How Many In the Opposition Are Jihadi Patrons?

In the midst of this election season, a harsh trial court verdict awarded the death sentence to 38 of 49 accused in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case of 2008.  The quantum of punishment in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case followed on from the initial verdict on February 8^th, 2022. Another 11 were awarded life imprisonment for the length of their natural lives. There were 38 acquittals as well by Special Judge AR Patel in the Ahmedabad Sessions Court.  Of these 38, as many as 17 will stay in custody over accusations in other cases.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself targeted  in the carnage of 13 years ago, along with the entire top drawer leadership in Gujarat at the time, hailed the long-delayed verdict.

In an emotional speech on the campaign trail at Hardoi, Lucknow, and Varanasi, he said he had vowed that the perpetrators would be brought to justice, holding a fistful of the blood-soaked soil at the time. He then suggested the Samajwadi Party (SP), main challenger to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh 2022, is sympathetic to such terrorists.

The announcement of the quantum of punishment in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case, coincided with the surfacing of a photo of Akhilesh Yadav, the SP supremo and former Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh, hobnobbing with Mohammed Shadab, father of Mohamed Saif.  The latter is one of the accused who has also been condemned to death, not only in this case, but the 2008 Jaipur serial blasts case as well.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh joined the prime minister by  also accusing the earlier SP government of attempting to withdraw 13 cases against some of the Ahmedabad Blasts and other attack accused terrorists who hailed from Uttar Pradesh. He also confirmed that Mohammad Shadab operated as an important functionary of the SP.  Adityanath said the judiciary refused the SP government’s requests to withdraw the cases in 2013.

From the SP point of view, such sympathetic posturing with jihadis is probably deemed essential to woo their minority voters. It has become something of a norm in some Opposition circles. After all, the Congress Party has long done it too. Most recently they have offered full-throated support to the radical Islamic organisation Popular Front of India (PFI), and its student wing, the Campus Front of India (CFI) instigated hijab row.

This too has likely been timed to vitiate the election atmosphere amongst Muslim female voters in Uttar Pradesh. To avoid a ban, the PFI is distributing its activity into a number of NGOs at present. This, of course, is a tried and tested Pakistani terrorist organisation strategy.

Congress is seen to be close to Pakistan as well as China and there are documented interactions between the grand old party and these enemy countries that suggest making common cause to bring down the Modi Government. There is no attempt at a nationalist outlook.  A senior Congress leader, both a Modi-baiter and a Pakistan lover, has recently questioned the Modi government’s accelerated militarisation programme.  He wonders why it is needed.

The Shiv Sena is also seen pandering to minority concerns including those that emanate from Pakistan, in a marked departure from its stance when it was led by Balasaheb Thackeray. This is because it fears its erstwhile Hindutva favouring voters have abandoned it for the BJP. This, on the formation of the Aghadi government with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress.

Collectively, these politicians, with others fearful of their own survival such as KCR from Telangana, question and cast doubt not only on the central government’s declarations, but even on those of the Armed Forces.

Meanwhile in the border-state of Punjab, also in these polls, putative front-runner the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is accused by one of their estranged senior founder members of cosying up to the Khalistani separatists. The Home Minister has promised a detailed investigation. 

Power at any cost seems to be the motto in much of the Opposition.

Minority attacks against innocent civilians, institutions, commercial areas, hospitals, restaurants, have been part of the discourse for many years now. These sometimes boil over into full-fledged riots and arson as well. This is in addition to military targets, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

All of this terrorist activity is aided and abetted by Pakistani terrorists,  domestic moles, Bangladeshi terrorists, Maoists including Urban Maoists (aided by China), North Eastern Separatists, Maoist conclaves in Central India,  and other fifth columnists, financed by foreign interests. The ones involving Muslims have increased in frequency after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. And now there is a fresh grouse in certain radicalised Muslim quarters over the totally legitimate building of the grand Ram Temple ay Ayodhya.

But most of all, it is the BJP/RSS combine that is seen as a threat, not only by the minorities who see it as a loss of power and privilege, but the political parties that depend on them for their performance at the hustings.

SP is a prime example. As is the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal. The Congress is furious too, but stands discredited amongst the bulk of the voters all over the country.  The AAP in its bid to power in other states, has added the Khalistanis to the Muslims it woos assiduously in the little half-state of Delhi it controls.

But those who depend on minority votes are willy-nilly drawn into anti-national activity they find difficult to defend when it comes to the surface in the judiciary and the media. This in turn hardens the attitudes of the majority community, unifying them over caste, region and the lure of the Communists and the Left. This makes it increasingly difficult for Muslim-backed parties to come to power. There is, therefore, a certain desperation in the air that is resorting to violence.

While details of court submissions from the Ahmedabad Blasts Case from prosecution and defence lawyers over more than a decade and the sentencing order have not been put out in the public domain yet, the blasts were carried out reportedly in revenge for the 2002 Godhra Riots.

There is open treason as well. The key conspirator, Sadar Nagori, leader of the banned SIMI, one of the 38 handed the death sentence, said ‘The Constitution does not count for me’ after the verdict.

More than 246 were injured and 56 killed in the multiple blasts from more than 22 bombs in 2008, many of them concealed in bicycles and let off at crowded places in Ahmedabad. Modi, wanting to milk the back story, made a opportunistic point of wondering why the SP had chosen the bicycle for its symbol.

In the context of thinly populated Canada’s recent firm handling of illegal blockades that brought the shenanigans to an end in under three weeks with no casualties, the Indian government’s soft stance on terrorists and their patrons may well need to be reviewed.

If the fear is that international media will rise up in condemnation, it might do some good to reflect on why our Gandhian approach is disregarded, and Modi is called a dictator and a fascist anyway. Surely it is agenda driven, and the main task of the West, the Chinese, and certain Islamic countries, is to retard the growth and strength of a resurgent India.

The Opposition, in cahoots with separatists and Islamists suits them well. India is meant to be weak and biddable in their book. The New India is much too assertive for the neo-colonialists. And a Hindu resurgence is incomprehensible to many.

On our part, we seem to be changing too. The Modi Government is aware of the exasperated public opinion. Recent pronouncements of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on China and our neutral stance on Ukraine are neither apologetic, nor submissive.

(1,292 words)

February 21^st, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Punjab Elections: Channi-Vadra Parochialism

It makes for quite a composition. A Christian-Dalit-Sikh just months old Congress CM (and CM candidate) Charanjit Singh Channi, atop a red tractor. And a Congress High Command nominee, Priyanka Vadra, of mixed parentage, perched to his side and slightly behind.

Channi calls Priyanka Vadra a ‘Punjaban’. This, despite Priyanka being half Italian plus a mixture of ancestors from other regions, none of them Punjab. Channi thinks she is a Punjaban, only by virtue of her marriage to an Anglo-Indian Punjabi combo from, (originally), Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. 

Channi declares from atop the tractor that ‘UP, Bihar de bhayye’ should leave Punjab. At the time, the televised photo-opportunity gets a quota of claps and wolf-whistles from the faithful before the duo. Vadra herself claps and grins her delight, displays her dimples, her much mentioned Indira Gandhi nose.

Channi’s inexperience in high politics shines through as he explains after a substantial backlash from the BJP’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Nitish Kumar CM and supremo of the JDU in Bihar.

Channi says, to make matters worse, that he meant the Aam Aadmi Party leaders such as Durgesh Pathak, Sanjay Singh and Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP are seen as the front-runners to form the next government in Punjab by the findings of several opinion polls.

Prime Minister Modi, taking Channi at his word, pointed out that Guru Govind Singh was born in Patna Sahib in Bihar. Guru Ravidas, a Dalit icon, said the prime minister, whose birth anniversary was just celebrated, was born in Uttar Pradesh.

In Patna, CM Nitish Kumar said he was ‘stunned’ by the comments. He continued, ‘Do they know what is the contribution of the people of Bihar in Punjab and how many are living and serving there?’

Channi then fell over himself to course-correct. He said ‘Those who come from UP, Bihar and Rajasthan and work in Punjab-Punjab belongs to them as much as it does to us’.

Vadra, chimed in with ‘ All that CM Charanjit Channi said was that Punjab should be run by Punjabis’.  Yes, but she may find that the people of Punjab choose the so-called outsider AAP instead this time.

Besides, there could be darker motives in the Congress. The Khalistan movement is beginning to revive. The storming of the Red Fort had one of its proponents, Deep Sidhu making no secret of it. His recent death in a car crash and the subsequent funeral where slogans for Khalistan rent the air are sobering realities. The Canadian Sikh/Khalistani financial and physical contributions to the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA stir and the farmer protests thereafter are threats to India’s internal security well recognised by the government at the centre.

