area of defence. He is the principal security adviser to the prime minister, responsible for managing India’s policies towards Pakistan, China and the US. He manages India’s nuclear deterrent and, because of his background, also supervises the intelligence agencies. True, he has some highly capable people to assist him in carrying out his numerous tasks. But at the end of the day, the buck does stop with him.

The Wire 13 October 2018

Lal Bahadur Shastri, Architect of India's Real Surgical Strike and Much, Much More

At a time when we are led by a prime minister with a 56” chest who believes in over-the-top self-publicity, our thought goes out to a diminutive and self-effacing man who once occupied the same office – India’s second prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose birth anniversary we celebrate today, October 2, along with that of the Mahatma.

Shastri was born in 1904 in Mughalsarai – the railway station that serves this iconic Uttar Pradesh town was recently renamed ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’ – served as prime minister for just 18 months. Despite his brief tenure, he has left a memorable imprint on the country as a politician, administrator and war leader. Many in the present generation don’t know he authored the slogan, “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan,” which captured the idea that peasants (and their welfare) are as integral to the security of the country as soldiers.

He was a seasoned freedom fighter who spent a total of 9 years in jail. After independence he held various ministerial and party positions. Apart from being general secretary of the Congress, he held the railways, transport and commerce portfolios before becoming Union home minister following the death of Govind Ballabh Pant in 1961.

In a world full of hollow men, Shastri was the genuine article. He displayed his moral calibre when he resigned from office in the wake of the 1956 Ariyalur train accident in Tamil Nadu in which 142 people were killed. That act of his still reverberates in the country. Hard-working but of weak disposition, he suffered  heart attacks in 1958  and again in June 1964, shortly after he took office as prime minister.

In 1963, Nehru and Congress president K. Kamaraj decided that six prominent ministers would resign and devote themselves to organisational work. The goal was to bring in fresh blood into the Cabinet, as well as send a signal to the electorate. This at a time when the Congress’s political supremacy was unchallenged.

Among those who left government were Shastri, who actually insisted that he be in the list, though Nehru did not want him there. But fate took an even more dramatic turn. Prime Minister Nehru suffered a  stroke on January 7, 1964 in Bhubaneshwar. Compelled to put a succession plan into position, he got Shastri back into the cabinet as a minister without  portfolio. Panditji’s death four months later, on May 27, was no surprise, though for a country over which he had ruled as a virtually undisputed ruler, it was a major blow.

Four days later, on May 31, Morarji Desai whose angularities were well known, was persuaded to withdraw his hat from the ring and Shastri was chosen prime minister by the Congress Working Committee. The power brokers of the Congress had hoped that the soft-spoken Shastri would be their puppet, but he turned out to be a man of firm views, decisive to boot.

These qualities had actually been evident in the period he was minister without portfolio, when he was asked to handle the crisis which followed the theft in Srinagar of the Hazratbal holy relic on December 27, 1963. Though it had reappeared after a week, the theft triggered off a popular uprising led by an action committee of people who were the forerunners of today’s separatists. Besides the release of Sheikh Abdullah, who had been imprisoned by Nehru at the time, they demanded a special deedar, or viewing ceremony, by experts to certify the authenticity of the relic.

The spooks and the babus in New Delhi strongly resisted the demanded, but on February 3, Shastri overruled the Union home scretary and ordered the deedar. The action committee duly certified that it was indeed the genuine article, which resulted in a cooling of tempers.

The slightly built leader had to fill the political shoes of the giant banyan, Jawaharlal Nehru. And he did so with a quiet panache. He battled pressure from the powerful men who had pushed him into office, accommodated Nehru’s daughter, Indira, in his cabinet, and made key appointments such as that of C. Subramaniam as the food and agricultural minister. To assist him, he created the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, headed by a secretary-level officer.

Among the long-term legacies of the Shastri era has been the attainment of self-sufficiency in food by India. When he took office, Indian agriculture was in crisis. India was, infamously, living from ship to mouth. Between 1960 and 1963, India had imported a staggering 15 million tonnes of US grains and the amount of the imports had been steadily rising.

Subramaniam, with the support of Shastri, took policy decisions that eventually led to the Green Revolution.

In the country today, Shastri is known for something he may not have really been trained for– as a war leader. The Indian military was still licking its wounds from the 1962 fiasco when Pakistan, hoping to rattle a new prime minister, initiated a series of provocations, ostensibly aimed at “liberating” Kashmir.

Pakistan had received US military aid for a decade, and its forces had developed a conventional edge over the Indian military, especially in the area of armour, artillery and the air force. Besides, Pakistan believed in its own myth that the manly Pathan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, would make short-work of the short, dhoti-clad vegetarian, Shastri.

Hostilities began in 1965 with a feint in the Rann of Kutch, where Pakistan used the fact that the border had been delineated, though not demarcated in the swampy region. There was some skirmishing in the region. But Shastri was not rattled, either by the Pakistani action, nor the uproar in parliament. All through, he emphasised peace and wanted to resolve issues peacefully. He was also acutely aware that conflict with Pakistan would be used by Hindu chauvinists to stir up communal passions within India.

Then began phase 2 of the Pakistani plan, Operation Gibraltar or the invasion of Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani covert forces on August 5, 1965 with the view of triggering a domestic uprising such as the one that had taken place after the Hazratbal theft. However, that did not happen, and ordinary Kashmiris helped the Indian Army round up the infiltrators. The devastating Indian response came in the capture of the Haji Pir Pass, a key point of ingress on August 30, 1965. This, if anything, was the real ‘surgical strike’.

The Pakistanis upped the ante and under Operation Grand Slam sent in two armoured regiments to cut the road from East Punjab to J&K. The Indian forces fell back in the face of the assault and things were looking grim. Shastri took two key decisions in the emergency committee of the cabinet. First, he ordered the Air Force to assist the Army and second, he gave the go-ahead for the Indian riposte – an attack across the international border towards Lahore, which caught Pakistan flat-footed.

The war carried on till September 23 and despite command failures and setbacks, India came out ahead because Pakistan, which had initiated the conflict, failed to make any gains in Kashmir and suffered a decisive defeat in Khem Karan in Punjab.

Shastri’s cool-headed leadership was vital in those days when, with the US staying away from the region and the British discredited, the Chinese jumped into the fray on behalf of Pakistan. His style was of wide consultation with the military brass as well as party colleagues, parliament and the cabinet.

In the post-war Tashkent talks, brokered by the Soviet Union, Shastri walked the talk of peace and did not rub Pakistan’s nose to the ground. He was willing to return captured territory in Haji Pir and on the Lahore front – real estate that was much more valuable than what Pakistan had in Chamb and Rajasthan.

But sadly, his heart gave out and shortly after the signing of the Tashkent Agreement, Shastri passed away in Tashkent in the early hours of January 11, 1966.

A look back at his life reveals a leader who deserves to be not just remembered, which India does from time to time but emulated too – which no one aspires to do. He was ethical, wise and far-sighted, he was a team-player, large-hearted and pragmatic. The adjectives could go on and on, and still be all true.

The Wire October 2, 2018