India: Staking Out A New Frontier

India: Staking Out A New Frontier

It is a well known truism that there are few rich pickings in a place frequented by many. To strike the big gong, it is necessary for a country with ambition to sometimes reboot its strategic thinking and strike out in a direction it has never gone before. India might have had the wherewithal to wrest PoK back, even as it was stolen from under its nose in 1948, but we will never know for sure. Was a newly departed Britain in favour of our doing so? 

But now, if not then, a much stronger India has just executed a new interpretation of an erstwhile imperial device called a “Forward Policy”. This Indian version, applied not primarily to a hostile neighbour per se, but to its state sponsored terrorists, could change both the power architecture and economic prospects of Pakistan. This is a possibility with profound and far reaching consequences.

Can the Pakistan Army apparatus including the formidable ISI, maintain its stranglehold on the benighted nation without its raison d etre? If it loses its preeminent power, will the elected civilian authorities be able to lead Pakistan into a future of peace, international cooperation and plenty?

India’s new frontier is an executed doctrine of preemptive and post atrocity punitive strikes against institutionalized terrorists. Pakistan has been conducting a low- cost, low- intensity war against India for decades, ever since it dreamed up the strategy at the Quetta Military Staff College in the seventies.

But now, with punitive strikes into PoK and Pakistan itself, India has cut the very Gordian knot that its “strategic restraint” and any amount of ameliorative diplomacy has failed to impress.

Not only this, but by this preemptive strike and what it implies for the future, the very ground is being cut off from under the feet of the separatist industry with its votaries ensconced both in the  Kashmir Valley and in other parts of India, including New Delhi.

Internationally, Israel may lash out at its neighbours, and be acknowledged kings of the precision strike, but none of its adversaries are nuclear powers, while Israel has its share of US given nuclear bombs and delivery systems.

And the mighty US, victims of meticulously planned terror strikes such as the 9/11 massacre and at sundry locations abroad, has been careful about which countries and entities it chooses to pound into the dust.

It is heartening however that the Trump administration has been most supportive of India’s attempt to take the battle to the JeM terrorists. It has also upheld India’s right to self-defence. The same sentiment has been echoed by almost all of the big powers. The preemptive strike into Pakistan is seen as a task that needed doing for a long time and who is better placed than India to do it?

Even since 1947, India has suffered the consequences of the Partition in multiple ways – blood, anger, betrayal, humiliation, frustration and being hyphenated diplomatically and strategically with its hostile neighbour. This began to change with the end of the Cold War, and then India’s economic ascent in the mid eighties. At the same time Pakistan, while being strategically important to the West for a period, became a country abjectly dependent on aid and grants for its very survival.

By 2019, the economic contrast between the two has grown stark. Pakistan is now practically hand-to-mouth. It is dependent on China, building its costly China-Pakistan Economic Corridor at a time when its own economy is languishing. And help from traditional Islamic neighbours like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, also no longer in the pink of financial health themselves. In addition, Pakistan still tries to get some money from America which is in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan. And then there are the borrowings and bail-outs from the multi-lateral agencies like the IMF, but these too are guided and largely controlled by the US.

India, the fastest growing major economy in the world, has chosen its strategic moment well. To execute a paradigm shift on its dealing with cross-border terrorism is a major task that was long overdue. It has killed over 80,000 people and injured even more over the last 30 years. But a series of terror attacks followed by strategic restraint on India’s part, and periodic talks with Pakistan have yielded no results. The Pakistan Army, it is understood, cannot maintain its hold if there is peace between India and Pakistan.

For the first time since both countries went overtly nuclear in the late nineties, India has called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. It has attacked a terrorist training centre in Pakistan killing 350 terrorists in their sleep. Pakistan, unequal to the task in conventional warfare, demonstrated as much in short order. It was unable to cause damage to Indian military establishments in the Nowshera sector of J&K, though attacking with as many as 24 fighters on the 27^th of February.

What India has done suggests that it will do so again in future, as and when necessary, and this will surely raise both the physical and psychological costs for Pakistan. The constant cease-fire violations along the LoC, so routine as to have become unremarkable, are another area where Pakistan may have to reassess its strategy. India is using much more sophisticated surveillance technology now, and has begun to return fire using long range heavy artillery more often than not. 

International pressure, brought about by tireless diplomacy, and India’s refusal to negotiate till terror factories are dismantled and the offenders brought to justice, has forced Pakistan’s hand. It had to adhere to the Geneva Convention and return a captured Indian pilot in short order, something it was reluctant to do.

Though it will take some time for it to sink in, the reckless Pakistani policy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts may well have run its course. The UNSC including China, quite a few in the UN general assembly, and even the OIC, have also weighed in. The next steps could lead to international sanctions and boycotts if Pakistan does not pay heed.

For too long Pakistan has worked on and taken advantage of the assumption of a pacifist India. Though India is a nuclear power, with a delivery “triad” in place, it has neither been a proliferator, nor issued nuclear threats to anybody.

But India does have conventional military superiority over Pakistan, and is sharply escalating its military modernization programme to protect itself from both Pakistan and China.

India is simultaneously cracking down, again for the first time, on separatist elements and organizations within J&K and elsewhere in India. There is also every possibility of the special status of J&K being abrogated in order to achieve a fuller integration with the rest of India.

Much of the new paradigm and its continuance will depend on Modi winning a second term in office, given his sharp policy departure from the past. But with the nation’s patriotism aroused, this looks much more likely than before the Valentine Day massacre of over 40 CRPF soldiers at Pulwama.

Pakistan, via the JeM, could not have chosen a worse time to up the ante.

(1,183 words)

March 1^st, 2019

For: My Nation

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW: DEMOCRACY ON THE ROAD BY RUCHIR SHARMA

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: DEMOCRACY ON THE ROAD-A  25 YEAR JOURNEY THROUGH INDIA

AUTHOR: RUCHIR SHARMA

PUBLISHER: ALLEN LANE/PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE INDIA, 2019

PRICE:  Rs. 699/-

Failed Nehruvianism Overtaken By Rising Hindu Nationalism

Ruchir Sharma is fond of emphasizing India’s many castes, religions and languages as the key to understanding it and its electoral behaviour. He is an Indian Brahmin, patrician and sweeping in tone, based in New York. Sharma works there as the Chief Global Strategist and head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, managing over $ 25 billion in assets. He is also an author and columnist.

On the side, though something of a “Free Market” votary, Sharma writes regularly and mellifluously for the left-leaning New York Times. His columns and essays have also appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Times of India and many other publications.

His earlier books Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, with the titles echoing the original hero of Capitalism, Adam Smith, have been bestsellers on the New York Times Bestseller lists.

This one, Democracy on the Road traces the decline of the “cult of the Gandhis”, in typically Indian zig-zag fashion, low on predictability- and the  inexorable rise of “Hindu Nationalists”. This, to replace the “Congress’s infatuation with socialism”. Sharma writes always with elegance and wry humour, if not with any deep insight of India's future direction.

The book begins with Sharma’s periodic visits to India on holiday growing up, and the homes of his two sets of grandparents. Both of his grandfathers were big-wigs in the legal profession. His maternal grandfather was a prominent lawyer and landlord in “mofussil” Bijnor. His paternal grandfather was a judge in much more urbanised Jaipur.  In this period, amusingly, he frequently refers to the swearing by the “pillars of the community” watching state-run TV together, at the ham-fisted Indira Gandhi era propaganda.

The lens he brings to the task is not new, and perhaps does not take into account the unifying effects of the smart phone, the internet, 24x7 news and opinion that is accessed in real time in every Indian language.

Sharma, the quintessential  overseas Indian, is the umpteenth external political observer, skeptical about its cohesiveness. This ranges from the “Orientalist” of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, to Winston Churchill, arch-imperialist that he was.

This book, aimed primarily at a foreign audience given its many asides, explanations of the peculiarities and idiosyncracies, is also true to form. 

Sharma  writes: “A key lesson, which would be driven home on every trip for the next twenty years, was that Bijnor is only one slice of India, which is so thinly diced between thousands of castes and hundreds of languages, many isolated in a pocket inside a single state, that it is better understood as many countries than one. The reality of the ‘Many Indias’ is nonetheless a source of great controversy, particularly among the nationalists who would like to live in a country united under one culture. But there is no other way to think about India that can explain the way its democracy works, or why its elections are so full of surprises”.

In this book Sharma follows various campaign trails over the last couple of decades in different parts of the country, drawing pen portraits of aspiring  and established politicians. There is social commentary on their chances based on opinion gathered on the stump. There is travelogue style local colour, and a brand Kerouac romance of the open road injected by the writer in Sharma.

Sometimes, he is travelling with other journalists and commentators, in a couple of “wedding Volvos”, that over the 20 years, “expands to four”.

He describes, for example, the campaign trail in northern India, circa 1999, that brought in the Vajpayee government for the second time. In another chapter, Sharma is in undivided Andhra Pradesh, following Chandrababu Naidu.   During another election, Sharma meets Mayawati, along with his fellow travellers, mostly from the NDTV camp.

He meets Sonia and Rahul Gandhi at 10, Janpath, but cuts no ice with his suggestions of Rajiv Gandhi style economic reforms. The mother-son duo seem firmly committed to socialism of the Indira Gandhi “mai-baap” type.

Ruchir Sharma’s bias towards high-growth reformist policies does not quite overcome his sympathies for the Nehruvian “Idea of India” with its blatant tilt towards the minorities.  Sharma gently mocks the  majoritarian worldview prevalent in many parts today, and doesn’t hide his surprise when the BJP wins under Vajpayee. He is most amused, along with his group of Congress favouring journalists, at the “India Shining” campaign that ended Vajpayee’s tenure in 2004 too.

Sharma covers a number of State Assembly elections important today because of his commentary on many of the regional leaders who form part of the loosely knit Opposition today.

Sharma could not really fault Modi when he covered the elections in Gujarat   himself : Gujarati businessmen told us that Modi lacked completely the deep suspicions of the private sector that had long animated the Congress party, indeed most parties in India”. But Sharma is hamstrung by the company he kept. The likes of Prannoy Roy of NDTV and Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express at the time, harp constantly, not on development, that Modi wanted to talk about, but on his attitude towards Muslims. Modi, of course, won a landslide victory in 2002, even if Sharma does call him, somewhat sniffily, a “Strongman” - both as Chief Minister, and again later, as Prime Minister.

