China’s Uncertain Recovery From COVID-19

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Modern China seems to have learned the ancient master’s lesson well. It has unleashed water wars on Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Even as China’s neighbors deal with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, they are experiencing their worst drought in living memory.

The mighty Mekong River has its origin in the Tibetan Plateau and flows through China into Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. It carries precious silt, making the lower Mekong basin incredibly fertile and the rice bowl of Southeast Asia. The river provides sustenance to approximately 60 million people living in its lower basin. It is also amongst the most bio-diverse rivers in the world teeming with fish, birds and wildlife.

The Story of a Drought

In 2019, Mekong started to dry up. Monsoons failed to arrive till May thanks to the El Nino phenomenon that delayed rains until July. The drought caused water levels to drop to their lowest levels in more than . Although the Mekong Delta had a bumper crop, the drought demonstrates the specter of water scarcity in this fertile region is very real and tangible.

The drought may not have affected the rice harvest, but it  Thailand’s sugar production. Like Brazil and India, Thailand grows a lot of sugarcane. The drought decimated this crop. As a result, Thailand, the world’s second-largest exporter after Brazil, produced only 9.55 million tons this year in contrast to the previous year’s 14.57 million tons.

In addition to droughts, the Mekong Delta is facing an acute  intrusion crisis. Ten of Vietnam’s 13 provinces are affected and five of them have declared an emergency. This crisis could mean lower rice and fruit production for the region, threatening its food security.

Today, the Mekong Delta faces acute . For years, experts have warned that “dam building, overfishing, and sand mining” threaten the Mekong. While all countries have built dams on the river, China has constructed 11 of them. During times of extreme drought, its dams hold back huge quantities of water, exacerbating the situation downstream.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) is the only inter-governmental body supposed “to jointly manage the shared water resources and the sustainable development of the Mekong River.” But it does not include China, which controls the headwaters. It often finds itself at the mercy of the Middle Kingdom.

Although Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that his country suffered from arid conditions, it turns out that China  the Mekong’s flow, worsening the drought. Later, its sudden releases of vast amounts of water caused flooding and suffering.

Two questions arise from China’s behavior. First, if countries in the Mekong Delta are suffering, then why don’t they object? Second, why does the MRC not hold China to account?

The answer to the first question is simple: China has economic and military muscle. Other countries need Chinese investment. They are dependent on trade with the Middle Kingdom. Furthermore, through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) China has poured huge sums of money into Southeast Asian countries. Its military might is increasing inexorably. It is also building artificial islands in the South China Sea. So, its charm and menacing policy work quite effectively.

The second question is answered simply too. China is not a member of the MRC. It is a dialogue partner and, therefore, not bound by its rules. It can construct a dam upstream without the MRC’s permission. China has also set up a body called  to undercut the MRC. The five Mekong Delta countries have duly signed up to be members. Clearly, China has added diplomatic heft to its economic and military muscle.

The Damned Dams

Since China’s conquest of Tibet, it controls the headwaters of some of the largest rivers flowing through South and Southeast Asia. Over the years, China has built “hydroelectric dams on a scale unprecedented in human history.” In an article published on  in 2013, Charlton Lewis, a noted China scholar, observed that “these massive dam projects [were] wreaking havoc on river systems across China and Southeast Asia.”

Five years ago, the spectacular Three Gorges Dam had been completed, stretching for a mile-and-a-half across the Yangtze. It was part of an ambitious project to build 130 dams in Southwest China alone. By 2013, the country already had about 22,000 dams more than 15 meters tall.

It is now well that dams “block the flow of rivers, increase the chances of earthquakes, destroy precious environments and shatter the lives of millions of people.” They exacerbate both droughts and floods. They decimate river ecosystems, “turning free-flowing waterways into lifeless lakes, killing plants and trees, blocking fish migration and breeding, driving species to extinction, and devastating established patterns of human life.”

China’s dams may be terrible for the environment, but they make for a good geopolitical tool. They allow the Middle Kingdom to bully countries who lie downstream. Without water, they could literally die of thirst and have little choice but to kowtow to Beijing.

Dams Win Water Wars

In addition to the Mekong, China has built dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo, Tibet’s longest river. This river first flows east and then dramatically cuts south through the Himalayas to flow west as the Brahmaputra in India. This mighty river merges with the Ganges to form the world’s largest delta, comprising Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. These dams form a threat to both India and Bangladesh.

China has already shown what it can do. In 2017, the armies of China and India stood eyeball to eyeball at  for 72 days. That year, China refused to  hydrological data of the Brahmaputra with India, violating its treaty obligations. This was punishment for Doklam and presumably for not signing up for BRI.

In 2017, the , a tributary of the Brahmaputra, turned black for the first time in history. It was widely reported that the Chinese government was building a tunnel to divert water from the Yarlung Tsangpo to the parched Taklamakan desert area in the province of Xinjiang. China claimed the water had turned black because of an earthquake in Tibet.

The Brahmaputra is in great danger. In 2013, China launched a project to build six dams on the , one of its tributaries. The project will convert the river into a series of artificial lakes. This would cause catastrophic damage to Tibet’s environment and diminish water for downstream countries.

As in 2017, China could use water as a weapon again. It could refuse to release water when India needs it, exacerbating droughts. It could open the floodgates during rainy seasons and cause horrendous floods. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals that China is not a country that shares information or respects international norms. Its dams are geopolitical weapons that give China an edge against its neighbors. Of them, India has the most to fear. As per Sun Tzu’s advice, the water-breathing dragon could use its dams to subdue its southern neighbor without fighting.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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All political parties bring out manifestoes before elections. Think of them as love letters to the electorate that tell citizens about the person wooing them. In India’s ongoing national election, the tells us a lot about this party.

The proposed policy of the on Jammu and Kashmir is oblivious to the harsh realities of the state. Section 37 on page 41 spells out the party’s promises for the region: “an innovative federal solution.” Interestingly, the party does not tell us what this solution would be.

The mention of Jammu and Kashmir raises a key question: Why does a state find a special reference in the manifesto of the Indian opposition? No other state achieves this honor, including the turbulent northeastern ones. They are all conveniently bunched under section 38. The Congress party’s manifesto proposes a solution to a complicated problem it created and, therefore, deserves detailed examination.

IS THE CONGRESS SOLUTION REAL?

The party’s manifesto makes a sweetly reasonable declaration: “[D]ialogue is the only way to understand the aspirations of the people of the 3 regions of Jammu & Kashmir and find an honourable solution to their issues.”

Such a declaration begs a simple question: Who does India have a dialogue with? Is the answer Pakistan? Is the answer China? Is the answer the US? Or is it Saudi Arabia?

The promise of dialogue forgets one simple fact. The state of Jammu and Kashmir comprises three administrative divisions: Hindu-dominated Jammu, Muslim-majority Kashmir and the Buddhist Ladakh. Only the Kashmir Valley is a theater of conflict. It comprises merely 10 out of 22 districts of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, the violence in Kashmir is causing Jammu and Ladakh much distress. Political power in Jammu and Kashmir is monopolized by politicians of the Kashmir Valley. And national politicians give scant attention to Jammu and Ladakh because they are peaceful.

When proposing dialogue, the Congress fails to spell out whom will it talk to. Will it include citizens of Jammu and Ladakh? How will the party select whom it will talk to? And, after ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits, growing radicalization in Kashmir Valley and the decimation of civil society, which Kashmiris will the Congress talk to?

REVIEWING THE TROOPS DEPLOYMENT

The Congress manifesto has promised “to review the deployment of armed forces, move more troops to the border to stop infiltration completely, reduce the presence of the Army and CAPFs [Indian paramilitary forces called Central Armed Police Forces] in the Kashmir Valley, and entrust more responsibility to the J&K police for maintaining law and order.”

First, the Congress is naive to believe that borders can be sanitized just by moving more troops to the border. Already, the Indian army has reduced infiltration through concerted use of improved technology and tactical troop deployment. Yet Pakistan remains committed to its long-term strategy of inflicting on India “.” The Congress party is lying when it promises to stop infiltration completely. That cannot and will not happen.

Second, to reduce military and paramilitary presence is likely to cause much strain on the local police. The local police answers to the state government, which currently stands dismissed. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is under president’s rule, the direct administration of New Delhi. Tomorrow, it will be under the elected chief minister because law and order is a state subject. They are not likely to have the funding or training to fight an increasingly bloody proxy war.

Recently, — launched by the Indian army in coordination with the CAPFs, intelligence agencies, Rashtriya Rifles and the police — has been a tremendous success. It turns out that in 2018 achieved the best results over the last 10 years. According to Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, “250 terrorists were killed, nearly 54 arrested and four surrendered.” These results give hope for peace, but the Congress manifesto threatens that possibility.

Of course, eliminating known terrorists has been partially negated by new ones joining the ranks. , a local youth, was responsible for the suicide attack at Pulwama in February, which triggered the latest bout of Indo-Pakistani tensions. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence has used propaganda and psychological operations to “a discernible rise in the levels of radicalisation and violent extremism.”

Such is the state of affairs that respected foreign policy analyst Brahma Chellaney that “Pakistan’s terror-centred warfare has proved costlier for India than any past war on the country.” For Pakistan, this is payback for 1971 when India defeated its neighbor and helped Bangladesh declare independence from Pakistan. It turns out that support of terrorism also pays. No one, especially the US, wants Pakistan to implode and terrorists getting their hands on nukes. As Chellaney states, “sponsoring cross-border terrorism pays.”

The Congress manifesto fails to take into account the role of Pakistan. If India lowers its troop presence, proxies of Pakistan will increase. Terrorism will rise. More people will die. Sadly, the manifesto’s pious homilies fall flat in the face of harsh geopolitics, religious radicalization and grassroot realities.

PLAYING FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE LAW

The Congress manifesto states, “The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the Disturbed Areas Act in J&K will be reviewed.” This act, popularly known as AFSPA, has become a beating stick for the security forces. People assume that AFSPA allows security forces to get away with murder. The reality is that AFSPA is simply an act that allows the army to arrest, open fire in self-defense and carry out search operations without reference to the civil authorities.

However there are safeguards. The army has to hand over every person it arrests under AFSPA within 24 hours to the local police. There are other safeguards to check abuse. In general, AFSPA is a much-needed legislation that allows the army to function without its hands totally tied. In any case, the Indian army does not have the freedom of other militaries. The US, the UK and even Pakistan give their troops far greater legal protections when sending them into combat. Were it not for such protections, US Navy SEALs could not have killed Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In addition to the AFSPA point in the manifesto, veteran Congress politician P. Chidambaram has talked of by “balancing the rights of security forces, as well as human rights and remove immunity only in three cases, enforced disappearance, sexual violence, and torture.”

Prima facie, this seems entirely reasonable. Yet there is more to it than meets the eye. As a clever politician, Chidambaram is insinuating that the Indian army gets away with murder, rape and torture right now. The reality is that the army is not exempt from the Indian Penal Code and numerous other laws. India’s National Human Rights Commission is no pushover and it registered 82,006 cases in 2017. All security forces in the country fall under its purview.

The Congress manifesto doubles down on Article 370 and , two rather controversial aspects of the status quo. The former gives special legal status to Jammu and Kashmir, while the latter gives the state legislature “a carte blanche to decide who …are ‘permanent residents’ of the State and confer on them special rights and privileges in public sector jobs, acquisition of property in the State, scholarships and other public aid and welfare.” This has allowed the more populated Kashmir Valley to lord over Jammu and Ladakh. Politicians from the valley deny refugees from the partition of 1947 permanent status and create a monolithic culture that Shia Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics find deeply disturbing.

The manifesto also posits “a large-hearted approach that will eschew muscular militarism and legalistic formulations and look for an innovative federal solution.” One wonders what that federal solution might be. The manifesto also promises “talks without preconditions.” Does that mean talking to jihadist groups? Is ceding Jammu and Kashmir or the Kashmir Valley to Pakistan on the agenda? And is the Congress party willing to talk about azadi (independence) for Kashmir?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Congress Manifesto Raises Terrifying Questions about Jammu and Kashmir appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The Chinese invented the . It begins with an empty game board as participants take turns to place stones on it, signifying control of territory. As the game progresses, players have to balance the need to acquire territory against overextension and capture. The winner must have enough stones to control the largest amount of the board. The best strategy to win a game of Go is to subtly gain a position of dominance with stones and expand before attacking the opponent’s unsupported pieces.

In modern history, Adolf Hitler, with his insatiable appetite for territorial expansionism, came closest to being a proponent of the strategic technique required to win a game of Go.��His views manifested themselves in Mein Kampf as he defined Lebensraum, or living space. In Hitler’s words, “nature has not reserved this soil for future possession of any particular nation or race; on the contrary, this soil exists for the people who possess the force to take it.” To the question of resistance by the people already occupying it, his reply was noteworthy: “What is refused to amicable methods, it is up to the fist to take.”

Though the Tibetans will certainly differ, we may consider it an exaggeration to compare Lebensraum with the present-day irredentism exhibited by China. However, the aggressive approach of the Chinese disregarding international norms and claiming territory of other nations is an uncanny manifestation of the centuries-old technique taught by Go. Information warfare acts as the stones, with the state-controlled media letting out a disinformation campaign against adversaries, while the Peoples’ Liberation Army gains territorial dominance. while sharing borders with 14 exemplifies not just lust for territory, but also a larger strategy.

DOKLAM, AN OVERREACH

The military standoff between China and India in Doklam, which occurred between June and August, was the outcome of a strategic overreach by Beijing. That the Chinese yielded to Indian stubbornness to succumb to threats was again a result of their adherence to strategic techniques learned from Go. The game teaches its players adverse fallouts of overextension and avoiding capture during an aggressive foray for territory.

India’s military intervention in Bhutan was primarily strategic in nature. It was also a legal obligation arising out of the 2007 India-Bhutan treaty. China’s attempt to browbeat Bhutan by building a road in Doklam — a disputed territory between the two nations — was not only a surreptitious effort at irredentism, but also an overt attempt to imperil India’s security as well as diplomatic standing in the subcontinent.

The Chinese road in Doklam would have become the veritable Damocles sword over the Siliguri corridor connecting mainland India to the Northeastern Region. In the event of a conflict with China in Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as its territory, Indian forces would find traversing through the corridor extremely arduous. In the interim, as a blatantly alluded, China would use its vantage position in Doklam to exploit the ethnic fault lines in the Northeast Region to foment armed insurgencies there.

The intervention in Doklam was also Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s method of informing China that the mistake of acquiescence during the occupation of Tibet would not be repeated. In Tibet, Jawaharlal Nehru’s naive strategic approach resulted in national security interests being sacrificed at the altar of self-aggrandizement. Instead of realpolitik, Nehru had abandoned Tibet with platitudes: “We cannot save Tibet, as we should have liked to, and our very attempts to save it might well bring greater trouble to it.” Bereft of the strategic buffer thereafter, the 1962 military debacle was a natural outcome of the myopic approach toward national security.

Indian intervention in Doklam, therefore, was also intended to gain the confidence of its allies in the subcontinent, in addition to attracting the attention of the international community to the Bhutanese chapter in the face of an ever-increasing Chinese territorial appetite. With the list of Chinese irredentism getting exhaustingly elaborate — near the Spratly, repeated�� in the South China Sea, and from exploring for oil in that sea on behalf of Vietnam — India used the Doklam incident politically to indicate its willingness to stand up to China’s bullying tactics.

ADVANTAGE INDIA

The 72-day standoff and the subsequent “disengagement” have resulted in distinct strategic advantages for India. A clear message has gone out to the international community that, despite the 1962 military defeat, India has the gumption to play hardball with the Chinese.

The fact that India traversed the perception journey from being “illegal trespassers” to China acquiescing to the firm Indian precondition of stopping construction work before the withdrawal of its forces is bound to put New Delhi in good stead. It will serve to enhance India’s leverage, allowing it to become the nucleus for a coalition of nations harassed by repeated Chinese expansionist claims. It allows India to proceed apace with constructing a counter string of pearls around China, with Japan and Vietnam being important assets in the necklace. The dubbed Operation Malabar — with the Indian, American and Japanese navies in full attendance even as the Doklam crisis played out — was a clear message to Beijing: Henceforth, India is likely to be the axis around which China will meet strategic resistance.

Disquiet in India has been rising steadily over China’s relentless attempts to lay territorial claims on Indian territory. The Chinese policy of issuing ��to residents of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh is an affront to India’s sovereignty. The by China was again a brazen attempt to humiliate India. By (NSG) and vetoing the designation of Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammad as a terrorist, Beijing has infuriated New Delhi. That the vast majority of Indians consider China as untrustworthy is corroborated by the fact that the term “Chinese product” has become a euphemism for untrustworthiness.

China’s continued irrationality over its expansionist overdrive, and its emphasis on “subduing an enemy without fighting,” as described by Sun Tzu in Art of Military War, is making its territorial intentions suspect. Indians naturally view Chinese efforts to block its entry into the NSG in stark contrast to its complicity in illicit nuclear proliferation by its allies North Korea and Pakistan.

PEERING INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL

Due to mistrust, the Doklam disengagement is just a temporary relief. While external factors like the recent BRICS summit in Xiamen and China confronting topographical disadvantage at Doklam with battle-hardened troops of 33 Corps’ of the Indian army in the vicinity played their role in defusing the situation, the simmering differences between the two nations will certainly bubble over again — sooner rather than later.

Victor Gao Zhikai, a Chinese security expert, : “India should be accustomed to more beefed up Chinese infrastructure not only in Doklam but in other parts of Tibet.” Therefore, India should anticipate China resorting to Sun Tzu’s edicts of “deception, speed and attacking the enemy’s weakness.”

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, which is scheduled for October, will also play a vital role in the continuation of conflict in changing theaters. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has cultivated an image of a strongman and successor to Deng Xiaoping, will not wish to attend the congress without responding to the ignominy of being stared down at Doklam. Although in a politically infallible position for the moment, Xi would be wary of rivals and contenders slyly playing up the withdrawal to embarrass him.

US President Donald Trump’s for providing a “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror,” and his call for India to contribute in “economic assistance and development” in Afghanistan will also raise hackles in Beijing. India will not wish to get militarily involved in Afghanistan and extend its “” wars, as Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat refers to the security threats confronting India.

The extension of India’s economic footprints in Afghanistan will, however, serve to raise Chinese apprehensions, as the increased Indian presence in Afghanistan will deprive China’s “all weather ally” Pakistan of the mythical strategic depth it has desperately yearned for. With China investing over $60 billion in the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) connecting Xinjiang to the Gwadar port near Karachi, it will now be cajoled by Islamabad to ensure retention of the country’s strategic depth.

The best way to restrict India within its territory would be to compel it to take care of its frontiers with China and Pakistan. An even better method could be to explore and utilize the internal fissures plaguing India. If the past is anything to go by, Pakistan will use Chinese patronage to inflame passions in Kashmir and ensure that Indian forces are militarily bogged down and, therefore, rendered capable of only a defensive role on external borders.

China, for its part, is likely to keep probing the 2,200 miles-long common border with India. There will be attempted incursions at vulnerable spots in Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand involving India in a crude variation of “catch me if you can.” India needs to be wary of incursions that have been routine and are now getting longer and inviting stronger retribution.

Notwithstanding the localized provocations, the possibility of a large-scale confrontation between India and China remains remote. The Chinese themselves would not like to face an uncertain war until the completion of CPEC and when the perceived economic gains from it mount. More importantly, China will desist from a military confrontation until its navy has achieved a blue water navy status. Despite remarkable development of its armada, the Chinese navy lacks combat capability away from its coastline. For a country that has most of its energy requirements coming in from the Middle East, overstretching its combat line would be pernicious. Even Sun Tzu said, “If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops.”

Till then, Go strategies will continue relentlessly. India cannot lower its guard and allow the Chinese an opportunity to place their stones strategically. The new Great Game is just beginning.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Kashmir is approaching an inflection point. The tide is turning with the relentless targeting of insurgents by Indian security forces. It is not merely the numbers that are impressive with killed up until August 6. The fact that security forces have succeeded in neutralizing most high-profile terrorist leaders has ensured that the backbone of the insurgency is being systematically broken.

First, the elimination of these leaders suggests that Indian forces have increased coordination and gotten their act together following the cataclysmic violence after the of in July 2016. At the time, a new terror strategy of stone throwing — used to provide cover for insurgents and portray security forces as Goliath against the stone-throwing David — had been reintroduced by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).��It is to the credit of the security forces that they stuck to their task. The stone-throwing mob has since dwindled and terrorists, bereft of cover, are being regularly taken out.

Second, the local population’s exasperation with continuous violence and shutdowns inflicted by proxy groups like the has helped Indian forces receive actionable intelligence from locals. Sexual exploitation of Kashmiri women by militants has served to increase the antipathy for the latter. The as he visited his Kashmiri wife was a telltale sign of his movements being compromised. The terrorists have also augmented local animosity after their brutal killing of Lieutenant Umar Fayaz and . Instead of driving fear into the locals to desist from joining the security forces, the action has only served to display their blind barbarism and earn opprobrium from Kashmiri civilians.

Third, the tightening of a noose around the of the Hurriyat by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has decapitated its financial abilities. The Hurriyat’s involvement with terror activities in the Kashmir Valley has been the worst kept secret in the state. Successive governments in New Delhi, however, indulged the group in the mistaken belief that — similar to the northeast secessionist leaders — the Kashmiri Hurriyat could be gradually brought into the electoral mainstream. For some time, seemed to play the part. But with the gradual ascension of the group in the Hurriyat, the movement displayed open contempt toward any reconciliatory approach by the Indian government and displayed sympathies for terrorists.

The green light to the NIA to pursue the illicit transactions of the Hurriyat was a manifestation of the fact that the government has reached the end of its tether. It is evident that the Hurriyat has overplayed its hands at being the sole hope for peace in the valley. The lack of public support to the Hurriyat has always been evident from its efforts to shirk valid political activity. Even the call for azadi (freedom) had been gradually converted into an effort to accession with Pakistan.

Terrorism, as the examples of the Taliban and the Islamic State suggest, In the 1980s, the mujahedeen ran out of steam when the Central Intelligence Agency closed the financial pipeline. The Islamic State has been similarly damaged by the loss an oil refinery in Mosul, Iraq.��Deprived of the funds that allowed it to not only survive but also to thrive while piggybacking terrorism, the Hurriyat faces imminent annihilation. With the stone throwers not receiving money for their activities, most analysts expect street violence to diminish in Kashmir.

PAKISTAN ANGLE

Does this mean that terrorism will come to an end in the Kashmir Valley?

Far from it. Notwithstanding the neutralization of terrorists and the disruption of their financial network, the ideology that promotes terrorism continues to proliferate. For the elimination of every or , the Pakistani army and ISI will find youth with a love for guns, girls or cash as replacements. The ideology of Islamic fundamentalism that has taken a stranglehold over the Pakistani military ever since the advent of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 finds ideological reasons to target India, which it portrays as the land of the infidels. When combined with vengeful feelings for the humiliating defeat in the 1971 war, the ideological antipathy makes for a combustive cocktail for the Pakistan establishment.

As per , author of Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, the “Pakistan Army views its struggle with India in existential terms.” For the military, as she observes, “Simply giving up and accepting the status quo and India’s supremacy is, by definition, defeat.” Therefore, to expect a revisionist state to reconcile to the existence of India is chimera.

For the Pakistani army, regaining absolute control over the country’s polity after the judicial coup against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is indicative of the fact that the military is the only institution that matters in Pakistan. Along with ideological and realpolitik motives, the military has another reason to wage war against India. Conflict is an immensely lucrative enterprise. This darkens prospects of peace in the Kashmir Valley.

The Pakistani military is likely to keep using a combination of religion, indoctrination and money to promote terrorism. It will continually try to sabotage Indian security forces. For Pakistan, the likes of Sabzar Bhat, Abu Dujana and are sacrificial lambs at the altar of its strategic imperatives. The resurrection of — designated as a terrorist by the United States, the European Union and India — as a political activist is another chapter in Pakistani perfidy to keep the terrorist pot boiling in the valley. Since even legitimate political parties in Pakistan cannot exist without the discreet sanction of the military, it is safe to presume that has the complete backing of the olive greens. The army will utilize his services to needle India through his rabid sermons from beneath the political veneer.

Pakistan also has the added confidence of receiving Chinese support, which it perceives as inevitable given the economic and strategic compulsions confronting China. The Pakistani military is convinced that any possibility of conflict between India and Pakistan will lead to Chinese intervention, given its $60 billion investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the overdrive that Beijing has undertaken to ensure its success.��Further, the Chinese, who have been taken aback by a in Bhutan, would like to settle scores with India by keeping Kashmir aflame. Pakistan hopes to make the best use of this “new great game,” in the same manner it leveraged its geopolitical position during the Cold War.

India, however, needs to utilize conditions as they approach an inflection point. With terrorist leadership being decimated on a regular basis, the foot soldiers will soon be in disarray. The fact that the Hurriyat will be unable to provide financial succor to sustain terrorism and its proxies is bound to exacerbate conditions for terror groups.

THE FINAL MILE FOR KASHMIR

It would be premature to predict whether Kashmir has reached what strategists refer to as the “final mile.” But the proactive approach by the Indian government has definitely brought it closer. India can ill afford wastage of this opportunity, as it did in 2011 when security forces had made brilliant use of hard and soft power to bring down violence in the valley and increase public support for democratic activities. In the same year, 82% turned out to vote in the panchayat (village council) as Kashmiris sought peace, change and the amicable settlement of civic grievances. Omar Abdullah led the National Conference government. However, he soon frittered away the gains made from the battlefield and Kashmir reverted to its violent past. Certain families and cliques in the Kashmir Valley who, like the Pakistani military, have made personal fortunes out of the business of violence will again try to keep Kashmir combustible.

The handling of the “final mile,” therefore, will decide the future of Kashmir. Since the problem is both internal and external, it has to be tackled on both fronts. India must realize that despite the operational success of its security forces, there can be no permanent military solution to the conflict in Kashmir. History is a witness to the fact that, in guerilla warfare, absolute military victory is a mirage. Kashmir is no exception. However, hard power would compel the Pakistani proxy groups and individuals to decide between the option of leaving the Kashmir Valley, being eliminated or sitting at the negotiating table.

The mainstream political parties need to take advantage of this situation and revive political activity in the valley. Given the low credibility of Kashmiri politicians, this will not be easy. Volatile security conditions make it even more difficult. Indian security forces will, in addition to targeting terrorists, need to provide a safe environment for political activity so it develops roots in civil society. Politicians need to reach out to the common people in the hinterland and convince them of the futility of violence and benefits of peace. Panchayats need to be rejuvenated and vituperative religious venom has to be countered with sensible discourse. Alienated individuals need to be convinced that azadi or accession with Pakistan is a futile pipe dream that has turned Kashmir into a nightmare.

Externally, too, India cannot fall into the trap of negotiations with Pakistan. For long, Islamabad has behaved in the manner of a guerrilla, convincing the world of its desire for talk whenever its surrogates have been pushed on the back foot before reverting to its nasty ways after recuperating its strategic strength.

To counter this, India needs to proactively place a precondition of handing over Hafeez Saeed and for their role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks before any discussion. The international community needs to know there can be no peace in the region unless Pakistan is compelled to give up its policy and desist from inflicting violence on India.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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On May 21, 51�Թ���published an article by this author titled “Arundhati Roy, Please Do Not Support Pakistan’s Jihad in Kashmir.” It was republished by��NewsLaundry. On May 24,��*��ran an article titled “How Fake News Triggered Republic TV, TV18 Attacks on Arundhati Roy.” The article quoted Roy who denied saying, “.”

The Wire��cited this writer’s May 21 article that was subsequently taken down by��51�Թ���and��NewsLaundry. The former published��a retraction and an apology��to Roy and its readers because “the reported facts in the above-quoted article might not have come from a credible source.” The��ARY��News story, which was embedded in that article, has subsequently altered its headline from “India can’t defeat Kashmiris even with 70 lac soldiers: Arundhati Roy” to “‘.”

This writer had used Pakistan-based����as one of his sources. This source is regarded as credible. On September 29, 2016,��The Wire��itself quoted��The News��in its story on India’s operations in Pakistani-held Kashmir, “.” Many Indian writers have used Pakistani sources regularly, and this author is no exception.

This author erred in depending on Pakistani news organizations. They continue to carry the news regarding Roy with minor modifications. They have neither taken the articles regarding Roy offline, nor apologized about misreporting the facts. It appears that even the more reputed names in Pakistani media are no longer credible.

SELF-HATING COCONUTS IN LUTYENS’ DELHI

While Pakistan and its media might be playing games, we must delve deeper as to why they used Roy as a stalking horse. Why did so many Indians believe claims in mainstream Pakistani media that Roy had made a statement damning the ineffectiveness of Goliath-like Indian army in the face of David-like Kashmiris?

For some years now, has turned against the concept of the Indian state. Roy is the glamorous face of this clique. In 2000, India’s Supreme Court decided in favor of a controversial dam that Roy vociferously opposed. Instead of accepting the ruling, Roy dismissed it. She said that she did not want to say the movement against the dam “should be violent or non-violent.”

The Booker prize-winning Roy was speaking to the UK-based��. She went on to say: “I don’t respect the court as an institution: I know it is as much a part of the system as anything else. It offers shelter to the privileged. The other India stands outside the pale.” There is an element of truth to Roy’s comments, but she is Manichean in her view of India. She fails to realize that, for all its faults, India is a unique democratic experiment where women, untouchables and Muslims have held the highest offices of the land.

Roy has earned her celebrity status lambasting India in Western capitals. She has not even spared Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation. In��, she damned Gandhi as a racist and a casteist. As Samuel Ollunga and Atul Singh pointed out in��Africa This Month on 51�Թ�, India’s iconic leader was imperfect. Gandhi’s own grandson has called him “ignorant and prejudiced about South Africa’s blacks,” but also points out that “the imperfect Gandhi was more radical and progressive than most contemporary compatriots.”

Again, Roy lacks nuance in understanding Gandhi. She is judging him ideologically by the standards of her times and is belittling the great man in Western capitals, where many left-leaning liberals believe they brought liberty, progress and democracy to ignorant, superstitious, caste-bound India. None other than John Stuart Mill believed that Indians were not “.” Many Western liberals and the English-speaking elites of Lutyens’ Delhi still believe Mill’s view subconsciously if not consciously.

The article in��The Wire��that points out Roy did not speak to Pakistani media and chronicled how it was fake news quoted her article dated July 25, 2016, in��. In that article, Roy condemned “the violation of human rights by Indian security forces in the Kashmir valley.” She went on to argue: “Egregious though they are, those violations are the consequence — the inevitable and unavoidable consequence — of the militaristic suppression of a people’s struggle for freedom. As per Roy, Kashmiris are not fighting for “the establishment of the rule of law or an end to human rights violations.” She asserts, “They are fighting for��azadi �ڴڰ�����dz���.”

For someone who has not lived in Kashmir, does not speak the local language and claims not to visit the valley too often, Roy is making a rather bold declaration. In fact, she has a habit of discussing issues she knows little about. On March 27, 2010, Roy penned a gushingly romantic three-part piece in��The Guardian��titled “” about Maoist Naxalites fighting Indian security forces.

Roy was clearly besotted with the rebels fighting the injustices of the Indian state. She found them “more Gandhian than any Gandhian” in their consumption, and claimed they had “a lighter carbon footprint than any climate change evangelist.” She went on to say that the Naxalite army “even has a Gandhian approach to sabotage; before a police vehicle is burnt for example, it is stripped down and every part is cannibalized.” She pondered penning a play titled, “Gandhi Get Your Gun.”

It is indubitably true that India has its problems. This author hails from Varanasi, the oldest living city on the planet that as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” To say the city has its problems would be an understatement. Yet Varanasi also has a heritage that is rich and glorious. Similarly, India has its multiple warts, but it is not a nation state that is as repressive as Russia, as paranoiac as Pakistan and as imperial as the United States. For all her comments, Roy remains the darling of Lutyens’ Delhi and continues to inveigh against the vile Indian state from her rather posh accommodation.

Atul Singh, the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of 51�Թ�, has frequently��criticized Lutyens’ Delhi as being full of “.” By coconuts, Singh means Indians who are brown outside but white inside. They are Lord Thomas Macaulay’s illegitimate children who are ashamed to speak the local language, who look for approbation from London or New York, and who denigrate India as a dark, divided and decadent land. Speakers of vernacular languages from the banks of the Ganges or the Kaveri are deemed uncouth, uncultured and uncivilized by the purveyors of modernity in the plush environs of India’s national capital.

Roy and Lutyens’ media represent the triumph of Lord Macaulay. On February 2, 1835, this impressive English imperialist wrote a��. He argued that it was impossible for the British East India Company “to attempt to educate the body of the people.” Instead, the British “must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, — a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.”

India’s Delhi-based English elites are a member of this self-hating class and are Macaulay’s illegitimate children. They find fault in India, its courts, its laws, its politics, its values and its very identity. For some of them like Roy, Naxalites and Kashmiris are doughty warriors fighting evil Indian security forces in a battle of good against evil.

THE TRUTH IS RARELY CLEAR AND NEVER SIMPLE, ESPECIALLY IN KASHMIR

Roy claims that Kashmir is “.” Now, it is certainly true that there is a massive presence of security forces in Kashmir. It is also true that Kashmir is not the West Bank. It is not pock-marked with settlements of trigger-happy Hindus and Sikhs who have taken land away from the native population.

To understand Kashmir, Roy needs to study the past. Pakistan has played a key role in militarizing the region. Its machinations on Kashmir began in 1947 itself. For Pakistan, Kashmir was a coveted possession because of its Muslim majority. This state was a touchstone for the Muslim League’s claim to��. Success in weaning over Kashmir to its side would have legitimized Pakistan’s claims to represent all Indian Muslims.

While the much-maligned Gandhi was arguing for a secular nation that would be home to all religions, castes and races, the Muslim League was purveying the��. As per this toxic idea, Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations. The British masters of India encouraged this theory in furtherance of their famous policy of “divide and rule” that enabled them to play off sections of local populations all over the world.

The fundamentalism of the Muslim League led to the tragic partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan, which included modern-day Bangladesh, in 1947. The partition caused what William Dalrymple has called “” when communities that had coexisted for centuries broke down into sectarian violence and millions crossed the border to save their lives. Bengal and Punjab experienced the worst of the violence. In Dalrymple’s words, “the carnage was especially intense, with massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions, and savage sexual violence.”

For the Muslim League and the young Pakistan, possession of Kashmir was important not only because of its geostrategic importance, but also to lay claim to the loyalty of all Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. In her paean to��azadi, Roy forgets that Kashmir did not accede to India because Sikh, Gurkha or Maratha troops marched in. Kashmir turned to India when Pakistan sent��, in the form Pashtun tribesmen, to conquer the state.

The accession of Kashmir in 1947 was supported both by Maharaja Hari Singh, the state’s ruler, and the National Conference, Kashmir’s largest party led by Sheikh Abdullah. Under the Indian constitution, Kashmir’s accession became����after ratification by the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly in 1956. Pakistan and Lutyens’ media often hark to the plebiscite prescribed by the��. They forget that it called for a “cessation of all fighting.”

The resolution also stated that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan had to be “decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.” Since then, Pakistan has unleashed violence in Kashmir, making a peaceful, free and impartial plebiscite impossible. More importantly, India’s violent neighbor has altered the demography of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) by settling radicals from other states into the valley.

In fact, PoK used to be a Shia-majority area. In the words of��, one of India’s greatest officers, “The Pakistani establishment has long supported an anti-Shia programme in this region.” None other than Pervez Musharraf who went on to become the military dictator of Pakistan was in-charge of the brutal suppression of a local rebellion in May 1988. Gill says: “Truckloads of Sunni tribals were sent in from the Afghan border” and they conducted a “brutal pogrom against the locals.” Thereafter, Pakistan brought in large numbers of Sunnis from Punjab and North West Frontier Province, “radically altering the demographic profile” of PoK.

On the Indian side, Sunni radicals have altered demography too. In 1990, Pakistani proxies conducted the ethnic cleansing of��Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the state. As Varad Sharma chronicled in��, massacres followed in 1997, 1998 and 2003, and “the horror of persecution” always loomed over those who stayed behind. Lutyens’ Delhi has been deafeningly silent on what happened to Kashmiri Pandits.

The facts on the ground make the UN Security Council resolution redundant. Besides, Roy and her ilk conveniently forget that no nation state can allow for the “redrawing” of maps on the basis of the threat of violence. India cannot hand over Kashmir to Pakistan or give it��azadi��in an effort to buy peace. Kashmir is also a part of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes Hindu-majority Jammu and Buddhist-majority Ladakh. For all the unrest, Kashmiris vote for their representatives, go to court to redress their wrongs, and have freedom of speech that they would not enjoy in PoK, Tibet, Chechnya, Syria or Saudi Arabia.

KASHMIR AND JIHAD

In Roy’s article,����published the dead body of Burhan Wani, whom it called a “fallen local hero.” Wani was less of a hero and more of a hothead who was leading Kashmir down the vortex of violence. Zakir Musa, Wani’s successor as the leader of the Hizb-ul Mujahideen, has exposed the farce of��azadi��for what it truly is. Musa’s threat to the Hurriyat leadership��, “Our Kashmir’s war, particularly of the Mujahideen, is only to enforce��Shariah. It is an Islamic struggle.” Earlier as well when certain politicians were subtly justifying the stone-throwing mob running amok in Kashmir as “,”��Musa had been��unambiguous: “Whenever we are fighting with [a] gun or throwing rocks, this should not be for nationalism but for��Islam.”

They conveniently forget that public order and a diminution in violence are essential for political discussions to commence. It is in Pakistan’s interest to ensure that does not happen.

Let us for a moment not delude ourselves. Howsoever hard intellectuals like Roy would wish to sugar coat the violence in Kashmir, the bitter bill underneath has been revealed by Musa. Not that there had been any doubt about the nature of violence in Kashmir since the 1980s.

The��maktabs��(religious schools), set up by successive governments in the state since 1947, were the nucleus that had initiated the process of indoctrination of Kashmiri youth. It was, however, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who triggered the jihad in Kashmir under the policy of “bleeding India through a thousand cuts.” As Raheel Sharif, the former Pakistani army chief,��, Kashmir has remained an “unfinished agenda of partition” for Islamabad.

In the last few years, the dimensions of the conflict in Kashmir have changed dramatically with the concept of jihad replacing the nebulous demand for��azadi. As categorically asserted by Musa, the violence in Kashmir is now about the mythical notion of the Muslim��umma��(community) and��Ghazwa-e-Hind��(conquering of India). The��Islamic State flags��openly visible in the ongoing protests are a manifestation of this syndrome. It is foolhardy to delude the people with homilies of oppression and resentment against misgovernance as the reason for the endless violence in Kashmir.

If misgovernance and corruption, as proxies for the terror groups want everyone to believe, were the primary reasons for the anger against India, then this raises two questions.

First, why were Kashmiri Pandits forced to migrate from ancestral land under threat of their lives? With����to the Pandits from loudspeakers and newspapers like��Daily Alsafa��printing advertisements advising them to leave the Kashmir Valley within two days and a subverted state system refusing to help them, their chances of survival were minimal.

Second, was the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Pandits not carried out with a view to alter the demography favorably for Pakistan proxies, who would then find it easier to demand separation from India? The brutal assassination of��, the judge who sentenced Maqbool Bhat to death, and��, director general of Doordarshan, was a message to the Pandits to either leave the valley or face the consequences.

Have the supporters of the notions of��azadi, who wax eloquent about India’s perceived failure to hold onto Kashmir even through its army or celebrate the anti-India sentiments, ever wondered about the consequences of supporting such radicals who killed and raped innocents simply because of their religion? Has any effort been made by these people to analyze the reasons for genocide of Pandits when they never held power in the state since 1947? The pretext of misgovernance and corruption as causes of anger is just a veneer to cover up for macabre terrorism.

PAKISTAN’S LONG GAME

The loss of Bangladesh and the inglorious surrender of 93,000 soldiers before the Indian army in 1971 confirmed to Pakistan its inability to defeat India through a conventional war. With the option to seize Kashmir through force of arms blunted, Pakistan resorted to a hybrid war against India. It was General Zia who introduced the concept of jihad and “non-state actors” as an instrument of state policy. His now famous idea was to bleed India through a thousand cuts. Promoting insurgency not only in Kashmir, but also in Punjab became policy for Pakistan.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 came at the correct time for General Zia as his plan in Kashmir was floundering in the absence of strong local support. As the Central Intelligence Agency stepped in with funds and weapons for the Afghan mujahedeen through Pakistan, Zia diverted both toward the valley. The signs of anti-India sentiments were visible in 1983 when the Indian cricket team, which had just won the World Cup in Britain, was��. As a precursor of what was to follow, Hindu temples were desecrated and the property of Kashmiri Pandits was looted in the Anantnag district in 1986.

Subsequently, any protest triggered over issues unrelated to control by India, such as the death of General Zia in Pakistan or the demonstrations over Salman Rushdie’s��Satanic Verses, invariably resulted in the targeting of Kashmiri Pandits who lost lives and property during the course of such protests. The idea was to target the Pandits and compel them to leave the Kashmir Valley through continuous violence.

With the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the US abandonment of the region, Pakistan was flush with money, weapons and, more importantly, the mujahedeen who were encouraged by their success against the Soviets. Pakistan had, by then, realized that religion was an elixir to bind disparate and violent individuals into a force. Furthermore, with the Soviet threat ceasing to exist, Pakistan was free to move its armed forces from the Afghan border to the Indian side. The Pakistani army provided cover to infiltrate terrorists into Kashmir.

The failure to decipher these ominous signs and come up with counter-narratives resulted in the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990. The Pakistani army and its proxies thus succeeded in establishing a religiously homogenous region. Today, the instigated violence of this monolithic mob is justified as a response to perceived Indian brutalities.

The cries of jihad have continued unabated since. While the West is just waking up to the menace of assassinations and violence in the name of religion, Kashmir has been a witness to such nefarious actions for some time. Like a dynamic entity, jihad has assumed proportions even beyond the wildest imaginations of its mentor Pakistan. The fact that Lashkar-e-Taiba’s chief, Hafeez Saeed, who has long been an instrument in Pakistan’s hybrid war against India, is in detention due to being a threat to Pakistan epitomizes this manifestation. Pakistan, however, continues with its dubious distinction of “good” and “bad” terrorists.

Kashmir has now become a laboratory for testing radical Islamist ideas. We should be indebted to Zakir Musa for spilling the beans on the worst kept secret. Have any supporters of��azadi��ever wondered why the various terrorist groups waging war against India have coalesced under the umbrella of����in Pakistan?

As a wave of extremism sweeps through the Muslim world, the leaders of radicalism believe they are instruments for an idea whose time has come. Roy and Lutyens’ media are acting as Pakistan’s force multipliers. They conveniently forget that public order and a diminution in violence are essential for political discussions to commence. It is in Pakistan’s interest to ensure that does not happen. After all, it still follows the late General Zia’s canny policy of��,��and the denizens of Lutyens’ Delhi gladden Zia’s ghost by supporting��azadi��in Kashmir.

*[Editor’s note: Extracts from the author’s earlier article, “Arundhati Roy, Please Do Not Support Pakistan’s Jihad in Kashmir,” have been included in this piece at 51�Թ�. This article by was published on May 23, not May 24 as the dateline shows. It has been updated at least three times by editors, yet no disclosure has been provided for readers.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The��recent of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistani army-backed border action team, followed by the of Lieutenant Umar Fayaz by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in Kashmir, has placed the Indian government on the political back foot. It is time India firms up a response to the policies of the Pakistani army. Any further continuation of the “headless chicken” syndrome as a measure of policy will only embolden Islamabad and its proxies in Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

It is a tragedy that despite more than seven decades of relentless violence instigated by Pakistan, Indian polity has failed to evolve a consistent strategic and defense policy to confront its adversary. Starting from 1947, when Pakistan first invaded Kashmir under the garb of tribal irregulars, it has been a litany of Indian flip-flops that has encouraged Islamabad to needle India. New Delhi’s failure to formally acknowledge the fact that the nation is at war with Pakistan epitomizes this prevarication.

WHY LIEUTENANT FAYAZ’S MURDER MATTERS

The brutal murder of Fayaz is, however, a new low even by the macabre standards of Islamist terrorists. In the nearly three decades of terrorism in Kashmir, never had a local army officer on leave from his unit been made a target. The message from the terrorists and their mentors via this killing is manifold.

First, the terrorists want the government to know that no one in Kashmir is safe, not even army officers. The perceived immunity provided to the army officers of Kashmir has been withdrawn. The message from the terrorists is clear: the gloves are off.

This message is of particular importance in view of the fact that Kashmir has a rich tradition of providing soldiers to the security forces. Notwithstanding the continuing violence, 19,000 youngsters appeared for the army recruitment drive in Patan recently. That the military is the only organization providing a secure and respectable job that takes the youth away from the strife-torn valley bereft of employment opportunities has added to the allure of the army. The terrorists believe the murder will send a signal to future aspirants and their families about the retribution to be faced in case they join the army. They intend to drive a wedge between the Kashmiris and the Indian mainland by cutting off the umbilical cord of integration by joining the army.

Second, the message is also intended for the inhabitants of Kashmir, especially those who have still maintained firm in their allegiance to India. The terrorists want to ensure that the intelligence from the local populace dries up completely. Counter-insurgence measures depend heavily on local intelligence inputs, in the absence of which the security forces are blindfolded about the movement of terrorists and their sympathizers. The casualty rate among security forces has recently risen exponentially, as deprived of their eyes and ears on the ground they find it tough to differentiate between friends and foes. Without such intelligence, the security forces find it difficult to deal with an adversary adept at changing the rules of the game on a daily basis.

Through the murder of Fayaz, the message for supporters of the security forces is loud and clear: if the army could not save its officer, the probability of an ordinary civilian surviving the onslaught would be miniscule.

The killing of Fayaz is a classical manifestation of the hybrid war unleashed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Such psychological operations are carried out to intimidate the opponent into submission. The effect of this was evident even during the funeral of Fayaz, as the people who turned up preferred to remain silent rather than express their anger against the killing.

In contrast, the aggressive funeral processions of terrorists killed by security forces have become a show of strength and a mode of gathering future proponents to the cause of jihad against India. The cause of worry for the Indian establishment should be the fact that Fayaz has been portrayed by Islamists as someone fighting for the “infidel Hindu army” and perhaps, therefore, deserving of his brutal end. The establishment has evidently failed in its mission, if there was one, to project Fayaz as a brave Kashmiri son of the soil attaining martyrdom in the line of duty.

Third, the ISI has been gradually escalating violence against Indian security forces, expecting a disproportionate response. The humiliation of Central Reserve Police Force personnel returning from poll duty was not only meant to assuage the morale of terrorists. By using local civilians to berate the security personnel, the terrorists conveyed to the Kashmiris that there was no reason to fear Indian forces as they could be humiliated by a few locals without any retaliation. In case of retaliation, stories would have been spun on how the Indian soldiers used force on unarmed civilians mocking at them in jest.

It is a win for the ISI and its proxy terrorists using typical hybrid war techniques. The stone throwing on security forces, which has been carried on relentlessly ever since the neutralization of in��July��2016, is another aspect of the psychological operations, with social media being used to portray it as a popular uprising against the Indian security forces — even with college girls and school children participating in the activity. The idea is to project a David vs. Goliath story across international media, with some Indian journalists promoting it without understanding the sinister mind indulging in it and the implications thereon.

Finally, but no less importantly, the death and mutilation of soldiers and the murder of Fayaz are also a subtle signal to the international conglomerate of jihadists. Linkage will be drawn between the act of beheading, which will be presented as drawing inspiration from Islamic scriptures and their reference to treatment of the infidel enemy. The Pakistani army, which has been radicalized ever since the advent of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq,��is cleverly positioning itself as the fulcrum of the Sunni Muslim world and the only defender of Islam against a mythical Christian-Zionist-Hindu international coalition. Such acts are also intended as a signal to the radicalized elements inside India. If left unopposed, India could see lone wolf attacks for creating mass hysteria or high-profile assassination attempts.

MODI RETURNS TO OLD POLICY OF DRIFT

The restraint displayed by Indian security forces, though well intentioned, cannot continue indefinitely. Any security force once projected as effete and unable to defend itself loses the authority to counter terrorism. Politically, too, the casualties being taken by the security forces and the open display of Islamic State��flags��in Kashmir could be damaging for the Narendra Modi government. For a leader who had nationalism and decisive decision-making as his unique selling point at the polls, the drift in Kashmir could be politically damaging.

So, has Pakistan and its proxies crossed the Rubicon with the murder of Lieutenant Fayaz?

The Rubicon appeared to have been crossed after the surgical strikes conducted by Indian special forces in Pakistan in September 2016 as retribution for the attack on the Uri military camp, which killed 19 Indian soldiers. However, the��strategic��restraint that had apparently been forsaken by India after Uri seems to have made a quiet return evident in the patience displayed despite repeated provocations. The fact that the escalation of attacks on security forces is to lure the Indian army into another surgical strike and perhaps a trap cannot be discounted. The Pakistan army is a canny opponent and needs to be tackled as such.

The security forces and inter alia, however, cannot keep getting slapped, kicked and mutilated indefinitely. It is time the headless chicken syndrome is taken head on and consigned to the dust bin of history.

The headless chicken syndrome vis-à-vis Pakistan stretches back to 1947, when India approached the United Nations for a ceasefire despite its forces on the ascendance against the Pakistani army under the garb of tribal irregulars. Kashmir has become a festering wound ever since.

In recent times, Inder Gujral, during his brief tenure as prime minister, dismantled the Indian intelligence network in Pakistan to promote his “.” In the absence of an intelligence network, the military was in no position to foresee Pakistani intrusion into Kargil in 1999.

Notwithstanding the huge loss of army officers during the Kargil War, it was back to business as General Pervez Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, was invited for . It is an accepted fact in strategy that negotiations are held from a position of strength. Following the Kargil War, Pakistan in general and Musharraf in particular faced international opprobrium. India provided legitimacy to the then-Pakistani leader by inviting him to Agra and frittering away that advantage. Musharraf had the pliant media bosses eating out of his hands during the summit. Encouraged by Indian pusillanimity, he had the chutzpah to blame the Indian leadership for the failure of talks, ignoring his own intransigence.

Agra was not the only time when a position of advantage had been converted into adversity by the affliction of the headless chicken syndrome. Vacillating between positions of belligerence to timidity had been the hallmark of Indian diplomacy. The�� was met by the biggest peace time deployment of army personnel as the country prepared for war during . The muscle flexing finally amounted to nothing as after months of standoff, with the army retreating to peace positions.

The headless chicken syndrome reached its nadir when, within months of the 2008 attacks on Mumbai and despite domestic emotions raging against Pakistan for its complicity in the assault, then-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, on the sidelines of the ��in Egypt. In a classic manifestation of political hara-kiri, the Indian delegation agreed to the inclusion of the Baloch insurgency in a joint statement. With the stroke of a pen, India allowed moral equivalence to Pakistan, which had blamed New Delhi for the insurgency. Again, a rogue army was allowed the space to wriggle out of an uncomfortable position of its own making.

Time, however, has come for India to forego this headless chicken syndrome. A bully, which the Pakistani army undoubtedly is, understands the street language of tit for tat. Political etiquette and humanity are something alien to their fundamental structure. To expect an army that has and to behave with civility is not only foolhardy, but also dangerous.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ensured that the summer in Kashmir will be hotter than anticipated. While all indicators from the valley — with stone throwers refusing to back down and terrorists being brazen in their attacks on security forces — suggested that the summer of 2017 would be difficult, Erdogan’s call for “” on Kashmir has only added fuel to the fire. The president further queered the pitch with his call for a��. Although he condemned the Naxalite attack on security forces in Sukma, Chattisgarh, he turned a Nelson’s eye to relentless terror attacks in Kashmir and did little to assuage India’s concerns.

ERDOGAN USES KASHMIR TO BOOST HIS ISLAMIST CREDENTIALS

Erdogan’s intemperate remarks and visibly stiff body language during photo ops with his Indian counterpart were a manifestation of the fact that he has decided to throw his lot with his “” Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and, therefore, the Pakistani army. Turkey, ever since the rise of Erdogan, has��supported Pakistan’s position��on Jammu and Kashmir, with calling for “a fact-finding mission to India-held Kashmir to look into reports of atrocities being committed there by Indian forces.”

It would, however, be naive to presume that Erdogan’s undiplomatic remarks were meant only to encourage his “friend” in Pakistan. It needs to be understood that the Turkish president was trying to kill many birds with a single stone.

Despite gaining in strength after winning the recent referendum, Erdogan is apprehensive of his support back in Turkey. His wariness stems from the fact that notwithstanding a brutal suppression following the failed coup of July 2016, he is unsure of support from the army in his quest for an Islamist Turkey. The overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt is too recent an event to forget.

President Erdogan’s effort to��rewrite Turkey’s secular constitution��and social fabric has won him admirers among Islamists. The army, however, remains a mystery for him. Ever since Kemal Ataturk initiated Turkey’s move toward secularism and modernity, the army has considered itself to be the defender of the country’s secular model. While the 2016 coup attempt was put down, Erdogan is still not convinced of the army’s support for his drive toward Islamism.

Like a shrewd operator, therefore, he has used every opportunity to portray himself as a successor of the Ottoman Empire and defender of Islamic identity. In a subtle message to the Muslim world, he to Iraqi Kurdish��fighters to enter Kobane in Syria to support besieged Kurds there. He even had the temerity to bring down a Russian fighter plane engaged in combating the Islamic State. The in Ankara epitomized the rising tide of Islamism in Turkey, for which Erdogan is greatly responsible.

Erdogan has also used Kashmir as a public address system to reach the original defender of Islamist ideology: Saudi Arabia. The friendly banter between the two countries does not hide their quest for being anointed as the leader of Sunni Muslims. Relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been strained since ��to contribute soldiers for the war in Yemen. The Pakistanis have since made serious attempts to placate the Saudis. The decision of the Pakistani government to permit�� — ironically meant to combat terrorism — was one such step. This military alliance is the brain child of the Saudi government, which is itself feeling jittery over rising militancy in the kingdom.

Through his statement on Kashmir, Erdogan has tried to present Turkey as the defender of Islam, compared to the Saudis whose economy, after decades of funding Wahhabism, is feeling under the weather due to the US discovery of shale oil. Kashmir has found itself being utilized as a ring for the shadow boxing match between Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

STATEMENT IS A BOOST FOR PAKISTAN

Notwithstanding the nuances of Erdogan’s statement, it is bound to encourage both the Pakistani army and its proxies in Kashmir to indulge in wanton violence. Ever since taking the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations in 1949, India has refused to allow the internationalization of the matter. Despite repeated resolutions by the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) siding with Kashmiri separatists, India has refused to budge from its stand of Kashmir being a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has made desperate attempts to internationalize the Kashmir conflict. The violence in Kashmir, which has been relentless since the killing of Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HuM) commander Burhan Wani in July 2016, is part of a hybrid war designed and executed by the Pakistani army. Images of anarchists taking on Indian forces with nothing more than stones in their hands have been used to create David vs. Goliath imagery. In a war of perception being played out especially on social media, such images have the power to tilt sympathy toward the underdog. What has largely gone unnoticed in this war of ideas, however, is the repeated use of Islamic State flags and other militant Islamic symbols. Zakir Musa, Burhan Wani’s successor, has been more : “Our stones and weapons should not be to fight for Kashmir. Use them for the supremacy of Islam and��to enforce Sharia.”

Erdogan’s appeal for a war against terror, therefore, reeks of hypocrisy. This running with the hares and hunting with the hounds malaise has been the bane of the fight against terrorism. While Erdogan himself prefers to brutalize the Kurds and wink at the slaughter of the Yazidis, he displays no remorse in encouraging the Pakistani army, which continues in its relentless campaign of “bleeding India through thousand cuts.” Irony died a thousand deaths as a leader who rounded up coup leaders pitilessly — refusing to rule out the — and has been brutal in his dealings with the Kurds talked patronizingly of “keeping channels open for global peace.”

Pakistan, however, has received a shot in the arm from Erdogan’s verbosity. It has played its terror cards deftly ever since the Chinese finalized the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which connects the restive province of Xinjiang to Gwadar near Karachi. Like a bankrupt businessman willing to rent his shop to the highest bidder, Pakistan has virtually ceded its territory through which CPEC traverses to China.

The that China proposes to invest in developing the corridor is expected to give a massive boost to an ailing Pakistani economy with a . In addition to the economic push, Pakistan also assumes that the Chinese, like an anxious investor, will not allow India to undertake any military option against Pakistan despite massive provocations in Kashmir. The Pakistanis aim to use Chinese investment to ensure military protection, which they believe will follow.

Presumably cocooned under Chinese protection, the Pakistani proxies will therefore become more brazen in their attacks in Kashmir as summer advances. Summer is often when infiltration from Pakistan increases as snow melts, and it is generally the time when terrorists not only attack, but also prepare for winter.��The , the��, terrorists audaciously��, mobs relentlessly����and young women turning furiously aggressive are ominous signs for Kashmir and India.

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In 1953,��The��New York Times��supported the CIA-led coup that ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. More recently, it acted as a cheerleader when George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq.��That the war in search of weapons of mass destruction still continues in a different and more vicious form should be food for thought for publications like The NYT. Ironically, while the search for WMDs ended in a whimper in Iraq, it did create physical weapons of mass destruction in the form of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The New York Times needs to be reminded of the fact that it was perhaps the encouragement provided by its war drums that the US government felt unfettered of democratic niceties while establishing hell holes like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. To, therefore, subtly allude to Indian atrocities in tying a reeks of hypocrisy.

It is an acceptable fact that in a conflict situation, which Kashmir undoubtedly faces today, it is prudent to search for the truth in gray. To fall hook, line and sinker for the propaganda machinery created by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) shows that hubris has overruled common sense in such Western media circles. The NYT’s attempt to paint the Indian army as the villain of not only this incident, but also the problem in Kashmir has perhaps unknowingly made it side with Islamist terrorists, aided and abetted by ISI, who have brought misery to the pristine land of Kashmir.

KASHMIR: THEN AND NOW

The genesis of the Kashmir problem lies in the colonial chicanery that India was subjected to at the time of its partition in 1947. Undeterred by the legalities of accession of Kashmir into India, the Pakistani army’s invasion under the garb of irregular tribals set off a hybrid conflict that has refused to abate. The dispute is nowhere near a resolution despite India and Pakistan fighting three wars since. In the interim, the Kashmir Valley has been witness to the most brutal ethnic cleansing in modern history since the Holocaust of World War II. The forced migration of 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits under threat of murder, rape and pillage, accompanied by the death of thousands of their brethren, remains a scar on Indian democracy.

The conflict intensified in the late 1970s following the ascent of Pakistan’s General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who was quick to realize the futility of taking on the Indian army in a conventional war. It was Zia who instituted the policy of “bleeding India through a thousand cuts.” The conflict has escalated gradually ever since.

The present cycle of violence in Kashmir has taken a vicious turn ever since the killing of Burhan Wani, commander of the terrorist organization Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, by security forces in July 2016. The introduction of stone throwers into the scene has ensured that the Kashmir Valley has not seen peace since. While any nation would have gone for head hunting when confronted with a primeval mode of warfare, the Supreme Court in India has asked the government to search for alternatives to the pellet gun that security forces have used to disperse violent mobs.

It is in this context that the incident in Budgam occurred, where Farooq Ahmad Dar��was tied to a jeep by the Indian army and used as a human shield against stone throwers. As the propagandists, including The New York Times, have projected Dar as an innocent bystander who fell prey to the depravations of the military, it would be safe to presume that rather than displaying presence of mind that saved bloodshed, the leader of the army’s Quick Reaction Team — which arrived there on an SOS mission to rescue outnumbered election officials and security men — should have opened fire to save them from certain lynching by the mob that had surrounded the polling station. The officer should be commended for adopting a comparatively non-violent method to combat violence.

Coming from a publication that of its military to operate , The NYT’s argument sounds specious. It would be interesting to hear the US daily’s take on former Afghan President Hamid Karzai castigating the US for treating Afghanistan “,” following the use of the in the world on Islamic State (IS) militants.

It is high time the West understood that Kashmir is not an indigenous freedom struggle as portrayed by the Inter-Services Intelligence and certain media outlets. Ever since the street violence broke out in July 2016 after the killing of Wani, the are omnipresent in such protests. The , successor of Burhan Wani —��“Whenever we are fighting with gun or throwing rocks, this should not be for nationalism but for Islam” — epitomizes the fact that what Kashmir confronts today is an extension of the battle that IS wages in Syria and Iraq and has offloaded to the West.

The Indian army has displayed remarkable restraint in the face of unbridled provocation from terrorists and provocateurs. Officers have lost their lives after being exposed to terrorist fire by the sudden appearance of flash stone-throwing mobs at encounter sites. It has maintained the restraint despite the by Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat that in “the local population [are] people who have picked up arms, and they are the local boys, if they want to continue with the acts of terrorism, displaying flags of ISIS [Islamic State] and Pakistan, then we will treat them as anti-national elements and go for them.”

The restraint can be put into proper perspective when compared to the gung-ho attitude of US forces in Iraq and Syria and the Russian conduct of war in Chechnya. China, which faces a miniscule insurgency in Xinjiang, has imposed draconian restrictions on the Muslim population vis-à-vis their religious practices and symbols.

Since the NYT patronizingly refers to the abysmally low voting percentage in Srinagar, it would be useful to know that even during the parliamentary elections of 2014, while 50% of voters exercised their franchise in the Kashmir Valley, only 26% cast their ballots in Srinagar. Evidently, Srinagar voters prefer caution in the face of warnings issued by terrorist groups before elections in the valley.

The low voting percentage can be directly attributed to the omnipresent threat of violence that accompanies elections in the valley. This threat has increased manifold ever since the chief protagonist in the theater of violence — the Pakistani army and its surrogate, the ISI — has felt a sense of resurgence because of economic and geopolitical murmurs in the region.

HIDING UNDER AN UMBRELLA

Chinese investment amounting to $46 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which connects Xinjiang to Gwadar port near Karachi, has emboldened Islamabad to believe that Beijing will ensure the protection of its investment. This led to Pakistan convincing itself that Chinese presence in the country would deter India from any military action to punish it for its terror activities in Kashmir and other parts of India. This escalation was earlier noted after both countries had gone nuclear in 1998. The Kargil War was a direct result of the protection Pakistan felt under the nuclear umbrella. Evidently, the Pakistani generals feel the same protection under the perceived Chinese umbrella.

Similarly, Moscow’s outreach to the Taliban has convinced the Pakistani army that bereft of Russian support, the legitimate Afghan establishment would not be able to withstand the Taliban. The safety of Pakistan’s western frontiers will allow it to shift the army to its borders with India.

India, on the other hand, should be wary of the smugness the Pakistani army might be feeling. The Kargil War and the 2008 Mumbai attacks were a direct result of the Pakistani nuclear blackmail. The Chinese and Russian bonhomie could convince the Pakistani generals to indulge in some malfeasance in India.

It seems Kashmir is witnessing the first signs of this Pakistani confidence. The ISI is now using Islamic doctrine and motivating volunteers for jihad in Kashmir. Islamist websites are promoting the concept of Ghazwa-e-Hind (conquer of India), which they say is the religious duty of a pious Muslim. Kashmir is gradually becoming a laboratory for radical Islamist ideas.

The West should be apprehensive of the events transpiring in Kashmir and the religious hue being provided to it. It ignored the terrorism warning that India started issuing since the late 1980s to its peril.

One small poser to The New York Times: Does it want Kashmir to be an extension of the Islamic State? In the answer lies the future of the West.

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In 1958, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru : “[To] make it clear to you how anxious we have been ever since Independence to have normal and friendly relations with Pakistan. We had hoped that the old conflicts and the policy of hatred and violence, pursued by the old Muslim League, which indeed led to the Partition, would cease. It was obviously to the advantage of both countries to live in peace and friendship with each other and devote themselves to their social and economic development … Unfortunately for us and for Pakistan, our hopes were not realised and the Pakistan government continued to pursue that policy of hatred and violence. Every government that comes to power in Pakistan bases itself on this policy of hatred against India.”

Nehru’s plaintive plea passed off as Indian policy toward Pakistan for decades. Since partition in 1947, Indian policymakers sought a hopeful utopia while the rest of the world engaged hardnosed realpolitik and furthered national interests.

URI ATTACK

Gradually, “” became a euphemism for this naive hope. Decades of such a weak and vacuous policy perhaps lulled the Pakistani establishment into disbelieving the director general of military affairs’ (DGMO) announcement about India reserving “,” after the attack on the army camp near Uri on September 18, 2016.

Pakistan ignored the new winds of change and did not pay heed to incumbent where he declared: “[The] Indian Army does not talk; they speak through their valor. The Uri attack will not go unpunished.”

On September 29, India crossed the Rubicon when its special forces neutralized terrorist launching pads in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) through . It was retribution for the Uri attack by the Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a terrorist organization. With this response, India has adopted a new policy of offensive defense and has abandoned the failed policy of strategic restraint.

India has treated the Line of Control (LoC) with sanctity. Even when Pakistan crossed the LoC in 1999 and illegally took up Indian positions in Kargil, Indian troops did not cross the LoC to the Pakistani side. As a result, thousands of young men died in retaking strategic heights occupied by the Pakistanis. Crossing the LoC and besieging these positions made better military sense. However, India was ridiculously wedded to its asinine policy of strategic restraint.

It was via this policy that Nehru first sought the intervention of the United Nations (UN) in 1947. Then, the Indian army was in the ascendant against Pakistan-backed tribal militia and soldiers who attempted to annex Kashmir. Thus, the much-deified Nehru threw away a winning hand and damned India for decades if not centuries.

Never before in the annals of military history did a nation with an upper hand in battle approach a third party for a ceasefire. India’s naive optimism was exploited by Pakistan, who soon refused to adhere to the ceasefire agreement. Far from withdrawing the irregulars and tribal aggressors, it fortified its positions in Kashmir.

PAKISTAN, INDIA AND KASHMIR

Today, Kashmir has become a festering wound for India, which Pakistan continues to exacerbate at will.

Pakistan has launched many invasions of India since 1947. When none of them succeeded, it against its bigger neighbor. Pakistan has never quite forgotten 1971, and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent state has filled it with a burning desire for revenge. It has infused the radical idea of jihad as an essential part of the asymmetric war it has waged rather successfully against India.

In 2000, Jessica Stern of Harvard Kennedy School pointed out that South Asia had replaced the Middle East as “the leading locus of terrorism in the world.” Stern : “If madrasahs supply the labor for ‘jihad,’ then wealthy Pakistanis and Arabs around the world supply the capital.” Not much has changed since.

Liberating Kashmir from the kuffar (non-believers) is an essential part of Pakistani jihad. General Zia-ul-Haq, the Islamist military dictator, .��In fact, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his predecessor, had set the ball rolling by slyly appropriating the defense of the entire Muslim world. His dream project of building a nuclear weapon, the so-called “,” became a national obsession. Buoyed by support from other Muslim nations, Bhutto went on to promise that Pakistan was willing to wage a “” over Kashmir with India.

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Zia followed in Bhutto’s footsteps and gave the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a free hand to unleash mindless violence in Kashmir. During the course of the violence, Kashmiri Pandits were massacred in cold blood and at least 100,000 were compelled to flee. It was that the Indian bureaucratic and political elite silently ignored if not condoned.

For years, the Indian response to each attack has been confused and submissive. So-called Indian strategists have been shackled by self-imposed chains of restraint. In contrast, Pakistan has become .

In 2001, Pakistan-backed terrorists even . Forces of both countries stood face to face in “masterly inactivity” for nine months before withdrawing to their barracks. In 2008, with a savagery that shocked the world and acted as a model for the November 2015 attack in Paris.

The emboldened Pakistan. India has adopted a “no first use” policy and also a defensive nuclear deterrence policy. Contrast that with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s . Pakistan’s policy is even more aggressive, and it believes that the threat of nuclear war makes India impotent because the country is led by half men and half shadows.

Pakistan has not been wrong in this assumption. Indian leaders have been exceedingly pusillanimous and have constantly given in to nuclear blackmail. Even Modi, supposedly a hawk, made zealous attempts to reach out to Pakistan.

Commendably, he invited Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other neighboring leaders to his 2014 inauguration ceremony. In 2015, Modi made a last minute detour to Pakistan on his way back from Afghanistan to attend a party in Sharif’s family. He resisted calls from some his hardline supporters for payback against Pakistan. It was a major political gamble for a leader who has sold himself as strong and decisive in all his campaigns.

The Uri attack and Sharif’s subsequent statement at the UN that notorious terrorist Burhan Wani was a “” forced Modi’s hand. It is important to note that . If India was like the United States, it would have killed Wani in a drone strike.

GOOD TERRORIST, BAD TERRORIST

The Pakistani establishment conveniently follows a spurious doctrine of the “” and the “bad terrorist” that beggars belief. As per this doctrine, terrorists who strike India or even Afghanistan can be good. The bad terrorists are those who bite the hand that feeds them. India has been paying a steep price in blood for Pakistan’s policy of promoting “good terrorists.”

Pakistan has long funded terrorists in Kashmir because it draws its raison d’être as a state for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Yet , Pakistani soldiers abducted, imprisoned and raped thousands of women in present-day Bangladesh in 1971. The Women’s Media Center chronicles rape camps where women “were raped by anywhere from two to 80 men a night.” Around 200,000 to 400,000 young girls to old grandmothers suffered this ordeal. Naturally, Bangladesh jettisoned Pakistan to emerge as an independent country.

Now, other parts are doing so. Balochistan is trying to gain independence from Pakistan, and Modi rightly referred to the human rights abuses that Pakistani troops perpetrate against Balochis in his . The Indian foreign minister followed up by labeling Pakistani brutality against the Baloch people as “the worst form of state oppression.” In a speech in the UN, she called on the world to .

The Indian focus on Balochistan is a new-fangled thing. Modi has been moving toward a more robust policy after his outreach to Pakistan failed spectacularly. The surgical strikes mark a new era in India’s policy to Pakistan, which will be more assertive going forward.

Nehru’s strategic restraint is now dead and buried six feet under. Modi has decided that offensive defense is the only way forward.

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Dear Mr. Modi,

I write to you as an average citizen of India. I refrain from using the clichéd term “common man,” which has been flogged to death by politicians. I do not hold membership of any political party, as I find that all of them are affected by similar maladies.

Though not bound by the ideology of any political party, I am not apolitical. I am an admirer of your developmental brand of politics, a “sin” for which the pseudo-liberal intellectuals of this country derisively referred to me as “communal.” The fact that I abhorred the intermingling of religion and politics as practiced by some politicians remained irrelevant in the larger sub-text. Now the same class condescendingly refers to me as “bhakt” (disciple or acolyte). Not that it matters.

I am someone who supported you during the travails of the ; during the time when the United States refused to issue you a visa; and even when publicly supporting you was anathema. I was part of the crowd that poured onto the streets of Varanasi on the day you were nominated for the 2014 parliamentary elections. Taking sabbatical leave from work, I campaigned in villages in your support during the scorching Indian summer when your party cadres were missing from the battlefield. I thronged the polling booths across India to ensure an unprecedented mandate for you.

And why did I do that? For a simple reason: trust. Trust in your ability to deliver governance; trust in your ability to revive the sagging Indian economy and provide employment to youth who were let down by your predecessor; trust in your ability to defend the nation’s borders and provide leadership to the country; and trust in your ability to provide leadership to ensure that the succeeding generations inherit a strong and developed India.

Let me affirm that my trust in your abilities and leadership has not diminished, despite the inherent cynicism I have developed toward politicians over the past 69 years. I understand the necessities of your international visits, and I feel proud to witness the accolades you receive on foreign shores. I understand the roadblocks creating hindrance for economic reforms, so I retain my confidence in your ability to deliver. I also appreciate the compulsions and constraints that have delayed the anticipated administrative reforms. I have the patience to wait for—if I may borrow from your election slogan—acchche din (better days).

However,��you must acknowledge that a democracy requires institutions of governance, apart from a well-meaning individual.

That the institutions of governance have degenerated since independence is no secret. Parliament has become dysfunctional and perhaps the worst example to emulate. Respect for parliamentarians has reached an abyss, with television anchors unhesitatingly reprimanding agitated participants in talk shows with a brusque, “this is not parliament.” Nothing could be worse for a democracy. But our politicians have brought this shame upon themselves. Irresponsible and reckless behavior inside the parliament justifiably brings opprobrium.

The judiciary, burdened with pending litigations and outdated laws, has been unable to deliver justice. Apart from the Supreme Court, the judicial system is considered corrupt and also beyond the means of the average citizen. The executive, represented by the bureaucracy, has outlived its utility. Clinging onto archaic British-era rules, it is decrepit and venal. Considered as a bunch of opportunistic self-seekers, their corruption and inefficiency invites only revulsion. The “steel framework” of the British Empire has rusted irreversibly.

So whom does the country turn to during hours of crisis? Who steps in when a tsunami decimates the shores of Tamil Nadu, or when a cloudburst deluges Uttarakhand or when floods engulf Assam and Bihar?

The military, of course. With a failing system all around, it is only the armed forces that India looks to for succor. Defending the country’s borders has become a minor detail in their profile.

A simple survey will reveal that ironically, the armed forces are the most trusted institutions of governance. It is ironic because in a democracy, the military cannot be considered an institution of governance in the strictest sense of the word. But discipline, efficiency and leadership have ensured that average citizens of India unfailingly put their trust in the army. Although incidents like the Adarsh housing and the growing corruption during recruitment of soldiers have taken some sheen of their grandeur, there is no denying the fact that Indians place the forces on a pedestal.

Come to think of it, the embodiment of these very qualities resulted in the people trusting you. So, why the sudden deficit of trust between the two now? Why the over the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme? Why delay the implementation of something you had assured the ex-servicemen of during the 2014 electoral campaign?

It is to their eternal credit that the ex-servicemen protesting the delay in the implementation of OROP kept patient, despite their despicable manhandling by Delhi police on the eve of India’s Independence Day. They retained their expectations from you, despite the defense minister, Manohar Parrikar, citing “technical difficulties” for the delay in OROP.

The people retained their patience because of that oft repeated factor: trust. They trusted you to come up with some formula to alleviate the pain of their justified demands being ignored.

But perhaps the evasiveness, both in your and body language on Independence Day, was a disappointment. Even to a layman, you appeared surprisingly hesitant while referring to OROP. A lack of conviction, while reiterating commitment to implement OROP, disappointed the forces. Perhaps it was the unfortunate manhandling of the previous day, or maybe bureaucracy has created a mountain over a molehill for OROP—the reference to OROP in your speech appeared perfunctory. The smirk on the faces of officers at Red Fort epitomized this deficit of trust.

Ever since then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi discontinued OROP in 1973, the forces have been struggling for its reintroduction. Returning their valor medals and writing letters in blood to seek justice were gradual steps to ensure their demands were met. Your assertions supporting OROP during the electoral campaign in 2014 raised their expectations. Disappointment is a natural consequence of being let down.

The perception of disappointment has more to do with the mistrust of armed forces toward the civilian bureaucracy, which is predisposed to maintain its supremacy and, therefore, adopting dilatory tactics against OROP. The staggering with projected requirements for OROP, ranging from Rs 1,000 crores ($152 million) to Rs 8,000 crores ($1.2 billion) has only served to accentuate the perception of bureaucratic perfidy. A lack of clarity the “technical difficulties” being referred to by Parrikar has only fueled suspicions about the government’s motives.

The government’s excuse of trying to balance the chance of fiscal deficit arising due to the implementation of OROP—though perhaps economically correct—would not pass muster in the battle of perceptions. More so when parliamentarians unashamedly their benefits periodically while parliament remains non-functional.

Though lacking the expertise to tutor on the art of governance, it is my conviction that a leader should never appear to be penny-pinching while providing benefits to his soldier. A soldier who retires at the age of 34 when his civilian friends are beginning their lives needs to feel confident that the government will stand by him. A commando into Myanmar to take out terrorists with the pension issue lurking in a soldier’s mind is a recipe for disaster.��The days when Roman emperors would provide rotten food to their armies to increase their hunger to fight are long gone.

The OROP issue requires immediate intervention at your level. The fact that it is not only about economics and parity, but also dignity must not be ignored.

I trust you. So do the armed forces. Repaying the trust is onerous. I am confident in��your ability to remove the deficit of trust. But the time to start doing so is now.

Regards,

The Average Citizen

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US President ’s visit to to attend the Republic Day celebrations is a sign of stronger ties between the two nations. Obama and Indian Prime Minister have broken new grounds after the latter entered office in 2014. They have rapidly moved from former Prime Minister ’s assertion of India and the being “natural allies” to Modi’s description of the two countries as “natural global partners.” The positive chemistry between the two leaders is epitomized by the fact that Obama is the first US president to attend the Republic Day celebrations.

US-India relations saw a downturn after the heydays of the India-US Civil Nuclear Energy Agreement of 2005. The deal was a personal achievement for then-Prime Minister , who virtually staked the survival of his government while signing the agreement. But relations between the US and India became comatose as Singh’s government entered a self-preservation phase during its second term.

Ties between both nations reached an abyss in 2013, when Indian diplomat was detained in the US for alleged perjury. Soon after, Indo-US relations turned frosty following a public outcry over Khobragade’s humiliation.

Prime Minister Modi’s emphasis on economic recovery has ensured that he has astutely realized the importance of US support. The affluent Indian diaspora in the United States is also on Modi’s radar for an inflow of foreign funds and influencing American policy, making for a favorable outlook toward Indian economic resuscitation. The US has also belatedly realized the opportunities at hand in the Indian economy, which would speed up the revival of its own economic situation.

During his trip, Obama is expected to renew the Defense Framework Agreement, which was initially signed during Singh’s visit to the US in 2005. The Defense Technology and Trade Initiative for joint development and production of defense equipment is also expected to yield preliminary results during Obama’s visit. The US has gradually replaced Russia as India’s largest arms supplier, providing $1.9 billion-worth of defense equipment in 2013. It is expected that the optimism generated by the US president’s trip will gradually reduce irritants like the stalemate over the Nuclear Liability Act.

Narendra Modi / Flickr

Good Taliban, Bad Taliban

However, despite the positivity generated between the two countries, the biggest challenge that confronts Obama and the US in Indian eyes is a negative perception. New Delhi views the US mollycoddling of — ignoring Islamabad’s involvement in state-sponsored terrorism — as an embodiment of American hypocrisy in its “.” Obama seems to have grasped this negative perception and has, therefore, kept Pakistan out of his itinerary, indicating that Washington is finally initiating measures to alleviate Indian feelings. But Indian perception demands more proactivity and less tokenism by the US role in reining in the Pakistani government and its rogue (ISI) from fomenting in India.

The Pakistani government has consistently denied involvement in acts of terrorism against India. But its assertion that “non-state actors” are involved in threats to India’s security no longer cuts the ice with the Indian establishment.

The façade of non-state actors started in 1948 when, immediately after the partition of India, Pakistani army personnel infiltrated as tribesmen to annex . The move failed due to the timely accession of Kashmir with India, which allowed the government to send in armed forces. The Pakistani effort to send in regular soldiers to instigate a revolt in Kashmir in 1965 fell flat due to a lack of support from the local population. Operation Gibraltar, the code name for this anticipated uprising, ran aground even before it could begin.

Gen. , after usurping power in Pakistan in 1977, realized the folly of open military confrontation with India. He changed track and initiated the policy of “bleeding India through a thousand cuts” by promoting terrorists who conducted a Pakistani proxy war on Indian soil. Separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir were liberally financed and armed through the ISI to compel India to divert its resources in order to counter the menace of terrorism.

Pakistan now bears the fruits of Zia-ul-Haq’s policy of Islamization of the Pakistani army. Gen. ’s attempt to infiltrate regular Pakistani soldiers in the garb of terrorists into Kargil in 1999 nearly led to an armed confrontation between Pakistan and India.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement regarding “no differentiation between the good and bad Taliban,” following an attack on school children in Peshawar in December 2014, was an admission of Pakistan’s culpability in encouraging the “good Taliban” who have attacked civilian targets in India and Afghanistan. The insincerity behind the statement is evident from the fact that the “good” Taliban in India’s case, , continues to roam free in Pakistan under ISI’s protection. Saeed, who carries a bounty of $10 million for his role in the Mumbai attacks of 2008, has been let off by the Pakistani courts due to a “lack of evidence.” He is consistently referred to as a social activist by multiple Pakistani spokespersons.

(LeT), a terrorist organization established by Saeed with the motive of converting India into an Islamic , moves around freely in Lahore and is patronized by ISI. Saeed’s audacity is evident from the fact that he plans to lead a “million march” in Karachi under the banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political arm of LeT, on the day Obama lands in New Delhi. The march is apparently to protest the publication of cartoons by French satirical magazine , which is infamous for its depictions of . But the real reason behind the gathering is to spew venom on India and recruit more foot soldiers for the group’s jihad against New Delhi.

Obama must realize that the Mumbai attacks were the tipping point in India’s battle against terrorism. Pakistan’s refusal to hand over the key conspirators — Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi — to India for trial has become a festering wound for the Indian psyche. The flippancy with which Pakistan conducted trials in the aftermath of the attacks has exposed its hypocrisy in the fight against terrorism.

The US needs to understand��that Pakistan is gradually positioning itself as the flag bearer of . Notwithstanding the repercussions such a situation would have on Pakistani society, but India is supposed to be the laboratory to test this Wahhabi ideology.As Pakistan’s non-conventional fighting arm, LeT provides the country with the strategic depth in its jihad against India. LeT is slowly transforming into the most dreaded terrorist outfit in the Indian sub-continent. Bruce Riedel, in his for the Brookings Institution, has predicted that “anotherLeT attack on India is probably only a matter of time.”

President Obama needs to realize that India has run out of patience with ISI and its terror proxies. Another attack on the scale of 26/11 could have serious repercussions for security in South Asia. Public fury, combined with Modi’s image as an assertive leader, could force his hand if India’s security is breached once again. While Obama’s talks with Modi might focus on crisis management in the event of a future terrorist attack, India would be keen to decipher any signs he reveals over his message to the Pakistani government. Obama needs to utilize the opportunity to compel Islamabad and ISI to desist from its support for the “good Taliban.”

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A recent Washington Post by and was the culmination of the prime minister’s successful visit to the . The quasi-diplomatic document — as ambivalent as diplomatic statements are — was symbolic of the thawing of relations between the two nations. Ties between India and the US, which reached its zenith during the US-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement in 2008, sank into an abyss during a stand-off emanating from the affair in 2013, when the Indian diplomat was charged by American officials for visa fraud.

Despite differences between the US and over a number of issues pertaining to trade, civilian nuclear energy and terrorism, “Chalein saath-saath” (forward together we go) is an to restore diplomatic normalcy. While the US has reasons to feel disappointed over the outcome of the Civilian Nuclear Agreement, especially the nuclear liability issue, India views Washington’s sincerity in confronting terrorism with suspicion.

India has been appalled by continued US military and economic support to , despite obtaining evidence of Islamabad’s involvement in destabilizing the region. Pakistan is perhaps the only country in the world that pursues terrorism as an instrument of state policy. The US has repeatedly turned a blind eye, even to Pakistani-sponsored terrorists bleeding US forces in Afghanistan. The Network would be ineffectual without the backing of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). US support for Pakistan has not diminished, despite Pakistani deceit that allowed to take refuge in Abbottabad. Washington’s tacit support of the theory of “good terrorist, bad terrorist” has created the trust deficit with India.

The denial of a US visa to Modi during his tenure as chief minister of , due to his alleged involvement in anti-Muslim riots in 2002, was expected to create embarrassment for the Obama administration during the prime minister’s recent visit. It was a classic case of hypocrisy by the US that laid the red carpet for Gen. Pervez Musharraf — who overthrew a democratically elected government in Pakistan — while refusing to extend diplomatic courtesy to a democratically elected Indian leader.

Inherited Flaws in Foreign Policy

Foreign policy was expected to be Modi’s Achilles heel, due to his limited experience in central government and provincial background. His political opponents had repeatedly focused on this inexperience during the campaign for the general elections.

A recent��Washington Post��op-ed��by Narendra Modi and Barack Obama was the culmination of the Indian prime minister’s successful visit to the US. The quasi-diplomatic document — as ambivalent as diplomatic statements are — was symbolic of the thawing of relations between the two nations.

Modi inherited a foreign policy which, like other policies in India, had been captive to the idiosyncrasies of the -Gandhi dynasty assisted by a sycophantic bureaucracy. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister, remained a slave to his utopian “Panchsheel” (five principles of peaceful coexistence) while annexed Tibet. Tibet had been a strategic buffer for India since time immemorial. The military defeat against the Chinese in 1962 was a natural corollary. During the , India’s obsession with the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was an exercise in vanity. NAM epitomized hypocrisy, with its members firmly entrenched with the US or Soviet camps, while propagating the virtues of non-alignment. India itself was compelled to obtain military support from the Soviet Union to counter US assistance to Pakistan.

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Modi’s initiatives in the US, however, belie his purported inexperience in foreign policy. If his public pronouncements are anything to go by, Indian foreign policy could undergo radical changes under his leadership. The prime minister utilized his address to the United Nations General Assembly to portray India as an alternative power that could provide leadership to countries aggrieved with US efforts to create a unipolar world, President ’s bullying tactics, and rising imperial ambitions concealed behind the façade of communism.

The prime minister, who had taken the initiative by inviting heads of state of South Asian countries to his inauguration ceremony, used the UN General Assembly to build bridges with neighbors such as Nepal and Bhutan, by acknowledging their contribution to stability in the region. It was in stark contrast to the government of former Indian Prime Minister , when relations with neighboring nations turned cold. Indian diplomacy in countries like Nepal had ensured that New Delhi was viewed with suspicion. This further resulted in increasing Chinese influence in the region. By reaching out to smaller neighbors, Modi allayed their fears. His diplomatic initiative is certain to disrupt China’s effort to strategically surround India — initially through its economy and then militarily.

Modi’s call to include regional actors in the US-led coalition of nations being established to fight the (IS), a jihadist group that has seized portions of and , was a message to Washington regarding its flawed policy of isolating nations even in the fight against terrorism. Without alluding to any specific country, Modi unambiguously indicated that he shared the concerns of the and governments. Although the impact of IS has not yet been felt in India, it is in New Delhi’s strategic interest that it starts building its defense against this macabre ideology. Modi has initiated this policy by raising concerns over the futility of battle against IS by secluding major players in the region because of US intransigence.

He also did an admirable job by defusing the rhetoric emanating from , the Pakistani prime minister, who utilized the UN General Assembly to raise the issue. Modi was statesmanlike in his refusal to counter Sharif’s vituperative statement and by categorically asserting that terror and talks cannot proceed together. By deliberately avoiding a slanging confrontation with his counterpart, the Indian prime minister did not allow Sharif the opportunity to placate his domestic audience about taking on India over Kashmir.

New Delhi has been a major contributor to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan during the post-Taliban period. Pakistan has protested against India’s involvement in Afghanistan because of its apprehensions over New Delhi gaining a foothold in its backyard.

Even Modi’s loyalists have been surprised by the deftness with which he combined India’s muscular approach in safeguarding its territorial integrity with “soft power,” which focuses on business rather than war. Perhaps realizing the fact that India needs economic growth ��to feed its people, Modi emphasized utilizing the Indian market as an instrument of foreign policy. In a break from the past, he assiduously tried to portray India as a nation that was comfortable in its role as a technological superpower, instead of a country that only propagates itself as an ancient culture.

Modi’s critics, who were caustic about his inexperience in foreign policy, failed to acknowledge the prime minister’s success in developing close ties based on business opportunities with the Chinese leadership and Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, during his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat.

India’s Concern in Afghanistan

The prime minister also made an important correction in India’s policy during discussions with President Obama. India’s historical relations with Afghanistan suffered during rule. The demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban epitomized their antipathy toward India.

New Delhi has been a major contributor to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan during the post-Taliban period. Pakistan has protested against India’s involvement in Afghanistan because of its apprehensions over New Delhi gaining a foothold in its backyard. Indian consulates in Afghanistan have been the target of Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks, in order to deter India’s involvement in the country.

However, as Singh’s government struggled for political survival, Afghanistan gradually slipped off India’s policy radar. The impending withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, combined with political uncertainty, has allowed the Taliban to launch major offensives and regain large areas of the country. The US urgency to withdraw its troops and engage in surreptitious negotiations with the Taliban has only served to embolden the terrorist organization.

The retreat of US forces from Afghanistan has serious ramifications for India. With the continued Pakistani policy of “bleeding India through a thousand cuts,” a hasty retreat of US soldiers will allow Pakistan to withdraw forces from its border with Afghanistan and shift them to the boundary with India. History is testimony to the fact that an increased Pakistani army presence on the Indian border only serves to facilitate the infiltration of terrorists.

’s declaration of jihad on India — by ’s new Indian branch — has increased concern of the Indian establishment. With terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir gradually being brought under control, any infusion of foreign fighters under the aegis of al-Qaeda will only exacerbate the security situation in the state.

Therefore, Modi’s effort to raise Indian concerns with Obama was a step in the right direction. India cannot remain a mute spectator while the US shifts its policy in Afghanistan. The implications of a failed state are too grave for Indian strategic interests. India might need to develop a coalition of nations to deal with a failed Afghanistan and an ascendant Taliban. Modi was pragmatic in his effort to reach out to Iran during his General Assembly speech.

India can no longer be a junior partner to the US. The spirit of “Chalein saath-saath” requires both India and the US to be equal partners. The US needs to address Indian concerns, while deciding on the fate of Afghanistan and Washington’s support for Pakistan. Modi’s pragmatism, detached from the burdens of the past, suggests Indian foreign policy could finally gravitate toward realpolitik. In a country encumbered by a legacy of Panchsheel and NAM, that itself would be an achievement.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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India’s��Bharatiya Janata Party () can ignore its��defeat in the by-polls only to its peril. The loss of the BJP ally Apna Dal’s seat in the state assembly��to the Samajwadi Party is particularly galling. The assembly is in Varanasi, Indian Prime Minister ’s parliamentary constituency.

The reasons that a segment of Modi’s voters drifted away from the BJP needs serious introspection. The BJP could take the easy way out and go along with media pundits��blaming Yogi Adityanath’s campaign based on “Love Jihad” for its electoral debacle. Adityanath’s campaign might not have been what the BJP wants��to be perceived as, but to hold him singularly responsible��for the debacle would be doing a disservice to the party. It would be equally preposterous to go��into panic mode over the opposition’s hullabaloo regarding the people rejecting Modi’s model of development and governance.

The Modi Factor

The BJP’s poor performance in the by-polls reaffirms the fact that its dominance in the general elections was primarily attributed to the Modi “wave.”

People exasperated with the egregious governance of former Prime Minister�� saw Modi as a leader, who had transformed Gujarat and developed the state into a model of development and good governance. He was a study in contrast to Singh’s��supine and scam-ridden government. Decisive, strong-willed and incorruptible, Modi was��visualized as a leader who could lift from the economic and social morass that it found itself stuck under Singh. A youthful demography favored Modi, as his development plank appealed to the youth who wanted a��way out of the economic doldrums, which has in turn led to stagnation in employment generation.

Modi’s charisma even demolished the entrenched divide, which had become the bane of the Indian political system. The BJP’s spectacular performance in ��(UP), winning 73 of 80 seats, exemplified that the Modi “wave” had demolished the caste citadel.

On the flip side, the “Modi factor” glossed over the inherent functional weaknesses of��the BJP in states like UP. The party, which had been in a comatose state in UP during the previous decade because of infighting among senior leaders and their failure to connect with the common people, appeared to have overcome its shortcomings. But, truth be told, it was only Modi’s charisma that ensured the BJP reaped a rich electoral harvest. Volunteers associated with the campaign were witness to senior party functionaries staying aloof from the electorate because of their unwillingness to face the common people. These functionaries even made subtle attempts to sabotage the efforts of party leaders who were brought in from outside the state to resuscitate a dormant BJP in UP. The common people overlooked their state leaders’ apathy in their urge to bring Modi to power. It can be safely said that the BJP won UP over, despite its local leadership.

Senior national leaders, who were witnesses to the indifference of local leaders toward local problems, assured the people of change in the party structure, which would be inevitable once Modi assumed power. However, with Modi engaged in restructuring governance and the party itself facing a transition period, the change has failed to materialize.

The BJP needs to realize that the era of playing politics from the comfort of lounges��and only making physical appearances during elections is over.

The BJP party structure in UP, like that of other parties, has become incestuous, leading to a deficiency of fresh blood infusions. Prescription to the dynasty cult has resulted in the party losing touch with the people. The dilapidation of the party has ensured that the common people have lost hope in the BJP. Indians, therefore, reverted to the time-tested caste politics, which favors the regional parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party during assembly elections. Bereft of any national accountability, regional parties played to the populist gallery, even at the cost of damaging the state’s interest.

Without any further ado, the BJP needs to take a serious look at its local units which, in the absence of any policy directives and programs from the state leaders, have become defunct. Local leaders need to be compelled to connect with the people and assist them in finding solutions to their grievances. In a striking example of the dysfunctional leadership in the BJP, not a single leader has taken to the street to protest against the abominable power situation in UP and Varanasi. If three Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), one Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) and the mayor of Varanasi — all of whom belong to the BJP — do not bother to venture��out of their living rooms while the common people suffer due to��prolonged power cuts, it would be foolhardy to expect Indians to extend political support to the BJP, despite Modi.

The BJP needs to realize that the era of playing politics from the comfort of lounges��and only making physical appearances during elections is over. Modi’s victory itself is a prime example of hard work and sincerity paying electoral dividends. The Modi factor cannot be expected to act as an antidote to every problem��resulting from a terminally ill local leadership.

People Power

Modi’s direct connection with the people was the most remarkable aspect of the general��elections. Volunteers from all spheres of life — medical professionals, government officials, bankers, housewives and students — pitched in during Modi’s campaign. In what was reminiscent of the Indian independence struggle, people came together with the sole motive of changing a system they perceived as unfair to the meritorious, and tilted in favor of the influential. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty became the symbol of promises that��had gone awry. Former PM Singh was seen as a symptom of this venal politics. The gathering of hundreds of thousands��of people on the streets of Varanasi during Modi’s nomination was a spontaneous outburst of this people power — opposition claims of “managed” crowds notwithstanding.

It was this yearning for change that��overcame the inherent flaws in the BJP’s internal mechanism. People returned to the cities where they were registered as voters to ensure Modi’s victory. The BJP’s candidate became irrelevant. It was Modi the people wanted to succeed.

Therefore, the biggest problem Modi has confronted is the heightened expectations of the people. While they have the patience to give��Modi and his team the time to rectify the bigger picture of defense, economy and foreign affairs, it is the management of smaller issues that has the potential to hurt the BJP.

The absence of law and order and the terrible power situation remains a major concern in UP. Although these issues are state subjects, the expectations from Modi have been raised to an extent that people expect his government to alleviate these problems. If the government does not improve critical issues, people revert to the political utilization of the caste system, which ostensibly acts a buffer for their protection from misgovernance. State assembly��elections were a manifestation of this ailment.

The Bhumihar caste, which refused to support the candidate Ajay Rai on the basis of caste affinity during this year’s general elections and stayed firm with Modi, voted in good numbers for Ramakant Singh, an independent candidate in Rohania. Ramakant, a small-time strong man, supposedly acts as a protector for his caste people from the deprivation of other strong men who run amok because of lack of law and order. The BJP, with its effete local leadership, fails to stand up for the harassed citizen and thereby loses the moral right to seek votes during elections. It is this distribution of votes by infusion of the caste-based voting that��will continue to hurt the BJP in state elections.

Shedding the��Status Quo

State issues are not the only ones hurting the prime minister’s��mandate. Modi’s ministers could sully his reputation as a fair administrator because of their mismanagement of governance. Since Modi has handpicked the ministers, the consequences of even one error of judgment would fall on him.

People who voted for Modi had opted��for change – a change that would help a “tea seller” fulfill his destiny. India is at a crossroads with the establishment alarmed by Modi, who threatens their existence as he pushes forward with reforms in governance.

The appointment of a new chairperson to��the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) has been one such debatable decision. The��political affiliations of this newly appointed person toward the Aam Aadmi Party are no secret. This individual��is��an acknowledged Modi baiter. The appointment has raised the eyebrows of even Modi loyalists. Evidently, the appointment was carried through by chicanery by advisers of the Human Resource Development Ministry by concealing facts. This apathy in key appointments, which was the hallmark of the Singh��government, will disillusion Modi supporters who expect him to rise above the rigmarole in governance.

The Indian education system requires sincere academics, whose credentials are beyond dispute rather than average academicians and bureaucrats with the “correct” connections. Such academicians are flag bearers of the status quo mentality that��has failed the education system terribly. This ilk is apt at changing its stripes and is comfortable with any political establishment, irrespective of its ideology.

The education system needs vision to stop the continuous brain drain among students. Self-serving political appointees are not the remedy for a collapsing system. India has performed miserably in its effort to establish world-class universities, a fact evident in the absence of acknowledgement of any Indian educational institution at the international level. Scrounging at the bottom of the barrel because of personal connections while appointing institutional heads will push the education system closer to the abyss.

People who voted for Modi had opted��for change – a change that would help a “tea seller” fulfill his destiny. India is at a crossroads with the establishment alarmed by Modi, who threatens their existence as he pushes forward with reforms in governance. But the indulgence of his ministers toward the traditional ruling class could derail the reformist agenda.

India voted for Modi, the game changer. It is time he changes the game for his government and party. Time, in politics as in life, waits for nobody.

The views expressed��in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect��51�Թ�’s��editorial policy.

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The abdication of governance under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has dragged India into a morass that will need some undoing.

The “Accidental Prime Minister”

The diarchy of power between UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with the former wielding power without responsibility and the latter content at playing second fiddle, was an unmitigated disaster. Singh, in the words of Sanjay Baru, his former media advisor, was an “accidental prime minister.” However, his supine performance ensured that his tenure became an “accident” for India.

Singh’s silence and servility made the position of prime minister into an object of ridicule. Ironically, it was his civility that got him the job in the first place. Singh was installed as Indian prime minister because Sonia’s managers were convinced that his subservience would ensure the smooth dynastic succession of Rahul Gandhi minus the revolt regents ensured in historical times.

Singh’s civility, however, soon revealed itself as meekness before Sonia. Resultantly, cabinet ministers routinely ignored the prime minister’s advice on policy matters and kept their positions secure by paying obeisance to Sonia. The financial scams that crumbled out of the UPA’s closet with regularity were a manifestation of Singh’s lack of assertiveness as a leader. The mysterious astronomical growth in the personal fortune of Robert Vadra, Sonia’s son-in-law, epitomized Singh’s egregious governance. His silence symbolized helplessness and loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in equal measure.

Institutions of governance became the primary victim of Singh’s abdication of governance. Rapacious ministers, who otherwise had a free run in riding roughshod over the prime minister, went berserk at the institutions of governance they considered to be impediments in their venality.

Modi’s rise to power is a manifestation of increasing cynicism and pessimism of the people with Singh’s regime and the stranglehold of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty on Indian polity.��

Kapil Sibal, the telecom minister, sarcastically referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) estimate of a $30 billion (Rs. 1.76 lakh crore) loss to the national exchequer in the 2G spectrum allocation as a “notional loss.” Even though the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed charge sheets based on the discrepancy raised by the CAG, it did not deter the minister from speaking disparagingly against the statutory auditing agency. The CBI itself, despite claims of functional autonomy, repeatedly kowtowed to the government’s diktats.

Exasperated by the actions of a politically pliant CBI compelled the Supreme Court to refer to it as “a caged parrot.” The Singh government’s relationship with the Supreme Court remained frosty, especially after it quashed the allocations of licenses in the 2G spectrum allocation case. Ministers repeatedly made sly references to the “judicial activism,” which purportedly was an impediment to the functioning of the government. The parliament remained in a comatose state, as the government became embroiled in a permanent standoff with opposition parties.

Let alone the statutory institutions, Singh’s cabinet was superseded by the extra constitutional National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC, which was handpicked by Sonia, was packed with left-leaning economists and soon became the “super cabinet,” facilitating the introduction of subsidy-guzzling populist economic schemes. Populist schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) were considered as “game changers” that would lead to Rahul’s eventual ascension to the position of prime minister. Ironically, Singh — who, as finance minister under Narsimha Rao, is credited with liberalizing the Indian economy — did not show the gumption to resist these economic shenanigans.

Consequently, the GDP growth of 7.9%, which the UPA inherited in 2003, plummeted to 4.7% during the quarter October-December 2013. Inflation, in particular food inflation, made life difficult for common citizens whose income remained stagnant due to economic slowdown. Escalating fiscal deficit, projected to be 4.6% of GDP, has placed the Indian economy in a precarious state. Combined with the global economic crisis, Singh’s mishandling of the economy has seen unemployment levels increase sharply. A youthful demography, with a lack of employment opportunities and concurrent disillusionment with the system, makes for a combustible potion.

Singh, with his fetish for “being remembered kindly by history,” leaves behind a system on the verge of collapse and resultant chaos. How history treats him might be a matter of conjecture, but for the time being the metaphorical Narendra Modi wave has showed that the Indian people have forthrightly rejected the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic politics and its sycophants.

The Rise of Modi

Modi’s rise to power is a manifestation of increasing cynicism and pessimism of the people with Singh’s regime and the stranglehold of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty on Indian polity. The Indian public were looking for a savior who could deliver them from malfeasance, and in Modi they believe to have found one.

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The massive mandate for Modi decimated the Congress party to the extent that with 44 seats in a 543-member parliament, it cannot constitutionally claim to be the leading opposition. The result with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claiming 282 seats has ensured that India has rid itself of coalition politics arising out of repeated fractured mandates. Coalition politics became a necessity after the 1989 general elections, but worked to the country’s disadvantage with the constituents wrangling over selfish interests, giving short shrift to developmental issues.

The present mandate allows Modi the freedom to initiate otherwise politically unpalatable decisions and to introduce the much required reforms in the system. Modi’s unparalleled popularity will provide him the cushion of tiding over the inevitable tough times before the reforms start showing their desired effect.

The Challenges Ahead for PM Modi

Modi needs to initiate reforms to reinforce the public’s confidence in the institutions of governance. Democracy cannot function without the rule of law that is maintained by various institutions. The absence of strong institutions of governance is bound to lead to anarchy and cause irreparable damage to democracy.

The institutions of governance also need immediate reforms. The Indian Police code is a vestige of British imperialism. The code, which was implemented in 1861, was drafted in the aftermath of the rebellion against the British East India Company and provided the British with brutal power that was needed to subdue the local populace. Such laws are an anachronism for a democracy and give birth to resentment among the innocents suffering at the hands of an unscrupulous police.

Modi will have to take immediate control of the economy.��Goldman Sachs��had predicted that India would need to create 40 million jobs over the next decade, if it prescribed to the flexible laws implemented by Modi in Gujarat. However, as Modi has repeatedly accepted, India is not Gujarat and, given the diversity in the country, flexible laws with the hire and fire policy will have to be modified as per local requirements. Inflation, especially food inflation, needs immediate attention. Modi could do well to release the food grains rotting in the state granaries to the poor. This act, apart from relief to the poor, could also bring down food inflation.

But given his experience in administration, these challenges could prove to be manageable for Modi. However, it would be tough for him to get down from the tiger of expectations that he has ridden to power on. Supported by a clever advertisement campaign, along with his achievements in Gujarat, the expectations of the people are sky high.

In a country that thrives on legend, Modi’s image has already achieved mythical proportions. The frenzy during his electoral rallies epitomized the belief that people have in his abilities to improve their lives. Indians, despondent because of a lack of opportunities and egregious governance, consider Modi to be the knight who could deliver for them. His rise from humble origins as a tea seller adds to the allure. That Modi has uprooted the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has convinced the people of his apparent invincibility.

Expectation, however, is a double edged sword. In an age where information is available at the click of a mouse, the electorate has become unforgiving. People will be demanding, as they usually are from their legends.

Will Modi deliver for India, as he did in Gujarat?

His time starts now.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Congress party has ruled India for the bulk of the period since independence. For the last decade, it has been in power in the form of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), a coalition it forged with like-minded parties.

Today, Congress faces a challenge from a reenergized Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Narendra Modi. The Indian elections are historic. After decades of venal corruption, nauseating nepotism and staggering incompetence, the Nehru dynasty might finally be ousted from office.

Ten Years of Monumental Misrule

The UPA took over from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2004 with India's gross domestic product (GDP) growing at a robust 7.9%. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA had initiated reforms in infrastructure and other key sectors. Manmohan Singh became prime minister and there were hopes that high economic growth would continue because he gets credit for the 1991 reforms. Instead of further reforms, the UPA announced one populist scheme after another, creating a crypto-socialist economy for the 21^st century.

Under the UPA, patronage has increased to unprecedented levels. Even The Economist, the 1843 English publication which opposed India's independence for 104 years and that has long favored the Congress party, estimates that $4 billion to $12 billion were taken as by the UPA. This does not account for the loss to the Indian exchequer, of which the bribes are a mere fraction. The Indian GDP grew at a measly 4.7%, while inflation averaged over 10% during the last quarter of 2013. This means real GDP growth was in the negative. Unsurprisingly, unemployment is rife in India. Thanks to the UPA, the Indian economy is in a mess.

India's security is also in disarray. The country's defense forces are short on equipment, lack officers to the tune of 12,000 to 15,000, and suffer poor morale. Off the record, India's intelligence services bemoan the fact that there has been no prime minister as disinterested in their work as Singh. Foreign policy has been a mess and there is a singular lack of vision about India's role in the world. Chinese incursions into Indian territory have been ignored and India has not stepped up to the plate in Afghanistan.

The Prince vs. The Tea-seller

There have always been two Indias. Anglicized elites, who largely inherit power, believe themselves to be superior to the hoi-polloi. The middle-classes and the masses, who speak the vernacular, struggle for basic necessities. This election is a battle between the patricians who want to cling on to power and the plebeians who want change. The choice is between two candidates who are like chalk and cheese. As The Economist writes: "Mr Gandhi would ascend to office as if by divine right. Mr Modi is a former teaseller propelled to the top by sheer ability."

Rahul Gandhi is the great grandson of Nehru, India's first prime minister. He has never held any executive position. As a legislator, he has not proposed a single piece of legislation over the last decade. In a staggering demonstration of arrogance, he has appeared in just one so far. This was universally agreed to be an unmitigated disaster, raising questions not only about his experience and competence, but also about his ability and intelligence.

Modi comes from a backward caste. As mentioned earlier, he has humble origins. He is serving his fourth term as chief minister of Gujarat and has an impressive record in office. Three of his achievements are particularly impressive.

First, in a country with decrepit infrastructure, Modi has grasped the fundamental importance of focusing on power, irrigation, roads and ports for the Indian economy.

Modi appointed Manjula Subramaniam, a remarkable woman, to reform Gujarat's power sector. At that time, the Gujarat State Electricity Board (GSEB) was racking up massive losses and the state had a power deficit. Subramaniam improved morale, restructured debt to secure lower interest rates, renegotiated contracts with power plants to get cheaper prices, and plugged leakages in distribution. Distribution to rural areas improved dramatically with the launch of a scheme named Jyotigram, which means lighted villages. Now, the 18,000 villages of Gujarat have access to uninterrupted supply.

Most importantly, Modi took Subramaniam's advice and broke up GSEB. In 2003, the Gujarat government created a holding company, a power generation company, a power transmission company and four distribution companies. As of 2012, Gujarat ""

Modi's irrigation reforms were no less path breaking. Around 70% of Gujarat is arid and semi-arid. His administration undertook a two pronged approach. Provision of water through dams, check dams, and the interlinking of rivers increased dramatically. Conservation of water through use of drip irrigation and other improved technology have meant that an additional 1.5 million hectares are now farmland. Agricultural growth in Gujarat has been 10.97% in the first decade of this century, in contrast to measly national rates of for the same period.

When Modi came to power, Gujarat's roads were in dire state. The World Bank that the Gujarat State Highways Project "improved 1,900 kilometers of roads, reducing travel times by 10 percent." Numerous studies have noted that safety, employment and access to both education and health care have improved in Gujarat thanks to better roads. Ports have come up in Gujarat as well and a notes the state has "the distinction of handling the maximum non-major cargo traffic in India."

Modi's policies have led to Chinese style double-digit growth rates for Gujarat. He has slashed red tape, introduced flexible labor laws, and successfully wooed investment. Such is Gujarat's allure that Ratan Tata, the former TATA boss, India's most respected industrial house, remarked: "You are stupid if you are not in Gujarat."

Gujarat accounts for 17.2% of India's fixed capital investment, 15.6% of the value of production, 20% of industrial output, and 22% of the country's exports. It is little wonder that Indians from other states are immigrating to Gujarat for employment.

Indians are sick of living in darkness, potholed roads, chronic unemployment and bureaucratic oppression. Modi offers a glimmer of hope to millions of Indians who yearn for better governance, improved infrastructure and a fair shot at life.

Secularism, Socialism and Scotch

As expected, Modi has many powerful enemies. The din of allegations against him is sometimes deafening. India's so-called secular leaders have long pandered to clerics for the Muslim vote. These secular leaders allege that Modi abetted the 2002 Gujarat riots, while staying silent about the 1984 pogrom of Sikhs that was led by the Congress. It is important to note that the courts have given Modi a clean chit.

Furthermore, the number of Muslims below poverty line from 31% in 2004-05 to 7% in 2011-12 in rural Gujarat. The same number for urban Gujarat fell from 42% to 14.6%. Muslims have fared far worse in the states run by the Congress and other so-called secular parties.

Arvind Kejriwal is Modi's latest left-wing critic. He was in power for 49 days in Delhi where he overthrew a notoriously corrupt Congress government. Kejriwal made his name opposing the Congress but has now trained his sights on Modi. He is a Chavez-style populist who promises freebies such as cheap electricity and free water to the people. He also promises to curb corruption by creating an elaborate new bureaucracy. He opposes Modi's economic model and is trying to occupy the space left vacant by the Congress.

Other socialists and communists have a Pavlovian opposition to enterprise and a fixation with government intervention. Modi is offering an alternative to the Nehruvian state and that is upsetting those in a country, which Nehru's daughter deemed socialist in 1976 after a of dubious validity.

Foreign correspondents in India and its anglicized elite socialize over scotch in expensive locales in cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Many of these still harbor imperial attitudes and disdain people with rural and vernacular roots. The rough-hewn cadences of Modi jar with their snobbish sensibilities. They are giving the Congress a clean chit for decades of misgovernance, while attacking Modi even on his incontestably impressive economic record. Clearly, the tea-seller is threatening India's incumbent elite to evoke such a vitriolic response.

In Search of a Leader

India has muddled through a decade of despair. In much of the north, there is no order, leave aside rule of law. Under the Congress, Delhi achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the . Sonia Gandhi has been de facto prime minister, wielding and reducing the constitutional position of the prime minister to a joke. India is looking for someone to lead and Modi is, by far, the best option in a generation and more.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Reza Aslan and Michael Brooks make a litany of charges against Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in their article, “” The BJP is India’s main opposition party challenging the Congress party that has been in power for most of the over six decades of India’s independence. It has therefore launched a vitriolic campaign to discredit Modi. Aslan and Brooks are participating in that campaign willingly because they are familiar with the anglicized leadership of the Congress or unwittingly because they have fallen for the Congress narrative hook, line and sinker.

Facts Do Matter

Aslan and Brooks clearly do not know much about India. They begin with a fallacious assertion that Modi is the governor of Gujarat. In the Indian parliamentary system, it is the chief minister of a state who wields power. The governor is a ceremonial position. Modi is chief minister and not governor. For those who do not even know this about India, it is brazen to pass judgment on viability of a candidate to lead the country.

Aslan and Brooks have the arrogance to ignore the judgment of the Indian judiciary and pronounce Modi guilty despite evidence to the contrary. The 2002 Gujarat riots have already seen an inquiry into both by a commission set up by the Gujarat government and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) monitored by the Supreme Court. Both have absolved Modi of blame for the riots. Yet, an incessant media campaign has been orchestrated against him and he has been deemed guilty by India’s English speaking media, activists and, naturally, Congress leaders like Jairam Ramesh. Aslan and Brooks have quoted Ramesh without pausing to think that he has every incentive to defame Modi, especially given that elections are around the corner and the Congress is in dire straits.

Congress leaders have long feared Modi and have launched vicious attacks on him. In a 2007 speech, Sonia Gandhi called him Maut ka Saudagar –  a merchant of death. Prime Minister Manmohan, who rarely speaks to the media or in public, has castigated Modi for “presiding over the massacre of citizens in the streets of Ahmedabad.” The Congress is conspicuously silent about its role in the 1984 pogrom of the Sikhs. Gandhi’s husband was in charge then and her close loyalists led mobs through the streets of Delhi to humiliate, torture and murder innocent Sikhs. Even old men and young adolescents were burnt alive in a frenzy of violence whipped up by Congress leaders. India’s English speaking media has colluded in the cover up of the pogrom and not given 1984 a fraction of the scrutiny that it has given 2002.

Revisiting 2002

On February 27, 2002,  in Godhra, a small town in Gujarat. The Nanavati-Shah Commission set up to investigate the incident, arrived at the conclusion that the ill-fated Sabarmati Express had been surrounded by a mob of fundamentalist Muslims just outside Godhra railway station. The mob targeted a particular coach after disconnecting it from the train and ruthlessly burnt alive its occupants, locking the doors from outside. The mob prevented the fire brigade from reaching the site until the hapless victims were charred to death. The Gujarat police had also reached the same conclusion in its preliminary investigation. The SIT later concurred with the findings of the Nanavati-Shah commission.

The riots which followed the burning of the train at Godhra were spontaneous instead of planned. They resulted in the death of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus instead of the thousands claimed by the media. What happened was a tragedy, but it certainly was not the genocide that it is painted to be.

The “accidental fire” theory claimed by Aslan and Brooks was initially propounded by the U.C. Banerjee commission set up by the national Congress government in 2004. This was picked up by journalists that had benefited from Congress patronage and the theory was widely disseminated as established fact. The Gujarat High Court quashed the constitution and conclusion of the Banerjee Commission. It ruled that the commission’s investigation was "unconstitutional, illegal and null and void." The court declared that the formation of the commission as a "colourable exercise of power with mala fide intentions," and its argument of accidental fire "."

Of those accused of burning the train, 31 received severe sentences. Of these, 11 were given the death penalty. After investigation, trial and sentencing, the matter should have been laid to rest. However, the media that praises India’s judiciary has continued to deem Modi guilty for the 2002 riots. Analysts like Aslan and Brooks damn Modi as well without an examination of facts.

Since independence in 1947, 13,000 communal riots have occurred in India. Independence itself was accompanied by the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. This led to the biggest human migration in history. Some estimate that up to a million people might have died then. In the more recent Mumbai riots of 1992-93, over 900 people lost their lives. Most riots- Bhagalpur, Meerut, Mumbai and Nellie – have occurred under the rule of the Congress. Gujarat itself has witnessed regular communal riots since 1967 and it was largely under Congress rule until Modi came to power in 2001. After the tragic riots of 2002, Gujarat has remained riot-free under Modi.

Last Throw of the Dice

The Congress has lost all credibility because of its record of extortionate corruption and spectacular incompetence. In the recent state elections, it was humiliated and won a handful of seats. Modi has a reputation for honesty and competence.  has put him in pole position to replace the dynastic and discredited Congress. It is not only Gujarat’s voters but also international leaders who admire his governance. Japan, Canada, Britain, the EU and even Iran have established close trade ties with Gujarat. Only the US has remained doctrinaire in its condemnation of Modi as it cannot lose face by admitting that it was wrong.

The rise of Modi is making the Congress nervous. It has therefore launched a smear campaign of monumental proportions to paint him as an Indian neo-Nazi who believes in ethnic cleansing. If the Congress is to be believed, Modi might well be planning concentration camps. The fact is that Modi has been trying to win over Muslim leaders. Mohammad Hashim Ansari, the oldest litigant in the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Mosque dispute has remarked that “Congress is creating fear of Modi.” This dispute has been extremely ferocious because Hindus believe that Lord Ram was born here while Muslims believe that a mosque built by Babar stands at the same spot. That a Muslim leader involved in this dispute has remarked on the vilification campaign of the Congress is a testimony to its pettiness.

The Congress goal is simple. It wants to retain power at any cost. If it can mobilize the Muslim vote that comprises 15% of the electorate then it might have a fleeting chance. Therefore, the Congress is painting grim scenarios. Its hatchet men like Jairam Ramesh who speak English in the right accent have been given a license to defame Modi. The Ivy League educated American elite is notoriously ideological and has been trained by a generation of left-wing scholars who are close to the Congress. Aslan and Brooks demonstrate an elitist disgust of a provincial self-made politician with humble roots who speaks in rough and unfamiliar cadences. They are echoing what they hear from the Congress and helping it in its last throw of dice.

Leave India Alone, Uncle Sam

Aslan and Brooks make some staggering assumptions. First, they assume that the US can influence who India elects. The US stands discredited in India for its support of apartheid for decades. The recent spat over the mistreatment of an Indian diplomat has further lowered US prestige. If the US opposes Modi then he will win a landslide.

Second, Aslan and Brooks do not know much about economics. India’s economic growth does not depend on the US. The Indian economy kept growing despite US sanctions launched in the aftermath of its nuclear tests. India has launched a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle recently despite all US efforts to stymie its efforts. The US does not have much of a lever with a country of over a billion people that is not an export oriented economy.

Third, Aslan and Brooks seem to forget that with the unraveling of Afghanistan and the Chinese challenge to the US in Asia Pacific, their country needs India. Modi is the preferred ally for many people in the CIA and the Pentagon. Breaking off relations with an India led by Modi will only harm US strategic goals and cost it arms sales.

There are two other assumptions that are supremely smug, sanctimonious and neo-imperial. Aslan and Brooks assume that the US is the arbiter of good behavior. When the US invaded Iraq to supposedly establish democracy, Indians laughed because Uncle Sam was hugging a military dictator named General Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf had attacked India, instigating the Kargil War, and sent terrorists across the border. Uncle Sam has long supported dictators who have committed genocide, from Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein.

Finally, Aslan and Brooks turn on Modi for the 2002 riots but fail to acknowledge that the illegal US invasion Iraq has caused many more deaths. They ignore the fact that the US still operates Guantanamo and kills innocent women and children through drone strikes. It spies on foreign leaders and its own people. The US refuses to reveal that  are dying on a daily basis because of drones. Aslan and Brooks forget that their country is in no position to pass judgment on Modi or on India. They also forget that compared to many Bible bashing Republicans virulently opposed to abortion and evolution, Modi is mild by comparison. He focuses on education, allows abortion and strongly favors evolution. Aslan and Brooks need to get over their smug sense of American superiority and look at the world through less jaundiced eyes. Modi deserves examination, not vilification, and India does not need American sermons, threats or condescension.

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The US and India are engaged in a diplomatic row over the arrest and strip-search of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade. The deputy general consul has been charged with non-payment of the US minimum wage to her domestic maid and for incorrectly stating her maid’s wages on the visa application.

Khobragade was regrettably strip-searched, cavity searched, and lodged with hardened criminals and sex workers. This has caused a furor in India. The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called the incident “deplorable.” The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew an invitation for the US consul to attend the rally of its leader, Narendra Modi. The “regret” expressed by US Secretary of State John Kerry has failed to soothe nerves in India.

Neo-Imperial

US action against Khobragade is clearly neo-imperial. Under the façade of human rights, the US behaves like a bully with other nations, arm-twisting them to fall in line with its diktats.

The illegality of Khobragade’s actions under US law was a flimsy excuse for her arrest and mistreatment. The US government failed to observe the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), the widely accepted international norm for treatment of consular staff.

The US has long-been cavalier with international protocol. The invasion of Iraq, drone attacks in Pakistan, and spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on friends and foes alike has discredited the US.

The US followed Khobragade’s mistreatment with the surreptitious evacuation of the maid’s family from India. It argued that the evacuation was necessary to protect the maid’s family. This was not only an affront to India’s sovereignty, but it also demonstrated utter contempt for India’s judicial system.

This is not an isolated phenomenon. In the past, the US egregiously shielded Warren Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide. This company was responsible for the , the largest industrial disaster in history. Anderson is still wanted in Indian courts for his role in the tragedy which killed more than 10,000 people, but the US continues to protect him.

At the heart of the matter is US exceptionalism. There cannot be one set of rules for the US and another for the rest of the world. The US has not even signed up to the International Criminal Court, which can impose charges on those who have committed crimes against humanity. By sheltering the maid, the US is acting in the same way as Russia; Washington can have no complaints about Edward Snowden.

The Story Coming Out of India

India’s response has been woefully inadequate — this is in keeping with historical precedent. Since independence in 1947, the only consistency about Indian foreign policy has been its inconsistency. Jawaharlal Nehru shunned the US and cozied up to the Chinese in a warped policy of non-alignment. When China backstabbed India in 1962, Nehru pleaded to the US for support. Later, under his daughter Indira Gandhi, India turned into a Soviet vassal. Yet while India’s leaders sang paeans to the Soviet Union, they still sent their children to study in the US. Narsimha Rao took over as prime minister when the Soviet Union was disintegrating and, under him, India finally forsook feckless non-alignment to tilt towards US.

In the post-Soviet era, India has largely deferred to the US. Under the current government, this deference has turned slavish. When it turned out that Washington was using the NSA to spy on other countries, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff canceled her visit to the US and gave a multibillion dollar fighter jet deal to Swedish Saab instead of American Boeing. German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly protested as well. Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, on the other hand, defended the NSA saying that it was “not actually snooping.”

Effective foreign policy requires a clarity regarding the nation’s interests. It requires focus and will. With no clarity, will or focus, Indian foreign policy is a disaster. Politicians are both uninformed and uninterested in foreign policy. Diplomats of the elite Indian Foreign Service (IFS) care more about cushy assignments in the US and Europe than serving the nation’s interests. Few care about serving in strategically important places such as Afghanistan or Egypt. It is little wonder that India has made little progress in its quest for permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.

India’s foreign policy establishment has a reputation for lacking a backbone. India has never taken a strong stance against constant Chinese encroachment of its territory. It has failed to compel Pakistan to handover perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Pakistan has recently violated a ceasefire on the Line of Control twice by shelling and firing upon Indian troops. Earlier, it beheaded an Indian soldier and continues to send terrorists across the border. Even the tiny Maldives arbitrarily canceled a multibillion dollar deal with GMR, an Indian company, to build and manage the Male airport.

No Self-Respect

India has rightly received its comeuppance through the Khobragade affair. For too long, India tolerated the lack of respect shown to its dignitaries. Former Indian President Abdul Kalam was frisked in New York in 2011, Ambassador Meera Shankar was "patted down" at various US airports, and other diplomats have been treated without due respect. Khobragade’s arrest and humiliation shows the depths to which the US has descended: even diplomats on duty are no longer safe. After initial chest thumping, the supine Khurshid has expressed the desire of "not wanting the close ties between the two countries to be hurt by one incident." India is about to roll over yet again.

India has long-presented a divided front to the world. This has emboldened other countries not to take India seriously. In any case, the US as the global superpower hardly needed such an invitation.

For the last few years, India’s Congress-led government has connived with its US counterpart to deny a visa to the BJP opposition leader, Modi. Modi runs Gujarat, the most market-friendly of all Indian states, and has a reputation for competence. The Indian government has been more intent on backstabbing Modi instead of pursuing national interests. The US has had no compunction feting dictators like Pervez Musharraf but it has singled out Modi for harsh treatment. The fact that India’s Supreme Court has absolved Modi of wrongdoing does not matter to the US. It has acted as judge and jury in Modi’s case, and condemned him as guilty.

This is blatant disrespect to Indian democracy and India’s judicial system. Yet the country has stayed silent. Clearly, India has no self-respect.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Dear Mr. Arvind Kejriwal,

Heartiest congratulations on the splendid performance of your Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha (local assembly) elections. In spite of the rhetoric, I am certain that your performance in winning 28 out of 70 Vidhan Sabha seats in the party’s electoral debut exceeded expectations of even your in-house psephologist, Yogendra Yadav.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the AAP has shaken the roots of traditional Indian politics, which was till now largely run by opportunistic politicians hankering for power. Arun Jaitley, the leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha (India’s upper house of national parliament), grudgingly accepted the AAP as "an unconventional party." After all, it is the AAP which soured the celebrations of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) massive victories in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. Even though the BJP won 32 seats in Delhi, it is unable to form a government there, having fallen short of the required simple majority of 36 seats.

The AAP promised to be a whiff of fresh air in Indian politics but it seems you are no different. The events following your electoral success indicate that the AAP has taken little time to adopt the habits of the parties that it loves to condemn. In a in the village of Ralegan Siddhi, Gopal Rai, your comrade-in-arms, who happens to be a professional politician from his student days at Lucknow University, not only the former army chief, General (Retd) V.K. Singh but also your mentor Anna Hazare.

Both these elderly gentlemen have sterling reputations and it is clear that your party is adopting the methods of disreputable professional politicians who are joining it. More worryingly, it shows intolerance towards dissent and an inability to accept differences of opinion. So, it is time to state some facts.

You are a direct beneficiary of Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign. You came into the public limelight and were able to launch the AAP because of the momentum generated by Hazare’s movement. The country was chafing against the avarice and malfeasance of the politicians. Indians wanted some probity in public life and accountability of people in power. You claim that the AAP is a way to achieve those aims by joining the electoral fray and ostensibly still support Hazare. General Singh has joined forces with Hazare and the two of them are trying to keep up the pressure on the Indian government to implement long-promised reforms. Like Hazare, General Singh established a reputation for honesty in his four decades of public service. He exposed corruption in defense purchases, the lack of ammunition and equipment, and the unpreparedness of the military to face any external threat.

By sending a professional politician like Gopal Rai to misbehave at their public function, you have demonstrated that in the course of one election, you have transformed yourself from a social reformer fighting corruption to a classic politician seeking electoral gains.

Your sent to the Congress and the BJP seems to be an act of pure cynicism. Elections are exercises to form governments. Delhi is without one right now. You have refused to support any of the major parties and declined to form the government yourself. This is despite the fact that Congress has offered you “unconditional support” and the BJP has offered you “constructive support.” Instead, you have declared that you will only accept support if any or both of the two national parties sign up to your 18 points.

You are now no longer an activist but a politician in the business of providing governance. If you were to form the government, you could implement many of your points without needing any legislative approval. If you are serious about bringing change to Indian politics, then you have to accept responsibility and set about providing better governance. Your charter was your election manifesto. You did not win a complete majority, which implies that you do not have enough support for your demands. To insist that you will only form a government when your demands are accepted demonstrates that you are still campaigning like an activist, instead of acting like a responsible politician.

The stalemate in Delhi is an imbroglio created not so much by an indecisive voter, but instead by the political ambitions of the AAP. Your actions belie your statements that you “did not enter politics for power.” If you do not want power and enact your agenda, then let us know why you entered politics. You could have continued as an anti-corruption campaigner alongside Hazare and General Singh. If you want to empower common people and implement the promises of your manifesto, then you could make a beginning by assuming power in Delhi.

You perhaps apprehend that the Congress or BJP might sabotage your government once you take over. Particularly, when you initiate action against corruption, they might pull the plug from you over some trite excuse. It seems that such an action by anyone who supports you would invite opprobrium and backlash. People are fed up with politicians and, if your supporters turned into saboteurs, that would increase your popularity and further their decline.

You have long-been behaving holier-than-thou with other political parties. Yet you increasingly seem to be playing the same game as those you condemn. A few days before the Delhi elections, you met Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan in Bareilly. Maulana Khan has announced a bounty for former US President George Bush and Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. There is an argument to be made against the former for being a war criminal, but there is no excuse for announcing a price for his head. Targeting a writer regardless of how much you differ with her is intolerant to the extreme and has no place in modern society. Maulana Khan is known to be a Muslim fundamentalist and has earlier been arrested for inciting riots in 2010. Consorting with him to target the Muslim vote was opportunistic on your part. Your claim of having no knowledge about the “charges leveled against him” is hard to believe.

Finally, the most worrying aspect of your manifesto is its fundamental lack of understanding of economics. It has a populist agenda. The AAP opposes privatization, wants government involved in oil extraction, is in favor of increased taxation, and supports increases in fuel and electricity subsidies. You have called for regularizing contract workers, providing 700 liters of water free of cost to every family and moving people in slums to flats and houses built by the government. All this sounds terrific, but you have failed to shed light on how it proposes to pay for all its promises.

India has been burnt in the past by populism. Indira Gandhi’s "Garibi hatao" (remove poverty) programs in the 1970s did everything except remove poverty. The AAP’s program will add to the regulatory burden in India, provide bureaucrats more opportunities for graft, and unleash inflationary pressures in the economy. India needs tough economic decisions, especially in these turbulent times. It needs painful long-term reforms that unleash the entrepreneurial energy that Indians are famous for, instead of more state intervention in the economy. Simply put, the government cannot run on empty pockets.

You need to realize that people supported the AAP less for its policies and more for its perceived probity. Indians want better governance, honesty in public life, and accountability from its leaders. It is an idea whose time has come. Yet this idea can be frittered away easily. The people of Delhi have just voted and you are refusing to respect their choice. By blocking the formation of a government, the AAP is holding a gun to the head of the very people it claims to fight for.

As you, Mr. Kejriwal, said yourself: "If unwittingly we err, history will not forgive us."

Nice semantics, now walk the talk!

Regards

Mayank Singh

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The arrest of Tarun Tejpal, the founder and editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, for the  of a junior female employee, symbolizes the corruption that has poisoned India’s soul. Not too long ago, a woman was gang-raped and beaten unconscious a stone’s throw from the president’s opulent residence. She died soon after.

Now it turns out that residents in the country’s mansions are preying on the women they are supposed to protect. A retired Supreme Court Justice has been accused of molesting an intern. Tejpal, a part of that elite, has shown the extent of its moral depravity and dishonesty.

The Facts of the Case

Tejpal is alleged to have sexually assaulted a female colleague during the THINK fest, an event organized by his magazine in Goa. Ironically, the conservative Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef was among those invited to the event. Tejpal’s influence can be gauged from the fact that he was able to arrange a visa for Zaeef, despite the fact that India does not have any relations with the Taliban. To put matters in perspective, Zaeef is one of the founding members of  the Taliban and spent four years at Guantanamo.

P. Chidambaram, the finance minister who is a close confidant of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was not also present at the event and but also in the same place as Zaeef. Robert de Niro and Amitabh Bachchan, two major stars from Hollywood and Bollywood were also in attendance. Tejpal clearly has international clout and is able to get the high and mighty from around the world to mingle together.

Prima facie, such a high profile event would seem like an unlikely place for sexual assault. Yet, the power-drunk Tejpal sexually assaulted his subordinate in a public space on . Thereafter, he allegedly threatened to fire his victim for not giving in to his advances. Furthermore, Tejpal indulged in prevarication in the immediate aftermath of his crime to cast doubts on the validity of his victim’s account who happens to be a close friend of his daughter. The whole episode is much too sordid even by the murky standards of the Indian elite.

Shenanigans That Followed

Once Tejpal’s actions came to light, he engaged in evasion and equivocation. He tried to downplay his behavior as “misconduct” and “a bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation.” Then he tried to be sanctimonious and claimed that he felt “impelled to atone further.” He went on to claim that he “felt atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that lacerates me. I am therefore offering to recuse myself from the editorship of Tehelka, and from the Tehelka office, for the next six months.” His ploy after the incident has focused less on contrition and more on self-preservation.

It turns out that the victim had complained to Soma Chaudhary, the managing editor of Tehelka and a feminist who claims to fight for women’s rights. Yet she sided with Tejpal. Instead of initiating an enquiry and lodging a police complaint, she deemed the sexual assault as “an internal matter” of the company. Chaudhary and Tejpal perhaps assumed that the victim would back down and the matter would soon be forgotten.

Unfortunately for them, she fought back. At this point it appears that Tejpal’s remorse evaporated and he resorted to playing political games to prove his innocence. In his , he claimed that his sexual assault amounted merely to “light hearted bantering,” which was being played up because he had been a “foremost critic of right-wing majoritarian politics in the country,” and an “active campaigner against any attempts to tarnish secular fabric of the country.” By claiming to be a victim himself, Tejpal demonstrated a Machiavellian dishonesty that has become the hallmark of India’s New Delhi-based ruling elite. Any demand for accountability or revelation of corruption is labeled as an attack by “communal” forces. Secularism has become a cloak to hide vices instead of a principle this elite believes in.

But what does a case about sexual assault on a young female employee, who is a friend of Tejpal’s daughter, have to do with India’s politics?

The Murky World of the Indian Elite

Indian politics is a murky business where cash is traded for favors. The Nehru family has been in power for most of the time since India’s independence in 1947. It has perfected the art of patronage and payment, which other parties practice much more crudely. There has long been an unstated suspicion that the Congress party led by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Nehru’s grandson, used Tehelka to launch “sting operations” against opposition leaders. Scams under the Congress-led government have reached historic heights and run in figures that are worth billions of dollars. Yet, not one politician of the ruling Congress party was ever exposed by Tehelka’s moral crusade against corruption.

India’s establishment is known to be incestuous. Leading figures in journalism, cinema and politics have close ties with each other. Self-interested loyalty — not commitment to justice — drives them. Javed Akhtar, one of Bollywood’s leading lyricists, has leapt to Tejpal’s defense. Despite increasing evidence of the assault, he has praised him for “impeccable values” and “having the guts to repent.” Akhtar is a cultural icon who has publicly spoken out against sexual harassment of working women, but has incongruously leapt to Tejpal’s defense. Leading figures in Bollywood have been caught possessing  and . They have even driven their cars over homeless workers sleeping on Mumbai’s pavements who died thereafter. Yet they have all got away scot-free.

Politicians protect celebrities both in journalism and in cinema. Impunity from criminal prosecution leads to abject loyalty to the establishment. These celebrities vilify prospective rivals of the ruling party and campaign for their masters during elections. In a largely poor and illiterate country, the impact of celebrities cannot be overstated. Tejpal is part of this circuit and, therefore, is appealing to his masters in code language for protection.

Two Key Issues

The Tejpal scandal raises two important issues that have long-term implications for India. First, the country no longer has an independent media. Its journalists no longer care about the truth. In fact, they collude with politicians to distort the public discourse. The  revealed that some of India’s top journalists were brokering deals between politicians and big business. In fact, most media organizations are either owned by big business or by relatives of politicians. Independent minded journalists often find themselves unemployed and unemployable. The concentration of power in the industry means that there is a culture of serfdom. Power-drunk media bosses spin stories to further the interests of their friends. Most bosses exploit those who work for them. Sexual abuse is rampant and unseemly whispers about many famous names abound. The author cannot take names because victims are unwilling to come forward. Tejpal himself reportedly told his victim while assaulting her: “This is the easiest way for you to keep your job.”

Second, the sexual harassment of women in India is increasing exponentially. With greater education women have more opportunities. They now constitute 24% of the workforce in the corporate sector. This has resulted in socio-psychological issues in a patriarchal and feudal society where women are still largely seen as homemakers. Men have failed to come to terms with the reality that women are now equal partners in a workplace. Sexual harassment is one of the methods for men to psychologically assert their domination over women. The absence of clear guidelines to prevent and punish offences at work has meant that harassment of women has proceeded unchecked.

India’s political elite has not cared about this issue. In 1997, the Supreme Court issued the Vishaka guidelines to protect women at work from sexual harassment. They were meant to be an interim measure but lasted until this year when the government finally enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.

It is important to note that this act was hastily drafted after the public outrage over the brutal gang-rape and murder of a physiotherapy student in New Delhi in December 2012 in close proximity of the president’s house. Yet the act has yet to be notified by the government, which is essential in the Indian system if a law is to be implemented. Weak laws mean that those with expensive lawyers like Tejpal are unlikely to be convicted. Poor enforcement of weak laws, the tardiness of the court system, corrupt judges, and incompetent prosecutors mean that hardly anyone is ever convicted of sexual harassment in India’s still semi-feudal society where this practice is rife.

End the Culture of Impunity

The tragedy of India is that even those claiming to fight against corruption and injustice are often corrupt oppressors themselves. Tehelka has been referred to as a“liberal-minded Indian magazine known for its exposés of corruption and abuse of power.”

In reality, beneath this patina of slick public relations, it is guilty of the very crimes it claims to expose. The organization ignored the Supreme Court Vishaka guidelines and did not have the mandatory complaints committee to inquire into allegations of sexual harassment. The blatant attempt to cover-up for Tejpal and the subsequent attempt to play petty politics to save his skin shows the extent of Tehelka’s moral bankruptcy and cynicism. It shows the extent of hypocrisy in Indian society where even supposedly “liberal” bosses expect sexual favors from their female subordinates in public spaces. The rot has set in far too deep. Even gamekeepers have turned poachers.

The issue here is that women should be able to work without fear or favor. Bosses should not be allowed to treat the women who work under them as playthings. Men, long in charge in Indian society, must be accountable for their actions. The culture of impunity for crimes against women has to come to an end.

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Dear Citizens of Bharat (i.e. India),

As you celebrate my 66^th birthday, allow me to narrate a story. I realize that in this era of 140 character updates, people do not have time for stories. But once you are 5,000 years old (India might be 66 years of age, but Bharat is around 5,000 years old, you see), you tend to become a nuisance and narrate stories which no one is interested in. Nevertheless, like an old hag, you carry on.

In circa 1 AD, there existed a kingdom known as Youngistan. Surrounded by mountains on one side and oceans on the other three, the kingdom was rich in natural resources. Numerous rivers originating in the glaciers in the mountains provided the kingdom with fertile land. The people were God loving and generally amiable in nature. God appeared to have blessed the land.

The citizens had evolved a mechanism to run the affairs of the kingdom. Although the kingdom was under the benign suzerainty of an Empress — aka the Queen Mother — it used to elect a leader known as the Pradhan Mantri to run the kingdom for a period of five years. Mantris were appointed to assist the Pradhan Mantri. It was a predecessor of modern day democracy.

Pradhan Mantri or no Pradhan Mantri, the Queen Mother’s family believed that it had an inalienable right to rule the kingdom.

In contrast, the neighboring kingdom of Confusedistan was bereft of any mode of governance. In fact, nobody knew the identity of the person in charge. Some believed in a king, some thought that the army or the secret service was in charge, and some paid obeisance to the religious leaders who were more political than religious. Some even believed that Long Beard, who lived in the caves, ran the show.

The founding fathers had named Confusedistan aptly. The common agenda which bound together the kingdom was its pathological animosity towards Youngistan. Everybody, since we do not know who ruled the place, utilized the services of Long Beard and his cohorts to surreptitiously send in armed criminals into Youngistan to kill and maim people.

Confusedistan was under the patronage of the rulers of a distant kingdom which could only be reached after traveling for months on horseback and ships. This kingdom known as Policestan, considered itself to be the world's policeman. Previously ruled by the great warrior Alexander Dubya, it was now under the rule of O’Ma. O’Ma had confused his people with his "Yes you can" war cry. The people of Policestan thought that it referred to their ability to rule the world. As if on cue, they started picking up fights with all and sundry. Long Beard could only rant and rave from his cave hideout.

Policestan had, however, recently been troubled by a canary. Vickyleaks, as this canary was named, had a proclivity to eavesdrop into conversations between the rulers of the kingdom. One fine day it suddenly decided to reveal all the overheard secrets. Since Vickyleaks had made a mammoth tree as its abode, it could not be brought to book and sung along merrily. With the passage of time this canary gave birth to the saying, "singing like a canary." O’Ma was indeed a worried man.

But since this is a story of Youngistan, we will stick to it.

The supporters of the Queen Mother had a slap as their symbol. Since this group was tightly knit around the royal family and adored partying, they were referred to as the "One Tight Slap Party."

The system of governance in Youngistan ensured that everyone apart from the Queen Mother, nurtured a desire to be the Pradhan Mantri. The Queen Mother was an epitome of renunciation and silence. A few nasty people talked about her renunciation as a pretense for self-preservation, since she could not govern anyway. They said that she believed in the dictum, “better stay silent and let people think that you are a fool, rather than open your mouth and confirm.” They also said that she wanted to ensure the anointment of her son, Yuvraj, as the Pradhan Mantri. Nobody, however, paid any heed to them.

Yuvraj was an enigma. His academic background was a secret unknown even to Vickyleaks. Some said that he had gone to Policestan to study, others would say that he had run away from the kingdom to avoid academics. But Yuvraj would not reveal anything. Like his mother, he too was pretty averse to putting pressure on his vocal chords.

There were some other groups of people who opposed the Queen Mother, and wanted to be Pradhan Mantri themselves.

The larger amongst the opposing groups was known as the "Saffrons."

There was another major opposition group known as the "Reds." They abhorred everything indigenous and worshipped foreign Gods who had been forgotten even in their land of origin. The "Reds" had, however, become peripheral after being abandoned by the Queen Mother who had once utilized them to prop up her rule. Not for nothing was she also known as the Queen Bee.

"To bee or not to bee" had, however, become a burning question for Yuvraj.

Queen Mother had anointed her loyalist, Silent Assassin, to keep the throne warm till Yuvraj became mature enough to become the Pradhan Mantri. Like a true loyalist, Silent Assassin never cast a covetous eye on the throne, although his opponents said that his unblinking eyes epitomized that he had an eye for the throne. They were perhaps ignorant of the fact that Silent Assassin was a world champion at staying physically inert and his eyes had been attuned accordingly.

But with the passage of time it became evident that maturity was as alien to Yuvraj as speaking or activity was to the Silent Assassin.

Yuvraj had developed a propensity to break into the poor people’s homes in the night and forcibly eat their dinner. The poor, frightened out of their wits at the sight of Yuvraj’s massive security contingent, would pretend that they had been blessed by the Lord’s silent visit. They would murmur, “better to sleep hungry than die hungry.”

The silence of the triumvirate of the "One Tight Slap Party" did, however, have positive side-effects. Scientists discovered the sign language to communicate with the triumvirate. Telepathy was also established as a science during this period. Dumb charades were declared the national sport.

God, however, has a nasty sense of humor. 

Silent Assassin, apart from his unflinching loyalty to the Queen Mother, had another quality which had made him a prize asset for the "One Tight Slap Party." He was supposed to be excellent at bartering goods (remember, 1 AD!) to the benefit of the kingdom.

“He will bring prosperity to Youngistan,” the loyalists roared. “God bless the Queen Mother for this choice” as the sycophants had raised a cacophony during his appointment. True to their nature, the sycophants had once even worshipped the Queen Mother for forcing God to create the Universe.

Initially, the Silent Assassin did his job. Not only of keeping the throne warm but also of maintaining the bartering prices at a reasonable rate. You could barter a bag of wheat for one goat. You could exchange the prized Som Ras intoxicant from Policestan for ten cows (alcohol never had competition from milk, you see).

But then things started to go horribly wrong. The barter price of daily items started increasing — initially slowly, and then sharply. A bag of wheat now got two healthy cows. Vegetables were worth a large tract of land. And people had to cough up 60 cows for Som Ras.

A stage soon arrived where the poor established watch towers for prior warnings regarding the impending approach of Yuvraj during his nocturnal eating sojourns. In the age of inflation, as this malaise was called, they could not let Yuvraj take away their food, security contingent be damned!

Worried at the possibility of Yuvraj going hungry, the Queen Mother frowned at Pradhan Mantri, who in turn frowned at his flunkies (i.e. the Mantris). “We have to secure food for Yuvraj,” they roared in unison. “Then let’s issue the Food Security Code,” spoke the Pradhan Mantri for once. “Now not even the throne but even the belly of Yuvraj will be secure forever,” the sycophants said with tears in their eyes.

The Queen Mother smiled.

The people, however, were becoming disgruntled. They were exasperated with the silence of the Queen Mother and Pradhan Mantri. The silence, they believed, was a fig leaf to cover up their inadequacies.

The principal opponents, the Saffrons, smelt an opportunity. But they were themselves a disoriented lot.

Their principal leader had been a master charioteer during his halcyon days. But innumerable chariot rides around the kingdom had put his mind and body under a lot of strain. Though his mind was still willing, his body would not acquiesce. “One last chariot race and the throne will be mine,” he used to think.

But time and chariots wait for no one.

White Beard was gradually assuming charge of the Saffron group. A brave heart, he would ride a tiger whereas others rode on their bedecked chariots. Dismounting from the tiger was a problem, but then brave hearts perhaps find their way. White Beard had developed a massive following in the kingdom.

Witnessing White Beard riding a tiger raised the apprehensions of the Queen Mother. "The Apocalypse" was now the focal theme in the dumb charades in the party.

Troubles also seldom travel solitarily.

Youngistan was now struck by a mysterious malady called "Sickularism." No medical practitioner could decipher the reasons behind this dreadful disease. The symptoms were, however, common. A person (mostly the leaders) suffering from Sickularism would prefer to remain idle and abhor work. Occasionally, he would praise the fighters sent by Long Beard from Confusedistan to kill and maim citizens of Youngistan. There was another telltale symptom of this disease. Anyone who asked a leader suffering from Sickularism to do some work for the people would be called "Komunal." Sickularism became a leitmotif for non-performance and non-accountability. 

Even the Cockatoos, who had become the playthings for the leaders because of their natural ability for rumor mongering, were not spared from this malaise. The Cockatoos in those days did not have the harsh voice they have in the present times. Their sweet voice was known as Tweet.

The Cockatoos of leaders suffering from Sickularism also developed symptoms of the disease. Overhearing their masters harangue the "Komunalists" (usually the Saffrons), they would Tweet about Komunalists who were apparently hell bent on destroying the kingdom. The Tweets gradually started being referred to as the Tweeter.  

One wasteful sycophant of the Queen Mother who ingratiated her by taking digs at White Beard and the Komunalists, became the most sought after Tweeter. Yuvraj lovingly referred to him as Digs because of his ability to take digs at the Saffrons. Digs would deny with alacrity any Tweet from his Cockatoos. “That is my Cockatoos' opinion, not mine” he would say. Then he would repeat the same Tweeter story next day.

Queen Mother would smile at the Tweeter gems from Digs and his Cockatoos.

People disparagingly said that she would display the same smile when her son-outlaw, Robber Bhagliya, would show her the gems and jewels he was pilfering from the royal treasury. But the gentlemen apart from the Komunalists did not believe in this gem of a story. Whoever did, was a Komunalist anyway. Silent Assassin did, however, notice the shrinking of gems and jewels in the treasury. But as was his wont, he preferred silence. “It ain’t my crown, so why should I bother about the Jewels in the crown,” he would think.

The "Sickularists," as people suffering from Sickularism came to be known, did not only depend on Tweeter to combat White Beard. They went to O’Ma with folded hands: "Sir, please, please, do something about the White Beard. He is more of a nuisance to us than Long Beard or Vickyleaks are to you." Digs’ Cockatoos even Tweeted: “Is O’Ma afraid of using his fire tipped arrows against White Beard?” “Dubya would have sent White Beard to the stone ages with his fire arrows,” was the next Tweet from Digs’ bird. 

The common people were aghast, but were scared of voicing their concern, lest they be termed Komunal.

The din raised by Digs and Tweeter became so loud that people forgot the real issues. Nobody would ask questions as to why Youngistan did not have universities like Nalanda and Takshasila in Bharat (in 1 AD, remember, I was still Bharat). Nobody would ask why children were being fed poisoned food in schools; nobody would ask why the youth were jumping ship and scampering to Policestan to earn a living; nobody would ask why Youngistan could not put Confusedistan in its rightful place. Bloody hell, nobody would ask anything! For if they did, the Tweeter would start Tweeting, "Komunal, Komunal!" 

The Queen Mother would only smile.

The citizens now had a sneaking suspicion that the Queen Mother was, in fact, smiling at their worsening condition. But even then they would not speak out. Being called Komunal was a slur they desperately wanted to avoid.

The barter prices kept rising. Long Beard’s criminals were having a field day. If even one of them was brought to task by the security forces, the Tweets would spew venom about the security forces being Komunal. With the security forces on the defensive, Confusedistan gained the psychological edge. Given the mental status of leaders like Yuvraj, that was not the most difficult of tasks in any case.

Youngistan was ablaze. Whoever survived the warriors of Long Beard, succumbed to the malaise of sky high bartering rates anyway.

Youngistan was breaking apart. Queen Mother was still smiling.

Moral of the story: Do not wait for others to tell you the moral of the story. If you remain silent when the ignorant speak, you could yourself become a story that no one likes to narrate.

Thank you for bearing with me, we the people of Bharat (i.e. India).

Love,

Bharat

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Story of Youngistan appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Ishrat Jahan, a Mumbai college student, was killed on June 15, 2004, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat. Three other individuals, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana, and Zeeshan Johar, were killed along with her. Gujarat’s police claimed that they belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a dreaded terrorist organization headquartered in Pakistan. Their mission was to assassinate Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat. Rana and Johar, both Pakistani citizens were LeT operatives. Ghazwa Times, a Lahore-based mouthpiece for the LeT, hailed the martyrdom of Ishrat and her accomplices. It proclaimed the deceased as their operatives and castigated the police for removing Ishrat’s veil, violating Islamic custom. The government of India, in an affidavit submitted in 2007, confirmed the legitimacy of the encounter.

Since then, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of LeT, has apologized to Ishrat’s family retracting its statement that Ishrat was their operative. The Indian government has since recanted its affidavit. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has termed the encounter, the word used by police in India when they are involved in gun battles, as fake.

The controversy surrounding Ishrat Jahan highlights three major issues. First, India is confronted with the collapse of its legal machinery. Second, India’s political leadership views national security issues through the prism of electoral politics and sacrifices national security to gain votes. Finally, India’s political class has started using institutions to launch political vendettas, setting a dangerous precedent and undermining the credibility of its institutions.

Failed Legal Machinery

India’s legal machinery has long been creaking. Now it has collapsed. Police are not trained to investigate or collect evidence. The 19th century colonial laws, which the police are supposed to uphold and which governs their functioning, are out of sync with the realities of a nation of over 1.2 billion. The judicial system is tardy and corrupt. Cases are usually pending for years if not decades. This means that criminals and terrorists get plenty of time to to tamper with evidence by intimidating witnesses or bribing them. The police, the prosecuting lawyers, and even the judges are all amenable to pecuniary gain or political influence, making conviction a near impossible goal.

Even for honest police officers, killing a criminal boss or a dreaded terrorist is often the only option. The alternative is to watch these characters continue to run their operations with impunity or even out of prison. Obviously, these killings are extra-judicial. In India, they have come to be known as “encounters” and are an unstated instrument of state policy. They are India’s answer to the US policy of eliminating enemies through drone strikes, except that they take place within India’s borders instead of in far-flung foreign nations.

Like many of India’s pernicious policies, encounters came into fashion under Indira Gandhi, India’s authoritarian prime minister, who at one point threw all her political enemies into prison. Radical communists, who have since become known as Naxalites, began a violent movement against the Indian state. Initially, their goal was to achieve justice in the form of land reform and some equity in rural power structures. Later, they degenerated into armed gangs and rivaled the police in imposing terror on the countryside. Indira’s acolyte, Siddharth Shankar Ray, the chief minister of West Bengal, annihilated Naxalites with "a head each day" policy of executions that broke their back in his state. In the early 1980s, Julio Ribeiro, the Mumbai police chief, forced the mafia to seek safer sanctuaries with his "bullet for bullet" policy of executions because it had become impossible to convict any member of the mafia in court. In the 1980s, Indira dispatched Ribeiro to Punjab where together with KPS Gill, he perfected the art of encounters to suppress insurgency in the state.

Instead of reforming the security apparatus, the legal machinery and the judicial system, Indira opted for the expedient method of beating terror through the use of state terror. The situation came about because she let the law and order machinery collapse partly through neglect and partly through patronizing criminals. It is widely known that Indira supported Bhindranwale, the extremist Sikh leader, before ordering troops into the Golden Temple when he became too much of an inconvenience.

Since then, Indian politicians regularly patronize violent criminals and even terrorists. When violence gets out of hand and the interests of politicians are threatened, they expect the police to take stringent action and restore order through the use of encounters. The Congress, India’s ruling party since 1947, is the chief proponent of encounters. In the year Ishrat was killed, Gujarat’s police killed a mere five civilians as compared to Andhra Pradesh’s police that executed 85 civilians. In Congress ruled Andhra Pradesh, the Greyhounds, a special force established to counter Naxalism, has a fearsome reputation of being trigger happy. Encounters are a terrible idea and the only way to stop them is a long overdue reform of India’s legal machinery. However, politicians have not demonstrated either the interest or the political will to reform the broken system.

The Muslim Vote

India’s political leadership no longer cares about national security. It only cares about acquiring power. In a country of 1.2 billion people with a plethora of languages and religions, identity politics has become the name of the game. This means that voters are mobilized on "wedge issues" to vote against their best interests by appealing to their religious, regional, or caste identities. The Congress has long cultivated Muslim clerics to get the community’s vote. The Supreme Court judgment in the giving alimony to an elderly woman was overturned by a constitutional amendment by then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira, to appease conservative clerics and capture the Muslim vote. Muslim women were sold down the river for prospects of electoral gain. Under the Muslim personal law in India, Muslim men can have four wives, a privilege not afforded to them even in Muslim countries such as Malaysia. Appeasement of conservative clerics has been defined as secularism in India, and anyone who questions appeasement is labeled as communal by a national media that has been co-opted through decades of patronage by the Congress.

Ishrat Jahan is increasingly being painted as a martyr who was killed by a communal police led by a Hindu zealot named Narendra Modi. The Gujarat chief minister is reviled by India’s Muslim community for his alleged role in Gujarat’s 2002 riots, and was nearly disowned by his own party for that reason. The Congress is using Ishrat Jahan to flaunt itself as a guardian of Muslim rights. By painting Modi as a threat to Islam, the Congress is seeking to mobilize the Muslim vote for itself.

Since 2004, Modi has emerged as the biggest threat to the ruling Congress party. He has delivered good governance to Gujarat and presided over a growth rate that is more akin to China’s instead of India’s. The country’s middle class is disgusted by the corruption of the Congress. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has led the most corrupt government in post-independence India, with thousands of millions of dollars siphoned off from the state exchequer. Modi is a real threat, but his Achilles heel is his image among Muslims who form 15% of India’s population.

The Congress has conveniently ignored its own track record for ensuring the deprivation of India’s Muslims. The party pretends that it was never responsible for massacres or riots such as , where Muslims suffered. Mainstream media, especially the English speaking elites of Delhi and Mumbai, pretend that the Congress had no culpability for the 1984 against the Sikhs, even though Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have collected irrefutable evidence of Congress involvement. The 2011 Wikileaks cable reveals that the United States was convinced about the complicity of the Congress in Sikh massacres. Ishrat Jahan has become a symbol for the Congress to paint itself as a savior of Muslims, but this petty politicking is playing havoc with India’s national security.

The Murky World of Indian Politics

Finally, the Congress is using India’s key institutions to launch political vendettas. Anyone who does not fall in line with the dominant socialist and secular ideology of the Nehru family is accused of being communal. Not only is mainstream media unleashed to create a maelstrom against its enemies, the Congress is now using the full might of the state to destroy those it perceives as threats.

The Congress has been in power at the national level for an overwhelming majority of the period since independence. It is now a dynastic oligarchy where the spoils of power are shared between a few families led by the Nehru family. Modi is a an upstart with no lineage who threatens to upset the Congress applecart. The Congress is using the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to pin the blame of Ishrat Jahan’s killing on Modi and scuttle his political chances at the national level. In the process, the CBI is also turning its guns on Intelligence Bureau (IB), India’s leading intelligence agency. The goal is to paint Ishrat as a martyr and Modi as a murderer. India’s Supreme Court has called the CBI "a caged parrot," but a more accurate description of the CBI might be an "attack dog" for its political masters. In the past, the CBI has been used against allies and enemies to rein them in or destroy them. But the venom with which the CBI is being directed against Modi sets a new low even for the murky world of Indian politics.

Asif Ibrahim, the IB Director, is Muslim and highly regarded for his integrity. He has told the prime minister that IB has sufficient evidence to prove that Ishrat was a member of LeT with links to Pakistan’s infamous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI is most famous for training and then supporting the Taliban. It turns out that , an operative for LeT and now in US custody, confirmed that Ishrat was a member of LeT. The fact that she was with Pakistani men with known terrorist antecedents gives credence to IB’s claims. The CBI has named Senior IB Official Rajinder Kumar as complicit in the Ishrat Jahan encounter and he is expected to be charged once he retires, sending shockwaves in India’s national security community. Senior IB officials and independent observers believe that Kumar is a "collateral victim" in a vendetta the Congress is carrying out against Modi.

The CBI has gone so far as to ask the IB to reveal who provided it inputs about Ishrat. In asking the IB to reveal its sources, the CBI is breaching a cardinal rule of intelligence gathering and compromising India’s already beleaguered intelligence community. It is an old rule in intelligence and even investigative journalism that sources are not to be revealed, but the CBI is paying scant regard to such principles. Many former directors of IB and RAW believe that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has wrecked the intelligence community beyond repair. He has no power to make any decisions. Sonia Gandhi, Indira’s Italian-born daughter-in-law, is the prime minister's boss and wields real power but has no interest in national security. Between Manmohan and Sonia nothing gets done and India’s intelligence agencies have become rudderless over the years. Using the CBI to target IB might well be the final nail in a coffin of India’s intelligence agencies. In a country where political interests supersede national interests, institutions, professionals and citizens are paying the price.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Mughal Emperor Jahangir is purported to have said: “If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here.” For Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the valley, Kashmir has been anything but heaven in recent years. Persecuted by extreme Islamists and deserted by their own countrymen, they have fled Kashmir and live in squalor elsewhere in the country.

Step Back in Time

The Kashmir valley was first inhabited around 2000 BC. Its first inhabitants were followers of the Shaivite branch of Hinduism. They were masterful architects with an eye for beauty. Francis Younghusband’s description of the ruins of the Martanda temple sums up the architectural achievements of the Kashmiris: “The temple is built on the most sublime site occupied by any building in the world — finer than the site of Parthenon, or of the Taj or of St. Peters. It is second only to the Egyptians in massiveness and strength and to the Greeks in elegance and grace.”

The initial blow to Kashmir’s tranquility was struck in 1320 as the Mongol hordes pillaged the valley, which in the words of Jonaraja, “became like a region before creation.”Then Islam arrived in the form of Sultan Sikandar (1389-1413 A.D), whose penchant for destroying temples and idols earned him the name But-Shikhan (the destroyer of idols). Sikandar imposed Jizya, the religious tax on non-Muslims, and mercilessly converted Hindus to Islam.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s (1618-1707 AD) fanaticism was a throwback to the days of Sultan Sikandar. The forced conversion of the Kashmiri Pandits compelled them to approach the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur for succor. Tegh Bahadur advised them to inform the emperor that the Pandits would embrace Islam voluntarily, if he could convert the Guru. Aurangzeb failed to do so despite torturing Tegh Bahadur who chose martyrdom over conversion to Islam.

Islam did not come to Kashmir via the sword. Mystical Sufis with their simplicity, austerity and piety did more to spread Islam in the valley than the fanatics. The Sufi order was spread by the preachers who came from Persia and Central Asia. They combined their Sufi traditions with local traditions of the Rishi order. The syncretism of the mystical Sufis along with the existing Shaivite influence gave Kashmir its uniquely pluralistic character.

It was the religious pluralism which made Kashmir a trophy for newly formed India and Pakistan after the bloody partition of British India in 1947. For India, apart from its geostrategic importance, Kashmir held the allure of disproving Jinnah’s “two nation” theory. The merger of a Muslim dominated Kashmir into India would have belied Jinnah’s claim of being the sole savior of Muslims. Pakistan desired the control of Kashmir to confirm Jinnah’s ideology of the Muslims being victims of persecution in a Hindu dominated India.

Maharaja Hari Singh, the Dogra ruler of Kashmir, was at the same time flirting with the idea of independence. Pakistan sent its troops disguised as tribals accompanied by the Afridi and Mahsud tribesmen into Kashmir. The ferocity of the attack compelled the Maharaja to accede to India on October 26, 1947. The Indian troops managed to drive back the Pakistani forces despite being outnumbered.

Blunders by Nehru

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru then made the first in a series of historic blunders. Instead of militarily reclaiming the land illegally occupied by Pakistan, Nehru, deceived by British chicanery, took the matter to the United Nations on January 1, 1948. The matter got enmeshed in the Cold War politics and became a permanent item on the agenda of the UN. What was achieved after great sacrifices of Indian soldiers was lost on the checkerboard of international politics. India and Pakistan have since fought three more wars over the issue. A “jihad” industry has flourished in Pakistan with the multitude of state sponsored jihadists vowing to liberate Kashmir from the Indian “infidel.” Pakistan itself has fallen prey to terrorism in its futile bid to promote the “good terrorist” who fought for the cause of Kashmir.

Nehru’s biggest blunder was incorporating a temporary provision of Article 370 in the Constitution of India. Strangely, the provision was not a condition put forth by the Maharaja when he signed the Instrument of Accession. It was incorporated into the constitution on the insistence of the Government of India, which desired that the article cater to the interim period till the Instrument of Accession was ratified by the Constituent Assembly of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Article 370 provides that in addition to defense, foreign affairs and communication, the parliament can make law applicable to the state, only with the concurrence of the state government.

All the princely states which acceded to India after independence signed the same Instrument of Accession. Ironically, none was given this special facility. Consequently, J&K has a separate constitution, which no other state in India has. A majority of the laws in the country are therefore not applicable in J&K. The constitution of the state does not permit Indian citizens who are not residents of the state to settle down or purchase property there.

Article 370, which was created as a temporary provision in the constitution has become a permanent fixture, with no political party gathering the will to handle the political hot cake. Even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been a strident critic of this Article, kept the issue on the backburner as a compulsion of coalition politics. Incidentally, the political establishment has deliberately ignored the fact that the Constituent Assembly of J&K ratified the accession of the state in 1956, making the provision in fructuous. As is the wont with politicians, national interest has played second fiddle to political ambitions.

Article 370 has become the single reason why the people of Kashmir could not get integrated into the mainstream of Indian democracy. Immunity from various laws of the Indian constitution like the Wealth Tax and Gift Tax, has permitted the political class to indulge in nepotism and rapacious governance. A virtual oligarchy has been created in the state. The oligarchs have given Article 370 populist appeal by tying it to an autonomous Kashmiri identity, while using it as cover to indulge in a massive loot of the natural and financial resources of the state.

An Anti-Indian Feeling

In a bid to divert attention from their egregious governance, the political class, perhaps drawing inspiration from Marx’s dictum of “religion as the opium of masses,” channelized the energy of the people towards religion. Maktabs (religious schools) were established all over Kashmir, ostensibly for teaching Islamic religious scriptures to the youth. In reality, these maktabs indoctrinated the impressionable youth with venomous anti-India agenda. The youth, which was disillusioned with the political system and held the Indian government in contempt for imposing the oligarchs on them, provided fertile breeding ground for proliferation of an anti-India propaganda sponsored by the notorious Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. Thousands of youth crossed over to Pakistan to get indoctrinated by the vituperative sermons and receive arms training in the ISI camps.

The signs of an anti-India atmosphere were visible from the early 1980s. In 1983, in a cricket match in Srinagar, the Indian team which had just won the Cricket World Cup in England was heckled and shown black flags. The Government of India, however, decided to play the ostrich in the sand. As a precursor of what was to follow, Hindu temples were desecrated and property of the Kashmiri Pandits was looted in the Anantnag district in 1986. Subsequently, any protest triggered over issues unrelated to control by India, such as the death of President Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan or the protest over Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, invariably resulted in targeting of Kashmiri Pandits who lost lives and property during the course of such protests.

Because of their Hindu religion, Kashmiri Pandits became the symbol of the reviled Indian democracy. With Pakistan openly supporting them and the Indian establishment caught like a deer in headlights, Islamist terrorists gradually gained ascendancy. In November, 1989, terrorists assassinated N.K. Ganjoo, a judge, in Srinagar. Ganjoo had sentenced the terrorist Maqbool Bhat to death. In February 1990, Lassa Kaul, director general of Doordarshan, India’s state owned television channel, was killed in cold blood outside his house in Srinagar. Between September 1989 and February 1990, around 2,000 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in the valley. Thousands were maimed for life and their property was seized.

Refugees in Their Own Country

The dithering Indian response emboldened Islamist terrorists. Mosques utilized loudspeakers to threaten the Kashmiri Pandits to leave their homes or face death. With the police unwilling to save them, the Kashmiri Pandits became a victim of the pusillanimity exhibited by the Indian political system. The Pandits were mutilated, shot, and their bodies not permitted to be cremated. Women were kidnapped and raped. Terrorists hung notices in public places ordering them to leave the valley. The judiciary refused to pass sentences against Islamist terrorists and the police was too intimidated to take them on. State owned media exacerbated communal tensions by broadcasting footage of funeral processions of terrorists eliminated by the Indian army. These processions entailed jihadi sloganeering and enraged Islamist terrorists who retaliated by unleashing their wrath on Kashmiri Pandits. Even the newspapers started singing to the tune of the terrorists. The Daily Alsafa published an ultimatum on April 14, 1990, giving the Kashmiri Pandits two days to leave the valley or face retribution and death. It was ethnic cleansing and genocide that went unnoticed in India, leave aside the rest of the world.

Kashmir’s Shaiva-Sufi-Rishi syncretism came to an end. Kashmiri Pandits, betrayed by their own leaders, were compelled to leave their land. Over 300,000 became refugees in their own country. The educated and affluent community was reduced to penury. What they had perceived as a temporary migration became permanent. The property that they had left behind was either burnt down or occupied. The jobs which they had been compelled to leave were filled in by appointments of Kashmiri Muslims. A few Kashmiri Pandits who decided to stay back were killed as the valley stood silent.

The migration of the Kashmiri Pandits is unmatched in the annals of history. Nowhere in the world has a religious group been forced to become refugees in a country where they form a majority. The Government of India has been in complete denial over the fate of Kashmiri Pandits. They have been forced to survive in inhuman conditions in various cities of India with 20-25 people sharing a room. Lack of education and employment opportunities have only exacerbated their grim situation.

The indifference of the nation towards plight of Kashmiri Pandits has been shocking. Since they do not constitute a vote bank, India’s political establishment has disowned them. Oligarchs still control the political system in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Perpetrators of ethnic cleansing of 1990s, like Yasin Malik, are today the poster boys of India’s elite chattering classes. For Kashmiri Pandits, justice has not only been delayed, it has been denied.

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In spite of the bravado exhibited by sycophants, Rahul Gandhi, in his speech at the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) meet, displayed an amazing ignorance regarding the international and domestic issues confronting India.

Scion of the Nehru –Gandhi dynasty which has ruled India for a major period since its independence, Rahul is considered a prime minister-in-waiting by loyalists.

In 2004, Rahul’s mother and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, Sonia nominated Manmohan Singh instead of herself taking over the reins of the country. Sonia cleverly manipulated the liability of her Italian origin into an asset by pretending self-abnegation and nominating Manmohan, a political non entity. Though sycophants waxed eloquent about her ‘sacrifice,’ it was evident that a regent had been nominated to keep the throne secure for Rahul.

Rahul was supposed to simply step up to the plate when he gained politically maturity. He has however proved to be a disappointment. Bereft of any political moorings, he and his coterie have led the Congress into repeated electoral debacles. But as is the wont with dynastic politics, his leadership remains unchallenged in the party.

Rahul’s spin doctors made a clever attempt at the CII conference to portray him as an opposition leader who had an inexhaustible list of questions and suggestions for taking India forward. Evidently, the rising discontent against the egregious governance of UPA has sent alarm bells ringing in the Congress party. The desperate desire to distance Rahul from the Manmohan government is a confirmation of the fact that he will lead the party’s charge in the 2014 general elections. .

The CII speech has confirmed that apart from a new speech writer, Rahul urgently requires a crash course in realism.

His ignorance about the reasons behind the rapidly increasing chasm between the economic development of India and its perennial adversary China was startling.

Rahul referred to China as a “simple place,” perhaps alluding to the fact that China’s growth can only be attributed to it being a one party state, as opposed to the complexities of a multi-party Indian democracy. To buttress his argument, he narrated an incident witnessed by an Italian friend during a visit to China. The Italian friend’s bus hit a man. The driver, recalled Rahul from his friend’s version, “picked up the man, put him on the side of the road and carried on.” Therefore, Rahul inferred, “there is no complexity there (China).”

He could do well to look around his neighborhood in New Delhi, where hit and run cases are a common phenomenon, going largely unpunished. In China, the driver at least put the man on the side of the road!

In December 2012, a young student was brutally gang raped in a moving bus in the heart of New Delhi. The protesting youth demanding better security for women in New Delhi were assaulted by the police, just hours after they had met Rahul and his mother Sonia, demanding their intervention in the matter.

So much so for complexity and simplicity!

Rahul’s decision to trivialize the reasons behind China’s growth was perhaps an aversion to accept the reasons for the economic quagmire the UPA government has led India into.

The GDP growth in India has been steadily declining, with the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) predicting the GDP growth rate for 2012-13 falling to 5.0% from 6.2% from the previous year. The Rupee has depreciated by 20% during the past three years and the current account deficit is at a record high of 6.7%.The manufacturing sector has been in the red for some time with figures for cumulative growth during April-December 2012-13 over the corresponding period of 2011-12 being -0.7%. Other economic parameters narrate a similar sorry tale.

The reasons for this economic disaster do not require an economic genius to decipher. The diarchy which was created with Sonia being the UPA chairman and Manmohan as prime minister resulted in the decision making powers remaining with Sonia. Sonia in a desperate urge to ensure a smooth anointment of Rahul, resorted to populist measures through the unconstitutional National Advisory Council (NAC).

The UPA’s flagship scheme of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which guarantees providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment every year was considered as the totem which won the UPA a second term in 2009. The scheme which ostensibly provides employment to the rural poorest has also become a symbol of populism. This economic populism is bleeding the Indian economy.

The government has spent Rs.17, 00,000 crores (312.26 billion US$) on MGNREGA since its launch in 2005. According to the NSS 2009-10 data, only one fifth of this amount has reached the intended beneficiaries in the form of wages. The remaining amount has been pilfered away by politicians, bureaucrats and middle men. Government statistics indicate that over 50% of the 151 lakhs work started under the scheme till 2010-11 remain incomplete. Money which could be utilized for creation of infrastructure and job opportunities has been frittered away to encourage corruption and profligacy, in return for a political windfall. 

India and China had similar social indicators in 1947 as both the countries had been ravaged by Imperialistic powers for centuries. The United Nations Human Development Report indicates that gradually China has also surged ahead on social indicators with Chinese life expectancy at 73.7 years as compared to India’s 65.8 years. Similarly, adult literacy in China is 94% against India’s 74%.

The allusion to development of China resulting from ‘one party’ governance is cliché.

India itself has been ruled by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or its proxies for 58 years after independence in 1947. If Chinese growth is attributed to ‘one party’ rule, then Rahul should introspect on the failure of the ‘family ’to provide governance and vision to India.

Perhaps the business tycoons who were busy applauding his naïve theory could have enlightened Rahul on their reasons to desert India and invest in China. But candidness has become a casualty to the proclivity of the Indian businessmen to cuddle up to the dynasty for their selfish motives.

Rahul’s disconnect with the Indian reality manifested itself when he narrated the story of “Girish, the carpenter,” whom he befriended in a train journey from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai. Rahul’s apathetic and insensitive approach towards the socio-economic problem of forced migration from rural hinterland devoid of any opportunities to a metropolis and “Girish, the carpenter’s” rat hole existence there, has become the norm for the politicians.  Instead of owning up to the failure of governance, the dynasty’s scion visualizes these poor and homeless as vote banks who could now be enticed with the party’s latest flag ship; the direct cash transfer scheme.

Rahul’s musings about the Indian university system, the energy emanating from the rivers and inclusive growth would have been amusing, if not for the tragic truth.

The primary education system in the country is in shambles with the people deserting the public schools lacking quality education. Private schools which are akin to commercial enterprises have developed into an industry with even the less affluent desiring to get their wards enrolled in such schools.

 The universities have minimal original research work to show for their labors. The brightest leave the Indian shores for U.S universities in their quest to achieve independence from mediocrity and an unjust reservation policy. India which was once the epicenter of the education system till the medieval periods does not have any university in the top 200 universities in the world.

Governmental apathy and human avarice have combined to convert the rivers into behemoth sewers. Billions of rupees have been spent on the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) to revive the mighty Ganges. GAP, launched by Rahul’s father Rajiv, in 1985 after elaborate fanfare, has become a byword for corruption. Even the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, was forced to concede in 2010, that he was unaware of where the “billions spent on the cleaning of Ganges had disappeared.”

Corruption has rapidly gained acceptance in society. The reason for it is not far to see.

 Rahul‘s brother-in-law, Robert Vadra has become the beneficiary of strange munificence of various Congress state governments. Governments in Haryana and Rajasthan have misused their statutory powers and grabbed the lands of farmers almost by deceit, handing them over to Vadra at throwaway prices. Resultantly, Vadra, who is in cahoots with the real estate sharks has become a billionaire almost overnight. The hapless farmers have become labourers on the very land they once owned.

The usually hyperventilating and hysterical Indian media has mysteriously remained silent on Vadra’s ‘inclusive growth!’

Bereft of any substance, Rahul’s attempt to bluster failed miserably. The polemics of ‘inclusive growth’ is exposed by the paradox of India having more malnourished children than sub-Saharan Africa. The dynasty has not only failed to create institutions of governance but also stands guilty of demolishing the established modes of governance.

Rahul could do better than rely on the testimony of his Italian ‘friend.’ He needs to find an honest script writer. With Narendra Modi’s stock rising dramatically and the general elections just a year away, that better be fast!

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Apologists of the diarchy in governance with Sonia as the chairman of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have waxed eloquent about the ‘understanding’ between them which has been a necessity arising out of the compulsions of coalition politics.

The ‘understanding’ has however only facilitated the perpetuation of the de jure rule of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty over the country. Manmohan Singh has been increasingly viewed as a proxy serving as a regent till the eventual coronation of Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the dynasty. For a party which has sycophancy of the dynasty embedded in its DNA, any other leader apart from the dynasty has been perceived as a usurper.

Narsimha Rao, was brought in from semi-retirement to serve as Prime minister after the tragic assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. He was perceived as a leader who would serve out his time till Sonia; Rajiv’s widow would be ready for public life. But a wily politician, Rao gradually initiated the process of sidelining the dynasty even while paying lip service to the virtues of the dynasty.

After the electoral debacle in 1996, Rao was forced into political oblivion, notwithstanding the fact that he opened the Indian economy to globalization and resuscitated it from bankruptcy. Members of the dynasty have been immortalized for lesser achievements whereas Rao has been consigned to the dustbins of the party’s history. As with the monarchies of yore, the dynasty had banished the usurper to obscurity.

Manmohan, who incidentally, served as Narsimha Rao’s Finance Minister, has however made no such attempts to govern. He has developed silence as a policy measure and has been content to play second fiddle to Sonia. Even government advertisements, brought out at public expense have portrayed Manmohan as a junior partner to Sonia.

The denigration of the position of Prime Minister with Manmohan wielding no power has resulted in egregious governance. Ministers and party functionaries have routinely beseeched Rahul to take over the reign of the country. Digvijaya Singh, a senior party functionary who is known to have the ears of the dynasty, has called upon Rahul “not to nominate anybody as the Prime Minister” after the 2014 elections and “take the call himself.” He has also accepted that the “two power centre” model “has not worked well.”

Another senior leader Shashi Tharoor claimed that in the event of Congress gaining power in 2014, “the President and Vice President of the party would be the natural choice as Prime Minister.”

Sonia, for all her ‘understanding’ has never publicly defended Manmohan against such snide attacks. In a party where the dynasty’s wish is the follower’s command, it is not hard to decipher a pattern behind such statements.

Evidently, the regent has outlived his utility and has become dispensable for the dynasty. Sonia is now attempting to distance the dynasty from the potentially adverse fallouts of a slew of financial scams and corruption scandals which have engulfed Manmohan’s UPA coalition government.

The coalition has itself been reduced to a minority with the major partners, the Trinamool Congress and DMK having pulled out of the government. Farcically, the government has been able to manage the numbers in Parliament by obtaining ‘outside’ support from two parties whose animosity towards each other is legendary.

The credit for managing the numbers for UPA by coalescing disparate political parties lies with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Contrary to the myth perpetuated by Sonia Loyalists who adulate her for managing the coalition, it has been the CBI which has arm twisted the Samajwadi party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) into bailing out the beleaguered UPA during crisis. With corruption cases pending against both Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of SP and Mayawati, the prima donna of the BSP, the parties have been forced to acquiesce.   

Small wonder political opponents derogatorily refer to CBI as Congress Bureau of Investigation. It is a rapacious lust for power which has ensured that instruments of governance have been subjugated to serve the party in power, irrespective of the damage it inflicts on governance.

Sonia who has wielded unbridled power without accountability is also credited with the establishment of non constitutional bodies like the National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC which is touted as an interface between the government and the civil society has Sonia as chairperson and other handpicked experts as its members.

Having transgressed into the domain of policy formulation which is the sole prerogative of the cabinet in a functional democracy, the NAC is referred to as a ‘super cabinet.’ The NAC has ensured the implementation of schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which tacitly encourage inactivity amongst rural workers in exchange for political support for the Congress during elections. The impact of such profligacy on the fiscal deficit has been disastrous.

Ironically, while propping up non constitutional bodies like the NAC, the Congress has been guilty of subverting the constitutionally mandated bodies like the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Elections Commission (EC).

The Congress has been at war with the CAG ever since the government auditors exposed the humungous scams in the allotment of the 2G spectrum, the Commonwealth Games construction and allotment of coal blocks.

Stung by the furore arising out of the US$ 33bn loss to public exchequer by the capricious allotment of 2G spectrum, the Congress party has been publicly deprecating Vinod Rai, the CAG. The methodology adopted by the CAG to arrive at the figure representing the loss was termed “zero loss” and ‘presumptive’ in nature by senior Congress minister Kapil Sibal.

Notwithstanding the fact that the CAG’s stand has been vindicated in the judgment of the Supreme Court which cancelled the spectrum allotments, terming it as “unconstitutional and arbitrary.” In a scathing observation the court castigated the government for "virtually gifting away important national asset.”

But Congress leaders have refused to desist from their vituperations against the CAG. Innuendoes have been raised against the CAG for having a “political agenda.” The government has advised the CAG “not to exceed its mandate.”

Interestingly, Sonia Gandhi has maintained a studied silence regarding the avalanche of scams which are a direct consequence of the diarchy established for the convenience of the dynasty. Nor has any attempt been made to rein in her ministers from leveling scurrilous allegations against a constitutional body.

The CAG is not the only institution facing a subversion of its constitutionally mandated powers. In a submission before the Supreme Court, the UPA government has challenged the powers of the Election Commission (EC) to disqualify a candidate for falsifying his poll expenditure accounts.

In the counter affidavit the government has asserted that the EC’s power “arises only in the event of failure to lodge an account of expenses and not for any other reason.” Implicitly, the commission cannot disqualify a candidate for fallacious declarations of accounts.

In India, preposterous poll expenditure discourages an ordinary person from contesting for public office thereby defeating the principles of democracy. The government’s effort to curtail the EC’s power is bound to have a dangerous impact on the way elections are regulated in the country.

Even the Supreme Court (SC) has been advised by the government “not to cross its Lakshman Rekha (jurisdiction),” ignoring the fact that judicial autonomy is the bulwark of a democracy.

Evidently, a party which sings paeans for a non constitutional body like the NAC spares no effort to decimate the constitutionally mandated autonomy of the CAG, EC and the SC. The demise of governance has been a natural corollary.

A rational analysis would indicate that governance has not been the only casualty of Sonia’s ascent in politics. Although sycophants try to convince the people otherwise, the Congress party has organizationally withered under her leadership.

The strength of party is assessed by the calibre of its second rung leadership. Unfortunately, a culture of sycophancy and a lack of inner party democracy have resulted in the cupboard of leadership in the party being bare. The youth leadership which the party proudly projects belongs to the various dynasties owing greater allegiance to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. None of these ‘youth’ leaders have a pan India appeal essential for acceptance at the national level. Not a single leader of any significance apart from scions of these dynasties has been permitted to flourish in the party during Sonia’s reign.

Despite all the proclamations of democracy, Sonia has been ‘unanimously’ elected as president of the party for 15 years. Rahul’s elevation as the vice president of the party inspite of resounding electoral debacles is a manifestation of the ipso facto claim of the dynasty over the party leadership.  

Increasing unemployment, inflation, financial scams tumbling out like skeletons in the cupboard; India is melancholic. The country requires visionaries and leaders, not miracle makers. Miracle is the domain of charlatans!  

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s frontal assault on the Congress party, accusing it of sacrificing national interest at the altar of “the family”, has unnerved the Grand Old Party. The cacophony of sycophancy which greeted the ascension of Rahul Gandhi as vice president of the Congress seems to be withering before Modi’s charismatic personality. Congress spokespersons who have rushed to the family’s defense betray a streak of subservience to the Nehru-Gandhi clan. This subservience has become embedded in the genetic code of the party. In 1975, after Indira Gandhi, then prime minister and Rahul’s grandmother had struck a blow to the edifice of democracy by imposing ‘emergency’ and assuming draconian dictatorial powers, Congress President Dev Kant Baruah claimed, “Indira is India, India is Indira.”

The same sycophancy was evident when the party leaders rushed to Sonia Gandhi, the Italian born wife of Rajiv Gandhi, with tearful entreaties to assume responsibility of the president of the Congress after Rajiv’s assassination in 1991. The fact that Sonia had no prior experience in public life apart from being married into the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty perhaps paled in comparison with her familial connections. Once Sonia declined the offer, the mantle was passed onto Sitaram Kesri, a political nobody. Political heavyweights in the party were shown the door. The message was loud and clear. The throne had to be kept warm till the rightful claimant from the dynasty stepped on to the stage.

The surprising defeat of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in the general elections in 2004 witnessed enactments of similar theatrics before Sonia. Sonia, who in 1999 had resorted to all the tricks in the trade as she made desperate attempts to cobble together a majority to form a government, suddenly took on the halo of self-abnegation in 2004 when she declined to assume the prime minister’s post. Tearful eulogies from loyalists failed to budge Sonia who converted the liability of her origin of birth into an asset by an apparent renunciation of power.

India, with its historical proclivity for spiritual renunciation, took the bait. Machiavelli would have been proud!

Manmohan Singh’s nomination as the prime minister was another astute move by the acolytes of the Nehru-Gandhi family to perpetuate the dynasty’s control over Indian democracy. Manmohan, a political non-entity, was designated to act as a regent till Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the dynasty achieved political maturity and acceptability in the country.

The political diarchy with Sonia as president of the Congress, having power and no responsibility, and Manmohan having responsibility and no power has served only the interests of the dynasty. Egregious governance has been the price the country had to pay for the perpetuation of the dynasty’s dejure rule over the country.

Manmohan, who has never won any direct election, surreptitiously entering the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament on an evidently dubious proof of residence from Assam, has proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Ministers in his cabinet routinely plead for Rahul to take over the reigns of the country, belittling a prime minister who prefers silence.

Anarchy and Lawlessness

Silence, which has been developed into a method of governance by Manmohan, has resulted in India’s dangerous drift towards anarchy and lawlessness. With financial scams tumbling out of the government’s closet on a regular basis and the government making no real effort to confront corruption in public life, the common people are exasperated by the ineffectiveness of a prime minister who appears to have abdicated governance.

With ministers ignoring Manmohan and paying obeisance before Sonia and Rahul, the wheels of the government are coming off. Ironically, despite the economist credentials of the prime minister, the economy has been stuck in a quagmire, with increasing inflation and rising unemployment hurting the ever increasing middle class. Nevertheless, the government continues with the profligate financing of populist schemes to ensure the portrayal of the dynasty as the messiahs of the poor, notwithstanding the disastrous impact of such schemes on the economy.

With the national elections in 2014 fast approaching, the government has pulled out all stops to ensure Rahul’s coronation. The façade of Manmohan as a leader has been exposed with senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor claiming that in the event of Congress gaining power in 2014, “the president and vice president of the party would be the natural choice as prime minister.”

Despite the mollycoddling, Rahul has failed to generate any perceptible enthusiasm amongst the common people. Under his command, the Congress has performed miserably in various state elections. In Uttar Pradesh state elections in 2012 which was portrayed as Rahul’s coming of age by loyalists, the party performed worse than the 2009 general elections. In Rae Bareli and Amethi, which have been strongholds for the dynasty, the party candidates were decimated.

Bereft of any political ideology, Rahul comes across as a confused politician. He has hardly made any impact in his appearances in the Indian Parliament where he has been largely silent. Even in the tailor-made scheme of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which basically ensures dole to rural workers in return for political support to the Congress, Amethi, Rahul’s constituency was the worst spender.

Rahul’s acceptance speech after his nomination as the vice president indicated his disconnect with the populace.

Perhaps referring to mass anti-corruption and security for women protests which have taken place in the country during the last couple of years, Rahul said: “Why people are angry? Because they are alienated from the system. Their voices are trampled upon. All our systems — justice, education, political, administration — are designed to keep people with knowledge out. Mediocrity dominates discussions.”

Emanating from a leader whose ipso facto claim over leadership stems only from his lineage, the reference to ‘merit’ was hypocritical. Surprisingly for a leader who has pretensions to become the prime minister after 2014 elections, Rahul avoids the media like the plague with his interactions limited to uttering monosyllables. After eight years in public life, the country is still waiting to hear his views on economy, national security and foreign policy.  

Perhaps the thousands of youth who flocked onto the streets of New Delhi after the brutal gang rape and murder of a young lady in December 2012, would have wished to explain the reasons for their ‘anger’ to Rahul. Realizing the actual power center in the country, the youth had sought the assistance of Sonia and Rahul in order to punish the culprits of the barbaric outrage and also demand security for women in New Delhi, which has become increasingly unsafe for women. Within hours, the New Delhi police which is under the control of the ruling Congress party launched a ruthless crackdown on the protesters.

The chicanery was particularly galling for the youth in light of Rahul’s attempt to discredit the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh over an alleged instance of gang rape in Bhatta Parsaul in 2011. With an eye on the vote bank, Rahul had virtually laid siege to the state in order to derive political mileage. After violence had broken out over land acquisition, he provided credence to theories of police gang raping women with his claims of witnessing, “[a] heap of ash with dead bodies inside.” Subsequent independent investigations revealed the falsity of this claim.

The Goebellian propaganda spread by the sycophants in the party and the media regarding Rahul being a ‘youth icon,’ is rapidly wearing off. Exasperated by the performance of an effete government which is seen as a proxy for the dynasty, the people have started demanding answers. The dramatic rise of Narendra Modi is a manifestation of the people’s disgust with the manipulations of the dynasty which wields massive power without exhibiting a fig leaf of responsibility.

Rahul’s platitudes regarding fighting corruption have been laid hollow after evidence surfaced regarding his brother-in-law, Robert Vadra, being obliged with extensive land assets by the Congress government in Haryana, bypassing all norms. Even a close aide of Rahul, Kanishka Singh, has been linked to a company which facilitated kick backs in the Augusta Westland Helicopter deal with Italy. The government’s desperation in shielding the culprits is manifested in its failure to even lodge a police complaint regarding the allegation.

Rahul’s veneer of social responsibility and shielding behind a façade of reorganizing the party structure is finding few takers. His failure to assume responsibility in the form of taking charge of a ministry is seen as his effort to keep his distance from a beleaguered government lest it damage his carefully calibrated political campaign during the elections in 2014.

The coterie which props up the dynasty has its defined agenda and profiteers from its perpetuation.  But the non-performing dynasty has lost its relevance in a dynamic democracy, and has become the albatross around the GOP’s neck.

The question remains: can India afford the dynasty any longer?

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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India is in turmoil.

The death of a young 23 year-old student after a barbaric gang rape has stirred the youth onto the streets of New Delhi in protest. The ham-handed response from the government, which failed to anticipate the anger of the people has exacerbated the situation.

By barricading New Delhi and through usage of disproportionate force on the protesters, the Congress led United progressive Alliance (UPA) has transformed Indian democracy into a government ‘without the people.’ In an effort to prevent India Gate from being converted into India’s Tahrir square an already tottering government has further alienated itself from people.

The policy paralysis engulfing the Manmohan Singh government as a result of the unholy diarchy between the de facto ruler Sonia Gandhi and a proxy Prime Minister has ensured that governance in the country has come to a standstill. With the political establishment either unable or unwilling to comprehend the people’s exasperation emanating from the absence of governance, a catharsis was waiting to happen.

The catharsis arrived in the form of an unorganized and leaderless protest at India Gate and other places in the country against the barbarity perpetuated on the rape victim. Prima facie the protesters were seeking exemplary punishment for the rapists. But on a subterranean level it was also an expression of disgust against a political establishment which refuses to address the concerns of the people and rules with the avaricious motive of clinging to power.

The indecisive government has repeatedly failed to comprehend the frustration of the people manifesting itself in mass gatherings in the national capital during the past year. Unable to rectify its mistake of abdicating governance, the government has resorted to chicanery to befool the public. When that has failed, it has come down with a heavy hand on the protesters. The crushing of discontent seems to indicate that autocracy is replacing democracy in India.

The repression began in June 2011, with the brutal midnight police assault on the sleeping protesters accompanying Yoga Guru Ramdev. They were peacefully protesting against the pilferage of the exchequer and the deposit of illicit money in foreign banks by influential Indians. Social activist Anna Hazare, demanding a law for accountability of politicians and bureaucrats, had captured the imagination of the dormant middle class. He was subsequently outmaneuvered and taken for a ride. In a shamelessly Machiavellian act the government went back on its word to create an anti-corruption law after convincing Anna Hazare to bring a halt to his agitation.

The ruthless police action against protesters demanding capital punishment for the rapists and for introduction of harsh laws against sexual assaults epitomizes a government at war with its own people.

Notwithstanding the public anguish against a crime which shocked the nation, the government initially vacillated over penal action against erring police officials. Calls for the removal of the apathetic and reportedly corrupt Delhi Police Commissioner were met with a stony silence.

Instead, protesting youngsters demanding stern action against the rapists were not permitted to meet the President, the Prime Minister or the Delhi Chief Minister. The meeting with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, was loaded with symbolism to demonstrate the actual power centre in the country. The perfunctory meeting arranged for photo-ops instead of any genuine engagement was immediately followed by high handed police action on the protesters.

Ironically, Rahul Gandhi has been projected as a youth icon by the elite English speaking Delhi media that continues to remain enamored of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Rahul’s much touted youth brigade is in reality a group of effete leaders belonging to political dynasties. Members of the cosy elite grossly misjudged youth anger in India. No effort was made by this elite to establish any communication with the protesters or empathize with them. With arrogance cocooning the political elite from the sentiments of the country, their superficiality has been exposed.

The Indian Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, attempted to equate peaceful protesters with armed Maoists who oppose the existence of the Indian state. He thereby exposed the mindset of the government and further infuriated the protesters. The insecurity of government which fortifies itself behind barricades when confronted with democratic protests is clearly obvious. The ghetto mentality of an isolated leadership epitomizes a systemic failure and a collapse of governance.

The fact that the political establishment is out of sync with the people’s aspirations was emphasized by the fact that neither the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi nor Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, exhibited any sensitivity towards the hapless girl. These leaders, who mouth platitudes for the welfare of the women, did not deem it fit to visit the hospital where the girl was battling for her life.

Sheila Dixit’s heckling by the protesters as she tried to pay homage to the girl after her death is just an expression of widespread public wrath against the political class. The political disconnect and the feudal mindset of these ‘people’s representatives’ had been revealed in the past when Sheila Dixit questioned the right of women to “remain out at 2.00 in the night” after the murder of a young lady. That the lady was returning from her work at a media channel was perhaps trivial for a leading woman politician.

Unsurprisingly, New Delhi has become the ‘rape capital’ of India with 635 reported cases in 2012.

Failing to subdue the public by brute force, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attempted to imitate President Barack Obama’s public address after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre. The difference in the speeches exemplified the difference between the two democracies. The insincere effort of garnering sympathy eight days after the heinous incident fell flat because of Manmohan’s lack of sincerity and a terrible faux pas. The soporific canned speech ended with an oblivious Manmohan querying the cameraman, “theek hai?” (Is it OK?)

The blooper set social media sites on fire and earned opprobrium for an already embattled Manmohan. It marked a watershed in Indian politics because Manmohan showed a complete lack of awareness of popular sentiment. Indian politicians have entrapped themselves in gilded palaces alienating themselves from voters who are only remembered during elections. Spreading protests across the country indicate rapidly increasing disillusionment with elected representatives.

The opaqueness of the government's crisis management has raised public suspicions about the intentions of the government. Its decision to secretly whisk away the battered victim to Singapore for further treatment and the secretive cremation of her dead body is reminiscent of the Stasi in East Germany. The decisions regarding the girl's treatment and cremation were political and not medical. They emanated from the apprehension of adverse public reaction after the girl’s demise. Following her death, the government forcibly secured the capital and attempted to intimidate the public through police repression. Roads leading to the Prime Minister’s residence were sealed and the armed police presence suggested that that the government was terrified of its own citizens.

It is important to note that the entire political class has adopted a laissez-faire policy towards the protection of women. This is evident from the fact that 15 years after the ‘Vishakha case,’ a landmark judgment by India's Supreme Court, the Indian political establishment has failed to enact a law against sexual harassment of women at the work place. In the ‘Vishakha case,’ the Supreme Court had issued guidelines for the protection of working women which were to be prescribed to, until the enactment of a law by the parliament. The Indian parliament has not find time to enact such a law.

Though the protesters have been vociferous about more stringent laws against sexual offenders, legislation is no panacea for all the ills in society. Laws need to be implemented, not just enacted. A pusillanimous government, which retreats behind steel barricades in a crisis, is incapable of implementing laws and protecting its citizens.

Any institution of governance cannot function in a leadership vacuum . The need of the hour during these turbulent times is for leaders who are giants. Unfortunately, India has been cursed with political pygmies.

One of these pygmies is India’s former President, Pratibha Patil's. She inexplicably pardoned five rapists and murderers who had been sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. She has been unable to explain why she exercised presidential prerogative to pardon the criminals. It exemplifies the hypocrisy of an uncaring and incompetent government that is now spouting homilies after the latest outrage.

The egregious and avaricious Indian political system is leading to disillusionment of the youth with democracy. This disillusionment is ominous for a country with a predominantly youthful demography. India needs reforms urgently if it is to preserve its democracy, which is far too valuable to even think of losing!

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The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, already tottering under allegations of financial embezzlements and lack of governance, is apprehensive of Modi’s shifting his sights to New Delhi. Various opinion polls indicate that he is rapidly surging ahead of all his political contemporaries as the people’s choice for the position of Prime Minister. The de jure rule of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty over the country is under a real threat.

The Congress party had converted the assembly elections as a referendum on Modi’s ‘phoney’ development and his alleged record of discrimination against the Muslims. In the 2007 assembly elections Sonia Gandhi, the UPA chairperson and the current flag bearer of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had referred to Modi as a ‘merchant of death,’ alluding to his role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat.  Rejecting the argument the Gujaratis gave Modi a massive mandate.

Once bitten, twice shy, the Congress tried to avoid the overtly communal argument in the 2012 elections. The focus instead was to denigrate Modi’s development plank. Statistical data was manipulated to buttress this argument. Inconsequential parameters were utilized to run down the development which Gujarat has witnessed post Modi assuming power as Chief Minister in 2001. Like a tiger which fails to change its stripes the Congress failed to desist from chicanery to regain power. Having failed to gain momentum on the development issue the Congress resorted to its time tested tactics of communalizing the political atmosphere. Efforts were made to provoke the Muslims for apparently not being benefited by the development in Gujarat, thereby covertly alluding to discrimination on religious grounds.

The fact that Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 12 out 19 assembly seats where the Muslims were the deciding factor epitomizes the rejection of this fallacious argument by the Muslims. Evidently the Muslims in Gujarat have moved on from the riots of 2002, which the Congress has repeatedly used as a stick to beat Modi’s record.

While raking up the ghosts of 2002 ad nauseam the Congress has conveniently ignored Sonia’s husband Rajiv Gandhi’s culpability in the brutal slaughter of 3000 Sikhs in New Delhi after the assassination of his mother Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. But the Indian media’s fascination with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has ensured that such inconvenient questions are sparingly raised before the dynasty.

An honest assessment of the electoral debacle would make the Congress realize that it was fool hardy to make a Goebellian attempt to deprecate the development made by Gujarat under Modi’s leadership. At a time when the central government sets a pathetic target of agricultural growth rate of 4.0% for the country, Gujarat’s decadal agricultural growth rate for the period 2000-01 to 2009-10 was 10.97%. Impressive for a state with 70% of the land being arid or semi arid! Similarly Gujarat’s growth rate during the period has consistently hovered around double digits. That it is the only state in the country which provides uninterrupted power supply to even all the villages whereas the rest of the country faces perennial power cuts has only added to Modi’s lustre.

Modi’s decision to cut down on bureaucratic red tape with the resultant economic boom has ensured that Gujarat has become the automobile manufacturing hub of South Asia with auto majors like Ford and Peugeot planning to invest billions of dollars to set up manufacturing units in the state. The traditionally investor friendly states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Haryana have started feeling the pinch of this exodus towards Gujarat.

The success story of Gujarat becomes glaring in comparison to the economic rut and pessimism pervasive in the country.

The diarchy of power between the defacto ruler Sonia Gandhi and the nominal ruler Manmohan Singh in New Delhi has ensured that the country is sinking into an economic quagmire. A yearning for populist measures manifests in the government failing to initiate prudent measures to revive a sinking economy and runaway inflation. Therefore while the fiscal deficit keeps burgeoning the UPA government has launched its ‘Direct Cash Transfer’ scheme. The scheme provides for providing cash to the poor as a subsidy eliminating the governmental intermediary. The political nature of the scheme was given away when Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family referred to it as a ‘game changer.’

Modi’s threat to the Congress arises from his challenge to such misconceived priorities. Perhaps the only politician in the country not glorifying poverty and encouraging development, he poses a potent threat to Rahul’s ‘game changer’ which is heavily dependent on keeping the poor remain poor and provide economic doles in exchange for political windfalls.

That Modi has ruffled the feathers of the Congress was expressed in the Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram proclamation after the Gujarat results; "The Congress is a winner in Gujarat, we have been able to contain BJP and Modi to under 117 seats."

Thus the party after decimation at the hustings, proclaims victory for having restricted Modi’s juggernaut to 115 seats! Heads have rolled in the Grand Old Party for lesser offences during its halcyon days.

The absurdity of the argument can be judged from the fact that Congress for all its electoral bravado and ‘game changers’ was in reality aiming to restrict Modi to less than the 117 seats he won in 2007.

On the other hand, Modi appears immune to natural anti incumbency, a vituperative electoral campaign with the media acting akin to an opposition party and a disgruntled influential BJP strongman who revolted before the elections.

Modi’s victory speech modestly dedicating himself “to the service of Gujarat for the next five years” has however very few takers in India.

The BJP which has found itself in the doldrums after the electoral debacle in 2004 parliamentary elections is desperately seeking a leader to revive sagging fortunes. Although it has a plethora of leaders desirous of mounting a challenge, none have the charisma of Modi.

The lack of charismatic leaders coupled with infightings in the party has ensured that the BJP has failed to derive the anticipated results from the disastrous performance of the UPA government.

Seen as a proxy to Sonia’s dynastic ambition for Rahul’s inevitable ascension, Manmohan Singh lacks the authority to govern. Sycophancy in the Congress has reached a crescendo with cabinet ministers openly declaring their loyalty to Rahul, circumventing Manmohan. The egregious governance resulting from lack of political leadership has seen repeated people’s protests on the streets of New Delhi virtually challenging the government’s authority.

Rahul Gandhi on the other hand has been an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps unaware of the ground realities, he has led Congress from one electoral debacle to another. Inspite of being projected as a youth icon by the media, he has failed to inspire any confidence in the country with a youthful demographic profile. His remarkable ability to remain silent and inconspicuous in parliament has also debunked the myth of his suitability for running the country. Noted historian Ramchandra Guha, whose admiration for the Nehru-Gandhi family is no secret, has advised Rahul to “opt for another profession.”

Modi’s inevitable projection as Prime Minister prior to the 2014 parliamentary elections will however compel Rahul to come out of the closet and take him on in a presidential type campaign. That Rahul lacks the charisma and the acerbic style of Modi is certain to complicate matters for the Congress. The optimism generated by Modi amongst the middle class who increasingly see him as a panacea forIndia’s multifarious ills assures him of widespread support. Modi’s trenchant opposition to nepotism and his development model for Gujarat has found numerous takers in corporate India. 

The path ahead for Modi is however not easy. He still remains a polarizing figure and needs to increase his appeal across various segments of the society. Although he might have won over the Muslims in Gujarat, his opponents will ensure that the ghosts of the 2002 riots are never buried, irrespective of its costs to the Indian society. That no investigation has found an iota of evidence against him for his alleged role in those riots remains a trivial to the harbingers of doom.

With Indian polity firmly entrenched in coalition politics Modi will have to ensure that the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) does not fragment because of his projection as Prime Minister. A banner of revolt has already been raised by Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of the eastern state of Bihar and a prominent leader of JD (U) an NDA ally. Apart from his personal political ambitions, Nitish is apprehensive of losing Muslim support if he accepts Modi as his leader. In the era of coalition politics even one ally breaking away could have major repercussions for the NDA. 

How Modi manages the dissension in his own ranks therefore remains vital to his eventual march to New Delhi. If he manages to hold on to old allies and make new ones, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty could be in real trouble.

History beckons Modi. Can he replicate his Gujarat model across India?

The Indian middle class exasperated by the disappearance of governance in the country fervently hopes so!

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History
Assam shares an international border with Bangladesh and has been plagued with the problem of illegal migration of Bangladeshi Muslims for the past four decades. The Governor of Assam in a secret communique to the Central government in 2005, revealed that “upto 6000 Bangladeshis enter Assam every day.” As per conservative estimates India is host to around ten million illegal Bangladeshis migrants. Assam itself is inhabited by around five million illegal migrants. 

Successive governments in New Delhi have tried to brush aside the problem for the fear of offending and alienating minority interests and alienating the valuable votebank, much to the chagrin of the BJP and its partners like the AGP. Clearly, Delhi has always adopted a myopic view of the problem; and Assam seems to be paying for Delhi’s mistakes.

In 1947, Pakistan was separated into a Bengali speaking East and an Urdu speaking West Pakistan by the geographical presence of India. In 1971, it became clear that religion could not bind the two disparate entities into a nation. The revolt against the linguistic hegemony of the West Pakistanis resulted in genocide of the East Pakistanis.

Unable to withstand the brutality of the Pakistani army, millions of Bangladeshis crossed over into the safer climes of India. Indian states like Assam and West Bengal bore the brunt of this influx. Although India provided sanctuary to these refugees, it nonetheless referred to this influx as “bloodless aggression” which could impair the “economic and political well being” of the country irretrievably. 

Indian military intervention against the Pakistani army’s genocide of the East Pakistanis, led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. 

However, despite the creation of Bangladesh, India did not get any respite from the influx of Bangladeshi Muslims. The magnitude of this influx can only be assessed from the fact that the period between 1971 and 1991 witnessed the growth of Muslim population in Assam by 77.42 per cent as compared to a Hindu growth of 41.89 per cent. The population explosion has subsequently stabilized but even then the decadal growth of 1991-2001 at 29.3 percent for Muslims remained abnormally high as compared to a Hindu growth at 14.9 percent.

Dhubri, a district in Assam, which shares a long riverine border with Bangladesh, exemplifies the illegal infiltration into the state which continues unabated. As per provisional census details for the period 2001-11, the decadal population growth for Dhubri at 24.4 percent was distinctly higher when compared to the population growth of Assam at 16.9 percent for the same period. With the Brahmaputra River providing convenient entry points, the district is being virtually overrun by Bangladeshi infiltrators. Incidentally, Dhubri became one of the flash points during the violence in the state.

Ostrich in sand approach

The Indian polity, with its penchant for encouraging illegal migration for the sake of vote-bank politics, however prefers the ‘ostrich in sand’ approach to this issue, which has grievous national implications. 

Porous and inadequately defended international borders coupled with a lack of political will to counter this menace, has ensured a massive and uncontrolled demographic upheaval in the state. Taking advantage of this demographic shift, the illegal migrants have staked their claims to the resources of the state. This in turn has raised the hackles of indigenous population of the state which is now poised to become a minority in its homeland. The latter are obviously disgruntled. And neither side is in a mood to back down.

The lack of political will to confront this illegal migration manifested itself in the blatantly perverted Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act of 1983 (IMDT Act). The Act was introduced specifically for Assam, replacing the Foreigners Act of 1946 which remains in vogue for the rest of India.

The provisions of the IMDT Act ranged from the bizarre (the state can only act against the illegal migrants on the basis of a complaint and not suo motu); to the tragic (the onus of establishing the foreign origin of the accused lies on the complainant and not the accused). 

Such  provisions made it virtually impossible to deport any illegal migrant from Assam. It did not come as a surprise to many when 1,481 illegal immigrants were expelled upto April 30, 2000 based on over three hundred thousand enguiries.

The Supreme Court of India struck down the IMDT Act in 2005 as ultra vires to the Constitution of India. The Court referred to the Act as the “main impediment or barrier in the identification and deportation of illegal migrants." The court also compared illegal migration to “external aggression,” which had made the life of the people of Assam "wholly insecure and the panic generated thereby had created fear psychosis." 

In a revealing observation, the Supreme Court called upon the Government of India to protect “Assam from such external aggression and internal disturbance.” Ironically, it was this “bloodless aggression” which India had used as a pretext to go to war with Pakistan in 1971. 

The Congress which has been the dominant political force both at the Central level and in Assam post independence, has often been accused of tacitly encouraging this infiltration for their political gains. So far, the Mr Gogoi and his friends seem to be in no hurry to dispel this accusation. 

The illegal migrants are mobilized to vote en masse for the Congress candidates as quid pro quo to unhindered access to every national resource. In catering to myopic political returns, the party and the government have turned a blind eye to the destabilizing impact of the socio-economic volatility arising out of this influx. In a statement which is telling  of the party’s abetment of illegal migration, the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was quick to rescind his initial statement of Assam “Living on a volcano,” with a “There are no Bangladeshis in the clash but Indian citizens.” 

Evidently, the vote bank cannot be disturbed and therefore national interests are being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. It is disturbing to know that the political class (by their actions) believe that the two are mutually exclusive.

Encouraged by the pusillanimous approach of the governments, the fundamentalists have started manipulating the illegal migrantsfor their own gains.Fundamentalist Muslim leaders in Assam have already issued calls for “jehad” if the indigenous Bodos involved in retaliation during the violence were not arrested. 

Even attempts by the Government of India to prepare a National Register of Citizens (NRC) based on the 1971 rolls in the state for an authentic documentation of the population have failed to make any headway in the face of strong opposition from these Muslim groups. 

The fundamentalist groups are apprehensive about political power slipping away from their hands, once the process of identification of the illegal migrants is initiated in earnest. That the effort to prepare the NRC is abandoned at the slightest resistance exemplifies the connivance of the politicians with this illicit activity of migration.

Implications

Political shortsightedness has resulted in a situation where most of the Indian cities are getting burdened with these illegal Bangladeshi migrants, who have started shifting to greener urban pastures which offer greater economic opportunities. However, it is in Assam where the conflict between the Indians and the illegal Bangladeshi Muslims is in ascendance. Emotions have been running high ever since the migrants started obtaining squatters rights on the lands which they were initially employed to till. 

With the demography being dramatically altered by this steady influx, the illegal migrants have started wielding enormous political power in Assam. Muslims have become the majority in 11 out 27 districts in the state and the dominant factor in determining electoral fortunes in 54 out of 126 constituencies in the local assembly. A stage has been reached where no party can expect to attain political dominance without support from the Bangladeshi Muslims.

It is this conversion of the illegal migrants into a political force, which has made the indigenous population apprehensive of losing its identity and culture.

This unfettered illegal migration has ominous implications for national security and socio-economic stability. Intelligence inputs indicate that the notorious Inter Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) of Pakistan is utilizing these migrants as conduits to ferry in terrorists and arms into India. Counterfeit Indian currency with its origin in Bangladesh has flooded the border areas, crippling the Indian economy in these parts of the country. 

It is often said that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Kashmir is a case in point. Mr. Gogoi and his friends are surely better suited to brush up their history.

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Spiritual and Geographical Significance

Indian mythology provides a vivid description of King Bhagiratha performing a severe penance to bring the river Ganges from heaven to earth. Apparently, the penance was an act of atonement for the sins of his ancestors. The myth of the descent of the Ganges is an example of the use of religion for ecological protection by the ancient Indian civilization. The attribution of divinity to trees and rivers protected them from human depredations. It is for this reason that ancient Hindu scriptures have innumerable verses singing paeans for the Ganges.  In fact, even today the devout Hindu still refers to the Ganges as the mother.

Water of the Ganges remains the most precious possession of most Hindus, which is used in all religious ceremonies from birth to death. Geographically, the river originates in the Gangotri glacier in the higher reaches of the Himalayas. It is joined by numerous tributaries on its 2525 kilometer journey across the country into the Bay of Bengal. The Gangetic basin caters to 43% of the 1.2 billion population of India. Forty major cities of the country are situated on the banks of the river which traverses the densely populated states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Acknowledging the importance of the river, the government declared the Ganges as a ‘National River’ in 2009.

The importance of the Ganges cannot be judged by its physical attributes alone. The river is the cradle of Indian civilization, providing it both physical and spiritual sustenance. In ancient times, the immensely fertile Gangetic basin enabled the human mind to break free from the mundane and delve into the spiritual and intellectual realms. Voltaire aptly summed up the contribution of the river to the human civilization, “I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges – astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis. It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry." The banks of the Ganges have been host to massive Hindu religious congregations over the centuries. It is perhaps the only river in the world which is considered sacred. Indian spirituality is unimaginable without the Ganges.

Destruction of the Riverine Realm

In recent times, burgeoning population, human rapaciousness and official apathy have inflicted enormous damage on the Ganges. The river faces an acute crisis of survival because of pollution and impediments in its water flow. Large stretches of river water have become unfit even to bathe. For a country where bathing in the Ganges is considered a sacred religious act, the implications of the impurity of the river water are grave. Water quality indicators suggest that the quantity of the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and faecal colioform in the river water is considerably higher than the stipulated range. Portions of the river water have even turned septic because of the high level of faecal colioform.

A potentially catastrophic position appears to be developing with rapidly shrinking life forms in the river. The depleting quality of the river water is exemplified by the fall in population of the Gangetic Dolphin which is an important bio-indicator of the ecological health of the river. The government's claim to the contrary is false. Sightings of the Gangetic Dolphin are becoming a rarity in the Ganges.

Failed Saving Attempts

In an effort to pacify a public outcry against the increasing pollution in the river,  the government launched the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) in 1985.The avowed objective of the GAP was to improve the quality of the river water by preventing pollution from reaching the river. The GAP was launched with much fanfare but it became a model of a top-down bureaucratic approach that has failed to solve an existential problem. Without any effort to involve the stakeholders, such as the people living on the banks of the river or the industries that are the key polluters, the schemes were doomed to be a colossal failure. Government statistics indicate that 27 years of governmental intervention has resulted in the development of the sewage treatment capacity of 1000 million litres per day (mld). The total sewage being discharged into the river from the major towns is a preposterously high 3000 mld making the current capacity grossly inadequate. In the holy cities of Allahabad and Varanasi, the river water is a dirty stream, a far cry from the supposedly holy water millions of devotees venerate. The statistics on the industrial pollutants front are equally damning. Out of a total of 154 grossly polluting industrial units on the main stem of the river, only 94 units have satisfactorily operating Effluent Treatment Plants (ETP's). Though industrial pollution constitutes around 20% of the total pollution load by volume, the higher concentration of pollutants ensures that its contribution to polluting the river is highly significant. The release of such untreated human and chemical waste without any treatment into the river is gradually choking the river to death. Despite the government spending reaching approximately US$ 2 billion on the grandiose GAP, the quality of the river water has been steadily deteriorating. The ex- environment minister Jairam Ramesh has candidly admitted to the Ganges "getting polluted day by day.” The environment protection laws which provide ample teeth to the government have rarely been utilized. Government inaction appears to suggest that ecological conservation is a low priority area for the political-bureaucratic combine in the country. The river has become a dumping ground for industrial and human waste with the government doing little about it.

Dams Cause Further Damage

Industrial and human pollution, however, does not remain the sole reason for the gradual demise of the river. The conflict between development and environment has also played a vital role in damaging the ecology of the river. Construction of dams upstream for the purpose of hydro-electricity generation has completely disturbed the water flow and converted a mighty river into a shriveled stream. The largest of these dams, the Tehri dam has been at the centre of controversy from its inception. Environmentalists had objected to the construction of this dam in a seismically active zone. The irreparable damage inflicted on the ecologically sensitive zone has also been a bone of contention between the environmentalists and the government. Studies indicate that the load carrying strength of the river has reduced considerably since the construction of the Tehri dam. The government’s proposal to construct 300 more dams on the river is bound to alter the ecological balance even further. Construction of barrages for irrigation purposes has also served to exacerbate the plight of the river. With the bulk of the river water being diverted to irrigate the farmlands of northern India, the river is facing an acute scarcity of water during the summer months. Islands of sands which were a rarity within the river even two decades ago have become the norm. With the ability to flush out waste products being reduced due to a lack of flow, the river is now choking with pollutants. The river has reached such a state that the government releases extra water from the dams and barrages during the religious Hindu congregations to avoid public wrath.

Indifference Towards the “Mother” – Worrisome Prospects

The indifference of civil society towards the fate of the river has contributed in no small measure to the pitiable condition of the river. Indian society is deeply hypocritical when it comes to the Ganges. On the one hand, it refers to the river as a ‘mother’ during religious ceremonies and, on the other hand, it then proceeds to dump the river with pollutants. The hypocrisy of the public toward a river which is referred to as a ‘life giver’ in the scriptures ensures that the politicians do not care about the issue. The lack of public initiative appears even more baffling given the fact that the cities and villages along the banks of the river are dependent on the river water for drinking and other daily activities. The health concerns arising out of usage of polluted river water appear to be trivial to the government and public alike. The fact that the high powered National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGBRA) constituted in 2009 under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister has met only thrice is indicative of the government’s apathy towards the river. Environmental activist and Magasasay award winner Rajendra Singh has already quit the NGRBA. The activist, also known as India’s ‘waterman’ cited the ‘negligence’ of the river and the “failure of the Prime Minister to understand his responsibility towards the river,” as the reasons for his resignation. Any expectation of a miracle from the NGRBA would therefore be highly foolish. In an era where water scarcity is predicted to be the major reason for international strife, the Indian government’s proclivity to procrastinate on such a significant issue is terrifying. The British rejuvenated a polluted Thames, the Europeans saved the Danube but the Indians seem incapable of saving their mother goddess, the Ganges.

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The labors of Heracles to clean the mythical Augean stables would pale in comparison to the efforts of the Chief of the Army staff (COAS), General V.K. Singh, to clean the Augean stables of the Indian Defence system. Whereas Heracles succeeded in cleaning out the filth with assistance from the rivers Alpheus and Pineus, General Singh seems to be fighting to stem the endemic rot in the Indian Defence system alone.

General Singh has had a recent history of trouble with the government. He failed in his bid to get the government to recognize his ‘actual’ date of birth in the service records, which would have extended his tenure as COAS. He then revealed that he had been offered a bribe from a retired senior army officer to approve the acquisition of 600 sub-standard vehicles for the army. The retired army officer is now working as a lobbyist, and apparently offered General Singh a bribe of $2.3mn.

Incidentally, General Singh had stopped the order for these trucks on the basis of the vehicle’s underperformance and overpricing. Dissatisfied with the performance of the trucks, General Singh wanted to open up the bidding process. His goal was to bring transparency to the murky system of defence procurement. The alleged offer of a bribe was a characteristic tactic to co-opt an honest officer into a corrupt system by offering a payoff for approving inferior equipment.

The Indian Defense system has long suffered from endemic corruption. Unscrupulous politicians have used the primacy of civilian institutions over the armed forces to ensure that they are able to earn payoffs for the money they allocate for projects or equipment.

As early as 1948, barely a year after India won its independence from the British and at a time when it was still struggling to find its feet after a bloody partition, the country was rocked by the ‘Jeep Scandal.’ V.K. Krishna Menon, the Indian High Commissioner to Great Britain and a favorite of the then Prime Minister Nehru, circumvented procedures and ordered army jeeps from a foreign firm. The entire amount for the consignment was paid upfront. The foreign firm not only supplied inferior jeeps but also did not supply the number that it was supposed to. This led to the first financial scam in Independent India. Despite Menon’s role in the scandal, Nehru appointed him Defense Minister a decade later.

As Defense Minister, Menon refused to consider the then COAS General Thimmaya’s plans for preparing the Army for the forthcoming Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. Indian armed forces equipped with obsolete arms and ammunitions were decimated in the war. The ignominy of the military capitulation was the culmination of a process of negligence in the armed forces that had started with General Thimmaya’s humiliation.

This process of ignoring defense needs continued and in 1987, the country had a sense of déjà vu as Nehru’s grandson, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was accused of receiving financial kickbacks from a Swedish firm for the purchase of artillery guns for the army.

Politicians in India have long had a reputation for venal corruption. The armed forces, on the other hand, retained their reputation for longer and, until recently, were considered to be the torch bearers of probity in public life. The fact that a middleman had the temerity to approach the COAS is worrying. The fact that this middleman is an ex army officer is terrifying. It is symptomatic of the dramatic fall in the Indian military’s standards. More recently, the Sukhna land scam saw the sale of defense land to unscrupulous contractors for throwaway prices in return for illegal payoffs, and is a prime example of the rot that has set into the military.

As COAS, General Singh has initiated measures to cleanse the army of the systemic rot that has crept into the system. His uncompromising stand on corruption led to the dismissal of the senior army officers involved in the Sukhna scam. General Singh also initiated action against officers involved in the Adarsh Housing Society scam, where bureaucrats and senior army officers illegally secured apartments in a housing society in Mumbai. The government’s refusal to accept the ‘actual’ date of birth of General V.K. Singh is widely seen as a riposte to the General’s anti corruption campaign in the army.

When revelations of the proposed bribe to General Singh broke out, it was a major scandal. Curiously, the confidential letter written by General Singh to the Prime Minister was leaked soon after, creating a new furor and deflecting attention from the scandal. The letter presented a catastrophic picture of the army. There has been a depletion of critical ammunition and 97% of the air defense equipment is obsolete. General Singh also mentioned the lack of advanced weaponry for the soldiers in the infantry and Special Forces.

The political class, which has been waiting for an opportunity to hit back at General Singh, is up in arms against the ‘leakage’ of the confidential communiqué .The Parliament resonated with calls for the dismissal of General Singh. He has been referred to as ‘rogue’ and been called ‘devious’ by some politicians. The hyperventilating national media jumped onto the bandwagon with veteran media personalities drawing analogies between the ‘dignified’ exit of General Thimmaya after his fall out with Defense Minister Krishna Menon and General V.K. Singh’s stubborn persistence in office. The fact that General Thimmaya’s refusal to stand up to the venal politicians led to a humiliating defeat in the Sino-Indian war is too complex an idea for these media veterans.

India is a country where timidity before the political class is considered to be a virtue. Speaking truth to power is not in the lexicon of state functionaries or even the media. General Singh upsets the applecart because he has been determined and outspoken in his firm stand against corruption.

The government’s reactions to revelations about corruption are most telling. The initial reaction is invariably to feign ignorance and deny wrongdoing. In case allegations are corroborated with evidence, the government launches a witch-hunt against the whistle blower. Finally, character assassinations of those challenging corruption are done through public statements and pliant figures in the media. This process has been followed most efficiently with General Singh whose courage, competence and motives are all being tarnished.

General Singh is being described to as being ‘frustrated’ over the age row not going in his favor. Certain political commentators have said that timing the revelations with the BRICS summit in New Delhi is resulting in national political embarrassment and the insinuation is that General Singh is not being entirely patriotic.

A closer scrutiny of the facts shows a singular lack of political will to combat corruption in public life. The Defense Minister, A.K. Antony, revealed that General Singh had informed him of the offer of a bribe. Antony also informed the Parliament that he “held his head in his hands in disbelief,” after General Singh had informed him about the bribery attempt. However, it transpires that Antony took no further action despite being one of the rare politicians who do not have a record for corruption. Clearly, Antony was unwilling to stir a hornets’ nest by going against powerful vested interests.

While unwilling to order an investigation into the offer of a bribe to General Singh, Antony was more than happy to order an investigation on the basis of an anonymous complaint about electronic eavesdropping when it had potential to embarrass General Singh. The double standards here are breathtaking. The politicians have been baying for General Singh’s blood for the ‘leakage’ of a confidential communiqué. Instead of verifying the contents of the communiqué and pressing for modernization of the armed forces or, at least, demanding transparency in the defense procurement system, the entire focus is on the ‘leakage’ per se, which might have come from the political class itself.

Denigrating honest officers through fabricated charges have long been a norm for corrupt Indian politicians seeking to distract public attention to sordid financial scandals. Amidst the furor, the one thing that comes to fore is that the political class does not care about institutions. This class only cares about preserving its power, avoiding accountability and persisting with the status quo that allows it opportunities for self-enrichment through rapacious corruption.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Indian Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in Chief of the Indian Army Staff (COAS), General V.K. Singh’s petition to have his ‘actual’ date of birth recognized in the service records has provided a breather to the beleaguered Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition in India. Months of washing dirty linen in public by both the government and the opposition have resulted in government relations with the armed forces touching their nadir.

In a bizarre situation, two separate dates of birth for General V.K. Singh were being maintained in army records. General Singh, who had gained three promotions on the basis of a previous date of birth, had approached the judiciary to rectify it to a later date.

The documents presented by General Singh in support of his age-related contention favored his claim. The General also asserted that his superiors had previously compelled him to accept the incorrect date with the assurance that the matter would be amicably resolved at a later stage. This never happened as the government rejected his plea for a rectification of records. Left with no other option the General was forced to approach the judiciary. This latest conflict has brought forward the differences between the politicians and the defense forces, that have existed at a subliminal level ever since independence in 1947. The chasm has however widened in the recent past.

The first Indian Prime Minister – Jawaharlal Nehru – ensured that the political class and the bureaucracy combined, relegated the armed forces to a subordinate position in the formulation of policy. The political leadership, apprehensive of a dominant military setup, ensured that the defense forces played second fiddle even on issues pertaining to national security.

Discontent in the Indian Army first appeared with the appointment of Krishna Menon’s as Defense Minister in 1957. Mr. Menon soon fell out with the much-admired COAS, General Thimmaya. This fall out, coupled with Mr. Nehru’s foreign policy of non-alignment, became major reasons for a humiliating defeat against the Chinese in 1962.

In 1971, General Sam Manekshaw was the COAS and commanded the Indian forces to victory over Pakistan. This was redemption for the humiliation of the Indian Army in 1962.

However, General Manekshaw’s popularity amongst the civilian population and his soldiers’ general good image fed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s paranoia about a military coup. The contempt in which the General held the political class did nothing to dispel her fears. Instead, the political class supplanted a pliant COAS willing to comply with the political diktats.

In order to maintain its supremacy over the Defense forces, the political leadership has conveniently utilized the façade of the primacy of civilian institutions as being an essential facet of a vibrant democracy. Therefore the Defense Secretary, a career bureaucrat, remains the head of the defense department, much to the chagrin of the defense forces who view this as interference by civilian institutions in military domain.

Since independence, the Indian defense forces have fought five wars with China and Pakistan. Apart from the presence of hostile neighbors, the longstanding dispute with Pakistan over the troubled state of Jammu & Kashmir has further exacerbated the troubles of the defense forces.

Pakistan’s overt support for Islamic terrorists operating in Jammu & Kashmir has forced the army to take the onus of maintaining law and order in the state. Similarly, covert Chinese support for insurgency in India’s northeastern states has converted the restive region into another challenge for the armed forces.

The Indian army is also facing a shortage of officers. This shortage emanates primarily from the growth of the Indian economy and the resulting opportunities in the private sector which promise lucrative pay packages and a comfortable life. The armed forces’ lack of operational independence due to constant political and bureaucratic interference is also a major reason that deters youth from wanting a career with the defense forces.

Once known for having the highest institutional probity, the Indian Defense forces have also suffered on account of rising corruption. General Singh’s imbroglio with the government has its roots in a corruption scandal that involved senior army personnel. The ‘Sukhna land scandal’ of 2010 witnessed senior army officers sell off prime army land at throwaway prices to a commercial venture.

General Singh initiated disciplinary proceedings against the officers responsible for the land scam and this resulted in their being court-martialed. The dismissed officers were believed to be close to a former COAS who curried favors with the government.

The government’s brazen approach to the dispute about the General’s age is seen as retribution for his refusal to bow to the political agenda behind the Sukhna land scandal. Though the dispute could have been addressed in a less public manner, it was dragged to court, and has further damaged the already tenuous state-military relationship. The government is more intent on ensuring the defeat of the General than on modernizing the army. With vital procurements pending clearance from the government, the COAS was compelled to write to the Defense Minister about the ‘serious degradation in the war waging capability of the army.’

The army’s assessment indicates that in case of a full-blown conflict in the Western Command with Pakistan, critical ammunition would not last even two days.

Instead of responding to this assessment, the government is now engaged in covertly accusing the army of using surveillance vehicles to spy on the residences and offices of senior defense ministry officials, including the Defense minister.

Given its penchant for deriding General Singh, the government is dropping hints about his involvement in the surveillance matter. The purported eavesdropping apparently took place when the General’s row with the judiciary was at its peak.

But the government’s game was given away by the fact that the investigations into the supposed eavesdropping were launched on the basis of an anonymous complaint. Conveniently, a government which is embroiled in mammoth corruption scandals and is oblivious to the mountains of evidence against its senior ministers, gets pro active while trying to belittle its COAS, and thereby the very institution that defends the nation.

The gulf between civil institutions and the armed forces is not confined to the serving personnel and their requirements.

The longstanding demand of ex-servicemen for the implementation of the ‘One Rank One Pension’ scheme has repeatedly received indifferent responses from the government. With the implementation of revised pay structures, the pension divide between ex and present servicemen has been steadily increasing. The One Rank One Pension scheme demands that all retired military personnel who held the same rank be paid the same pension, regardless of when they retired. The anomaly is felt more by the ‘post below officer rank’ (PBOR) servicemen who have a limited career span and therefore greater need for financial security. Peeved by government apathy, gallantry award winners have resorted to the extreme step of returning their medals to the President of India who is the constitutional head of the defense forces.

The ‘Committee of Petitions’ of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) has also submitted a report in favor of the ‘One Rank One Pension’ demand of the ex-servicemen. Unfortunately, since ex-servicemen do not constitute a vote bank and their agitation remains disciplined, the government has turned a deaf ear to their demands. These dilatory tactics have only served to increase the frustration of ex-servicemen.

The Indian armed forces have remained remarkably apolitical in comparison to their counterparts in India’s volatile neighbors; in Pakistan and Myanmar, the army calls the shots.

The government needs to remove the perception of being at war with its own army. Otherwise, the damage done to the civil-military relation might prove to be irreparable. The government could do well to sit back and ponder.
Read part two of the article .
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Political tremors are being felt in New Delhi after the state elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP) were concluded last week. The resurgence of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in India’s largest and politically most important state is bound to shake the crumbling edifice of the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government.

The Uttar Pradesh elections, billed as the precursor to the national elections due in 2014, have resulted in the decimation of the national political parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the polls.

The high voter turnout during the seven-phase poll in the state surpassed all previous polling records and was seen as a manifestation of the electorate’s disillusionment with the regime of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Mayawati is credited with enhancing the appeal of the BSP which was initially considered as a party favored by only the ‘lower castes’. Her cleverly designed plan of ‘Social Engineering’ brought Muslims and higher caste Hindus into the party fold, and created a potent political combination with the existing support of the loyal ‘lower caste’ members. In addition, Mayawati’s ascent from the lowest rung of Indian society belied the stranglehold of dynastic politics prevalent in the Indian polity and added to her allure.

Mayawati’s ‘Social Engineering’ and vehement opposition to the anarchy rampant in UP under the SP regime, ensured a massive mandate in her favor in the assembly elections in 2007.

The mandate was however frittered away during Mayawati’s egregious tenure which witnessed massive financial embezzlements via government schemes designed for the poor. Ironically, a party that assumed power on its promise to combat criminals and corruption would by the end of its tenure be witness to a majority of its ministers sacked or arrested on grounds of corruption and crime.

While UP suffered a lack of industrial and agricultural growth due minimal government spending and poor governance, Mayawati wasted public money on erecting monuments and statues of herself, supposedly for commemorating leaders of the oppressed classes. Medieval despots could not have fared worse.

But even her strongest opponents could not have expected her party’s annihilation in the recently concluded state elections. The BSP could muster only 80 out of 403 seats in the local assembly, in contrast to the 206 seats it obtained in the 2007 elections. Though the vote share of the party decreased by only 4.5% from 2007, it resulted in massive losses in terms of the seat share.

The SP gained retribution for the crushing defeat suffered at the hands of the BSP in 2007 by profiting from the losses suffered by its political archrival. Though the vote share for the SP increased by only 3.7% from 2007, it resulted in the party winning a record 224 seats, a staggering improvement from its tally of 97 in the 2007 elections.

The SP was once considered to be a party which encouraged the proliferation of criminals in politics. Prescribing to an archaic ideology, it even opposed the utilization of computers at offices. The party appeared to have lost its way post the humiliating electoral defeat in 2007 and survived by hanging on to the coat tails of the Congress Party. The prospects for the SP appeared bleak even a year ago, and not many political pundits gave the party any feasible chance of staging a comeback.

The SP’s resurgence is being credited to the political management of Akhilesh Yadav, son of the party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh managed to rejuvenate the party cadres and attract voters within a short span of time. The decision to bar additional politicians with criminal records entry into the party was an electoral masterstroke given the parties dismal record in this matter.

Akhilesh enticed the youth by his promise to provide students with free laptops and tablets, which ironically was anathema to his father's policies. He also revived his party’s policy of allowances for unemployed youth. Akhilesh read the mood of a young electorate exasperated by the mire of dwindling employment opportunities in Uttar Pradesh.

The SP’s offer of 18% quotas in government jobs and educational institutions to the Muslim community also ensured that the community shifted allegiance to the party. Muslims, who are believed to vote en masse, had voted for the BSP in the last election.

The SP outbid the Congress party which had initiated the war for quotas by promising Muslims a 9% quota in government jobs.

The facts that the Constitution of India prohibits quotas on the basis of religion and that similar attempts by other state governments are being judicially examined by the Supreme Court of India were conveniently sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

That the SP immediately doubled the quota percentage on offer for the Muslims and reaped rich electoral benefits suggests that with the national elections round the corner, the appeasement of Muslims will continue unabated. The damaging consequences for national unity arising out of this divisive policy appears to pale in comparison to the electoral benefits obtained by the politicians.

If the results of the elections are an indicator, the Congress appears to have reached political oblivion in the state.

The Congress was optimistic of performing well under the command of Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the dynastic Nehru-Gandhi family and also Prime Minister-in-waiting for the sycophants in the party.

Rahul’s blitzkrieg electoral campaign saw him attend 218 electoral rallies, the highest by any politician in the state. The enthusiastic attendance at his rallies and his carefully orchestrated antics (which included tearing the manifestos of opponents off the walls) influenced the media into predicting a Congress revival in the state.

The Congress expected Uttar Pradesh to give its re-election bid at the national level a strong push. Favorable results were also expected to give Rahul Gandhi the political legitimacy which he seems to lack in spite of his lineage.

The UP election saw the Congress Party receive merely 11.6% of the vote and this result has shell-shocked the party. The fact that the Congress lost all seats barring one in the Nehru-Gandhi bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli has exposed the myth of the family’s invincibility.

The Congress, beleaguered by financial scandals involving its national UPA coalition, and with the Nehru-Gandhi family scion battered and bruised from successive trouncing in the electorally decisive states of UP and Bihar, now faces the onerous task of preparing for the national elections.

The Congress can however take comfort from the plight of the BJP which remains its primary adversary at the national level. The BJP had won 221 seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly in 1991 and has steadily been losing ground since.

With the public’s disillusionment with the BSP, the seeming lack of leadership in the SP, and with the Congress reeling from the impact of the anti-corruption movement launched by the social activist Anna Hazare, the BJP had been handed an ideal launching pad for recovering Uttar Pradesh from its opponents.

The BJP however committed political hara-kiri by inducting a tainted ex-minister from the BSP, expelled for his involvement in a massive financial scandal during Mayawati’s regime. The ‘party with a difference’ thus squandered the moral high ground on the corruption issue. The BJP, which expected to gain the backward caste votes by the induction of the ex-minister, misjudged the mood of the electorate.

Suffering from ‘more leaders than cadres’ syndrome, the BJP also failed to present a viable leader. Constant squabbling between top party leaders made voters decide to hedge their bets on any party which appeared to be the best alternative to Mayawati.

The shrinking popularity of the BJP resulted in a vote share of 15% (or 47 seats) which is a worrying sign for the party ahead of the national elections.

With the given electoral dynamics at the national level, and with Uttar Pradesh accounting for 80 seats in the national parliament, no party can be optimistic of forming a government in New Delhi without performing well in state elections.

With the dust of the electoral battle now settled it remains to be seen how Akhilesh manages to deliver on his promises of free laptops, tablets, and unemployment support, given the precarious financial condition of the state. The depleted state of the state exchequer was ignored in the hullabaloo of electoral sloganeering and is now bound to challenge his new government.

Data collected by Election Watch India and Association for Democratic Reforms indicates that the SP, notwithstanding its pretensions at prohibiting criminals from entering the party, has criminal cases pending against 111 of its 224 legislators. Given the background of its legislators, the SP’s assurance of a crime-free society appears to be a chimera.

Akhilesh Yadav might have outperformed his opponents in the electoral slugfest but now he needs to perform to get the state back on the rails. Collapsing infrastructure, massive power outages, absence of industrial growth, the rising crime graph, and corruption, need to be tackled immediately. The SP has prospered by promising unemployment doles but needs policies that create jobs and not policies that encourage unemployment.

For a state which has given India 8 of its 14 Prime Ministers, time is running out.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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“Peace for our time,” proclaimed the British premier Neville Chamberlain after his Faustian bargain with Hitler at the Munich conference in 1938. His appetite satiated by appeasement, Hitler was soon rampaging through Europe.

India’s ‘Munich moment’ arrived in 1985 courtesy of an old Muslim woman’s fight for justice.

Shah Bano, a 70-year-old Muslim divorcee, was sanctioned maintenance money by the Supreme Court of India. Her husband was ordered to pay Rs.500 ($9 by current rates) as maintenance money.

Howls of protest went up from the orthodox Muslims, especially the clergy who termed the decision as interference in the internal affairs of the community. Sixty-five years after gaining independence from the British, India still has no uniform civil code and accepts personal laws on the basis of religion.

Then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made an initial attempt to stand up to the fundamentalists. But in the face of rising Muslim discontent inflamed by the clergy, Gandhi backed off.

The Congress party, which had tacitly encouraged Muslim fundamentalists in order to garner their support during the elections, now played the appeasement card. The party could not let the judiciary wrestle Muslim support from its control. Votes were evidently more important than women’s rights.

Misusing the massive majority in Parliament, Gandhi ensured the passage of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act of 1986. The retrogressive bill absolved the Muslim husband of any responsibility towards his divorced wife, irrespective of her pecuniary condition.

The defeat of rationality and jurisprudence signaled the arrival of India’s Munich moment.

Gandhi might have bought peace from the fundamentalists, but he let loose a monster that has assumed mythical proportions in Indian polity.

Gandhi then earned the wrath of the Muslim orthodoxy by opening the locks of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi –Babri mosque complex in Ayodhya and allowing Hindus to pray there. The disputed complex, which has been the scene of ugly confrontations between the Hindus and the Muslims, had been locked since 1949.

Gandhi’s act was an attempt to appease the middle class Hindus who had been isolated from the Congress party after its pro-Muslim decisions in the Shah Bano fiasco. Hindus, who are a majority in India, revere the site of the disputed complex as the birth place of Ram, the God-King of Ayodhya. They allege that the Mughal emperor Babur built a mosque after demolishing the temple during his invasion of Ayodhya in 1528.

For all his civility in public life, Gandhi remained a naïve politician, never realizing that appeasement was a double-edged sword.

Muslim anger against the opening of the locks, combined with allegations of a major financial scam involving the purchase of artillery guns for the Indian army, put Gandhi’s regime in peril. Even the Hindus (who Gandhi had unsuccessfully tried to appease by opening the locks at Ayodhya) shifted their allegiance towards the right wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was leading a strident movement for building a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya.

Fortuitously for Rajiv and the Congress, this political tension coincided with Salman Rushdie’s 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses.

Muslim fundamentalists threatened massive protests against the allegedly blasphemous novel. Muslim politicians attacked Rushdie, stating all the while that they had not themselves read the book.

India became the first country to ban The Satanic Verses in 1988 as a pre-emptive measure. The ban was put in place even before Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa (religious edict) for the beheading of Rushdie.

The respected Indian newspaper, ‘The Hindu’ called the decision to ban the novel ”a Philistine decision.” In an emotive open letter protesting the decision, Rushdie queried Gandhi: “What sort of India do you wish to govern? Is it to be an open or a repressive society?”

But like an opportunistic politician hankering for votes and power, Gandhi did not respond to the criticism. In politically troubled times captive vote banks could not be antagonized.

Rushdie is not the only author to be at the receiving end of the Muslim fundamentalists and the appeasement policy of the Indian polity.

Fundamentalists have incessantly targeted Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, whose stance against the discriminatory Islamic practices against women has seen her exiled in India.

In 2007 Taslima was hounded out of the metropolis of Kolkata, considered the cultural capital of the country, by fundamentalists protesting her presence in the city. After being physically assaulted by a mob in the southern city of Hyderabad, Taslima was eventually pressured to leave the city for New Delhi.

The silence of the politicians—especially the Congress party—against such violence has gradually emboldened fanatics to take the law into their own hands.

In 2010, Prof. K.T. Joseph lost his right hand after being attacked by fanatical Muslim activists in the southern state of Kerala. Joseph raised controversy by assigning a paper for university students that allegedly contained derogatory references to the Prophet Muhammad. Rather than protecting the Professor, the state ensured that he also lost his job.

Muslims, who constitute around 14-15% of Indian population, are treated merely as a vote bank by most of the prominent political parties. It is presumed that the community votes en masse. Therefore most Indian political bodies, especially the predominant Congress party, prefer to encourage the fundamentalists and the clergy in the community. Fatwas (religious edicts) are routinely issued by the religious leaders of the community in favor of a particular party.

India, a secular state, therefore has the ironic situation of political parties carrying favor with the Muslim religious leaders for a fatwa in their favor.

This appeasement of fundamentalism has also ensured that moderate and progressive Muslim voices are slowly receding into the background.

Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi was removed as Vice Chancellor of the Darul Uloom Deoband, a theological Muslim University for his support of Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Modi is treated as a pariah by the fundamentalist Muslims for his alleged role in the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002.

It was perhaps the worst kept secret that Vastanvi was in reality removed because of his efforts to modernize the Darul Uloom Deoband. The academicians of the University, who are accustomed to issuing fatwas on inane issues, were apprehensive of Vastanvi’s modernizing efforts.

The appeasement practiced by politicians has ensured that while they canvass with Osama lookalikes in Muslim areas during elections, they prefer to look the other way when moderates like Vastanvi are maligned.

The politics of appeasement has reached its nadir during the ongoing elections in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. The state that sends the largest number of representatives to the national Parliament is witnessing a no-holds-barred electoral slugfest for Muslim votes. Muslims, who constitute 18% of the population of the state, are being lured with promises galore, some of them patently dangerous to the national interest.

The ramifications of the Uttar Pradesh elections, which are considered as a prelude to the national elections in 2014, are being felt all over the country.

Rushdie, who was scheduled to visit the Jaipur Literary Festival in the state of Rajasthan in January, was forced to cancel his visit. The Rajasthan police had warned Rushdie of hired assassins on the look out for him.

Indian intelligence agencies later denied any perception of such a threat to Rushdie. The public displeasure of the Congress Chief Minister of Rajasthan against Rushdie’s proposed visit and the red herring thrown by the police makes the Congress strategy evident. The Congress party resorted to chicanery to keep Rushdie away and keep its perceived Muslim vote bank intact.

Even the hastily arranged video conferencing of Rushdie was cancelled at the last minute to appease extremist Muslim groups for whom the very image of Rushdie had become an issue. The Rajasthan police stood by silently while several dozen fanatics misbehaved with the audience and offered religious prayers in the form of jihad (religious war).

And yet the same police were proactive in accepting criminal complaints against the four authors who read portions from The Satanic Verses as a protest against the cancellation of Rushdie’s visit.

The fight for the Muslim vote has intensified since Salman Khursheed, Union Law minister and the Muslim face for the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh, took on the Election Commission of India. The Commission censured his blatant attempt to entice Muslim voters through a series of quotas for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions.

At an electoral rally, Khursheed challenged the Commission by asserting that his fight for ”Muslim rights” would go on, even if the ‘Election Commission hanged him.’ Even for a heated electoral battle, with political survival at stake, challenging a constitutional authority is a bold decision.

For the first time in independent India’s history the Election Commission has approached the President of India for “an immediate and decisive action against the minister.”

Appeasement for the sake of votes has obscured all constitutional propriety.

India’s fight against terror is also being compromised for the sake of Muslim votes. The controversial Batla House encounter in New Delhi in 2008 is being communalized in the electoral battle.

Politicians like Khursheed and Digvijay Singh of the Congress party are questioning the authenticity of the encounter, which saw the deaths of two suspected terrorists and one Special Forces officer. The fact that the Union Home Minister has repeatedly vouched for its genuineness is being conveniently ignored.

India, which has been targeted by Islamic terrorists for the past two decades, could do well to maintain the integrity of its security. But in the mad rush for Muslim votes, the discipline of the security forces makes them soft targets for politicians hell bent on damaging every institution in the country.

The Rajinder Sachar Commission revealed stark statistics about the welfare of Indian Muslims. Muslims have the highest dropout rates at primary level education. As per findings of the Commission, only one out of 25 students at the graduate level and one out of 50 students at the postgraduate level in India’s premier colleges is a Muslim. The representation of Muslims in the bureaucracy is therefore abysmal.

But not one politician clamoring for Muslim votes has raised the topic of educational welfare, which could liberate the community from control of the orthodox maulanas (Muslim scholars). Development has become a non-issue within political discourse surrounding the Muslim community.

Perhaps it suits the politicians to keep common Muslims in depravity and appease the fundamentalists, to rake in votes. Elections have unfortunately taken priority over real social conditions.

For a religiously divided country like India, the ghettoization of a community resulting in rising fundamentalism has dire consequences. Assimilation, not appeasement, is the requirement of the hour.

“An appeaser,” said Winston Churchill, “is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.”

Salman Khursheed and his ilk could do well to pay heed.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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“Policies,” said Sir Geoffrey Vickers, “are decisions giving directions, coherence and continuity to the course of action for which the decision-making body is responsible.”

It is hard to imagine how the political scientist in Vickers would have defined policies, after observing the directionless, ill-thought out actions of the Manmohan Singh-led UPA coalition in India, which meanders from one poor policy decision to another.

When looking at the flip-flop of the UPA government over the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Multi Brand Retail and the Food Security Bill, a better analogy could be drawn with a “headless chicken, running directionless”, rather than the “directions” and “coherence” Sir Geoffrey refers to.

The Indian economy, which has suffered from excessive governmental control as well as unnecessary amounts of red tape, was liberalized in the early 1990s. The “license-quota-permit raj” resulted in the “Hindu rate of growth" in the economy, which had been stagnant for decades. Incidentally, the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was then Finance Minister of the country. 

However, that the development achieved from liberalizing the economy has failed to reach the common mass in the country. Despite incessant talk about “inclusive growth” and rising GDP, the dramatic rise in the number of the poor and the intensity of poverty in the country tells a different story. That the population of children suffering from malnutrition in India is double what it is in sub-Saharan Africais indicative of the fact that the GDP growth rate has failed to have the “trickle down” effect intended to help the common people. 

The Forbes International list of billionaires shows an ever-increasing number of Indian billionaires. This is the reality of ”liberalization”, which has only helped  crony capitalism flourish, aided by rampant corruption in India.

Fortunately for the Indian policy maker, Forbes has no similar list for poverty. If it did, no amount of skullduggery could conceal the vast class divide.

The efforts of the UPA government to bludgeon the FDI in multi-brand retail was met with stiff resistance from the opposition parties and the people alike, who see the bill as an effort to accentuate this dichotomy. If the bill had been converted into an act, it, would have permitted 51% foreign direct investment in multi brand retail, and would adversely impact millions of farmers and small retail traders.

The fear of an imminent entry of multi-national behemoths like Wal-Mart through the FDI route united the people to an extent that the government was forced to postpone the introduction of the bill in Parliament. Though the plan has been deferred for the time being, apprehensions have been raised by the statement of the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, who, while commenting on the decision of the government to put the bill on the back burner, said, “we have not shelved it.”

India, unlike more developed countries, still prescribes to outdated methods in agriculture, with land holdings of extremely small size and the practice of sub-letting of agricultural land to the marginal and poor farmers being the norm. With the government showing no inclination to focus on agriculture, and harvesting being mostly rainfed, farm produce has stagnated in most of the country. Lack of micro-finance in rural areas coupled with failing crops, have played farmers into the hands of the money lenders, who charge exorbitant rates of interest for loans provided at times of need.

Figures available from National Crime Records Bureau indicate that over a quarter of a million farmers committed suicide between 1995 and 2010. When coupled with the fact that between 1991 and 2001 the number of cultivators dropped by seven million, a crisis that the government is unwilling to face is mounting.

Hundreds of thousands of small retail traders also foresee misery if corporate giants like Wal-Mart are permitted to enter the multi-brand retail market. Small retailers in India, unlike those of the West, are part of the community system, with a vital socio-economic role which is not restricted to a simple consumer-seller relationship.

It does not require a soothsayer to predict that agriculturists and small retail traders will be overwhelmed by the bargaining and coercive power of multinational companies like Wal-Mart, whose ethical standards have be criticized.

Even Hillary Clinton, who has served on Wal-Mart’s board of Directors, was forced to admit: “Now I know that Wal-Mart’s policies do not reflect the best way of doing business and the values that I think are important in America.” Studies around the world have revealed that agricultural outputs have declined in areas where Wal-Mart and their ilk have started operations.

The fact that these multinationals donate generously to the corpus of political parties and the influential bureaucrats who call the shots in policy matters, is perhaps a small footnote in the story. Not surprisingly, no study appears to have been conducted by the government on the feasibility of FDI in multi brand retail policy under Indian socio-economic conditions.

As if to compensate for the potential socio-economic disaster arising from FDI in multi brand retail, the government has progressed with the “headless chicken” model by introducing the National Food Security bill in the Indian Parliament.

The Food Security bill envisages providing extremely cheap grain to people who live below the poverty line, and then on an “as and when available” basis to those lying above it.

The bill has been drafted in a haphazard manner. The poverty line has been drawn by the government without reference to any supporting economic or social studies. In rural areas it is put as Rs. 26, less than 50 US cents, per day. The bar is slightly higher in urban areas at Rs. 32.

The government now plans to review the poverty line. There is no deadline for setting up the review committee and then deciding on its recommendations. It is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

India is already teetering on the verge of an economic crisis and is battling with a rising fiscal deficit and inflation. It can hardly afford the 48% food subsidy increase needed to implement the Food Security bill. That the ghost of subsidies comes back to haunt the poorest of poor is an obvious but uncomfortable economic truth.

The insincere attitude of the government in providing food security is further reflected in a clause in the bill. It absolves the government of any responsibility of providing grain under the provisions of the Act, in the case of any man-made or natural catastrophes such as war or drought. This fails to account for the fact that the country is dependent on rain water to cater for 60% of its harvesting needs.

The rush with which the bill has been drafted and introduced in the Parliament of the country suggests that the bill is designed to provide more security to the electoral prospects of the Congress party than food security to the poor. The Congress party, which is the dominant partner in the UPA coalition, faces the daunting prospect of facing the electorate in five states bound for state assembly elections in January-February of 2012.

One of the election bound states is the state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends the maximum number of representatives to the national parliament, and plays an important role in Indian politics. Suffering from economic mismanagement for decades and also host to the highest population in the country, Uttar Pradesh also contributes significantly to the number of poor, and especially the poor living in rural areas.

Rahul Gandhi, who in true tradition of the dynastic politics of the Congress party has been anointed the heir apparent to the post of Prime Minister, has been touring Uttar Pradesh incessantly, with the aim of regaining the steadily eroding support for his party. His carefully managed photo-ops, picturing him on visits to the houses of the rural poor has so far failed to make an impact on the electorate.

The Food Security bill, is therefore seen an electoral gift from the Congress party, making a last ditch attempt to influence the electorate. A poor showing in the state election has the potential to derail the attempt of the Congress party to regain power at the Centre in the 2014 National elections. The image of the party, suffering massively from a series of financial scams, needs a face-lift. The government feels that the Food Security Bill might be the magic wand to attract the poor, who, historically, utilize their voting rights more than the urban middle class. This accounts for  the insane rush to introduce and get the bill passed by Parliament before the state elections.

That the Food Security bill has more political ambitions than any concerns for the poor can be ascertained from the fact that the government has made no efforts to revive the Public Distribution System (PDS). The PDS, created for distributing cheap food grains to the poor, has failed miserably, with middlemen and bureaucrats profiteering at the cost of the targeted population. Governmental apathy towards the PDS has resulted in a well-intentioned scheme gone awry.

With the agricultural output stagnating, agricultural scientists are of the opinion that the country will not been able to mete out the required quantity of food grains for distribution under the Food Security bill. The misery is exacerbated by ill-maintained food warehouses, loss in transportation of food grains, and massive corruption in distribution.

In a scathing observation, the Supreme Court of India, taking umbrage at news reports of food grains rotting in the open government warehouses while people faced starvation and malnutrition, asked the UPA government as to why this food grain could not be distributed to the poor for free. The response from the government has been muted.

Apparently, it is politically expedient to let the poor starve and then show them the mirage of food before elections. The poor are obviously hungry enough not to question the policies which brought them there in the first place.

Keeping people hungry and unemployed may be good politics, but it is poor economics. Manmohan Singh needs to make a judgment call. But will electoral compulsions permit him to do that?

That remains the million dollar question.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Uttar Pradesh is very significant politically. The largest state in India, it is represented by 80 of a total 542 Parliamentarians in Parliament, the highest for any state in the country. The upcoming polls are therefore seen as a precursor to the national elections due in 2014.

Its size does not translate into prosperity, however. With nominal private investment in industry, huge numbers of power outages, falling agricultural production and increasing crime, the state has become a perennial laggard on all development indicators. Going by the issues raised on the campaign trail, development appears to be the lowest priority for the major political parties.

The Congress Party ruled the state virtually uninterrupted after India attained independence from the British in 1947. It created a Frankenstein’s monster built on caste and religion to serve its own political ends. But the party was devoured by it in 1989 and has since faded into political obscurity. In the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh in 2007, the Congress obtained a mere 8.5%of the vote share – the lowest in its electoral history.

Rahul Gandhi leads the party in the state. He has also already been anointed as the heir apparent to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in the tradition of the dynastic culture prescribed to by the Congress Party.

In an effort to gain a foothold in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul has been camping in the state for the past three years. The media hype envisions him as the rescuer of a moribund Congress party. The Indian media – which acts more as a hand maiden to the Congress party rather than an unprejudiced observer of political events -predicts a revival for the Congress party since its vote share increased to 18% in the national elections in 2009. The fact that the national and local elections are fought on completely different issues has been conveniently ignored by the media.

The recent actions of the Congress party, however, betray an anxiety over its anticipated performance at the polls. The party is apprehensive of public ire over the numerous financial scandals which have rocked its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition in New Delhi.

The Congress party needs to perform outstandingly in Uttar Pradesh to entertain any realistic chance of retaining power in the2014 national elections.

Given the proclivity of the Congress for dynasty politics, Rahul is assured of retaining his numero uno status in the party, irrespective of the results in Uttar Pradesh. But a poor result is bound to seriously dent the party’s credibility as a contender for power at the national level. Uttar Pradesh has therefore become its litmus test.

The Muslim Vote

The Congress, in an act of desperation, has resorted to its time-tested tactics of ratcheting up the Muslim card in an attempt to lure the Muslim voter to the party fold. Muslims, who account for 18% of the population of Uttar Pradesh, are assumed to influence the result in 115-120 seats out of a total of 403 seats in the state.

The UPA government’s decision to provide a 4.5% quota to the minorities in government jobs and educational institutions is seen as a Machiavellian attempt to influence the Muslim voter. The decision announced just prior to the Uttar Pradesh election is ostensibly meant for all minorities, but in reality is an electoral sop for the Muslims.

Salman Khurshid, the Union Minister for Law, lifted the veil of ambiguity about Muslim appeasement when he promised to raise the Muslim quota to 9%, provided the Muslims voted the Congress to power in Uttar Pradesh.

The statement, which earned Salman opprobrium from the Election Commission of India, is seen as a blatant manipulation of the Muslim voter. The fact that the Constitution of India prohibits any quota on the basis of religion has been deliberately obscured in the electoral dust.

Muslim fundamentalists have been further assuaged by the Congress which prohibited the author Salman Rushdie from making an appearance at a literary event at Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan. Rushdie is a pariah amongst some Muslims because of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses. He has frequently visited India, even after his book was banned in the country, without any problems.

But in a bid to pander to the fundamentalist Muslims, the Congress party led Rajasthan government hoodwinked Rushdie with false security threats forcing him to cancel his scheduled visit. The organizers were subsequently compelled to cancel the hastily arranged video conferencing for Rushdie, ostensibly because of a perceived threat to “law and order”.

The Congress party, in its quest to regain Uttar Pradesh, is not willing to antagonize the Muslim community before the elections. The fundamental democratic concept of freedom of expression which is the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy has therefore been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

But the Congress is not the only party in the state indulging in the politics of appeasement for electoral benefits.

The Samajwadi party (SP), literally translated as the Socialist party, has also been a player in the appeasement of Muslim fundamentalists. The SP, which draws support from among the economically affluent backward classes, has historically taken advantage of the electorally potent combination of the backward classes and the Muslims.

In a bid to project itself as a protector of Muslim interests, the SP upped the ante on the Congress’s announcement of 9% quotas for Muslims by assuring the Muslims of a quota of 19% for the community in proportion to their population in the state.

The SP has also fallen prey to the dynastic politics that was once the forte of the Congress party. In an apparent counter to Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, the son of the party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is leading the counter charge of the SP.

The scions, bereft of any ideas for development and with only family lineage as their calling card, therefore can only offer inducements in the form of Muslim appeasement to dupe the gullible voter.

The S.P, which functions like a personal fiefdom is also seen as a party which introduced the concept of politicization of criminals, by nominating persons with criminal antecedents for elections in a bid to utilize their muscle power.

Uttar Pradesh, much like Italy, has been carved up amongst various Mafiosi and their spheres of influence. But the local Mafiosi were initially permitted electoral respectability by the SP, which unfortunately has now become a practice for all political parties.

The introduction of criminals into politics led to the natural corollary of corruption becoming the prime motive of the politicians.

Mayawati , the undisputed leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the present Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, epitomizes the stranglehold of corruption on the polity of the state.

Mayawati’s “social engineering” formula which ensured a political alignment of the upper caste Brahmins and the lower caste Dalits, combined with her opposition to the criminals provided her party with an unprecedented mandate to rule the state in 2007.

But like the despots of the past, Mayawati frittered away the mandate by utilizing her tenure to build her own statues and monuments. Her egregious tenure has witnessed financial scams of monumental proportions and wastage of public money in building of personal monuments.

Mayawati, a schoolteacher before she joined politics under the tutelage of the Dalit leader Kanshi Ram, has seen her financial assets increase from Rs. 16.7 million) in 2004 to Rs. 870 million in 2010. Ironically, for a leader who came to power because of her campaign against crime, Mayawati is now being investigated for having disproportionate financial assets.

The UPA coalition in New Delhi, with Congress as the major partner, has ensured that the noose around Mayawati’s neck has not been tightened in the disproportionate financial assets case. She has in turn obliged by rescuing the UPA government by tacitly supporting it on crucial issues in Parliament.

The meteoric rise of right wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the late 1980s was helped in no small measure by the Muslim appeasement policy of the Congress party. The appeasement of the Muslims drove the disillusioned Hindu middle class into the arms of the BJP which was then advocating a strident nationalism.

The BJP is seen as an untouchable party by the Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh who blame the party for its role in the demolition of the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. In the absence of any support from the Muslims who constitute a substantial proportion of the electorate in the state, the party has an uphill electoral battle to fight.

The BJP was seen to be gaining ground in the backdrop of the alleged financial embezzlements indulged in by the UPA coalition at national level and by the incumbent Mayawati regime in Uttar Pradesh.

But the BJP seems to have shot itself in the foot by bringing a tainted former minister – allegedly the lynchpin behind the monumental scams of the Mayawati government – into its fold.

The BJP leadership, despite attempts at damage control, has not been able to justify its choice of leader to its sympathisers. He is perceived to have no loyalty to the party ideology. The BJP, which referred to itself “as the party with a difference” on the issue of corruption, does not appear this way after the sordid episode.

The BJP’s electoral endeavor in Uttar Pradesh is also being damaged by the perception of it being a party with more leaders than cadres. The factionalism in the party is proving to be an impediment to the resurgence of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP’s declining popularity in Uttar Pradesh can be judged from its plummeting vote share which from a high of 36% in the 1998 national elections fell to 12% in 2009. The party needs to perform exceptionally well in the upcoming polls in the state since any repeat of the 2009 national elections would send the party into political oblivion. It is also bound to damage the BJP’s bid for power in the national elections in 2014.

Uttar Pradesh, which sets the political agenda for India, is therefore left with a Hobson’s choice between parties devoid of ideology fighting for their own political survival. Bereft of any developmental plans and vision, the political bankruptcy of the major political parties in the state has reached frightening proportions. For a state which has given India 8 out of their 14 Prime Ministers, the signs are ominous.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government does not appear to believe in the dictum that those who forget the mistakes of history are bound to repeat it, judging by its decision to provide a quota for the religious minorities in government jobs and educational institutions.

The seeds of Indian partition were laid by the British in the Indian Councils Act of 1909. Popularly known as the Morley-Minto Reforms, the act made provision for a separate Muslim electorate. The creation of a separate electorate not only created political fences around the Muslims, but also reversed the social amalgamation of Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims, hankering for a throwback to the days of the great Mughal Empire, felt emboldened by the political strength provided by this divisive act. The religious fault line resulting from the separation eventually overpowered the non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi.

The violent division of the country in 1947 into a predominantly Hindu India and an Islamic Pakistan was a logical culmination of the British policy of “Divide and Rule.” Indian politicians, taking a cue from the bitter experience of social and political separation, did not incorporate any constitutional provision for religion-based reservations in public employment and educational institutions.

The constitution of India explicitly prohibits any discrimination on the basis of religion and guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment. For the sake of social equality, however, writers of the constitution incorporated special provisions for reserving seats in public employment and educational institutions for historically oppressed classes.

The Supreme Court of India, through its judicial pronouncements, limited that number of seats to 50%. Among the 50%, 27% is reserved for the class of people classified as Other Backward Classes (OBCs). It is from this quota for OBCs that the government has allocated a 4.5% reservation for religious minorities.

This quota, ostensibly meant for all religious minorities, is in reality intended to act as a political bribe for the Muslim community. Muslims constitute 14% of the country’s population and have traditionally voted for the Congress Party since gaining independence. The Congress, in turn, has manipulated the Muslim community through the aegis of the orthodox mullahs, who were permitted to propagate fundamentalism and their brand of Islamism in return for political support during election time.

This cozy relationship between religion and politics failed to stem Indian Muslims’ disillusionment with the Congress Party. With the growing realization that they had been used merely as a captive vote bank without any concerted steps on the part of the government toward their social and economic betterment, Muslims began to drift away from the Congress.

In 2006, however, the government-appointed Rajinder Sachar Commission revealed that Muslims had been used as vote banks. Empirical data collated by the commission indicated a shockingly high dropout rate of Muslim students at the primary level. Not surprisingly, the number of Muslim students at the country’s premier colleges was found to be abysmally low. High unemployment and a low level of representation in bureaucracy has been a natural corollary.

The disillusionment of Muslims with the self-serving policies of the Congress Party was reflected in a plummeting vote share. The marriage of convenience between theology and politics could no longer keep the political pot boiling. Muslim voters had begun to shift their loyalties to other assertive regional parties that gradually took control of the political scene.

The Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition, of which the Congress Party is a major partner, regained power in 2004 after a nearly six-year hiatus. But the victory was pyrrhic for the Congress, for it had to accept the reality of power sharing with other political parties in the coalition.

In the party’s quest to retain its primary political status, it became incumbent on the Congress to regain the Muslim vote. In 2007, the government-appointed Ranganath Mishra Commission recommended a 10% reservation in public employment for Muslims as a religious group, notwithstanding the fact that the constitution makes no such provision for religion-based reservation.

The upcoming local assembly elections in five states, scheduled for February and March of 2012, have compelled the government to bring out the genie of Muslim reservation from the bottle. Congress strategists believe that this genie will carry the party, devoid of any worthwhile accomplishments, through the stormy state elections.

The politics of minority reservation are believed to have a critical impact in elections, especially in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends the highest number of representatives to the national parliament. The upcoming state assembly elections held there are thought to predict the national elections in 2014. Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent of the Congress Party, has been making constant visits to the state in the past two years in an effort to regain its citizens’ for the party.

Success in the elections is certain to propel Rahul to the national center stage, which, despite the lineage of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, still eludes him. The Congress Party, behind the façade of democracy, is more akin to a modern-day political monarchy revolving around the family’s charisma.

The hype created by the media notwithstanding, the Congress’s electoral prospects in the forthcoming local assembly elections appear bleak. Their credibility has reached an all-time low due to numerous financial scams involving the UPA and allegations of inaction against perpetrators by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The anti-corruption movement led by social activist Anna Hazare has struck a chord among the increasingly assertive middle class, severely damaging the Congress Party’s electoral prospects.

The Congress Party is therefore treating the minority reservation as a panacea for the administrative malfunctioning its government indulged in.

Muslims, who constitute approximately 18% of the population in Uttar Pradesh, are believed to be influential in determining the result of around 115-120 seats out of the total 403 assembly seats in the state. Congress strategists expect Muslims to take the bait of minority reservations and reciprocate by voting for the Congress en masse.

The Supreme Court of India is in the process of examining similar attempts by regional governments to bypass constitutional provisions for religion-based reservation—a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the Congress Party. Party strategists believe that if the court strikes down the unconstitutional religion-based reservation, as it is expected to, the Congress could also reap electoral benefits by playing martyr.

National interest has, however, been sacrificed at the altar of petty electoral gains. The problem of dropout rates and lack of employment opportunities can only be tackled by opening more schools and improving infrastructure rather than simply providing quotas. The statistics of only one Muslim student out of 25 in the premier colleges at the graduate level and one in 50 at the post graduate level, as per the Sachar Committee report, cannot be changed without opening schools that will help students at the primary level.

Quotas, by all accounts, will be utilized only by affluent Muslims who have already broken away from the mold and are competing with other Indians. Those with a head start will not permit the proposed benefits to trickle down to the deprived. These benefits appear to be political strategy more than honest attempts to support minorities.

The proposed reservation will likely have a deleterious impact on the social fabric of the country. Furthermore, the decision to provide this quota of 4.5% within the 27% allocation for the OBCs will only provoke the resentment of the OBCs, who will see it as Muslims encroaching on their share of political representation. Using religion as a point of division can only promote separatist tendencies and prevent the growth of national unity.

The Congress Party’s unbridled desire for power is pushing the country towards an abyss. The Indian sub-continent still has not recovered from the scars of partition in 1947. That alienation and strife between classes can result in catastrophic consequences for the country is a historical fact that politicians should respect.

Singh would do well to revisit the speech of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, in the constituent assembly on May 26, 1949: “If you seek to give safeguards to a minority, you isolate it… Maybe you protect it to a certain extent, but at what cost—at the cost of isolating and keeping it away from the main current.”

But perhaps in the cacophony of electoral cymbals, history cannot make its soft voice heard.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Hamletian dilemma of “To be or not to be” pales in comparison to the dilemma of “To hang or not to hang” being faced by the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India. As though the massive corruption scandals, ranging from the allotment of spectrum for mobile telephony to the Commonwealth Games scams were not enough, the already embattled Prime Minister Singh now faces increasing public discontent over the delay in hanging a terrorist for his involvement in the storming of the Parliament of India on December 13, 2001.

Security forces repelled the audacious attack on the Indian Parliament after a fierce struggle that killed five terrorists. Five security personnel were also killed in the battle. A car loaded with improvised explosive devices, which had been used by the terrorists to enter the Parliament premises, miraculously failed to explode, thereby averting further carnage.

The terrorists had planned to take Parliament members attending the session hostage. The idea for this plan was perhaps drawn from the preceding hostage situation in India in 1999, in which an IC 814 flight was hijacked and flown to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. After seven days of fruitless negotiations, the government was compelled to release three terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages. One of the released terrorists, Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, was subsequently arrested in Pakistan for the brutal murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

The Parliament attack nearly brought the long-time feuding neighbours India and Pakistan to a nuclear flash point, as the then-Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ordered the Indian army to the Pakistan border as a measure of reprisal for the alleged Pakistani involvement in the attack. The war was averted through the US’s diplomatic intervention and request that both countries withdraw from the brink. The US, on the verge of invading Afghanistan for its own retribution against the 9/11 attacks, needed the Pakistani army to remain on its border with Afghanistan in order to prevent Talibani forces from fleeing into Pakistani territory.

Mohd. Afzal (Afzal Guru), a member of the terrorist organization the Jaish-e-Mohammed, was arrested and sentenced to be hanged until death for his involvement in the Parliament attack. The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence on Afzal Guru, on December 27, 2006.

In India, death by hanging is the only mode of carrying out the death penalty. However, the Constitution of India, under article 72, incorporates the provision of a review petition of the death penalty. The President of the country has the power to pardon and to suspend, remit, or commute sentences. The president is only a nominal head of the state however, and is supposed to act on the advice of the cabinet.

In an absurd situation that became a classic case of “whodunit”, each concerned government ministry disclaimed any information about the clemency “file” of Guru, (which apparently disappeared) as the buck was passed from one ministry to another. Unsubstantiated misgivings like “law and order disturbances” in case Guru was hanged were cited. Finally, after nearly six years of a merry-go-round, the file was referred to the President’s secretariat in the last week of July 2011, with the recommendation of the Home Ministry to reject the petition. The President has yet to exercise her powers under Article 72 on the clemency plea.

The prevarications of the Singh-led UPA over Guru’s review petition have become an exemplary manifestation of all that ails Indian policy in its bid to counter terrorism. The ailment in turn is guided by the suicidal policy of appeasing radical Muslims for electoral gains, which is being followed by the dominant Congress party.

Meanwhile, Guru has become the most potent symbol of Indian strategic failure to combat terrorists who are becoming more brazen after each attack. Questions are now being raised about the abject failure of the state to protect its citizens, and comparisons are being drawn with the success of the US in preventing any terror attack on its homeland post-9/11. The Israeli tenacity and its modes of retribution, high-handed though they may be at times, are also looked at with envy.

Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Varanasi—the list of Indian cities getting hit by terrorists is increasing. All of the attacks have been the handiwork of Islamic terrorists, who detest everything a secular and democratic polity of India espouses.

Despite this, the U.P.A government has failed to formulate a singular, dedicated policy to counter the monster of terrorism. The seeds of the absence of any cohesive counterterrorism strategy lie in the appeasement policy being followed by the Congress party, which has ruled India for the major period post-Independence in 1947. The Congress, which is also the dominant party in the present ruling U.P.A coalition, is considered to be soft on Islamic terrorism in an effort to appease Muslims, whom it considers its captive vote bank. Resultantly, the radical and extremist Muslim voices have been encouraged to take centre stage, with the moderate Muslim voices being compelled to recede into the background.

A case in point as to how the radical Muslim elements have been permitted to subjugate the moderate and modernizing Muslim voices in the country is the removal of Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, the vice chancellor of the theological Muslim University (the Darul Uloom Deoband) by radicals in the University’s governing council. Vastanvi was ostensibly removed from his post for praising the developmental works of Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the state of Gujarat who is a reviled figure among radicals because of his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.  But it is perhaps the worst kept secret in the country that Vastanvi, who holds an MBA degree, was removed because of his efforts to modernize the Darul Uloom; the University’s respectability among Indian Muslims is misused by fundamentalists to promote their orthodox theological issues.

That the Muslims have been utilized only as a vote bank is evident through the report of a government-appointed committee under the chairmanship of Rajinder Sachar, a retired judge. The report has brought on record the backwardness among Indian Muslims, who account for around 14% of the Indian population. The report indicates that in premier colleges only one out of 25 undergraduate students and one out of 50 post-graduate students is a Muslim. The drop-out rate among Muslims is the highest. The representation of Muslims in bureaucracy has been found to be abysmally low. Therefore, it is quite evident that most Muslims have been allowed to wallow in ignorance and illiteracy, to be remembered only during elections.

The Congress also perhaps refuses to accept the fact that some of these drop-outs end up wearing suicide vests or take up the assault rifles, under the patronage of the fundamentalist maulanas. The maulanas in turn are allowed to prosper because it is believed that they have a hold over the common Muslim masses that are supposed to cast their votes en masse. The established policy therefore appears to dangle the carrot of saving terrorists like Guru and thereby projecting oneself as the savior of the Muslims. The damage done to the country and Muslims themselves by such perverted policies is incalculable.

The aspect of subversion of due process of law is only a minor detail in the larger picture of games being played out by politicians on the chessboard where Muslims are treated as mere pawns.

The signals emanating out of the power centers in New Delhi suggest that the President might not dispose of the clemency petition on Guru any time soon. The link is being drawn to the upcoming assembly elections due in 2012 in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims constitute a large proportion of population. The political career of Rahul Gandhi, the son of Sonia Gandhi (the U.P.A chairman and the de facto ruler of the country), is dependent on the Uttar Pradesh elections. A good showing in the U.P elections sends the largest number of Parliament members because it is the most populous state. A win will boost Rahul Gandhi’s image, which has been sagging due to corruption scandals in the U.P.A government, and is bound to catapult him as the leading candidate to become the Prime Minister if the U.P.A gets another mandate in the Parliamentary elections in 2014. On the other hand, poor or even average results have the potential to lead to a gradual fragmentation of the U.P.A coalition, with political parties—notorious of being unfaithful partners—deserting a sinking coalition.

The Congress therefore perceives the utility of the totem of Guru as a guide across the politically turbulent waters. The implementation of law and the fight against terror can therefore wait. The reason as to why India has been labeled as a soft state is therefore not far to see.

Senior officials in the Home Ministry, speaking anonymously, corroborate the perception that delaying the execution of a legally pronounced judgment is leading to a rapid demoralization of the security and intelligence agencies in the vanguard of the Indian war against terror. These agencies perceive that their efforts are being compromised or even negated by the government due to political expediency. The threat perception of an attempt to create a hostage situation in order to bargain for the release of Guru is also not ruled out. The fears have been confirmed by the September 7, 2011 bomb blasts at the Delhi High Court that claimed 19 lives. The terrorist organization responsible for the blasts warned of more such attacks if Guru was not released.

For western observers, the utilization of terror convicts for garnering votes might appear surreal, but in a country where Osama look-a-likes have been paraded to campaign in the Muslim-dominated areas in the past, the U.P.A and Congress in particular are not willing to take any chances. Therefore, while no voice is raised in support of moderates like Vastanvi, the “Save Afzal” campaign has numerous takers in the ruling elite.

The discontent against the government’s wavering tactics is steadily rising however. The government might feel secure thinking that the hanging issue may not be as emotive as the disgust against corruption and so people might not take to the streets as they did in their support to the social activist Anna Hazare, but the silent anger, especially among the middle class, is palpable. The apprehension that Ajmal Aamir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai 26/11 carnage, might also one day walk away free on similar considerations arising out of the vote bank politics is leading to a revulsion for the political classes, whose star is already at a low ebb. This revulsion expressed itself in an SMS which did its round after the US forces took out Osama. The SMS read, “Nobody is safe in Pakistan, not even Osama. Everybody is safe in India, even Kasab.”

The albatross of Afzal Guru, around the Prime Minister’s neck, tells a similar tale.

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