Monday, June 27, 2016

Why Is The CRPF So Slack: Who Is Responsible?



Why Is The CRPF So Slack: Who Is Responsible?

Those who understand do not have the power to decide, and those who decide don’t understand- mid-ranking career CRPF officer quoted in Force Magazine, May 2010

When the nation sees video-feed on News TV channels, of a stationary grey bus, on a flat bit of road in Pampore (J&K), leading to a bend, and a little bridge; hears the sound of prolonged machine-gun fire on the audio, it is natural for its consternation to rise. Why was the CRPF being shot up like ‘sitting ducks’ yet again?

The CRPF bus, without armour, or bullet-proofing, but with 28 CRPF personnel aboard, was attacked by just two LeT shooters with AK-47s, perpetrating the massacre. Ironically, nobody aboard the bus had weapons, even though the CRPF personnel were returning to base after a bout of shooting practice!

The terrorists meanwhile, had enough time to change magazines three times, and shoot at everyone aboard, leaving 8 dead, and the rest injured to varying degrees.

Security forces in escort vehicles finally arrived, and killed the two shooters standing alongside the bus, even as another two drove off in the car they had arrived in. These latter are still at large, despite a high alert manhunt ordered.

Questions are now being raised on the gaps in security of a national highway in a sensitive area, where the incident took place.

Meanwhile, another video being broadcast, shows heavily armed terrorists, 40 in number, crossing over in a thickly wooded border area of Kashmir in bright sunlight, passing with a nod and a smile at the camera. This footage has been recovered by the Indian security forces, from the belonging of another Pakistani terrorist, killed elsewhere.

The LeT terrorists in the Pampore attack, it is speculated, are part of the self-same 40  crossovers.  But, despite knowing this, the CRPF bus went absolutely unprotected!

Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar, remarking on Sunday’s massacre from Bhubaneswar, said this Pampore attack was : ‘an act of frustration’, since 25 terrorists have been killed by Indian security forces in the last month alone. He blithely blamed this latest debacle on the personnel not following ‘standard operating procedure’, but without once wondering at the state of discipline in the CRPF.

Current Home Minister Rajnath Singh, under whose charge the CRPF comes, also does not miss an opportunity to make thunderous declarations every time its personnel are murdered. But, on the ground, there are no visible changes to prevent future attrition and enhance preparedness.

It is no wonder therefore, that a grinning Pakistani Ambassador to India, Abdul Basit, blithely carried on with his Iftar Party as the news of the Pampore massacre came in.
Our media too made more of Basit’s boorishness and undiplomatic insolence than the shocking ineptitude of the CRPF leadership. In the topsy-turvy world we live in, they even reported protests at J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s condemnation of the attack as ‘unislamic’, especially during the holy month of  Ramzan.

Indeed the larger question, of the unprofessionalism in the CRPF, is not being addressed by anyone in the political establishment as yet.

Nothing appears therefore to have changed, at a policy and implementation level, since 80 CRPF personnel were ambushed in Dantewada, 76 of them killed outright, way back in May 2010.

After a period of ritualistic mea culpa, replete with solemn obsequies, every time there is a fresh massacre, the establishment goes back to its horrifying inertia.
The Indian government at centre and state levels, and the leadership in the CRPF/BSF, has certainly not come any closer to preventing the regular slaughter of our para-military forces.

In fact, all along the line, the attrition rate in both these organisations has been significantly higher than the regular Army. Their funding, equipping, training, morale, discipline, and living standards, leaves much to be desired. The CRPF has witnessed a rush for the exits, via its VRS programmes, at three times the rate of the Indian Army.
The operational leadership of the CRPF too, is not provided by its own career officers, but by senior policemen, deputed for a tour of duty by the IPS.

Whether such essentially administrative cadre policemen understand the specialised needs of countering highly armed and trained guerrilla warfare, is the moot question. Does the IPS have the training and experience to comprehend and anticipate what is at stake in high risk areas such as the Maoist infested jungles of central India, the tribal insurgent areas in the mountainous North East, or the perennially Islamic terrorist ridden vale of Kashmir?

Do the bureaucrats in the Home Ministry and the political leadership that sits atop this unwieldy and ad hoc organisation, realise the need for deep structural changes? 
This jugaad style, and perpetual unreadiness, is a problem that has plagued the CRPF throughout the earlier UPA administration too, but without finding any succour.

Will the Modi administration, that professes a deep concern about the well-being of our armed forces, do something to urgently improve matters now?

For: The Quint
June 27th, 2016
(824 words)
Gautam Mukherjee


Monday, June 20, 2016

Change Comes To India's Financial Management



Change Comes To India’s Financial Management

The announced departure of Dr. Raghuram Rajan, in about 75 days, as governor of the RBI, has not disturbed the bourses, or the value of the rupee, as was feared in some quarters.

But, having got the impact of  Rajan’s departure wrong, these naysayers have retreated to predicting ‘medium term’ consequences, so as to  save face from their dire predictions not coming to pass immediately.  

Rajan’s sudden announcement during the weekend past, that he would not seek a second term as governor, did put the spotlight on his legacy in a manner slightly different, from the way he pitched it himself. 

It has, in fact, raised some uncomfortable questions. Rajan, who has been in the finance ministry, in senior advisory capacities, since 2007, before commencing his three-year stint as governor of the central bank, apparently made no suggestions to prevent the build-up of the humungous bad debts  during the UPA government. At least nothing that is out in the public domain.

But, if there is an abiding feature of his tenure as governor of the RBI, it is his highlighting of bad debt, discovering the extent of the NPA in PSU bank books, and the promotion of moves to ‘clean it up’, meaning write-offs, or spin-offs to ‘bad banks’, set up for the purpose.

These moves would, obviously, get various UPA era borrowers off the hook, scott-free, while the public exchequer would absorb lakhs of crores of rupees in losses! For a crusading and highly vocal fiscal conservative like Dr. Rajan, this appears to be a curious caper. But, no matter, the attention has now shifted to speculation on his probable successor.

The market, opening this week, is not only unperturbed by Rajan’s departure, it is buoyant , with the fears of Brexit vote on the 23rd receding, as I write this; and the prospect of  a good monsoon upon us, after a couple of consecutive years of drought.
But since a concern or two, referred to as the ‘wall of worry’ in bull  markets, always lurks in the shadows, the next speculation is, will the US raise interest rates in July?
Perhaps it will, though the US Federal Reserve is being very cautious, but India can reliably look forward to interest rate cuts, and other spurs to growth, once the new central bank governor gets settled in.

The good monsoon should see an economic revival in rural India, and an easing of food inflation, that has, at present begun to creep up.

The monsoon parliamentary session should also see the passage of the much delayed GST Bill, on which a near consensus has emerged. Though the Congress and AIADMK are not yet on board, they might come around too by the time parliament is convened.

All this has come not a moment too soon, because if the BJP voter feels let down by this government, it is in the one area of economic benefit, that, like Godot, has simply failed to appear. Where is the more money, more jobs, more options, an air of can-do optimism?

The GDP has risen, but without touching the lives of people, echoing the Vajpayee era’s disastrous slogan of ‘India Shining’. The NDA thought it was enough that the economy was growing at 9% then, without however making any tangible difference to anybody.

It so enthused the BJP internally, that elections were actually preponed, resulting in the government being thrown out in 2004. It is as if this government, in its multiple preoccupations, and many commendable initiatives, is repeating the mistakes of the first, and only, NDA government before this one.

Still, it is not too late to fix this. The prime minister enjoys enormous respect and goodwill, the public has been patient, and the economy has already been brought back from the brink. Nevertheless, something drastic has to be done immediately to produce visible results for ordinary people who elected Modi with high hopes.

The GDP will, at the present pace, touch 8% soon, notwithstanding some scepticism on how it is calculated. It has grown, principally based on the government’s infrastructure spending, and on a much smaller oil import bill.  The FDI inflow too is, in absolute terms, the highest ever in the history of independent India.  As are the healthy foreign exchange reserves, again at all-time highs, at around $ 370 billion, edging towards $400 billion. We will not have any problems retiring $ 25 billion worth of foreign currency bonds in December 2016.

But, for the rest, industry and business, jobs and promotions, are all in the doldrums. Fresh investment in private, or for that matter, in the public sector, for expansion, is still minimal, to non-existent.

The rupee is reasonably stable, albeit with a weakening bias against the US dollar, but our exports statistics are depressed nevertheless, as buyer markets in  the EU and America are going through a recession, or showing very weak growth.

The presidential elections in the US will throw up a winner by November and quell quite a bit of the global uncertainty too.

Domestically, the performance of the finance ministry, its smugness and disconnect with the public, leaves a lot to be desired. It has not managed to revive business, industry or agriculture, for that matter. It has burdened the salaried middle class with more lazy taxes. Its revenue collections are inadequate. The country’s fiscal deficit has been controlled, but mainly because there is very little happening.

Is there a case for urgent change at the finance ministry too? And is it finally time to resolve the problem of a narrow direct tax base for individuals that preys on less than 1% of the population?

The problem of so-called black money, a uniquely Indian concept, alongside capital flight, hawala transactions, secret money in hard currencies, stashed in bank accounts abroad, the steady acquisition of foreign property, even overseas business acquisitions, and the trend towards becoming NRIs to avoid Indian taxation, can all be solved.

Rajya Sabha MP and Harvard trained economist ,Subramanian Swamy, recently renewed his periodic call to abolish income tax; substituting it, with a near universal expenditure/bank transaction tax instead.

If this is done, it will remove the distinction between ‘white money’ and the tax-evaded ‘black money’ growing ever larger, and distorting the workings of the Indian economy. Punitive measures being enforced are unlikely to work when even elections are fought and won with black money.

Rajan’s exit from RBI, removed the brakes that were being applied to monetary policy and bank regulation. So what about energising the finance ministry, in a manner designed to promote rapid growth and prosperity for all?

For: The Pioneer
(1,099 words)
June 20th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

INDIA Can Get Into NSG, No Problem,BUT By Endorsing PAKISTAN's Bid!



INDIA Can Get Into NSG, No Problem, BUT By Endorsing PAKISTAN’s  Bid!

Diplomatic orthodoxies are made to be broken when circumstances change. Today, India is being let in, through one portal after another, into the restricted world of sensitive and high technology trades.

Excluded before, forced to reinvent the wheel, badly, as a security and proliferation risk, a Soviet satellite, never mind our pretensions of being non-aligned.

Our military machine, to date, is Soviet era, obsolete, kept going by honourable and skilled soldiers, with some new buy-ins from successor Russia. But since it’s all at negotiated market rates now, we have been looking elsewhere too.
India now buys armaments and systems from Israel, the US, France, Britain, Italy, and new sources, like Sweden, Germany and Japan.

It’s not that Russia does not make state-of-the-art; its new defensive shield surface-to-air rapid deployable mobile missile system, the S-500 Prometey ( Prometheus), is considered to be the best in the world, and many, including India, have placed orders.

But there is a big change in our policy stance today. We keep our right to sovereign choice. We judge things from an India first position. We collaborate with, or buy, from whomsoever we like. Nobody minds that. Today, we take a far more pragmatic view of things; and others, in a position to help us, find that refreshing.

India’s recent admittance to the 34 member Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a year after we applied, is a proud and enabling thing.
It will help us improve the quality of future missiles produced, and allow us to import Predator drones from the US, good for cross- border forays.
Prior to being let into the MTCR, India has been adhering to the MTCR guide lines anyway. It has also signed ‘The Hague Code of Conduct’, against ballistic missile proliferation.

The acceptance of India into the MTCR, is a precursor to being let in to a number of other important and exclusive high-technology and security sensitive groupings.

We are presently knocking on the door of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG). America, which is selling us six Westinghouse nuclear power plants, for a start, now that the accident liability issues have been resolved, is our champion once again. The plenary session in Seoul, is on the 24th of June 2016.

It might just decide to admit India. America wants access to our huge defence and high technology market, and seeks to build us up as a responsible counter-weight to China.

To get China’s agreement to our entry, America may make a covert promise to let Pakistan in as well.

America has various internal legal obstructions in how it can ramp up military cooperation and sensitive equipment transfers with/to India, indeed to any country which is not part of the NSG.

There has already been a preliminary meeting of the 48 member group,  on June 9th  in Vienna, when India’s entry was discussed, with most of the group in favour of letting us in.

However, NSG membership can only be obtained with unanimity. And China has objected, on points of order, involving the test ban treaty and the nuclear proliferation treaty, neither of which have been signed, either by India or Pakistan.

Neither can afford to do so, at this stage, as their military nuclear weapons programmes would be impacted.

China is also concerned that if India gets into the NSG first, it may well block Pakistan’s entry. China would ideally like the entry of one, to be contingent on the other.

For nuclear weaponised states, however small or big their stockpile- and however sophisticated; it is definitely a zero-sum game.

Non-nuclear weapons’ states too, tend to be allied to one big brother or the other; as in Assad’s Syria and Putin’s Russia, for example.

If India gets in, and not Pakistan,  the balance of power in South Asia will be disturbed. In any case, there is no keeping Pakistan out of attaining parity with India. Consider, that Pakistan has obtained just as many nuclear power plants from China, as India is buying from NSG sources, following its nuclear power deal in 2008, after getting a waiver from this self-same NSG.

This is in contravention of NSG rules, but China has flouted them with impunity.

India, meanwhile, has come all the way from Soviet favouring non-alignment,  even as Pakistan sat  in America’s  lap, to declaring that our relationship with America is  indispensable , just days ago. America too, now sees India as a significant ally.

But to quell Chinese concerns, why shouldn’t India call for Pakistan’s application and entry into the NSG as well?  After all, it’s a foregone conclusion.

Today, if India welcomes the idea of Pakistan joining the NSG,  irrespective of whether the 48 member NSG can bring itself to ignore Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism, and its proliferation record; then we will effectively, remove objections to our own bid.

And if the 48 member NSG rejects Pakistan’s bid, it won’t be India’s fault, or China’s, for that matter.

Meanwhile, Modi has just asked Russia for support, and will meet both Putin, and Xi Jinping, separately, on the margins of other conferences, before the NSG meets at Seoul on the 24th of June.


For:  The Quint
(853 words)
June 14th, 2016
Gautam Mukherjee


Why Don't WE Endorse Pakistan For The NSG Too?


Why Don’t WE Endorse Pakistan For The NSG Too?

Diplomatic orthodoxies get built up over time, but they are also forced to change with circumstantial reassessments, sometimes quite dramatically.
Today, India stands on the threshold of momentous inclusions, and long desired access, to large parts of the denied and restricted world of high technology trades.

Why were we excluded before? Because India blatantly aligned with the Soviets and their Cold War world-view, while pontificating about so called non-alignment, and lecturing the West on much else, from our imaginary high moral pulpit.

Our military machine to date, is largely Soviet era, partially obsolete, with some continuity, perforce, due to familiarity, spare parts etc. from successor Russia.
But in this modern era, we have to buy from it, at negotiated market rates; no more deferred payments, grants, and rupee trades, prompting us to look around.

We now buy armaments and systems from Israel, the US, France, Britain, Italy, and the list is growing to include new sources, like Sweden, Germany and Japan.

It’s not that Russia does not make state-of-the-art armaments; and we are both buying them, and attempting to collaborate with it, and others, in ‘Make in India’ defence projects, just beginning to take off.

Russia’s new defensive shield surface-to-air rapid deployable mobile missile system, the S-500 Prometey ( Prometheus), for example, is considered to be the best in the world, and many, including India have placed orders.

But overall, there is a big difference in our policy stance today. In Modi’s India, we take a less partisan position, and are nobody’s satellite, not even America’s.
We don’t use a pompous and hectoring tone with the world. We judge things from an India first position, and buy from whomsoever we like. Nobody minds that.

But we do not lecture the world from the perspective of a grandstanding internationalism any more.

That sort of thing, from the land of Mahatma Gandhi, was designed to champion the whole of the third world, many recently emerged from colonial rule, and turn our prime ministers into statesmen.

But many, on whose behalf we spoke, without explicit permission, were embarrassed, more often than not, by the unwanted attention, and sometimes, actively disagreed with us.

The United Nations general assembly of today, let alone the Security Council, really has no use for that foreign policy of old India. No use for the vanity of Jawaharlal Nehru, his alter-ego Krishna Menon, and the supremely insecure Indira Gandhi, bringing us up right to the mid-eighties. And it is doubtful that if it ever did.

Today, we take a far more pragmatic view of things, and others, in a position to help us, find that refreshing.

India’s recent admittance to the 34 member Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a year after we applied, is a proud and enabling thing.
It will help us improve the quality of future missiles produced, and allow us to import Predator drones from the US, used most effectively in the border areas of Pakistan-Afghanistan, against the Taliban.

Prior to joining this club, India has been unilaterally adhering to the MTCR guide lines anyway, and has also signed ‘The Hague Code of Conduct’, against ballistic missile proliferation.

The acceptance of India into the MTCR is a precursor to being let in to a number of other important and exclusive high-technology and security sensitive groupings, including, the Australia Group, the Nuclear Suppliers Group we are hearing so much about, and the Wassenaar Arrangement. Again, even the MTCR entry, would not have been possible, without strong US backing.

We are presently knocking on the door of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG). America, which is selling us six Westinghouse nuclear power plants, for a start, now that the accident liability issues have been resolved, is our champion once again. The plenary session in Seoul, is on the 24th of June 2016.

It might just decide to admit India. If it does so, it will, once again be mainly due to America, looking for a responsible counter-weight to China and getting China to agree to it! One of the persuaders may be a covert promise that Pakistan will also be admitted, sooner rather than later.

America has various domestic legal obstructions in how it can ramp up military cooperation and sensitive equipment transfers with/to India, indeed any country which is not part of the NSG, and needs us to be a fully paid up member of the NSG, to remove those constraints.

There has already been a preliminary meeting of the 48 member group,  on June 9th  in Vienna, when India’s entry, having applied in May 2016, was discussed, with most of the group in favour of letting us in.

However, NSG membership can only be obtained with unanimity. And China has objected, on points of order, involving the test ban treaty and the nuclear proliferation treaty, neither of which have been signed, either by India or Pakistan.

Neither can afford to do so, at this stage, as their military nuclear weapons programmes would be impacted.

China is also concerned that if India gets into the NSG first, it may well block Pakistan’s entry. China would ideally like the entry of one to be contingent on the other.

Ironically, and further to the permanent UNSC seat for India Nehru turned down in the fifties, and offered it to the Chinese instead; in 1963, President Kennedy offered to help India detonate a nuclear device, over- ground in the Rajasthan desert, before the Chinese, who were getting ready to do so.

JFK wanted to help India, on the strength of our being a democracy, and admit us to the nuclear club before Communist China. But Nehru, in his wisdom, said no, once again. 

The NSG of today, coincidentally, was formed in 1974, after India unilaterally tested its first nuclear device underground.

It now has 48 members, all of them suppliers of some of the various highly specialised parts necessary; without all being nuclear powers.

For nuclear weaponised states, however small or big their stockpile- and however sophisticated; it is definitely a zero-sum game.

Non-nuclear weapons’ states too, tend to be allied to one big brother or the other; as in Assad’s Syria and Putin’s Russia, for example.

This, much to the chagrin of the US and the NATO powers. The US wants Bush-like ‘regime change’ in Syria, and the Assad dynasty out. ISIS, in the meantime, is in many parts. There’s the ISIS that leans towards the Americans and NATO, and is trying to overthrow Assad, while being pulverised by Russia; and ISIS, that is fighting this other ISIS, and is on Assad’s side, just like Vladimir Putin.

And while Israel is both militarised, feisty, bristling with nuclear/ other state-of-the-art weapons, it has a force multiplier via a near infinite level military back up and commitment, from  America.

In this by no means exhaustive scenario of military strength and alliances, consider the efficacy of India joining the NSG, by virtue of American ‘persuasion’ to turn the nay-sayers - China, Turkey, New Zealand, Austria, but without any concession regarding Pakistan’s entry. China says, if India gets in, and not Pakistan, the balance of nuclear and other high-tech weaponry/technology power in South Asia will be disturbed. And it has a serious point.

In any case, there is no keeping Pakistan out of attaining parity with India, via China. Consider, that in the years after India  signed the nuclear power deal with the US  in 2008, after getting a waiver from this self-same NSG; Pakistan has 0btained, in principle, just as many nuclear power plants, from China. And this, in contravention of NSG rules to boot, flouting them with impunity.

India, meanwhile, has come a long way, from a prickly non-alignment, leading towards the USSR, while Pakistan sat basking in America’s favour for the duration. From there, to the point where the prime minister called our relationship with America indispensable, just days ago, standing on US soil. America, in turn, appears to be endorsing India as a newly significant ally.
But to quell Chinese concerns, why shouldn’t India call for Pakistan’s application and entry into the NSG as well?

Sure, our Pakistan policy has been full of flip-flops, both sides making and reneging on commitments, and very low on mutual trust. But through   it all, every time, the spoiler has tended to be the Pakistan military, its ISI intelligence network, and its non-state terrorist outfits.

Today, if India welcomes the idea of Pakistan joining the NSG,  irrespective of whether the 48 member NSG can bring itself to ignore Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism, on top of  its proliferation record; then we will effectively, remove objections to our own bid.

And if the 48 member NSG rejects Pakistan’s bid, it won’t be India’s fault, or China’s.

Meanwhile, Modi has just spoken to Russia for support, and will meet both Putin, and Xi Jinping, separately, on the margins of other conferences, before the NSG meets at Seoul on the 24th of June.

India, it has just been announced, is also likely to be admitted as a full member next year to the Shanghai  Cooperation Organisation (SCO); where it is presently an observer.

Pakistan, likewise, is going to be made a full member too. The SCO currently is a six member political, economic and military alliance, led by China and Russia.

India is already allied with China, Russia, South Africa and Brazil in BRICS, and runs the newly formed BRICS Bank with  them all, ,locating it in China.
America, meanwhile, the most powerful country in the world, is coming to terms with the limits of that immense power. It has realised that its sanctions and prescriptions, its military alliances, even its own overwhelming conventional military might, can be flouted.

And so, it has re-engaged with Iran, notwithstanding the latter’s stubborn refusal to drop its nuclear ambitions, ostensibly to generate  clean electricity.
But of course, a nuclear power plant is co-terminous, by its very nature, with the ability to produce weapons grade material.

Still America has settled, after long negotiations, and in the face of a more obdurate line urged on it by all-weather ally Israel, and fearful Sunni ruled Saudi Arabia, for a reasonable monitoring and a transparency regime instead.
Sanctions are lifted. Iran has come back to play its part in the world unrestricted. India, on its part, has wasted no time in reengaging with Iran in the Chabahar port project, and the continued purchase of its oil, dating back to the thick of the sanctioned period, flouting them quietly, also. 

President Obama, has likewise opened   the door to Cuba, even as the ancient but doughty Fidel Castro spewed anti-America rhetoric, this while Obama was meeting with his younger brother Raoul in Havana.

The US embassy in Cuba is open. Americans can visit and buy Cuban cigars legally. Cubans can come to America. The old sanctions and embargoes, dating back to the fifties, when President Batista was deposed, by the self-same Fidel, are being dismantled.

But for India, the most important of similar shifts in policy will necessarily have to come with regard to neighbouring Pakistan and China.

This was realised early by this government. It lost no time in reaching out to both, albeit with mixed, some would say, minimal results.

But, the possibility of ramping up this fresh reengagement with some bold and dynamic initiatives, are much greater.

India’s relationship with both China and Pakistan is highly self-conscious, because the popular perception is, neither can be trusted. Nevertheless, the pace of engagement and confidence-building measures has, in fact, picked up.
So has trade, in the many billions in China’s favour, but now also, a 100 Chinese companies are already working in India, albeit quietly. India, in order to mollify China to drop its objections to India’s NSG membership, has also lifted further restrictions on various types of visas to Chinese nationals, and removed other irritants.

Inward FDI from China too is increasing by the day. It can be argued that China is following separate tracks for its engagement with India and Pakistan, and is not hyphenating the two, after all.

This despite differences over border and land issues, Chinese claims  on territory, in Arunachal Pradesh, borderland Uttarakhand, in Leh-Ladakh. And the blatant backing given to Pakistan, wrong or right, with regard to India.
 These issues are not sorted, though mechanisms for an ongoing dialogue have been set up, and are working quite well. But yes, there was a new incursion in the backdrop of  India’s own vigorous NSG lobbying.

 The intrusion, this time, was in Arunachal Pradesh, claimed in totality by China. There were 250 Chinese soldiers that intruded into Indian territory, albeit briefly. This, after almost a year, without any such incident.

Meanwhile, with regard to Pakistan, the two present prime ministers have developed a degree of rapport. But the Pakistani military/intelligence apparatus, not to mention its swarms of ‘non-state’ detractors, are suspicious, and hostile to any truck with India.

That is why Pathankot happened just days after Modi’s impromptu visit to Lahore, and effectively derailed the bilateral talks.

But, looking deeper, with all three countries being nuclear weaponised states, there is a strategic, if not tactical parity, that is implicitly recognised by the troika.

Of course, problems could arise, from a deliberate refusal to understand,  and playing at brinkmanship instead. But that is where the  balance of power, provided by allies comes in.

Pakistan leans on China, like it once leaned on America, and still does, a little; and now India leans on both America and Russia and a host of other military partners.

It has become, in terms of the strategic and tactical plot, a little like a Woody Allen film.

A key, if broader dynamic, in describing all of this, in the global context, are the compulsions imposed by quite a clutch of declared, and undeclared, nuclear weaponised states.

Together, they number well into the double digits, despite the apex UNSC still numbering five. Great Britain, France, America, China, and Russia, have been in place from soon after WWII.

There is desultory lobbying from India to be included. Of course, Pakistan wants in too, even though it is called a rogue state, a failed state, terrorist central, etc. Its got China backing it to the hilt.

The losers of WWII- Germany and Japan, both non-nuclear states, indeed scarcely militarised even now, want in. This, to reflect their economic stature and importance.

And finally, there are the remaining overt or covert nuclear-weaponised states such as Israel and South Africa.  There are, in fact, enough contenders to bring it up to as many as 15, from the cosy, all-powerful, Security Council of five.
At present this expansion plan is hanging fire too. There is a clamour that the 15 would more properly reflect the present day balance of power.

But, are the big five listening? It is true though, that when, and if, the UNSC is expanded, it will need to let in maybe 10 new members, simultaneously; Pakistan and India amongst them.

For: SirfNews
(2, 490 words)
June 14th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Friday, June 10, 2016

Can India Move Fast Enough To Dovetail State & General Elections By 2019?


Can India Move Fast Enough To Dovetail State & General Elections By 2019?

The big plus in favour of holding simultaneous elections to the states and parliament, maybe even to the panchayats and urban local bodies in due course, is, potentially, enormous savings.

This extends to time, the campaigning energy of the major leads, and money.
But the desperately needed, system-saving gain, will be the slashing of expense.
The money part, in particular, not of the government supervisory and security mechanisms, but of the electioneering process itself, has of late, run away with itself.

Electioneering costs, as distinct and contrasted with the also considerable administrative and logistical expenses incurred by the government via the Election Commission (EC), and the para-military forces that provide official security etc., has now reached stratospheric levels.

And it partially leads to subsequent corruption amongst some of the elected. Consider why the Maharashtra Revenue Minister Khadse had to go, just days ago.

The RBI governor, Raghuram Rajan, recently pointed out that Rs. 60,000 crores was circulating in cash, during, and before, just four state elections and that of a union territory.

It is an open secret that the cost of so called ‘free and fair’ elections in the Indian democratic system, and even in the US, are spinning out of control. And in India, quite a lot of it, is down to bribery.

To wit, another blatant scandal of ‘horse trading’ of between Rs. 5-10 crores, per vote, when about 1o to 12 were needed, in indirect elections (via MLAs), to the Rajya Sabha, in Karnataka. This, plus promises of Rs. 100 crores of ‘development funds’ to be given to those pliant independent MLA’s,  ostensibly for their constituencies, if they voted now for the desired Congress/JD(S) candidates. All this has emerged on camera in a recent media sting operation.
And this, after the EC had countermanded two assembly elections, mired in bribery, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu too.

Note, all this is in addition to actual campaigning costs, which were mentioned in the same sting, at around Rs. 25 crores, for a single MLA to win his seat to the assembly in Karnataka.

No doubt therefore, that some of the consensus on demand for change, is coming from this very concern over unsustainable expenses.

Another, more legitimate reason for high costs, is due to the fact that the heads of most regional parties, and governments, in the states, as well as at the centre, tend to be the chief campaigners.

They work alongside the local politicians, endorsing their candidature, building their stature with the voters, and enthusing the party cadre.

The top leadership however, need to be near omnipresent- dashing about by aircraft and helicopter these days, and less by relatively slow surface transport.
They even appear, though it is mostly Modi so far, in front of their audiences at multiple locations, via high-tech and yes, very costly, hologram.

All this, irrespective of the very modest, restricted, totally outdated and anachronistic amounts a candidate and his backers are allowed to ‘officially’ spend.

It is expected, as a consequence of conducting elections to state and centre simultaneously, that a window of opportunity will also open up towards an uninterrupted cycle of governance thereafter.

It would prevent the stops and starts in policy and administrative actions, prevent perpetual   campaign, rather than administrative mode, and periodic imposition of the ‘model code of conduct’. This latter entails severe restrictions on anything that can be construed as ‘inducements’.

The big bogey against the adoption of simultaneous elections at this juncture however, is the very fact that Narendra Modi seems so keen on it. The prime minister may see it as a major administrative reform that could streamline the election process and improve governance thereafter. But, to his rivals, this is the man who generated his own wave of Tsunami proportions in 2014, earning himself an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha for the first time in 30 years.
 And in 2019, he is expected to do his best to repeat the feat. And therefore, any measure that may help him do so, must be resisted.

Those opposed therefore, don’t want to listen to any of the nice logic- Congress, the Left, TMC, and sadly, Sharad Pawar’s NCP, have declared their opposition to the move already.

But, at the same time, there are several regional parties who are for the proposition: there’s AIADMK and DMK both; Asom Gana Parishad, SAD with some codicils about what would happen if there were ‘hung assemblies’ returned, The Indian Union Muslim League, and, significantly, the present Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi.

Even the Congress Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee  E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, that recommended the measure in December 2015, is in favour, even if his party is opposed.

Natchiappan thinks, with regard to implementation, at a minimum, all the state assembly elections that come due in any given year, can be bunched together. Others can be taken up at the mid-term of the central government’s tenure, and others still, left over, can be scheduled at the same time as the general elections.

The committee under Natchiappan’s stewardship, has justified the simultaneous conduct of polls, mainly for great cost savings. It has suggested the adjustment of state elections for those entities where the assembly term ends six months or so before, as well as those that end six months or so after, to coincide with the dates set for general elections.

In April 2016, at a conference with the chief ministers and chief justices, the prime minister supported the idea for the first time, saying: ‘Things get stalled and a lot of time is spent on elections’.

Next, the Election Commission endorsed the recommendations. The matter had been referred to it by the Law Ministry. In May 2016, the EC came back to the Law Ministry, broadly agreeing with the parliamentary standing committee, while making some observations of its own.

It will cost some Rs. 9, 300 crores in extra Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines , said the EC, and these gadgets will have to be replaced after 15 years.

It will probably take 3,500 companies of paramilitary forces, instead of the 800 companies required, when elections are held separately.
It will also, very importantly, need a constitutional amendment to either curtail or extend the term of some state assemblies to accommodate a common poll schedule.

A committee has been set up by the Law Ministry, immediately on receipt of the EC nod, already 45 days or so ago, and it is expected to give its recommendations within a 90 day deadline.

All of it sounds good to the BJP. Besides it also had this reform written into its Election Manifesto of 2014.

General and state elections were actually being held together, till  1967. Then, there were premature dissolutions of state assemblies in 1968, and 1969. The Lok Sabha itself was dissolved early in 1970, with general elections held in 1971. This interrupted the cycle, and there have been separate elections to the state assemblies and parliament, ever since.

The Panchayats and urban local bodies, though they have only been mentioned in passing right now, have only grown in importance over the years, and have to enter the equation soon.

Not everyone is happy with the rush, even though a preliminary all-party dinner during the recently concluded Budget Session had BJD’s Bhartruhari Mahtab suggesting the matter should be discussed by all parties.
The government, on its part, hopes to put this reform in motion, including all-party consensus and constitutional amendments, well before the 2019 elections.

The nay-sayers however, are raising doubts, saying the move may be politically motivated, as people tend to vote en masse for the same party, if state and parliamentary elections are combined.

Indira Jaisingh, former Additional Solicitor General, says there would be confusion amongst under-educated voters, who wouldn’t know if they were voting for their state or parliament. Former Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, is against the proposition too; as is Senior Advocate Kamini Jaiswal- all for broadly similar reasons.

Notwithstanding all of this, the broad tide is definitely moving towards a revival of simultaneous elections. And enough support to see it through, already exists amongst the constituents of parliament today.


For: Swarajyamag
(1,363 words)
June 10th, 2016
Gautam Mukherjee