There are more pen portraits- Shivraj Singh Chauhan of  Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan.  BS Yedurappa of Karnataka at the general elections of 2009.

As the general elections of 2019 loom now, Sharma ends the book unwavering in his vote for “diversity”. He writes, probably by way of consolation to those who do not want Modi to win again: “Those who fear that rising nationalism threatens India’s democracy, also tend to underestimate the check provided by subnational pride. Many Indians still see themselves first as Bengalis, Maharashtrians, Tamils, Gujaratis or Telegus, and they are much more likely to support a strongman (or woman) at the state level than in Delhi”.

Ruchir Sharma is quite wrong, despite his 25 years of coverage of the Indian elections described in this book. The Indian electorate sees Narendra Modi as the man of destiny to take India to the top of the table. A man needs to be strong and visionary to do this, and the people of India, subnational pride notwithstanding, are with him and his leadership.

(1,061 words)

February 26^th 2019

For: The Sunday Pioneer, AGENDA, BOOKS

Gautam Mukherjee

Retribution Via A Thousand Squeezes

Retribution Via A Thousand Squeezes

Much can indeed happen in a week. And some weeks, born in tragedy, can be deeply transformative. Some commentators have called it the difference between the way the horrors of  26/11 and Pulwama have been received by India. The contrast is in the outlook of the ruling dispensation of the day, and India’s current rising trajectory on the international graph.

It was the late President Zia Ul Haq , blown up finally by persons unknown in an aeroplane himself ; that formulated the policy of a thousand cuts . He was also largely responsible for the rapid Islamisation of Pakistan during his time in power from 1977 to 1988.

President Zia, realized  “thousand cuts” was the best strategic option, given India’s conventional military superiority. Since then both countries have gone nuclear, though it is debatable whether this does indeed right the balance.

But with present day Pakistan in dire straits financially, it has become a near colony of China. The China- Pakistan economic corridor has China investing upwards of $60 billion. It reaches out from Xinkiang, through PoK, bifurcating all of Pakistan, to Gwadar port in Balochistan on the coveted Arabian Gulf.

With China’s embedded support, in an ultimate and theoretical sense, Pakistan may not lack military equipment if push comes to shove, but will they have the military personnel to use it, given that India’s armed forces are more than twice as large?

It is highly unlikely China will go to war itself on Pakistan’s behalf given that it has economic and political concerns as a regional and global power. It has, in fact, reluctantly condemned the Pulwama attack at the UNSC, even as it has held fast against declaring Masood Azhar a wanted  international terrorist at the UN.

There is also some sympathy for Pakistan from Sunni Saudi Arabia. This,  both for the sake of historical ties and current strategic reasons, particularly vis-a-vis its hostility towards Shia Iran. Pakistan has had the temerity to attack Iran in a similar suicide bombing almost simultaneously. Was this to curry favor with Saudi Arabia?

There are many Pakistanis employed in the desert kingdom, and traditionally, in the Saudi military too. So much so, that Crown Prince Salman, on his first visit to Pakistan, just pledged $ 20 billion. But the money is a conditional pledge, and the Saudis, urged to engage with Pakistan by the US, wield inordinate influence in Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia, with its weakening oil revenues from a global glut, has already invested $44 billion in India since 2016, when Prime Minister Modi visited Saudi Arabia. And now it wants to ramp it up to $100 billion.

America, once highly dependent on Pakistan for its logistics in Afghanistan, is, it is true, in need of Pakistani mediation with the Afghan Taliban at present. And then there is the hostility towards Iran, in common with Saudi Arabia, to contend with too.

This may well be the reason why Pakistan picked this particular time for the Pulwama attack. It may have calculated that the American reaction would be muted. On the other hand Pakistan is in great need of a bailout from the IMF, which the US wields tremendous influence over.

Use of nuclear weapons, despite regular and loud threats from Pakistan,   even the smaller tactical ones, are a zero sum game. Use of nuclear weapons would lead to certain retaliation from India. And while the effects would be cataclysmic, it can go much worse for a smaller Pakistan that lacks strategic depth.  

The “thousand cuts” policy, spawned by Pakistan after losing three wars to India and the whole of East Pakistan that became Bangladesh, has however survived over many decades. But it has done so, mainly because of lack of a determined response from India to counter it and make it unaffordable. The ruling dispensation over the earlier several decades, given its large Muslim vote banks, wanted to go easy on Pakistan too.

That India seems to have changed its mind in this regard since the bombing at Pulwama a little over a week ago is apparent. India is now formulating and executing an integrated policy of a thousand squeezes against Pakistan - diplomatic, economic, strategic, military.

Indian covert operations, using a network of intelligence from home and abroad, have also reportedly been stepped up with unprecedented swiftness.

The almost immediate withdrawal of the unilateral most favored nation status (MFN), in place since 1996, was the opening gambit. All Pakistani imports have been slapped with a 200% duty, virtually ending them. Many Indian exporters to Pakistan from producers of tomatoes to consumer durables have decided not to sell.

A dossier of evidence and proof on JeM and Pakistan state involvement in the Pulwama bombing has been submitted to the FATF with a  request to blacklist Pakistan which is already on the grey list. FATF has already cautioned Pakistan even as it is examining its position. Blacklisting could mean boycotts and sanctions from many. Pakistan, in a showy move, has banned two of the organizations associated with international terrorist Hafiz Sayeed, yet again, for the sixth time, if anyone is impressed, or counting.

The BCCI has applied to the ICC to ban Pakistan from the world cup, reportedly supported by most leading cricket playing nations such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa. There are calls to stop all interaction in all other sports too.

Bollywood has decided to ban Pakistani participation of artistes, actors,, singers  and so on. Visas have been denied to Pakistani shooters for an IOC event, undeterred by the IOC stating India will be debarred from hosting future events.

Security has been withdrawn from separatists and other protectees in the Valley for the very first time, freeing up hundreds of soldiers and vehicles for more worthwhile work.

Valley politicians are moaning loudly as their bailiwick is threatened. Calls for the revocation of Articles 35A and 370 of the Indian Constitution have grown intense once more.

The UNSC has issued a statement condemning Pakistan for its involvement in the Pulwama atrocity, naming JeM. This,while 4 out of 5 of its members have also issued individual statements.Additionally, there have been expressions of support from many countries for India.

India is also seriously moving to build dams and tunnels to rechannel waters flowing from India’s share (Beas, Ravi, Sutlej) of the Indus Water Treaty presently into Pakistan. The water will go instead to parched parts of  J&K, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan.  

Cries of enough is enough are frequently heard now.

All attempts at rapprochement through talks over the years have failed in the face of an implacable enemy. These constitute the Pakistani Armed Forces, its Intelligence establishment, and its formidable collection of terrorist organizations.

The last, turned Frankenstein, are quite prepared to rebel if the Pakistani establishment tries to crack down on them. China too, it is reported, is wary of supporting the ban on the diabolical Masood Azhar for this reason.

All this comprehensive activity, including the downing of the Pulwama mastermind, in just over a week, may not be the same as a quick strike to redress the balance. But the significant thing to note is that there may be many strikes in future, not just one, and not necessarily in reaction.

In the lead up to the general election in a couple of months, the Modi government has been handed the political initiative over the Opposition in a highly charged patriotic atmosphere.

Meanwhile Pakistan is suffering the agonies of uncertainty, knowing full well there is more punishment coming.This even in addition to talks if and when they are undertaken, though at present even the Track II diplomacy has been suspended. The boa constrictor model of dealing with Pakistan has arrived.

(1,278 words)

For: My Nation

February 22, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

The CRPF Needs To Overhaul Its Command And Control Structure

The CRPF Needs To Overhaul Its Command And Control Structure

The whole nation is shocked and angered by how an explosives laden civilian vehicle can be rammed into a bus full of uniformed CRPF soldiers killing 44 and gravely injuring many more. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed stiff retaliation against both the JeM terrorists and their Pakistani sponsors. He indicated that he has given the Armed Forces a free hand to execute this determination. But even here, it is seen, Pakistan regularly kills our soldiers, and we, mostly, just the cannon fodder of their low cost terrorists. Pakistan has always managed to split the beam and divide our attention, because of the way they structure their aggression.

The quantity of IED  used by the suicide bomber is estimated at anywhere between 200 kg and 350 kg – a formidable amount to assemble at the carnage spot in a car without local support and organization, undetected by intelligence or the security forces. There was reportedly some vague intelligence on the possibility of a explosive-  laden vehicle being used for a terror strike, but nothing on when and where. 

However, on the other side, the time of passage of an unnecessarily prominent 70 vehicle convoy with over 2,000 CRPF personnel en route from Jammu to Srinagar was known to the JeM. And this, probably well in advance for the entire plan to be executed. In a sense, this is a bold statement from the JeM, reduced and decimated in the recent past by Indian security forces in Kashmir, that they have successfully regrouped. This is their first devastating attack in three years.

Civilian vehicles plying on the highway were apparently neither sanitized nor asked to be removed from the route of the convoy, despite the high security nature of the movement. This requirement has only dawned on the authorities after this devastating blast. Air transport was not used at all.

Slackness of this order in the face of a vicious and determined enemy is responsible for the success of such attacks, whether they occur at an Army base at Uri, an air force base at Pathankot, or on the benighted CRPF on the highway between Jammu and Kashmir.

 This is sadly far from the first time that CRPF convoys have been attacked, both in the Maoist badlands of Central India and  J&K with devastating results and horrendous loss of life. That the organization apparently fails to learn from past experience  points to grave lapses in its leadership quality, the intelligence leakages from within the organization, as well as its systems, procedures, command and control structures. There is also some comment on the experience and seniority of the personnel who take such decisions on troop movements on the ground. Should junior officers not be supervised on something like this substantial troop movement? Did it really need to move such numbers simultaneously by road on the only highway connecting Jammu with Kashmir?

While the involvement of the JeM was proudly claimed within moments of the blast along with the release of a highly offensive and hate-mongering propaganda video, it is clear that it motivated a Kashmiri youth to actually carry out the bombing. Pakistan as a state therefore has plausible deniability. The JeM, though Pakistan sponsored, its leader Masood Azhar repeatedly protected from UN sanction by China, is working in J&K using radicalized Kashmiri youth in the main. Burhan Wani, an earlier scourge, was also similarly trained, motivated, and sent in to create mayhem.

That there are a number of prominent and vocal politicians, separatist organizations in the Valley, as well as their supporters in other parts of  India, to lend support to the terrorism, is another ongoing obscenity, inexplicably unchecked by the Indian government. If this is in the name of democracy, then what price sedition?

Across the border, this attack, once again points to the effectiveness of Pakistan’s ISI, Army and terrorist organizations. They attack in violation of the ceasefire constantly on the borders, along the LoC, picking off both security personnel and civilians in a battle of attrition. And the terrorists are developed in Kashmir or elsewhere in India, or sent in, to do likewise within our territory.

India’s response, despite hundreds and thousands of attacks via the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency/terrorist outreach over the years, has been grossly inadequate. We do not seem at all equal to the task of retaliation because of a political ambivalence on the best course forward.

This is clearly not Pakistan’s problem. They, evidently, just want to kill as many Indians as possible- soldiers, civilians, women, children, rich, poor, fellow Muslims, and old people irrespective. 

Under no political dispensation or scenario have we managed to make it prohibitive for Pakistan to carry out its policy of a thousand cuts. Our hesitation and caution in the face of a sophisticated guerilla war, works invariably in favour of the Pakistanis.

In all out conventional war however, including Kargil, India has always won, and even sequestered East Pakistan into Bangladesh. This humiliation still smarts in the Pakistani establishment and it never ceases to exact revenge in Kashmir, though Pakistan may not recognize that India simply helped a restive East Pakistan to break away in 1970.

If indeed Pakistan had other provinces determined to leave the Pakistani union today, we might be tempted to help again, but alas that is not the case at present. An under-populated Balochistan,  overrun by the Chinese presence in Gwadar, and all along the road cum China-Pakistan economic corridor from Xinkiang, is not a good option.

But supporting an insurrection  in Balochistan has never been off the table at any time. The same sympathy extends to the Pakhtuns, but nothing much more can be made of it as things stand.  

While the killing of so many soldiers in a terrorist attack could be construed as sufficient provocation for war with Pakistan, it could well be an overreaction. However a counter attack and retaliatory strike on Pakistani terrorist assets and their Pakistan Army/ISI handlers is inevitable.

This attack in Pulwama has come in the nearness of a general election. While terrorist strikes tend to take their opportunity whenever presented, the Pakistani establishment may be quite happy to project the Indian government as lacking in sufficient willpower to do anything about it. For Modi however, this may be an opportunity to disabuse Pakistan of its bluster.

Our task however is not only to seek revenge but to make sure our response is more or less proportionate in order to contain the fall out. Even an all out war cannot change the borders very much given the exigencies of global pressure to maintain a status quo. And it may not be in India’s best interest to conquer territory from Pakistan with its radicalized, restive, and ideologically fractured population.

The nuclear option is a zero sum game for all sides, but Pakistan, much more so than India, could well be tempted to use tactical nuclear weaponry and not just in the event of all out war.

India is making steady economic progress, and this will be retarded in the event of all out war, even for a limited period. So we cannot, in our own interest, indulge our outrage in that manner. Instead we need to sharply improve our clandestine deep strike capabilities. The fact that the armed forces are presently low on the best equipment and armaments due to years of procurement neglect is another major cause for concern. Our Defence budgets need to be sharply enhanced because half of the current one goes in servicing the establishment costs, and quite a bit more in  paying interest on debt. We have to pay for almost all new armaments and equipment on an ad hoc basis off-budget.

The strategic quest, in which we have failed so far, must be to make this kind of terrorism unaffordable for Pakistan. Revoking the unilateral MFN status given to Pakistan in the hope of a reciprocity that never came, is a bounden necessary and welcome first step.

Diplomatic moves to tighten the definition of terrorism pending at the UN that the Indian government wants to push, may not be very easy to  execute, given the support 

Pakistan enjoys in sections of  both the general assembly and security council.

As it stands, and given our international support from most of the big powers, we could well be justified in suspending the Indus Water Treaty in protest. And if we did institute machinery and mechanisms to stop all the water that flows into Pakistan, it would seriously hamper its food production and create an existential crisis. Of course, we would release water after a period on humanitarian grounds, but it provides a permanent choke point to ensure good behavior. But does the Government of India   truly mean business, or will it allow Pakistan and its agencies to get away with this kind of cowardly slaughter again and again.

(1,476 words)

For: My Nation

February 15^th 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

    

BOOK REVIEW: KILLING TIME IN DELHI BY RAVI SHANKAR ETTETH

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: KILLING TIME IN DELHI

AUTHOR: RAVI SHANKAR ETTETH

PUBLISHER:WESTLAND PUBLICATIONS, 2019

PRICE: Rs. 599/- HARDBACK

 

Bugsy Malone Meets PG Wodehouse at Amrita Shergill Marg

This short novella is a racy and enjoyable read. The language has spark and wit emanating from every page.  Steroid infused phrases such as “When I staggered in, the show had already started and the sight of coltish, long-legged , anorexic teenagers c0nvinced me there was a white Biafra nobody had told me about,” describing a fashion show, abound.  

Another short jab describes a corrupt, and it turns out later in the book, a murderous senior policeman: “He swiveled on his hip, slowly scanning the people like a cut-price Superman”.

Killing Time is a frothy tale without any ambition to profundity that starts off like an English counties Wodehouse bumble  despite an accidental drug overdose that provides the first ever-shifting body, and  the whiff of blackmail. It then settles down into a facsimilie of hard- boiled 1940s style Private Detective whodunnit for the digital age.

This particularly in the profusion of  laconic Bogartish imagery, and quite an education in the good life brand names. To wit : “Sheena’s  body was large, rich and generous, firm and soft in the right places” and, “Look Ratty’s got a new Hublot. And it’s real rose gold, worth lakhs  and lakhs”.

“It’s a Tourbillion Power Reserve, dude, Ratty said, and spread out the fingers of his hand to indicate it provided five days of power reserve”.

The  murder and blackmail too is kept light and conversational, more a  musical Bugsy Malone, complete with sexy siren and child actors with adult tropes, rather than that full-blown Mafioso with dreams  and a heart, Bugsy Seigel.

The plot line is deliberately improbable, almost a lampooning of several echoing genres in the page-turner section, but the exuberance of the writing is a delight.  

The author has a sneering, off-hand affection for the gaudy rich and likes describing them in a party setting.   “I gestured to the nearest golf cart. Delhi’s money bags hire golf carts manned by men in white uniforms to bring guests to the house and drop them off at the gate during parties. This practice, introduced by a classy Pakistani woman in a half hat and birdcage veil and married to a meat exporter with shady political connections, was immediately adopted by garment exporters, real estate developers and such like, who form the upper crust of what passes for high society in this town”.

Here is an excerpt on the self-same cocaine snorting beau monde: “The pusher was a fixture at the trendiest parties, always wearing a cheerful grin and pink jeans..He was in his twenties ,  with the skin of a baby and the smile of an old man bored of hoarding secrets. And bored he was too, of the inside view he had of Delhi’s rich-ridiculous and indiscriminately libidinous. Most of the pretty boys thought he was gay and tried to score some of the white powder by promising services of a low sort. Some pretty girls who got the shakes in the morning pleaded with him to pimp them to old men in exchange for cocaine. He never did being a hard man with a soft heart”.

 Ravi Shankar Etteth, a senior journalist and political cartoonist for his day job, is also a prolific writer of novels, churning out the last couple, quite different from each other in content and style, published just months apart.

Is this one in his authentic voice, influences included? I certainly hope so, because if his aim is to entertain the reader, this book succeeds.  Etteth’s earlier books tended to dwell on the very profundity and philosophical underpinnings this one has scrupulously avoided. And to good effect.

There is a godman of sorts in the book, one Shamsher, who greets the protagonist every single time by saying “By Shiva the smoky dude”. And Shamsher seems to bring out the James Hadley Chase in Etteth: “ The fight suddenly whooshed out of me. Whatever quan the swami had with Nik, in Mandy’s and Shamsher’s bowling alley I seemed to be the main pin”.

The names of characters in the book, happy to be cardboard cutouts, are a Wodehousian hoot – Coke Rao, Buffet Bhatt, Bonnie Jogi – a former air hostess, and Cadillac Pimp –“because he drove the car and also because he was a pussy farmer”.

There is quite lot of parody : “  Rudra Pratap was from Bastar or some such place that is all forest and full of guys with bows  and poison arrows, who will shoot any stranger wandering in their domain. There are also leeches, snakes and leeches. I knew this because an outdoorsy girl, an acquaintance of mine, had once told me”.

A murder is plain comedy: “Nik whipped out a short knife from his overcoat pocket and buried it deep in Bhatt’s neck. Rao screamed and threw the packets in the air and rushed out. Meanwhile, Bhatt collapsed slowly with a gravitas the Titanic would have been proud of”. And those packets are, of course, cocaine. Nik is a murdering cop, and Bhatt was an etiquette teacher and freeloading glutton earning Buffet for a first name.

Almost the entire book is a first person narrative in the voice of the protagonist Chaitanya Seth, who goes by Charlie because: “ It is supposed to be trendy in Delhi  to have foreign-sounding names”.

The hyper-tone in the book,  funny as it is, can start grating on your nerves like the canned laughter after every gag in an American sitcom. Etteth knows it can be too much of a good thing.  So he wisely winds up the tale in just 197 pages of this good looking hardback.

(931 words)

For: The Sunday Pioneer AGENDA BOOKS

February 12, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

Budget 2019: Foundations For A S10 Trillion Economy By 2032

Budget 2019: Foundations For A $10 Trillion Economy By 2032

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim- Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged

A farewell budget that lays out a 10 year road-map and a pot of gold $ 10 trillion strong at 13 years from now, is unusual to say the least. If you think of 2032, when most of our 65% of the population that is under 35 will be around; remember $10 trillion puts you in the top three economies of the world in nominal terms, and probably at the very top in PPP terms.

This is due to India’s 7-8% GDP growth per annum, year on year compounding away, and expected to power on for the next 30 years. No other major economy can hope for as much with the near certainty that we can. Of course, it presupposes that the great Indian electorate does not plunge this country into chaos by throwing a spanner in the works.

Modi’s audacity is in his assumption of continuity. He is banking on the good sense of the electorate to see him through. And very deftly, he has moved the time dial for himself forward. In 2014, he used to speak of the need for 10 years to get many things done. At the end of the first five, he wants, health and God willing, a further 13 years – some two-and-a-half terms to retirement or worthy Lotus branded successor.

There is no pleading or grandstanding Congress-style, of “if we are voted back to power”. And this, weeks before the declaration of dates for the general elections 2019. And in the face of a howling cacophony of an Opposition contemplating a life of irrelevance  and powerlessness.

The whole country registered the point that Modi thinks he has done well because he has not hesitated to list his government’s achievements so far. But, he also needs more time to see his vision through to its logical conclusion. Given that the other side had nearly 6 decades, most of them mired in low growth, scarcity and poverty, it seems like a very reasonable implied request indeed.

The foreign media was quick to join a chorus of domestic observers that called it a “campaign budget” because it tried to include over 70% or more of the electorate in its reach.

It was campaign promise, yes, but also an American style “state of the union” address,  and a vision statement,besides being at its minimum the usual set of proposals towards the annual accounting exercise.

The new NSSO data on jobs on which the Opposition has jumped with all the vigour of a pack of ravenous hyenas, is clearly spurious, resignation of its authors notwithstanding.

This talk of a 45 year high in unemployment is absurd, because 45 years ago this country, in the sadistic grip of the Licence-Permit Raj and minus growth rates, was barely allowed to manufacture a sling shot.  

It therefore reads like an old Soviet crop report in its exaggeration and inaccuracy.  The half baked NSSO report was leaked just before the tabling of the interim budget on February 1^st, despite being disallowed by the government.

It has clearly done no more than a shoddy job of surveying the formal economy. That the Private Sector in it, mostly benefited by Congress and its payola systems, and in a sulk ever since it was booted out, along with a mostly unproductive Public Sector, is not the whole truth, is obvious.

The formal private sector, deprived of loans they understood they were not required to pay back, leading to a massive bad debt problems at all the public sector and some private sector banks, has indeed not grown much.

The informal economy however, which is at 80-90% of the whole, and fuels the robust GDP growth too, is ignored by the lazy babus at the NSSO, who can’t be bothered to survey and enumerate it. But this cannot be ignored with impunity. Certainly not without serious distortions of data. Because, it, the domestic service, the self-employed small entrepreneur, the street vendor, the drivers, helpers, cooks, guards, construction site workers, chowkidars even - is growing very much faster than the formal economy!

Along with it are the poorly documented small and medium enterprises, estimated to employ some 200 million people at least. In this budget, this MSME sector has been given an interest subvention of 2% for loans up to Rs. 1 crore.

The broad informal sector has been offered a small monthly pension of Rs. 3,000 per month after the age of 60. It is a benefit that will accrue to millions of people. This comes on top of the other insurance schemes for the poor, announced earlier, including those for medical insurance, life, and accident insurance. In addition to bank accounts, Aadhar-based identity authentication, and a massive thrust towards digitization, the insurance vehicles are definitely a Modi favourite.

The larger benefit for the country is the inclusion of the same millions who work in these sectors, on the statistical rolls. We will know who these people are, where they work, as the pension scheme identifies millions of workers for eligibility. They can qualify for the scheme only by making a monthly contribution of between Rs. 55-100, depending on age. It will be therefore, to an extent, self supporting, like most insurance schemes are.

In this “interim budget” as a whole, there was the careful balancing act of distributing sops, incentives, and largesse, without impacting the admirable fiscal deficit number as it stands. Certainly not by  more than 0.1 per cent, even projected into next year. This was made possible by a doubling of direct tax collections for the very first time.

 It was a budget that was responsive to the needs of various sections of the population, and thanked the taxpayer, a first for any Indian government, for enabling the development programmes of this administration to go forward.

The Modi Government presented, via a stand-in Finance Minister who is also the Railway Minister, what might have been a vote-on-account. That is if it was an administration with less self-confidence and more reverence for convention.  

Minister Piyush Goyal, young, fit, fluently bilingual in Hindi and English, presented a substantial budget  though a long speech.

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi was there, thumping the table along with his colleagues on the Treasury Benches, in repeated approval of many of the announcements that were made.

The media and the middle classes saw to it that the best received announcement  bar none was the one that exempted up to Rs. 5 lakhs in taxable income, from Income tax. It will benefit an estimated 3 crore people. And there were hints that people in higher tax brackets might also see some relief when the budget proposals are confirmed after the elections.

This even as a small payment of Rs.6,000/- per annum to farmers who own less than 5 acres of land, has nevertheless  remembered  another12 crore people.

This too, like the pension scheme for the informal sector will help identify by name, Aadhar Card and bank account  some 12 crore people who qualify, and will also improve our statistical abilities. States will need to cooperate by supplying much of the information from its land records. But the uses of this captured information will be handy for other benefits too, as they roll out in future.  

The Congress was quick to mock at this one, announced early in the budget speech, seeing their plank of being the farmer’s champion melting away. At just Rs. 17 a day,  Rahul Gandhi called it an “insult” to the “Indian farmer”. Internet wags promptly mocked him on social media, calling it 0.02 paise per second. This, even as the BJP said the States, particularly the Congress ruled ones, were at liberty to enhance the amounts to the extent that their purse and conscience could afford.

This was probably in oblique reference to the already floundering farm loan waiver schemes announced by the Congress in the three Hindi heartland states they have recently won as well as in Karnataka.

This token amount, of course, comes on top of other benefits such as minimum price guarantees for produce, subsidized fertilizer and low cost loans and interest waivers - also extended by this budget to those in fisheries, poultry and dairy industries.

The moribund real estate sector that accounts for at least 10% of the GDP, ignored for the entirety of the Modi government so far, despite being a significant employer, has at last been given some benefits. Perhaps the government saw its relentless emphasis on infrastructure development in preparation for facilitating a $ 10 trillion economy, as attention enough.

However the housing, office, retail shopping centres and so on, are definitely a distinct, largely urban area category, and deserve encouragement. Having seen the light on this at last, the present budget moves on relief in notional rents from second homes. It also includes long term capital gains from property concessions. This permits the buying two homes after the sale of one to a capital gains value of Rs. 2 crore, without attracting any tax, but only once in a lifetime.

There were a number of efficiency oriented announcements including  income tax assessments and refunds within a day, digitized and anonymous scrutiny, single window clearances for domestic film-makers, and a massive push for furthering the digital in general as a tool to curb corruption and increase efficiency.

Bank fixed deposits might experience a revival because the TDS threshold has been raised from applicability at just Rs. 10,000 earned to Rs. 40,000/-.  

The Opposition was visibly upset at a near full budget instead of a mere vote on account, and whined about this for a day or two after the 1 hour 45 minute presentation by Goyal.

It was nevertheless called a good budget by experts, the captains of business and industry, the ordinary people, the stock market, and the media.

Various Congress Party grandees, including the Gandhis, sat on in parliament through Goyal’s cheerful speech making faces as if they were suffering the full rigours of purgatory. 

Undaunted, the budget laid out a 10 point vision statement. It wants to build physical infrastructure fit for a $ 10 trillion economy. This cannot be faulted, because infrastructure bottlenecks have hampered our progress for decades and stigmatized India as a third world country.

Modi also wants a fully digital economy by 2030, probably in line with all of the developed world. Electric vehicles will become de rigeur, as will renewable energy to curb bad air, ground, and water pollution.

Rural industrialization is an inevitable priority, as more and more people migrate to the cities as a corollary to development seen all over the world. So there will be mechanization, productivity enhancement, village industry and so on, to transform the countryside.

Clean rivers are starting to become a reality for the first time with sewage and chemicals being processed instead of being allowed to pollute the rivers. This trend will be strengthened going forward even as Ganga waters have shown improvement for the very first time. Let us remember that there were no fish in the Thames because it was so polluted before conservation measures were put in place.

There will be a scaling up of the Blue Water Economy using the flagship Sagarmala and other projects.

The Space Programme will send an Indian to space by 2022 and India will become the world’s go-to place for the launch of satellites.

Food self sufficiency , already a thing achieved, must be maintained using sustainable farming practices. Comprehensive Education and Healthcare for all is on its way to becoming a reality, but is also a basic requirement for a developed economy.

Improved government efficiency as a goal is probably the hardest to achieve, but can come about if permanent tenure is removed.

The biggest defence budget ever at Rs. 3 lakh plus crores however, is grossly inadequate considering the back log of work towards modernization of the equipment for the armed forces. This will have to be reinforced liberally off budget.

The budget for the Indian Railways towards modernization, greater connectivity, and growth, has been enhanced, as it is on its way to revival and profitability once again. It is indeed a proud achievement that all unmanned level crossings on the broad guage network have now been eliminated. People need not die at them anymore.

Civil aviation is growing in leaps and bounds as over a million people use it daily to travel to and from 100 airports domestically.

There are many other aspects of this budget both in the headlines and the fine print. But suffice is to say that it plans to increase expenditure significantly without wrecking the fiscal deficit. Let us hope the government’s substantial divestment PSU programme, which has not gone particularly well, does not queer the pitch. The lending and rating agencies will be watching for fiscal slippage.

Is  this budget, responsive as it is, too little too late in the day to seriously influence the coming elections? This depends on what one things of both public memory and attention span. Modi clearly thinks that it is best to do welcome things as close to the general elections as possible.

The coherence and signature represented by the six Modi budgets is in the emphasis given to long term nation building and modernization over populist sops.

It is this that has given us the good macroeconomic profile and the  international recognition of an economy on the move. Of course, at the grass roots level this budget acknowledges there is much that remains to be done. But the Opposition seems to be considerably behind the curve on this, because it relies heavily, as always, on the gullibility of the voter and its response to the promise of immediate benefit, however fraudulent. It has even worked for them to an extent electorally very recently. Will it do the trick in a couple of months?

My guess is that it is advantage Narendra Modi all the way, particularly if he can inject the emotional appeal of a start to the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, to follow on from the success of this budget.

(2,345 words)

For: The Sunday Pioneer AGENDA

February 3, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee