Regime Change Ushers In A New Current Affairs Narrative

‘You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending’ -C.S. Lewis, author -Chronicles of Narnia

Regime change is the harbinger of a spring cleaning. It brings about, as if by magic, a new current affairs narrative, seemingly unhampered by the burdens of the past. Yet there is a link retained, so as to not shock the body politic. In elected governments, there are the voters to reward, their expectations to meet. How different are they from the establishment of the past depends on the margin of victory, the difference of vote shares between the winners and losers. In countries like India with multiple cultures, languages, regions, religions, how different parts and states therein voted, and what this information suggests, must be taken into account.

 In more autocratic set-ups, there is the vision of the latest strong man to implement. Is he stronger than the one he seeks to emulate? Is Xi Jinping a better Mao Ze Dong? Is the China of 2022, with its muscularity but faltering economy, better than decades before - under the guidance of  Premier Deng Ziao Ping for example?  Or is there need for course correction, to revert to the discretion and humility of the Deng era. Is the Mao period, strategically brilliant but tumultuous, resulting in millions of deaths in peacetime, worth emulating afresh?

In the former, the democracies, the side-lining of the emphases laid by the previous governments, if ideologically at variance, begins slowly but gains momentum. If a second consecutive term is won, the moves become more assertive. The losing parties grow more desperate, fretting about the long spell without significant political power. They chafe at the lack of fresh pelf and patronage that goes with it. The urge to decry achievements of the sitting government grows more insistent. The lies and propaganda employed grow more lurid. Vilification is a daily occurrence, just this side of rank abuse. Effectiveness however is at a premium, sitting on top of essential despair.

Autocratic regimes purge their opponents and dissidents without ceremony. Defanging or eliminating potential enemies is believed to be good statecraft.

A would-be regime change unfolding before us in Ukraine, seeks to undo the harm done to Russian interests over three decades. But it see-saws like a nursery rhyme Marjorie Daw. 

Joseph Stalin, speaking in his time, said, ‘At this point the question of Ukraine is the most important. The situation in Ukraine is very bad. If we don’t take steps now to improve the situation, we may lose Ukraine. The objective should be to transform Ukraine, in the shortest period of time, into a real fortress of the USSSR.’ Nothing much seems to have changed in Russia’s thinking in over seven decades.

Ukraine was a founder member of the Soviet Union in1922. When it became independent in 1991, it largely stayed in the Russian camp. This changed because of Western whisperers, but the Russian Bear was not pleased. It has been a game of musical chairs ever since - a Soviet lackey, replaced by a NATO one, and now, it is about to see-saw back into Russia’s arms.

Do the people of Ukraine want to be Russian again. It won’t be allowed to matter, because it didn’t when the West installed Zelensky to run its ‘client state’ either.

The sinister thing from Moscow’s perspective has been the creep of NATO eastwards, drawing one former Soviet satellite after another into its net, and quite often that of the EU. Russian protests were ignored all the while. The spirit of the agreements at the dissolution of the Soviet Union, said Mikhail Gorbachev, has been violated.

What’s going on now is exemplified by NATO member Bulgaria, who know the Russians very well, refusing to send military equipment to Kiev. It is sending humanitarian aid, but does not want to be party to fighting Russia.

The Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Igor Kalabukhov, said Russia would ‘respond to the threat’ of Bosnia and Herzegovina possibly joining NATO. Kalabukhov told Bosnian TV, ‘How do you know that we are not planning anything against Croatia, Hungary or Poland. We have plans against NATO. We estimate the geo-strategic situation, we look at where the threats come from and react.’  The three countries Kalabukhov mentioned are already in NATO. This is the uncertain calculus going forward that NATO must take into account.

The last buffer state between the NATO countries and Russia, Ukraine, is flat, easy to blitzkrieg through. But with Russia in control of it, this cannot be done without unaffordable attrition.

Here too, the non-implementation of the Minsk Accord of 2014-2015, at the behest of the West, is the culprit. This is why the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics declared their independence immediately recognised by Russia before it went into Ukraine on 24^th February 2022. That, and the constant military menacing of this Russian speaking Donbass region for over a decade by a Ukraine administration, flattered by NATO, EU and US attention.

There is resistance in Ukraine, unlike the altogether more cynical and pragmatic Afghan Army, armed to the teeth by the Americans. The Afghans melted away in days, along with their leader gone into exile, abandoning their country to the Taliban.

Ukraine, by way of contrast, is using its training from the NATO trainers as well as its NATO given weaponry. But this is inadequate, and has resulted in city after city and all national assets being reduced to rubble. It has brought calamity on the heads of millions of ordinary Ukrainians and triggered a refugee exodus.

 If Ukraine refuses to surrender, lay down all arms, demilitarise, and toe the Russian line that demands its future neutrality, it will stay under the direct occupation of Russia. And Russia in turn will be poised on the border of multiple NATO countries and others, such as Finland.

The West, with enormous resources, armaments and institutional influence, plans to defend NATO territory against a nuclear weaponised Russia. But it has been given pause by Russia’s effective hypersonic missiles used for the first time in war by any power.

America has raised a bogey that Russia may use chemical and biological weapons next. Both sides seem to echo John Milton’s Paradise Lost, when he wrote, ‘Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven’.

Back home here in India, there has been a considerable change in the political, ideological and current affairs narrative since the BJP/NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. It began slowly but now there are many road-markers in the seven and a half years since, that challenge the surreptitious insertion of the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ into the preamble of the Indian Constitution during the infamous Emergency.

These words were gradually weaponised to effect a prejudicial and uneven playing field for the Hindus to aid the Congress Party’s vote bank politics. In addition, every attempt was made from the very first in 1947, to divide and rule the many castes and sub castes, even while pampering the minorities. The idea was to prevent the Hindus from ever uniting as a voting force.

Text books written by Marxists spuriously suggesting that Indian history began with the arrival of the Mughals were taught to Indian children for generations. Hindu festivals and cultural practices were criticised and mocked by favoured intellectuals and government promoted celebrities. Of late, Woke definitions, absolute and insulting distortions, were introduced to test the water via advertisements put out by corporate entities.

But the great push back that began in 2014 has gained momentum. For the first time since the Seventies, ‘The Idea of India’ promoted by the Nehru-Gandhi clan is being dismantled at every turn by Narendra Modi’s cry of a ‘New India’. Hindus are speaking up.  The government has looked at sinecures and government appointments in various official and semi-official capacities and in schools and colleges, in order to correct biases. The NCERT books are being rewritten.

The erstwhile semi-autonomous state of J&K has been amalgamated into the Indian Republic. The over a century old dispute on the Ram Temple at Ayodhya has been resolved, and the grand temple is now being built. In addition, the whole of Ayodhya is being transformed to suit.  The Kashi-Vishwanath Temple and corridor in Varanasi has been built with many facilities. The ancient Ghats at Varanasi, the oldest living city in the world, have been renovated. Other infrastructure such as its railway station has also been transformed. The road network to the Char Dhams in Uttarakhand have been upgraded. Connectivity by road and rail with modern facilities have been created to Katra and the Mata Vaisnodevi Shrine. The judiciary is beginning to hear petitions on the  encroachment of the Sri Krishna Janmasthan Temple at Mathura.

A proud Hindu government is doing spectacular restitution that has been denied since the Indian Republic was formed.

The government has, at the same time, sought to be even-handed by removing the practice of instant triple talaq which, to an extent, earned the gratitude of oppressed Muslim women.

In true secular fashion, as opposed to its distorted version from earlier times, many things have been implemented that benefit everyone in the country. Infrastructure by way of new highways, tunnels, bridges, inner city improvements, agricultural canals, new techniques, EVs, have been proceeding at a fast pace. The neglected North East of the country has been brought into the mainstream. The Indian Railways have been overhauled, electrified and modernised. Rapid Rail Networks, Bullet trains and dedicated freight corridors have begun to actuate. Many new cities have now received functioning Metro systems and the older existing networks have been expanded and bettered. Ports have been upgraded and both sea and riverine cargo and passenger transport systems have been refreshed.

Digitisation has made greater progress in India than many advanced nations. Aatmanirbhar manufacturing is growing dynamically in the defence, electronics, IT and AI sectors. Start-ups and Unicorns are being born at a fast pace for the first time. With the privatisation of Air India, a number of other large divestments and part privatisation of government assets is on the anvil.

If this is pleasing to the middle classes and foreign investors, the targeted welfarism for the poor include the building of toilets, provision of cooking gas, electricity, water on tap, rural roads, wi-fi connectivity, pucca housing for the poor, support prices for agricultural produce and freedom to sell anywhere for the small farmer, and a much improved law and order situation. All this has earned the appreciation of the masses.

So, by popular demand, the Hindu Nationalist government is well established. This is reflected by the popularity of Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership, and the continued electoral success with no sign of anti-incumbency.

India’s international standing under Prime Minister Modi has also reached new heights. Our enemies on the borders have been checked. The GDP growth trajectory after two difficult years spent battling the Covid pandemic very successfully, is once again in the region of 9% per annum. Exports are growing strongly, and foreign exchange reserves are at an all-time high.

It is a narrative that is very different from before 2014. Should the same BJP led combine win again in 2024, the movement towards a Hindu Rashtra  inclusive of a constitutional change if necessary will become inevitable. The minorities will find an honourable place in this New India. But they will have to give up their seditious ways.

Hindu Rashtra, a national commitment to a State religion, will define and strengthen India, its military, and its economy. Next to Nepal, which has diluted its position under Communist influence, it will be the only Hindu nation in the world. A world full of avowedly Islamic and Christian nations in the main.

Our chances of becoming a $ 5 trillion economy from the present $3 trillion, and the third biggest economy in the world soon thereafter at about $10 trillion in GDP, will brighten. As Lord Krishna states in the Bhagwad Gita, ‘We behold what we are, and we are what we behold’.

 

(2,017 words)

March 22^nd, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee