Gear Changing From A Soft Power To A Hard One

Gear Changing From A Soft Power To A Hard One

Bill Clinton administration staffer Joseph Nye is credited with galvanizing public attention by coining the term Soft Power in the pages of Foreign Policy. It became a defining feature of the post Cold War era.

Americana was seen as an aspirational magnet. People in many countries wanted to be a liberal democracy like the USA. But, as always, the turn of the 20^th century President, Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum of “Speak softly and carry a big stick” underpins both the limits of, and the animating engines, of Soft Power.

Soft Power is broadly described as the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce. Gandhian Ahimsa and Non-Violence ruled modern Indian political ideology for decades, even as it was always a matter of opinion if it actually got India its independence from Britain.  Hard Power was regarded, in Nye’s time, in the late 80s and 1990s, as an enumeration of military muscle - missiles, warheads, tanks, aircraft, submarines, ships, troops and the like.

But in 2019, with a greater number of nuclear armed powers, and an array of new small and large hard powers such as North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, and emerging ones like Iran and Japan, it may well represent a shift in tonality and economic heft that denotes greater resolve and confidence. Nuclear War, after all, is a zero sum game. 

India’s emerging hard power is backed by wherewithal including economic power, markets, military prowess, intelligence gathering, formal and informal alliances, and tacit support amongst other countries.

Of course, a leading feature of soft power, used extensively in foreign affairs generally, is persuasion. And this has been ramped up, from the very start of Modi 1.0 to an unprecedented degree. The main feature of this was, and continues to be, bilateral state visits by the Prime Minister.  Over 100 nations have been covered, some after decades, or for the very first time, with excellent results.

But the tone domestically, in matters small and large, and in India’s more transactional national self interest in dealings with other countries, has undergone a sea change. National icons Sardar Patel, Veer Savarkar, Subhas Bose, Syama Prasad Mookerjee,  AB Vajpayee, some long neglected, have replaced Nehru and the perfunctory genuflection towards Mahatma Gandhi.  

There is also a marked quickening of the pace. And this difference isn’t being reflected just via the actions and pronouncements of the Prime Minister and Home Minister. It is seen on a broader basis across the government and the NDA, and inclusive of Mohan Bhagwat in the RSS amongst others. The call for population control that the Prime Minister put on on Independence Day, has emanated from the RSS.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath banned the performing of Namaz on Lucknow and UP roads. The Union Urban Affairs Ministry has asked 220 ex MPs to move out of their Lutyens’ zone bungalows and other government accommodation within seven days or have their electricity and water cut off.

Former Finance and Home Minister P Chidambaram, underground, and shamelessly on the run from the CBI and ED, with a Lookout Notice issued against him, is on the brink of being arrested for custodial interrogation. He seems to have exhausted his stock of anticipatory bail from various courts.  This high profile set of six cases against Chidambaram is a showcase of the law being applied to the high and mighty.

Additionally, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s nephew and Executive Director of Moser Baer, Ratul Puri, accused of bribe-taking and money laundering, has, in fact, been arrested for similar custodial interrogation.

The Congress Party, predictably, is in a panic because a number of other notable leaders, could be next.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hinted at a shift from India’s No First Use Nuclear Weapons Doctrine, echoing former Defence Minister Parrikar’s views on the subject, and setting the cat amongst the pigeons in a sabre-rattling Pakistan. He also said that if there is to be Kashmir talks with Pakistan, (only once cross-border terror stops), it will be about the illegally occupied PoK henceforth.

The only senior cabinet minister to strike a discordant note from this picture of greater strength and optimism is Finance Minister Sitharaman. She has made a spate of socialist and anti growth remarks and tabled a weak budget that has hurt business and investor sentiment resulting in capital flight. And this has been done, most insensitively, in the face of a sharp downturn.

But, since the Prime Minister knows that India’s hard power depends quite substantially on its economic growth, he made it clear, by reiterating from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15^th , that he intends to grow the Indian economy into $ 5 trillion by 2024. 

 The government will have to flesh this intent out in short order. The Prime Minister’s task forces are hard at work to suggest remedies for various distressed sectors. Given popularity ratings of around 70% after the end of Articles 370 and 35A, on par with his ratings in 2014, Narendra Modi is both trusted and widely believed.

The Triple Talaq Bill was turned into a proclaimed Act on the third determined try, with the NDA driving a very effective wedge through the non- government benches in the Rajya Sabha.

The historic abrogation of Article 370 and 35A were introduced first in the Rajya Sabha by the Home Minister himself. Before that, Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval cleared out all Amarnath Yatra pilgrims, other tourists and foreigners from the Kashmir Valley. The nullification of all the operative sections, was passed first in the Rajya Sabha, where the government does not yet have a majority. Copious debates were held in both houses over two days, before J&K became one of two new Union Territories.

That this seminal matter hanging fire for 72 years was tackled so early in Modi 2.0, suggests that a number of other long pending agenda issues, such as the Uniform Civil Code and the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, could also see the light of day soon.

There is a matter-of-fact shift in the way things are done too. While Jammu and the separate UT of Ladakh welcomed the new status, Section 144 was clamped on large sections of the Valley. In addition, a communications embargo was imposed, and politicians likely to incite violence were put under house arrest or preventive detention.  Others, such as irate Congress and CPM politicians, were not allowed to enter the Valley, even if they turned up uninvited at Srinagar airport.

In a sharp departure from the past, there is no government attempt to endear itself with sections of the populace in the Valley who may be disgruntled, and no reference to the winning of hearts and minds. It is law and order first and justice for the people of India as a whole.

A Delimitation Commission has already been appointed by the EC to go into more effective  representation  of the people in both Jammu and Kashmir sections of the Union Territory. This is likely to result in equal representation for both Jammu and Kashmir, and should be completed in about six weeks.   

Externally, Pakistan was stymied at the UNSC despite backing from all-weather ally China, and an opportunistic Britain. Thirteen of the 15 UNSC members including the current Chair, saw the developments in J&K and Ladakh as an internal matter because of India’s extensive diplomatic groundwork.

That China, which is in illegal occupation of Indian territory at Akshai Chin, and is facing strong protests for its centrist policies in Hong Kong, should accuse India of unilateralism, is ironic. And Britain is facing pressures to its unity from both Scotland and Northern Ireland because of its pursuit of Brexit, particularly a no-deal Brexit. That it should have the temerity to comment on India at the UNSC, is probably a throwback to imperialist envy .

Pakistan’s latest plan to take the matter of alleged human rights abuses in Kashmir to the ICJ is not likely to meet with any appreciable success either.  

In a military caution, Pakistan and China are unhesitatingly being told that any interference or adventurism will meet with an appropriate response.

Our attitudes to democratic protest and dissent have changed too.  The government can name and punish terrorists now. The Opposition is now only being offered the respect its electoral fortunes and representation deserve. The contours of Modi’s New India are gaining definition.  

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,396 words)

August 21, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

Modi-Shah-Doval Turn The Tables On The Forces Of History

Modi-Shah-Doval Turn The Tables On The Forces Of History

Has Paradise been regained on the snowy slopes of J&K? And in its markets and valleys? Is everything bright once more this Monday 5^th day of August in the year 2019? Will tourists and pilgrims flock into the union territories henceforth without the shadow of a gun? Will the economy of the region grow unfettered at last?

Has Modi 2.0 delivered on one of the longest standing promises of the BJP within its traditionally Teflon first 100 days?

Solving the problems associated with the vexed quango status of J&K is a momentous event on par with the coming down of the Berlin Wall within the annals of contemporary Indian history.

The Indian economy may be bad at present, but the solving of the building of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya after similar decades, now seems within reach too.

There is enormous credibility restored to the government at one fell swoop, after acute criticism on the handling of the economy in recent times. But with this, there will be no doubting Modi’s leadership for the rest of this second term. The economy, one feels sure, will also be properly and effectively addressed by this government.

Heaven on Earth, is how Mughal Emperor Jehangir described the territory in itself for its sheer beauty, when he visited it in the 17^th century. But Kashmir has been long lost in the mire for 72 unfortunate years.

This situation probably began via the petulance of the last Maharaja, Hari Singh, of the erstwhile undivided kingdom. The haughty and status quoist attitude of Singh and his Hindu Dogra predecessors, was indulged by the British Raj.

They probably wanted access to a quiet paradise that many holidayed at, recuperated in, or retired into. The touch-me-not ism of the kingdom, indirectly ruled by the British through a Resident, was encouraged. It was an India, after all, that stretched from the borders of Afghanistan to distant Burma, and included Sri Lanka and the Gulf States within its remit. And there was just one paramount power. And it flew the Union Jack.  

In 1947 however, to teach a reluctant Hari Singh a lesson for his stubborn hubris, Lord Mountbatten, decided to intervene. Singh was jolted for choosing independence in a vastly changed world by the last Viceroy, and by then, the first Governor General of India.

Mountbatten allegedly encouraged his Pakistani counterpart, MA Jinnah, to quickly overrun part of Hari Singh’s territory before he had time to react with his largely decorative princely army.  

What Jinnah’s “irregulars” took, is what is today’s PoK, and the high reaches of Gilgit-Baltistan. This forced Singh into the hands of a waiting Nehru, like a comfortable cricket catch.

Nehru huffed his way to the United Nations, accusing Pakistan of aggression, asking for help for the restoration of PoK, but he didn’t really have his heart in it. He didn’t, it appears, particularly want PoK back as an act of tacit goodwill. 

Nehru was quite naive for all his intelligence, and hoped that Pakistan would content itself with what it had wrested out of Kashmir. This, alas, was not to be.

This more so after his daughter Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister helped to lop off East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971. In an attitude of revenge ever since, Pakistan has been fomenting trouble via its policy of “a thousand cuts”, not only in J&K, but wherever it could within India.

To a certain extent The Pakistani GHQ’s raison d etre is based on its hostility to India, which it calls an existential threat. Its terrorist-based war machine backed by its intelligence agency ISI and regular troops, is today in trouble. Kashmir is now a Union Territory integrated into India. Fighting it becomes warring with India directly, and not aid to a so-called home grown separatist movement. It cannot be portrayed as such.

Recent military resolve shown by India in response to Pakistani aggression is also something that has reduced Pakistan’s room to manouevre.

But even in the original sin of the initial surrender, Hari Singh’s ego held out for a bizarre exceptionalism, eschewed by over 500 of the other Princes. Muslim majority Hyderabad and Junagadh did try to hold out with specious arguments, before caving in and signing their Treaties of Accession tamely, and on the dotted line.  

Since then, the growing mess created by Article 370, Article 35A, in J&K, as it came to be known, has haunted both India and J&K. It has been a long seven decades of the politics of blackmail and entitlement practiced by Sheikh Abdullah, his family of successors, and other Valley politicians, mostly his relatives, aided by the mainstream Congress Party.

It has kept J&K a perpetually disturbed state and consumed the lives of many people and enormous resources that India could ill afford.

The legal beagles will pore over the audacious action of the Modi government and cheesepare at the provisions of the Presidential proclamation for some time to come. They will examine the gazetting of its provisions, the Home Minister’s speech in the Rajya Sabha, the bills and acts pertaining to it, the debates and arguments presented in parliament and outside it. But is there any worthwhile political will to back a challenge? From the looks of the opposition camps, it looks very tepid.

Besides the stunning fait accompli is such that it stands little or no chance of being effectively challenged, let alone over-turned by legal means.

The integration of J&K into separate Union Territories - at Ladakh without legislature, and in Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature, has ended the  constant political friction probably once and for all.

It is however natural for those who benefited from exploiting the earlier arrangement, to protest the sudden set of steps taken over the last few days, culminating in the decisions taken on the 5^th of August. Can they upset the apple cart though? This is no more likely than the effects of Maharaja Hari Singh’s displeasure.  

Will the spirit of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, martyred in the cause of Kashmir’s integration, animate future development in an integrated J&K plus Ladakh?  

Mookerjee is a towering figure and inspiration for the present dispensation.  He was also the founder of the Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP, and the saviour of West Bengal from being swallowed up by Pakistan. This apart from being a leading light of the Hindu Mahasabha and a sometime minister in the Nehru cabinet.

Under the architects of the integration of the newly named union territories, mainly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Mookerjee’s vision of a Kashmir as a fully integrated part of India, will certainly go forward.

Can we expect bloodshed and revolt in the Kashmir Valley and parts of Jammu, and its echoes in the rest of India including New Delhi? It is most unlikely. 

Instead, it will expose the lack of traction of those who have long claimed that any attempt to revoke Article 370 would result in mayhem.

Congress, long a supporter of the erstwhile arrangement in J&K, is caught in a cleft stick. Though it may be emotionally and materially opposed to the new development, it is, on balance, wary of being seen as its most vehement opponent. Many within it, including legal luminary Abhishek Manu Singhvi, called the government’s move “politically astute” irrespective of its legal underpinnings.

What effect will it have on Pakistan and the wider world beyond it? Pakistan will be worried about Indian claims on PoK and Gilgit Baltistan intensifying now.

Others, including ally China, America, Europe, Russia, the United Nations, the Gulf and North African Arabs, Saudi Arabia, or the OIC in general, are unlikely to back any Pakistani protest.

Turkey and the Palestinian authority might, but they are in no position to make a difference. It is, quite clearly an internal matter for India despite Pakistani efforts on behalf of Pakistani separatists.

In recent days, Pakistan had attempted to revive its proximity to America, using the Afghanistan Taliban as a bargaining chip. This may suit America that is eager to leave Afghanistan to its own devices after nearly two decades of futile effort to subdue its warring factions. But, the new Pakistani tilt towards America probably does not go down well with China, invested to the tune of many billions in the CPEC.

China may well be inclined to back any renewed Indian claim on PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan over the medium term, in exchange for a softening and limited engagement on the part of India with the One Belt One Road and CPEC initiatives.  

A new world of improbable opportunity may have just opened up.

(1,441 words)

5^th August 2019

For: Sirfnews

Gautam Mukherjee