Some Punjabi Sikh politicians like Navjot Singh Sidhu have precipitated  foreign policy embarrassments by going to Pakistan and embracing General Qamar Javed Bajwa, their Army Chief. Another stalwart of the Pakistan loving brigade, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s photograph was plastered all over Congress promotion material recently. Since he hasn’t said a word lately, a rumour started that he had probably died. However, happily he is very much amongst us, but Congress probably wanted to remind the public of his sympathies.  

Other Sikh Punjabis as a whole are apparently not interested in sharing any power with its 38% plus Hindu Punjabi population, let alone the outsiders being targeted by Channi and Vadra here.

Would they ideally like Punjab to be an exclusively Sikh, perhaps Khalistani state? Pakistan’s ISI is keen on this outcome, and is reportedly doing everything possible to assist. Some reports suggest the AAP is also not averse to joining hands with the Khalistanis and their aim of creating a breakaway independent state.

Of late there has also been a huge upsurge in evangelical conversions of Sikhs to Christianity and the establishment of scores of new churches. Charanjit Singh Channi, a product of this process, and possibly the Congress High Command led by Sonia Gandhi, are apparently in favour. What this implies in terms of national security in this, a border state is not very clear, unless it leads to greater Western influence. 

 There is a massive drug problem in the state as a result of a nexus between elements on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan international border, some associated with the Akali Dal. Drones have also been regularly dropping arms and ammunition on our side, along with drugs, to finance the anti-national activity.

The Congress government in Punjab, particularly after the exit of Captain Amarinder Singh as CM, have raised strident objections to the extended patrolling of the border area by the BSF at the instance of the centre. West Bengal, where the same action has been taken simultaneously, is also vehemently opposed to the BSF presence along the border with Bangladesh.

This trend of parochialism and localism has been on display in a number of other states going to elections, most recently in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee and the TMC scored big by portraying The BJP as predatory outsiders.

It has also been on display at other times, as in the move to reserve government and private sector jobs for the people of the state elsewhere. But most recently, Haryana was disallowed by its High Court to reserve 75% of the jobs for locals. These are trends with far reaching consequences, as the best people for various jobs may be disbarred just for not belonging to a given state. In addition to reservations for weaker sections which are rife already, this additional populism may soon become unworkable.

Nevertheless, there are a number of election-time pledges to reserve jobs for Punjabis from different political parties. Ditto in other states, which have gone, or are still going through the various phases of the polls. 

The fissiparous tendencies, being fanned by the Congress Party, seen to be in consultations with both Pakistan and China, were given voice and encouragement recently by MP Rahul Gandhi. In his speech in parliament, he called India a ‘union of states’ rather than a nation. He suggested they had every right to formulate their own policies to suit themselves. Rahul Gandhi also left out the entire North East of India in a recent tweet on the extent of India. He placed himself as opposed to the idea of a centralisation of power, and the prime minister acting like a ‘king’.

Here seems to be a plan afoot with the Congress party and those others unable to secure gains in electoral politics, to try and challenge the law and order situation on the street instead. The latest Hijab agitations, which it backs along with some Islamic organisations, is yet another example of this strategy.

But at the same time, it is creeping up as an overall Opposition strategy to bring down the NDA. So what if it loosens the bolts of national unity in the process?

(1,135 words)

February 18^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Hijab Agitation: Election-Time Disruptive Manufactured Piety

The grandest of mosques as well as the humblest ones, in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, all of Arabia, and around the world, do not let Muslim women pray in them. They are exclusively male provinces, adults and children alike, when the faithful are called to prayer five times a day.

Women are expected to pray at home. Some places allow women to congregate separately in the open courtyards outside the mosque buildings.

In many parts of the orthodox Muslim world such as current day Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, women are still required to be covered head to foot in burkhas when they go out. Any violations are dealt with harshly. There are religious police keeping vigil.

The separation of the sexes in public areas, beaches, swimming pools, the ability of women to step out with men who are not their husbands or brothers, their ability to seek or continue in employment, run businesses, or drive cars are by no means automatic entitlements. This unlike their male counterparts, married or unmarried. The restrictions placed on female attire also varies from country to country in the Islamic world.

But, overall, it is clear that Muslim men control the narrative on what is permissible. It is therefore rare to see any agitation led by women in Islamic countries.

However, in India, the CAA agitation at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi where arterial roads connecting Delhi to Noida were blocked by squatting agitators for months, was almost exclusively peopled by Muslim women. When it  spread to other parts such as North-East Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata, once again there were almost exclusively women protestors, sometimes ensconced with their young children. As a consequence, the authorities were forced to treat the agitators with kid gloves despite their illegal and mostly unauthorised occupation of public areas not designated for protests.

The sudden appearance of the Hijab agitation in some schools of Karnataka, spreading outside them to Maharashtra and Delhi, has been called violative of the ‘religious freedom’ of Muslims. This is how the Popular Front of India (PFI), a hard-line Islamic organisation, peopled by men, framed it. Its student wing The Campus Front of India, (CFI) ‘counselled’ some Muslim young women to prioritise Hijab wearing in schools over the need to receive education in the last quarter of 2021. The agitation then began in December 2021. Many Muslim women subsequently joined the CFI themselves.

In Delhi, the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islam Hind is reportedly working on spreading the agitation  nationally, with its epicentre in Delhi.

The Congress Party has come out in support of the demand to wear Hijabs to school. Lawyer and former Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has called the Hijab ‘row’  an issue of freedom of choice. Lawyer and former union minister of different ministries Kapil Sibal has sought to move the hearing on the hijab ban  from the High Court in Bengaluru to the Supreme Court (SC) in Delhi. In addition, a separate plea has been filed in the SC on the subject.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry has made bold to summon a senior embassy official Suresh Kumar in Islamabad to condemn the Hijab ban in Karnataka. Its foreign minister has also tweeted on the subject, accusing the Indian government of refusing education to young Muslim women and attempting to confine them to Islamic ghettos. India reacted by Suresh Kumar calling all these comments and accusations ‘baseless’.

Malala Yousafzai, now married and safely ensconced in the UK, has demanded that young Indian Muslim women be allowed to wear the Hijab in Karnataka schools. She finds it ‘horrifying’ that they are not allowed to. This after being shot in the head for merely attending school in Pakistan, circa 2012.

The Hijab agitation comes shortly after Pakistani franchisees of important international companies active in India such as Hyundai and Kia Motors, Suzuki Motors, Toyota, KFC, PizzaHut, international car battery companies, and so on, issuing advertisements in favour of the Pakistani version of Kashmir Solidarity Day and ‘right to freedom’. That this was followed by a slew of apologies from the parent companies for the unauthorised use of their names, is how that ended.

So, spontaneous agitation this is not! It is likely more sponsors will emerge in the coming days for a familiar toolkit keen on promoting riots, a bad investment climate for foreign investors, and painting the present government as communal. Some media organisations abroad are already wading in.

However, for now, Karnataka, via their School Education Department of Karnataka under Section 133(2) of the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, has  called for  school goers to wear clothing which protects ‘equality, integrity and does not hinder with public order’. A round-about way of saying respect the uniform. This directive has led to some schools banning the Hijab. Madhya Pradesh, likewise has followed suit.

The legal plaint against the ban has been referred to a three-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court including its chief justice, and efforts to get the Supreme Court to intervene have not borne fruit.

There is a raging debate in the media on the pros and cons of the Hijab agitation at this time when five states, notably Uttar Pradesh with a sizeable Muslim population, are going to the polls. It is seen by some as an effort to influence female Muslim voters and blunt the favourable impression many have developed towards the BJP. This not just for a vast improvement in law and order parameters in Uttar Pradesh but also after the central government outlawed arbitrary verbal, phoned, emailed and whatsapped Triple Talaq. Other TV warriors have, of course, been waxing eloquent on religious rights.

The demand to be allowed to wear Hijabs to schools over and above the uniforms in Karnataka and the religious trend it implies, are not universally seconded by young Muslim women across the country. In Bihar, young Muslim women went on the rampage, pelting stones at the gates of their hostel, after being asked to wear burkhas on campus. They said the superintendent of their hostel in Bhagalpur was trying to implement Taliban style Sharia Law in the hostel. The authorities are looking into their complaints.

Meanwhile, anti-hijab protests, mostly of young Hindu men in saffron scarves and turbans, in counterpoint and counter-polarisation, have sprung up. Hindutva organisations such as Hindu Jagrana Vedike (HJV), Bajrang Dal and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Sri Rama Sene, have reportedly asked students affiliated with them to organise these protests. The organisations have also sought to draw in other Hindu youth.

What is clear this time is that the various Toolkit Warriors are not getting a traffic free one-way street for their manufactured protests. Countering efforts have been quick to react. There is both polarisation on one kind and counter polarisation of the other kind. It is likely however that agitations on both sides of the fence will disappear once the five assembly election results are out on March 10, 2022. Till next time the elections roll around in 2023.

(1,163 words)

February 11^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

   

 

Rahul Gandhi: The Practice Of Selective Amnesia

The practice of selective amnesia is a time-tested technique used by Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and/or his speech writers.

He did it again with a series of outrageous allegations against the government of Narendra Modi from his middle-row-corner perch in the Lok Sabha during this Winter Session. Ostensibly, he was commenting on the presidential address.

The assumption from his handlers is probably that if the nationally televised speech is emotive, and delivered with a degree of verve, a section of the public sympathetic to the storied Congress Party, can be swayed.

This, irrespective of all the missing bits of the argument. Emphasis is all. Never mind the specious content. That can be left to the supporters of the ruling party to mull over and argue about. The shooting and the scooting would have been accomplished anyway. Some will ask if Rahul Gandhi is ready at last. At least he delivered a 44-minute speech with the bizarre arguments coherently put.

There is also the urgent necessity of yet another ‘coming of age’ claim to the leadership of the combined Opposition, should it manifest.  Open challenges from Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, riding high on her victory against the BJP in a keenly fought assembly election, must be thwarted. And then there is the dark horse Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, waiting to first take Punjab in the upcoming elections, before possibly casting his hat into the ring as well. Veteran warriors such as Sharad Pawar might possibly be content with playing king maker in 2024. Others, such as KCR and MK Stalin are also stirring.

As for the technique of the speech itself, it deserves marks for audacity. That it is impossible to start India’s recent political history only from May 2014, when his party was routed in the general elections by the BJP/RSS/NDA combine, is something Rahul Gandhi finds difficult to accept.

He repeatedly called Narendra Modi, a very successful elected politician with over 20 years in high office, risen from very humble beginnings and a small town in Gujarat - a king, by implication a dictatorial figure.

This coming from a political dynastic scion who has enormous if unexplained wealth, and has never worked for a living, unless you count being an MP. There was a preening for the cameras to rival a Lawrence Olivier soliloquy. The irony of it was he was doing so in a proudly republican parliament. And that it is comic to accuse this government for having no sense of history, coming from him.

 The fantasies are lurid. For Rahul Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, who started it all for Rahul Gandhi, if you refuse to count Subhas Chandra Bose, was probably a sterling democrat. One who never acted ruthlessly against his opponents. One who was fiercely antagonistic to Chinese ambitions in Tibet and the Akshai Chin. One who objected strenuously when Pakistan ceded part of the Akshai Chin to China so that it could build a road to Tibet through it. One who didn’t give up the seat offered to India in the UNSC, saying pehle aap in a wonderful demonstration of political magnanimity. One who tamely lost huge tracts of Indian territory to China in 1962.

But Nehru said, (or did he, according to Rahul Gandhi’s selective amnesia), it didn’t matter, because ‘not a blade of grass grows on it’.

The trouble is, seven years of uncovering the unvarnished truth about the Congress-UPA governments, their multiple blunders and deceptions, not to mention the massive corruption, has left little room for taking the moral high ground. To pose, again and again, as the saviour of the poor, is not in accordance with the facts.

Rahul Gandhi does not remember that it was the UPA government of Manmohan Singh, remote-controlled by his mother Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of the Congress Party, that refused to retaliate militarily against 26/11. Was this so as not to upset Pakistan? If this is an example of how the Congress prevented China and Pakistan coming together, then heaven help us.

 The righteous dream continued. Nehru was followed shortly by a kindly, democratic, Indira Gandhi, who never invoked Article 356 of the Indian Constitution to topple elected state governments, in what Rahul Gandhi called ‘A Union of States’. She didn’t use the IAF to bomb Mizoram to quell dissidence. She never imposed the draconian Emergency. Nor did she invade the Golden Temple in Amritsar with tanks and soldiers.

 Indira Gandhi was followed by Rajiv Gandhi, who never condoned the massacre of thousands of ordinary Sikhs in retaliation for the assassination of his mother in 1984.

Then there was the Rahul Gandhi version of The Tale Of Two Cities, the Dickensian tale on the French Revolution. The oft applied characterisation of the Two Indias, a repeat of his earlier ‘suit-boot sarkar’ jibe, namely, one for the very rich, and one for the rest. The key angst was against the rich companies in the formal sector, Ambani & Adani in particular, versus the alleged neglect of the MSME Sector. Tata somehow was not mentioned. But even Bollywood has largely dropped this rich-girl-poor-boy trope in less Socialist times.

According to Rahul Gandhi, ‘Make in India’ cannot go forward without the MSMEs and the unorganised sector. It is doomed.This flies in the face of the considerable success of the aatmanirbhar defence manufacturing initiative of the Modi government. L&T, not one of his usual targets, is manufacturing thousands of crores worth of defence equipment.

Job creation is impossible without encouraging the MSME sector says Rahul Gandhi, completely ignoring all the financing efforts made by the Modi government in this regard. MSMEs have also attached themselves to the major industrial initiatives being taken by the large companies in concert with the Government of India.

Rahul Gandhi plumps for a consultative vision of the union of states which he alleges is missing. He ignored the strident non-cooperation of the Opposition allied to the Congress Party, both in parliament and outside it, on the streets. Other political parties, who do not adhere to the Congress line, can and have found common cause on a case-to-case basis multiple times over the last seven years.

He alleges that the institutions of India are being captured by the ruling government, and included the EC and the Judiciary in this. There are already some legalistic reactions to these comments.

His suggestions that the autocratic ways of the Modi government will reap the whirlwind do not jive at all with the iron-fisted High Command culture of the Gandhi family. That it has brought the Grand Old Party to the point of near extinction both as a Party and one in power, is the real truth that Rahul Gandhi can’t deal with. He thinks he can make it all better by somehow getting rid of Narendra Modi from power. But every attempt makes the BJP/RSS/NDA more successful.

The people, the voting public, even the Congress Party rank and file, and not a few of its leaders, don’t seem to be buying his arguments. But, in the world of Rahul Gandhi and his remaining sycophants, this was a dazzlingly brilliant speech.

His bizarre attack on the Home Minister Amit Shah wearing his house slippers while visiting Manipuri politicians were asked to leave their street-shoes outside, was a failed attempt to paint this government as imperial. The sanskari point made by Minister Piyush Goyal was all but lost on him.

Rahul Gandhi does not remember the way he himself treated Himanta Biswa Sarma, the present NDA Chief Minister of Assam. Rahul Gandhi cancelled several appointments urgently sought by Sarma when things were slipping in Assam, before finally seeing him as the then Congress President. Sarma said how in this final meeting, Rahul Gandhi concentrated on feeding his dog Pidi biscuits while largely ignoring Sarma. This occasioned Sarma to leave the Congress Party. And in due course, this resulted in the loss of Assam and the North East for the Congress.

The US has made it clear it does not agree with the fascistic innuendos and other allegations made by Rahul Gandhi in his speech of February 2^nd, 2022.

The attempt to loosen the bolts of national unity by suggesting ‘fissiparous tendencies’, a term much used in the seventies if not by Rahul Gandhi, are good for federalism, is probably the most pernicious of his comments.

 The praise of China’s clarity of vision also makes people wonder what the content of the agreement the Gandhi family signed with the Chinese on behalf of the Congress Party entails. We would, of course, have to apply to the Chinese Embassy in Chanakyapuri to find out.

 

(1,436 words)

February 4^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Year Of The Tiger Union Budget 2022-2023

The Finance Minister (FM), Nirmala Sitharaman framed this budget as a blueprint for the next 25 years, from the Republic of India’s 75^th year, to its 100^th. It was her shortest budget speech and she left out a lot of the detail in order to paint a futuristic picture like no budget before presented by any Indian government. It was seen and received as an investment and growth-oriented budget with no populist overtones.

The shibboleths of social upliftment and never-mind-how-I-will-pay-for-it give-aways, was missing. The fiscal discipline was maintained alongside a determination to promote the kind of growth a country headed to the No. 3 spot in the global economy must emphasise. This budget will gladden the hearts of international lending and rating agencies, provided the implementation lives up to the promise.

The Nehruvian order is predictably baffled, as there are none of the usual markers on welfarism, no mention of MNREGA (in fact a cut in MNREGA allocations), no ‘common man’ carrots, no freebies, though there is a focus on mental health for perhaps the first time, not even a new disinvestment target.

This, even as the morning papers announced the acquisition of a loss-making government steel  company that makes  ‘long products’ such as rods, rails, bars, used in the construction sector. The company , Neelachal was acquired by the Tata Group for Rs. 12,000 crores, with 2,500 acres of land to expand into. LIC is likely to shed some of its heft by selling shares to institutional and retail buyers in the stock market shortly. The storied Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi, a stone’s throw from where the prime minister presently lives, has also been put on the block, post the Air India sale.

The fiscal deficit is looking good, though ‘imported inflation’ from high oil prices  could be disruptive in future. This despite the travails of the pandemic, and the new budget target for 2022-2023 is 6.9 % of GDP.  But will India raise interest rates and possibly queer the pitch? It seems unlikely.

For the bigger $5 trillion dollar target for the economy as a whole by 2025, the aatmanirbhar manufacturing sector has to grow, the FM said, in double-digits. When you want big growth you don’t cut the money supply.

The FM may be pointing at defence manufacturing as a substantial part of it. Some 68% of the defence capital expenditure budget will go to domestic procurements.  This should mean substantially better bangs for our military equipment buying buck. Also, it will set up a lucrative export business as the recent sale of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines has already demonstrated. There will be no middle-men commission agents siphoning off millions of dollars.  The government is also unwilling to be held hostage to the tardiness and inefficiency of sarkari defence manufacturers. L&T already has orders running into thousands of crores on the back of their efficiency.

A full 25% of the R&D budget  of the defence ministry will go to private companies and defence oriented start-ups, to diversify away from the government owned defence manufacturing establishment, without abandoning it.

Infrastructure financing too is expecting a boost over the previous year. The budget will distribute some 7.5 lakh crore to these sectors, up from 5.4 lakh crores in 2021-22. This increase is just shy of 3% of GDP. There will be 400 new Vande Bharat trains over the next three years. Sitharaman listed roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways, logistics infrastructure.

There was no fresh mention of the high-end semiconductor JV manufacturing industry though it is known several Indian companies plus the government are in talks with Taiwanese companies. But 5G is all set to take off with its multiple spin-off technology and economic benefits.

The union budget has a vastly digital and technological feel to it. Drones in agriculture to spray nutrients and fertilizer, a fresh boost to SEZs to revive interest in it for Information Technology initiatives, merged with Customs Duty reform. There will be optical fibre countrywide, 5G roll-out, spectrum allocation, e-passports, a digital rupee using blockchain technology that will leach out some of the millions of paper notes in circulation.  This is a brand new Indian idea, though China does have its digital currency already.

Green Bonds will finance environment friendly moves. Blended fuel (ethanol blend from sugar/molasses), and flexi-fuel enabled vehicles are coming up, with an additional tax per litre on those which must continue with unblended diesel, petrol, aviation fuel.

There is a new emphasis on solar power to take more load off thermal energy, and agri-forestry enhancements.

The government has bitten the bullet with a pathbreaking 30% tax on profits from ‘virtual digital assets’, that is  cryptocurrency - with no set-off for losses.

There are useful duty concessions on electronic industry parts and gems and jewellery for the precious, high-value end, rather than costume jewellery.

No concessions to speak of in direct and corporate taxes. This is a bold departure on the eve of five important state assembly elections. The government is signalling a fast-forward future and an attitude shift too.

The stock market backed the FM’s 9.2 % GDP growth projection and the futuristic feel to the budget with a near 1,000 point rise in the Sensex and 200 points on the Nifty. Other sectoral indices were all handsomely in the green. However, Post-budget speech, the indexes began to  wobble and fluctuate before rising up again as the Opposition expressed its disappointment with no sops at all.

GST is now totally IT enabled, working better than ever before, and as an aside the FM announced a collection of 1.41 lakh crore in January 2022, the highest ever so far.

The Chinese New Year, a lunar calendar event and massive cultural celebration , coincided this time with our union budget day. It is the Year of the Water Tiger. Like Indians, China considers the Tiger (The Royal Bengal Tiger), a symbol of strength, exorcising of evils, and bravery. It makes for an interesting motif, even though there is no mention of it in the excitement of scores of economic commentators and politicians on TV and the digital media this day. We will wait till tomorrow to see what print has to say.

 

(1,033 words)

February 1^st, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee