Is Biden, Mired In Two Wars, Going To Be A One-Term President

Incumbent President Joe Biden,81, standing for re-election in 2024, knows, after more than fifty years in the Senate, and as President Obama’s two term Vice President, that incumbents generally win.

He has come a long way from suggesting he was just a ‘bridge’ president, and a definite one-termer in 2019. He might even had meant it at the time. Now, he wants to go the distance into a second-term, rocking into his late eighties, experience, and infirmities, in tow. But yes, he is in good health, just like his rival. Biden gaffes do not necessarily make him senile, and can hold their own against various Trumpisms.  

Biden does not, however, as staff writer Linda Feldman of The Christian Science Monitor puts it, have ‘a core base of enthusiasm’ for his candidacy in the Democratic Party. Fine, but there is a TINA factor at play, and Biden does not have 91 felonies against himself either. Felonies, and other legalistic land- mines, any of which could disqualify Trump and open up a whole new race.

However, by way of contrast, the other ancient, his pugnacious challenger Donald Trump, does enjoy massive core support in the Republican Party. Donald Trump thinks, controversially, that the election was stolen from him four years ago, and is spoiling for a rematch. The swing states and polls support Trump. He could win quite handily. The election, in November 2024 is still eleven months away of course, and much could change.

Meanwhile, inflation has hit, skyrocketing grocery and food prices. This may not be grand economics, but it is lived experience for the people. People want to see the prices that existed pre Covid. This, of course, is unlikely because of the bruising the economy has taken over two lockdown years.

The domestic economy, is, in fact, growing now, and has staved off a recession. Unemployment is not a major issue. The Democrat position on free abortion rights makes sense to most women across the two main parties. Most women want the right to decide and do not agree with  male Republican religious fundamentalists who have organised a ban by overthrowing the Roe-Wade judgement.  

Other broader issues such as national security when there are frequent shootings of innocents in public places are being debated and additional measures contemplated. However, the American fundamental right to bear arms is not going away anytime soon.  Immigration is a double-edged sword. Cheap illegal labour on the one hand, and demographic pressures on the other. We have a similar problem with four million or more Bangladeshi infiltrators here in India.

Challenger Donald Trump, has a way of outraging the Democrat voter with his radical pronouncements such as calling certain folk vermin at a veterans’ rally. It works with the White Blue Collars, but not so much with others.

This Trump loud-mouth will work in favour of Biden within his party and support groups, as he invokes the ‘soul of the nation’ like a good Catholic.

Given his long experience in politics, Biden and his handlers, should be able to best any internal Democrat challengers. Biden also connects well with small groups and people in small towns, his ‘Scranton Joe’ image from his hometown in Pennsylvania, and likes going out to speak to them. Being the incumbent president is of immense value in these acts of humility.

In foreign policy, the only ones that can be glad all over are the ones that run the huge military industrial complex in America. They are making massive profits from sales. War is always good for such people.

 Biden’s term began with an abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan leaving behind billions in sophisticated weaponry. While the president got good domestic press for his decisiveness and bringing the troops home, it left a power vacuum in the region, with security implications for several nations, including India.

The war in Ukraine, backed massively by the US and NATO, seems, in year two, to be stuck in the mud and snow. Oil and gas prices are on the edge ever since this war in Europe began. It started a spiral of increasing costs and prices of almost everything for the Western Europeans. Most are not growing and, on the edge of, or actually in, recession.

The sanctions against Russia have not worked when it comes to petroleum, with Russia selling all its output to China and India. In other areas, the Western sanctions have put a check on componentry for Russian arms manufacturing and other sectors. But countries such as Iran, Turkey, Pakistan (who sell ammunition to both sides), North Korea, have made up for some of the shortages. China is not directly involved in military supplies as yet, but is backing Russia.  

The other new war in the Middle East, with Israel staunchly backed by the US, in its battle with the Hamas in Gaza, threatens to spread to and disrupt the sea-lanes of the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, based in Yemen, are slinging Iranian-made missiles, and employing Iranian-made drones, on unarmed merchant ships and oil tankers. Rerouting is a very expensive business, that would more than double the freight rates. Iran denies any involvement. The war has also bled into Syria and against the Hezbollah in Lebanon to an extent. Israel is quite prepared to attack Iran directly and has done so in small part.

There are Muslim groups in America vociferously opposed to the unstinted support to Israel, but this is long term policy for America, unlikely to be affected by radical press, university activism, or ethnic minority outrage. But will these groups, mostly Democrat, vote for Biden? If they don’t, they cannot expect any better from the Republicans either.

There is another thing to consider. Incumbent presidents at war, or supporting them, usually win their second terms convincingly.  The public does not like to change horses in mid-stream. Comparisons between Biden and previous one term presidents may not be appropriate given the context.

As things stand, the war in Israel-Gaza is likely to end much before the campaign period does, with opportunities for statesmanship on the part of President Biden. In Ukraine, President Putin of Russia has apparently indicated he is nor averse to a ceasefire. If the US is able to bring the Ukraine war to a close it will stand Biden in immense good measure.

It is true that Biden’s approval rating at present is below 40% and most pollsters think it is a dead heat between him and Trump, but the presidential campaign has not yet truly begun.

For India, it matters little who wins between Biden and Trump, assuming there are no upsets at the line up on both sides. There are, on the face of it, no alternative nominees for the top of the ticket in either political party.

What matters for India, is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to win a third consecutive term, with a majority for the BJP. This would mean policy continuity. With the Indian economy chugging ahead at between 6 and 7 percent in GDP per annum, we will be well placed to receive the winner in America with warmth and confidence.

The strategic relationship between India and the United States has been painstakingly formulated over several Democrat and Republican administrations. It has largely overcome its hesitations. China is the unabashed contender for world domination, chafing at the bit. The India-America relationship has already contributed towards giving the dragon some pause. This, as it wonders upon, and ponders on, its relative strength vis a vis two battle-hardened and formidable technological powers/armed forces.

India’s relationship with America has consolidated its gains, is now definitely stable, and poised for further growth.  

(1,279 words)

December 28^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Bangladesh Elections On January 7^th 2024 Likely To Elect Incumbent Shaikh Hasina To A Fourth Consecutive Term

There is a case for, and a tradition of, strong leadership in Islamic countries. The West often fails to understand the wisdom in this, and this has led to its trying to impose a version of democracy on a number of these countries. The result has been disastrous, unless such ‘democracies’ in turn, impose a version that resembles a near dictatorship.

Several Islamic nations are still absolute monarchies, with strict police state approaches to law and order, dissent and debate.

Others have uniformed  military men at the top. Wherever such governments have been toppled, as was the case after the Arab Spring movement, general chaos ensued, until another tough no nonsense leader emerged. Where no such one leader is thrown up, the country is generally ruled by factional warlords that each hold sway over different parts of the country, as in Libya.

In Pakistan, from which East Pakistan broke away to form Bangladesh in 1971, democracy has not really taken root, unlike India. This, even though it has elections, and a parliament. It is de facto run by the Pakistan Army and its intelligence wing, the ISI. And it has seen its share of political assassinations over the years since its founding in 1947.

 President Shaikh Hasina escaped harm during the assassination of her father, by being in West Germany at the time along with her sister Shaikh Rehana.

The legendary Bongobondhu Mujibur Rahman, her father, the founder president of Bangladesh, and most of her immediate family were killed by a group of Bangladesh Army personnel on 15 August 1975. It was a bloody coup d’etat barely four years after Bangladesh came into being, followed by a series of counter coups over several years.

Sheikh Hasina was barred from returning to Bangladesh immediately. She was given sanctuary by India, and was only able to return to Bangladesh on 17^th May 1981. When she got to Dhaka, she inherited leadership of the Awami League, the political party founded by her father, and came to power for the first time after the elections of 1996. 

Her political rival was, and is, her erstwhile collaborator Khalida Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Khaleda Zia won her first term in 1991 but resigned to a caretaker government followed by Sheikh Hasina winning her first term in 1996. The precedent therefore for the demand for President Hasina to handover to an impartial caretaker government, comes from this 1996 election.

In 2001, Khaleda Zia and the BNP won again, as it turned out, probably for the last time. During 2006-2008 Sheikh Hasina was in jail on extortion charges. When she was released, she won the elections in 2008, and has been in power ever since. As of 17^th November 2023, Sheikh Hasina is the longest-serving female head of government in history. 

Now at 76 years of age, Sheikh Hasina presides over a rapidly expanding economy and has reined in both Islamic radicalism and a military with a history of meddling in politics. Her rival Khalida Zia’s BNP is backed  not only by radical Islamists, but also the Pakistan Army and ISI to boot.

However, Sheikh Hasina is walking an image tightrope for her staunchly authoritarian ways. She is virulently criticised by the Left in the West as well as her political rivals.

The US has crafted some curious visa restrictions against Bangladeshis who obstruct a free and fair election process, from coming to visit. Earlier, in 2021, the US Treasury sanctioned Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), implicated in extra judicial disappearances. Shaikh Hasina sees much of this as the application of double standards that ignore much of the good work she and her government has done over the years.

However, she enjoys the continued confidence of India, that was very helpful in the birthing of Bangladesh in 1971, and this goes on under the Modi government today. There are increasing trade, commerce and transportation linkages between India and Bangladesh that are aiding India’s Look East Policy. China is also an investor in Bangladesh and Shaikh Hasina is quite keen on joining BRICS.

The US, as the principal importer of Bangladeshi readymade garments, (the raw materials come from India), at $ 55 billion, 85% of all its exports, and some 16% of its GDP, wants her to hold free and fair elections.

There is a wage agitation amongst the garment workers, most likely instigated by the opposition, despite their emoluments being increased from $75 a month to $ 114. The workers want more, but the government has refused further increases, in order to maintain the competitiveness of Bangladeshi garment exports. 

Khalida Zia’s BNP and other supporting political parties have threatened to boycott the elections (once again, having done so in 2014), unless Shaikh Hasina resigns and appoints a caretaker government. Khalida Zia is gravely ill now and under house arrest for alleged corruption, and other senior leaders are in exile.

However, under the circumstances of deep political hostility from the opposition, and violent agitations ongoing, this seems unlikely. Shaikh Hasina has survived 19 assassination attempts over the years as an illustration of the political atmosphere. And the device of the caretaker government at election time, used widely between 1996 and 2008, is no longer necessary following a constitutional amendment in 2011. This was necessitated by a military backed caretaker government that clung to power for nearly a year from 2006.

The elections have just been announced for January 7^th 2024 by the Bangladesh Election Commission.  A boycott from the opposition, despite exhortations to the contrary from the EC, will result in a certain victory for the Awami League and Sheikh Hasina.

(935 words)

November 17^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Will Amit Shah Succeed Narendra Modi Or Will It Be Yogi Adityanath?

Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah has come a long way. He is not only the internal security maven but jockeys the nation’s varied cooperative movements. This, in addition to his invaluable contribution to election strategy via the current BJP Party President, his own handpick, JP Nadda.

It all began, in a sense, when he and Narendra Modi, one an RSS Karyakarta then, and the other who entered the fray via the AVBP, were tasked to infiltrate the powerful co-operative movement at the grassroots level in Gujarat.

This meant the credit cooperatives, and principally, the vast milk cooperatives, that have some 36 lakh members today. In rural Gujarat political terms, the money and influence/patronage the cooperatives wielded were crucial.

The most influential and well-known, Amul, a brand in its own right to rival any, accounts for a turnover of over Rs. 60,000 crores today, and exports its products to various countries as well.  

The cooperative movement in Gujarat, in the nineties, was controlled by the Congress Party that also ruled the state. The then BJP leadership saw it as a potent political avenue to come to power in the state.

Modi and Shah delivered in spades, and developed a special bond travelling the dusty mofussil roads of Gujarat on foot, motorcycle, and bus. This success catapulted both to power a few years later, Modi as chief minister of Gujarat, when he won the elections in 2001. By then he was a well-known figure in rural and urban Gujarat. And Amit Shah came in as his multi-bagging home minister. Shah was also put in-charge of several other ministries.

The multiple and consecutive terms that Modi won with a BJP majority in Gujarat, with Amit Shah alongside, next paved his way to the centre as prime minister. Here too, he won with the first absolute majority for the NDA in over 30 years. The last majority government at the centre had been that of Rajiv Gandhi, won in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Modi has now been in power for two consecutive terms at the centre, and is likely to deliver another win for the NDA in 2024, just round the bend.

Amit Shah, in his late fifties now, is widely seen to have the heft, the election winning savvy, and the administrative experience at the centre and state, to succeed Narendra Modi. He also enjoys the unwavering confidence of the prime minister and that of the ideological fount, the RSS.

The key to his likely elevation to the top job when the time comes, is partially his work with the cooperatives as its first union minister, as of 2021. This, in addition to the Union Home Ministry, traditionally regarded as the No.2 position in the hierarchy of the Union Cabinet. The crucial thing, of course, is to be a charismatic vote-getter as well as a election strategist. In this too, Amit Shah has had considerable nation-wide experience.

Amit Shah has accomplished quite a lot with the Cooperation Ministry too. The centre is now in the business of controlling the cooperative movement nationally in a much more pointed way. It has, even in the past, overseen the activity from the Agriculture Ministry but it was neglected and not very effective. But now that the cooperative movement has gone beyond just agriculture, to labour, construction, and other new areas, in replacement of moribund and often corrupt unions, a new ministry was called for.

Cooperatives are also a state subject, with a registrar for cooperatives in each, but even the RBI oversees the cooperative rural banks.

Some analysts have described the cooperative movement as the ‘scaffolding’ that holds up rural India, to give an idea of its importance. For a start, the budgetary support from the centre for the cooperation ministry has been increased seven-fold in under two years. Some taxes on the sugar sector have been removed outright. The MAT (minimum alternate tax), has been reduced to 15% from 18%. The surcharge on cooperative organisations has been reduced to 7% from the erstwhile 12%.

The Centre is computerising cooperative societies, in order to connect them directly to NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development), for which Rs. 6,500 crores has been set aside.

Most recently, a newly created National Cooperative Organics Limited (NCOL) will offer organic products under the brand name Bharat Organics. It will ensure the availability of certified organic products in the market. Some 439 laboratories are to be set up around the country for the certification of farm produce. About 50% of the profits from the sale of Bharat Organics products will be transferred directly to member farmers.

Six products have been launched already- namely tur dal, chana dal, sugar rajma, basmati rice, and sonamasoori rice. These will be sold via Mother Dairy and Safal outlets, as well as various online platforms. Two more such cooperatives, like NCOL have also been set up, these for seeds and exports.

The attempt here is to strike a balance between high fertilizer use in commercial farming, very popular during the Green Revolution that led to India becoming food surplus despite a four-fold increase in population. This because chemical fertilizers in high use are harmful for the soil and water. So organic is an essentially ecofriendly approach and intended balancer.

Amit Shah is also using the Police that come under his Home Ministry to reenergise a national tree plantation drive, with species chosen carefully for their longevity and oxygen creating abilities.

In the big picture, the Ministry of Cooperation is making out model bye-laws in order to make the cooperatives multi- purpose/functional. Computerisation of cooperatives is well underway. To drive the movements to the grassroots some two lakh new societies are being formed at the Panchayat/Village level.

There are many cooperative activities on the anvil. A thrust is being given to decentralised granaries/ grain storages under the cooperative movements, to ensure near home food security. Common e-service centres are being set up for ease of access. The cooperatives are to be used to distribute LPG, set up retail stores at petrol pumps, take on new petrol/diesel dealerships.  They are to set up generic medicine outlets, establish fertilizer distribution centres. They will set up drone manufacturing for multiple uses. Develop more extensive micro-financing and rural credit centres. Maintain the piped water supply. Set up decentralised Solar plants for electricity, and so on.

The cooperative movements can well be an alternate method to energise the hinterland apart from the rural mandi system. The sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra, for example, are the basis of the strength of the NCP and the Pawar family. When it is driven from the centre by the BJP, it has implications and great potential at the national level.

It may be early days for the Ministry of Cooperation, set up only in July 2021, but the prospects are excellent as a power driver in five years-time. That Amit Shah could benefit hugely from his administration of this ministry is in no doubt.

His competitor for the prime ministership is also young and charismatic. Yogi Adityanath has won two consecutive terms in Uttar Pradesh, an electoral feat not seen for decades past. He is bulldozing his way ahead to transform the economy of Uttar Pradesh to the level of $ 1 trillion per annum. He is also cooperating fully for the largely centre driven infrastructure development in his state. The UP Defence Corridor, and the vast development in Ayodhya and in Varanasi are major propellants. Yogi Adityanath’s main attractiveness for the top job is his effective handling of law and order in the state. He has been so good at it that a large section of the BJP voter base wants to see him as prime minister. Or, if that is not possible, in five or so years, given his lack of experience at the centre, as Home Minister. People think Yogi Adityanath will be a very good fit in Amit Shah’s present job. That, of course, may work out very well for both.

The question is, can Uttar Pradesh stay with the BJP without Yogi Adityanath at its helm? Can BJP do without Uttar Pradesh and still win in 2029? Can Yogi Adityanath win UP for BJP by making election forays from the Centre?

(1,382 words)

November 9^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Has The Dragon Scuppered The India Bhutan Relationship?

When the King of Bhutan state visits India for eight long days, family and official entourage in tow, you can surmise something is amiss in the traditionally warm relationship. The status quo has been threatened by 25 rounds of border talks between China and Bhutan with two agreements signed, one a ‘three-step’ agreement in 2021, and another just a fortnight ago. Bhutan is about to establish diplomatic relations with China according to its Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji who led the talks in Beijing.

Ostensibly however, the King’s visit is to sell a brand new project expected to generate thousands of Bhutanese jobs even as its youth are restive about lack of opportunities in the land-locked kingdom.

Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lotay Tshering said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first King Wangchuck contacted on the ‘Gateway City’ project at Gelephu on its border with Assam. It is to become Bhutan’s first Smart City. After King Wangchuck met with Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi on November 5^th, the Bhutanese prime minister announced India will give the project its full support.

Beijing has been leaning hard on Thimpu to settle the issue of the Doklam Plateau that contains the strategic Tri-junction between China-Bhutan and India. It overlooks a narrow strip of land called ‘The Siliguri Corridor’ that connects India with its North-Eastern states.   

Ever since the military stand-off there with India in 2017 that lasted over 93 days, the Chinese have been building roads, bridges and townships on Bhutanese land on the plateau that it claims as its own. It has been seven years. India has done nothing about it unilaterally to avoid a flash-point, and Bhutan has been in no position to resist.

Also, there is a section of the Bhutanese people, particularly when China was doing better economically, who questioned the lack of diplomatic relations with China, a UNSC P5 country, and what they saw as over dependence on India.

Things are a little different again in 2023, when China is in an economic crisis and two countries, Italy and the Philippines, have recently pulled out of its BRI Projects, even as a number of others are in disarray.

Pakistan, China’s so-called all-weather ally, is also facing its own difficulties on the brink of utter bankruptcy, and the China-Pakistan CPEC is in deep trouble. It is also under attack by terrorists, both in Balochistan which contains the expensive China built port of Gwadar, and in central areas of Pakistan including Karachi. Many Chinese have been killed in Pakistan and the parts of the CPEC road that are ready are subject to frequent attack.

Bhutan would, no doubt, like to wriggle out of the dragon’s increasingly uncomfortable embrace under present circumstances. After all, it has the makings of a stranglehold that has been building ever since Chairman Mao claimed not only Tibet, which China occupied in 1950, but Bhutan, as Chinese territory too. Even now China claims large tracts of Bhutan along its borders, and that is what these border talks have been unavoidably about.

To wriggle out of the dragon’s clutches then may be a desire, but how is the question. Would an ambitious economic project, the first of its kind for Bhutan, be a method to balance its situation between China and India?

India is principally concerned with its own national interests, even as Bhutan has been conducting these many rounds of border talks with China, inclusive of Bhutanese visits to China to hold them. So, to an extent, Bhutan seeks to leverage its geographical position, and new found quasi-relationship with China.

However, the matter is delicate, because India has already calculated in the consequences of China capturing the Tri-Junction area and how to deter it in the event it has designs on cutting off Indian access to its North East. The Doklam Plateau and the Tri-Junction Area is in India’s advanced military sights, along with the narrow strip of Indian territory under 30 km wide it overlooks. In addition, India has been building roads, airports, train lines, tunnels and bridges, for faster and better connectivity with its North East. It also enjoys a good relationship with Bangladesh. The neighbouring country is already providing river, sea, and train connectivity to India in multiple places to promote trade and commerce between the two countries.  All this combined with satellite and aerial surveillance, collectively and jointly blunts the Chinese threat at the Tri-Junction.

The King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, looked slightly sheepish of visage on arrival. His government’s border talks with China resulting in an agreement signed barely a fortnight ago, have not been objected to by India.

 The King stopped first in bordering Assam on November 3^rd, where he was received by the expansive Hemanta Biswa Sarma, the dynamic CM of Assam, and major influence in the states of the North East. King Wangchuck discussed infrastructure with Sarma, including a 57 km rail line connecting Korajhar in Assam with Gelephu in Bhutan, where an international airport is to be also built. The King will also visit Mumbai after Delhi, where he will talk to prospective investors in the Gelephu project, called the Sarpang Special Economic Zone.

He was received at the Delhi airport by a slightly stiff S Jaishankar, the storied Indian External Affairs Minister. Pictures have been released of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking and talking unctuously with the King in the corridors of his 7 Lok Kalyan Marg residence. The Governments of India and Bhutan have been largely tight-lipped about the actual bilateral and strategic talks between the two sides. This is understandable with China waiting to pick up clues.

 However a lot has changed. If China threatens India at the Doklam Tri-Junction, not only can it expect stiff resistance there, but it could find India acting in PoK where China’s interests in Tibet and the Siachen could be compromised, along with the mouth of the CPEC from Xinkiang through  Gilgit-Baltistan.

Geopolitically, it is India that is the darling of the West now, led by the US. It is not only a member of QUAD, with strong relationships with Japan and Australia in the neighbourhood, but a strategic and military collaborator/ partner of the US and France in particular.

It is increasingly seen in the Western camp opposed to China and its satellites such as North Korea and Pakistan, on the South China Sea and Taiwan. Its relationship with Iran and Russia now brooks alternatives. It has stood firmly with Israel against the terrorists from Hamas, without damaging its friendships with Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

It is steadily drawing away parts of the supply chain from China, as in the production of Apple phones, and has halved  imports across the board from China. It is also banning more and more Chinese apps, Chinese companies, and has practically stopped Chinese investment in India. India is growing at almost 7% in GDP year on year, the best performance amongst major economies in the world while China is struggling below 4%.

The point of Bhutan’s situation is that India may have quietly bypassed its strategic concerns with the Himalayan kingdom. It is up to Bhutan to maintain the traditionally close relationship with India for its own sake. King Wangchuk realises this. Hopefully he will  return to Thimpu satisfied with India’s continuing and abiding interest in his picturesque country.

(1,221 words)

November 7^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Singur Of Tata Nano Fame Is The 15 Year Old Saga Of A Political Potboiler & An Industrial Wasteland

At independence, and for a couple of decades after, West Bengal was the most industrialised state in India and a great deal of business and industry was head quartered in Calcutta, as it was known as then. People flocked for employment and commerce to a cosmopolitan and elegant former capital of the British Empire in the sub-continent.

But all this changed drastically, and as if forever, with the advent of 34 years of Left front rule, after the earlier Congress governments were vote out. This, soon after a vicious Naxalite agitation, that was brutally suppressed by Congress.

By the time the former chain-smoking Left Front Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya finally came into his own, he was keen and eager to turn a page and reindustrialise the state. This was some time after the passing away of anti-capitalist industry, the long-term Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Basu enjoyed a titanic stature, reputation and affection amongst the people of West Bengal. This was mainly due to his land reform that gave land to the landless. Then there was his abiding sympathy for the labourer and farm worker. His policies against caste discrimination and a secular approach that enthused the minorities in the state in favour of the Left Front. Basu’s Brown Saheb sophistication endeared him to the middle class and the intellectuals too.

British educated Basu’s three decades at the helm, saw every industry strike- bound, locked-out or closed down, till they all fled West Bengal. All except for  the firms associated with tea and cigarettes. And these two businesses were geographically strapped to stay put. The only person who ran a factory successfully in Jyoti Basu’s time, the joke goes, was his son Chandan Basu, who has since seen fit to repair to Canada, out of the reach of inconvenient questions.

Jyoti Basu was many things to the Left Front and even as a support to Indira Gandhi’s government at the Centre, but he effectively ruined the industrial climate in West Bengal. So much so, that it is much the same today with most investment refusing to come to West Bengal despite exhortations from its government, its intelligent and educated population.

Bhattacharya, in perhaps a Stalinist move in retrospect, had the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) sign an agreement with Tata Motors. It was to set up a green-field factory to manufacture the revolutionary Tata Nano 600cc petrol-powered motorcar that was to be sold initially for just Rs. 1 lakh. It could, the prototypes showed, transport five people comfortably. Ratan Tata’s dream child, it was intended to revolutionise transportation for the lower middle class. The Singur plant would employ about 2,000 persons directly, and provide employment to over 10,000 people indirectly, when it became operational.

The Bhattacharya led government  acquired nearly 1,000 acres of the ‘three-crops a year’ fertile agricultural land at Singur for the project from the none too happy farmers, providing meagre compensation in the bargain. Knowing the political climate in West Bengal, it was an agitation waiting to happen. The Tata Motors and WBIDC jointly chose Singur for its proximity to Kolkata, just  40 km away, and its good connectivity with the highways nearby. It did not, it appears, take care of local sentiment in using a high hat colonial land acquisition law.

But when Trinamool Congress started its agitation against the location of the plant, the contention was why it wasn’t sited in designated industrial areas instead of on fertile agricultural land. Trinamool Congress alleged that the Left Front government had forcibly acquired the land despite farmer protests, and the project could not go ahead.

Despite early trouble, Tata Motors began to pour in an estimated Rs. 1,800 crores into the project from January 2007. Thirty of its vendors set up plant buildings alongside for an investment of over 170 crores.

The Left Front government, despite best efforts, were not able to settle matters with the Singur farmers to their satisfaction. Fed up with the turmoil, then Tata Chairman Ratan Tata decided to relocate the project to Sanand in Gujarat, towards the end of 2008 - on October 3, 2008.

That the Tata Nano was not a great success in terms of sales, despite incentives offered by the Gujarat government, is another story. It is likely, according to some reports. to see a new avatar as an electric car soon.

But all the while, the Trinamool Congress agitation intensified along with attacks against plant personnel. So much so, that the Left Front government of Buddhadev Bhattacharya was brought down by the Trinamool Congress over this matter. Trinamool Congress came to power in its stead, and has been running West Bengal for three consecutive terms ever since. It is no wonder that the Singur agitation has been inserted into the school text books in the state.

Singur is back in the news after 15 years, with the unanimous arbitration award of Rs. 765.78 crores in compensation to Tata Motors payable by WBIDC, one crore in legal expenses in addition, plus 11% interest from September 1, 2016, till the money is paid in full. With interest, the compensation to Tata Motors tops Rs. 1,350 crores if it were to be paid today.

The West Bengal government headed by Mamata Banerjee intends to challenge the award either in the Calcutta High Court or in the Supreme Court.

One argument goes that the initial acquisition of the land was declared illegal later by the apex court in 2016, as it had failed to meet the requirements of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, and was ordered to be returned to the farmers.

However, this may have come as too little and too late. The Leader of the West Bengal Opposition, BJP’s Subhendu Adhikari, has stated that the agricultural land has been ruined by the works put in by the proposed plant, and  was rendered unfit thereafter for cultivation afresh. Industry, as usual, lost out in the bargain.

 Ironically, the arbitration award with its resultant bad publicity has come when the West Bengal government is gearing up for its Global Business Summit shortly on November 21-22. However, previous business summits have never gone well either, with most pledges and promises unfulfilled.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is also battling widespread corruption charges with as many as five of its ministers under arrest or in jail, and crores in unaccounted money confiscated by central authorities like the Enforcement Directorate.

(1,067 words)

November 1^st, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Aspirational Touring Of The US Europe Other Places Had Over 10 crore Indians Spending $ 35 Billion Between 2017 and 2022 Plus Shopping Eating Hotels Sight Seeing- Permanent Immigration To The US Canada Australia Is Also In Top Gear

The Indian Middle Class, like the rest of the population, is growing exponentially, with constant migration to the cities that now includes more than 20 tier 2 cities. The percentage of the population employed in farming and services in rural areas is declining in keeping with mechanisation and international trends, even as rural prosperity is increasing alongside the GDP.

The easy access to social media, smart phones, streaming, TV, films, has increased exposure to the outside world to an unprecedented degree amongst all sections of the population. It is not surprising that most Indians now see the world as their oyster. Socialism is largely dead, replaced by welfare, aspiration, education, greater life expectancy, nutrition, health, higher income, and the realisation that India will soon be the third biggest economy in the world. It will have more than $ 10 trillion in GDP by 2030. Every day, the road, rail, air, infrastructure in the country is also being rapidly transformed.

The Opposition bemoans the unemployment situation and high food prices in the lead up to multiple elections. They do it so often that one might be forgiven for thinking that things are going very badly indeed despite Prime Minister Modi pointing out all the progress we have made in the last 10 years. Progress greater by far than ever before. But here you have it. Astounding overseas and domestic tourism figures that cannot happen without money in hand.

Now, in the second decade of 21^st century, and post Covid, international travel seems to have exploded amongst Indians. Who can say there is not enough disposable income amongst the Indian middle class? A middle class headed towards a third of the overall population of 1.44 billion. It may be too disparate  and opinionated to be a force  in elections, but even that will change.

Indians account for 10% of all visa applications at present to countries that require them. This despite a rupee/US dollar rate of exchange approaching an astronomical Rs. 85 to the dollar.

America with its B1/B2 visit visas, backed up for more than 400 days for Indians, still had 5.1 lakh desi visitors in the April-June 2023 quarter. Canada sent 26 million visitors to the US, but they don’t need visas.

India’s statistics are just behind the United Kingdom (who don’t need US visas either, being cousins from across the pond, firm US allies, and former colonial overlords), at 9.7 million visitors.

Mexico, next door, sent 7.2 million. Germany (at 4.7 million), and others from Europe, like the French, sent less tourists to America than the Indians in the April-June 2023 quarter.

Similar things are happening to domestic travel for leisure, pilgrimage, with the advent of the Vande Bharat trains, great highways, more airports and airlines, high car ownership. So much so, that the airlines have had to lower their domestic fares by up to 30% to try and compete with the vastly improved trains.   

Indians have spent $ 11.44 billion on overseas travel in the nine-month period of the current fiscal, between April to January. This is not counting shopping, and sight-seeing, entertaining, hotels, eating and so on, once abroad. This could easily double this figure if totted up. There is no restriction on how much foreign currency Indians can take abroad, provided that if it is more than $ 10,000 in currency or traveller’s cheques, it must be declared. And then there are the credit and forex cards. Till February 2023, the figure rose to $12.51 billion, up 104% over the same period last year.

It is estimated that the number of Indians travelling abroad for holidaying will treble by 2025. That means about 40% of international travellers will be from India. Its no wonder that Switzerland reckoned Indian tourists were accounting for two or three percentage points of their economy even two decades ago. It is why they have welcome boards out for Indians. Many others are following suit.

This is now being further driven by aspirational travel from tier 2 cities and budget carriers. The well-off, a category being upgraded all the time, will number more than 100 million people by themselves.

Overall, 10.3 crore Indians travelled abroad between 2017 and 2022 with 3.8 crores amongst them seeking to emigrate or acquire permanent residency in foreign countries like the US, Canada and Australia. Who are these people? Most of the 18 million Indian diaspora, the largest in the world, are temporary migrants to West Asia who remit home most of the USD 100 billion per annum now. Others are students, most of whom do come back to India.

In the 19^th century, aristocratic British in the heyday of the British Empire undertook at least one ‘Grand Tour’ to widen their perspective. It was to the ‘Continent’, that lasted, in those horse and carriage days, from Paris and Vienna, Switzerland and Germany to the South, about a year. Lingering in warm, artistic and cultured Southern Europe, in Italy and Spain, was particularly popular.

Going on the steam ship to America was also attractive to some, crossing on luxurious ocean liners to New York. But America, beyond her main cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, St Louis, and Los Angeles, tended to be exotic in the 19^th century. The travel, over vast expanses, by the newly established train lines, or the horse drawn mail carriage, with armed guards, or both, was a little dangerous. Much of the hinterland, rivers, forests, mountains, the wild life, Bisons, the native Red Indians, was still relatively untamed. The Wild West was not a myth. Many witnessed the Wild Bill Hickock live travelling shows to form an idea.

Authors, poets, journalists, extolled the virtues of this travel and destinations for the others who could not afford it. There was, of course, no TV or radio, let alone social media. Even photography was relatively new. People relied on painters and landscape artists.

In the 20^th century, with the advent of early air travel in the 1930s, again it was the rich that could afford to go abroad by the smallish aeroplanes that could take about 30 passengers. The old Victorian era sea-side resorts within Britain had to suffice for the rest.

It was much the same for Indians. The Maharajahs sailed, some with a year’s supply of Ganga Jal for their drinking and cooking. Others flew, when the planes presented themselves, making multiple stops to Europe and back.  By the latter part of the 20^th century, after the two world wars, passenger ships had largely retreated from the travel map, except for the huge cruise liners, and air travel had been democratised.

Cheap tickets, charter aircraft tours, had secretaries and office boys jetting off to Spain for two weeks. And of course, farther afield to Asia, Africa. But it was still the province of the affluent West in the beginning.

Later, the same packaged tours and individually curated visits, some with Indian vegetarian and Jain cuisine cooks in tow, came to places like India, which were neither rich, nor had oil to sell for petrodollars. But, nevertheless, the international travel bug had bitten. If not multiple times at first, certainly once in a lifetime. If not Europe and America, then certainly Dubai and Thailand was possible.

 In addition, since 2011, more than 1.6 million have become citizens of foreign countries including 1,83,741 in 2022 alone.

1,63,370 Indians renounced their citizenship in 2021.Of these 78,284 became US citizens, followed by Australia 23,533, Canada 21,597, and Britain 14, 637. Of course, given our population of 1.4 billion plus, the emigration numbers are very small for us even as they are significant at No.1 for the host countries. Many are following their relatives already settled abroad. Others are minorities such as Christians who feel comfortable emigrating to Christian countries in the  First World. Or Jews, the younger of whom emigrate to Israel. The Anglo-Indians have gone. So have the Armenians. Now even a few of the young Kolkata Chinese. But the largest minority, nearly 200 million Muslims, have largely stayed put. It is therefore ironical that parts of the Western media call the present administration communal and anti-Muslim.

As India continues to prosper and acquire international influence, the people who want to renounce their citizenship may decline further, even amongst such pockets.  The Times, as Nobel laureate Bob Dylan put it in his youth, are-a-changing.

(1,393 words)

October 25^th , 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Always The Means To Justify The Ends For Indian Communists

The Communist Big Wigs like Sitaram Yechury, were quick to jump to the defence of Newsclick, a digital website in India financed by Red China to spread anti-India propaganda. It was recently raided and shut down by the NIA, and its chief operators taken into custody.

The other organisation quick off the mark to the same end was Congress, its leader Rahul Gandhi and the eloquent ex diplomat Shashi Tharoor. They took to X, formerly known as Twitter, with alacrity. It is rumoured that both the CPI/CPM and the Congress are also financed by the Chinese now that the Soviets are out of business. And pleasing one’s benefactors is mandatory.

Both tried to paint the sedition of Newsclick in terms of an attack on press freedom, freedom of expression, and called it the action of an Undeclared Emergency by the ruling dispensation. Various left-leaning journalists decided to sit in the decrepit Press Club yard in New Delhi on plastic chairs in silent protest.

In the series of efforts, national and international, to destabilise the NDA government and get rid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, another programme is in the works. It is designed to stir the caste cauldron in a manner not seen since the Mandal Commission Report was released by an opportunist VP Singh 30 years ago. Fiery protests erupted then, soon after, and made short work of VP Singh’s prime ministership. But the new effort has learned nothing from that history. If it backfires, The Hindu voter could cling more desperately to the BJP for faith and succour.

Nevertheless, three decades later, Nitish Kumar hanging on to his chief ministership by his fingernails has released a caste census for Bihar. This is after many failed initiatives such as his leaky and farcical attempts at prohibition to please the female voter.

 Congress ruled Karnataka may well be next to release a caste census that will annoy both the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats. Do they understand the implications?

This follows on from virulent attacks on Sanatan Dharma by MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin, and several other DMK ministers. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu meanwhile provides full support to the process.

All of it is meant to attack the monolithic approach to the Hindu vote bank by the BJP. This has resulted in most Hindus voting for the BJP in 2014 and 2019. The looming election of 2024 is seen as a do-or-die contest by the opposition combine I.N.D.I.A.

The Ayodhya Ram Temple to be inaugurated in January 2024 is also deeply worrying for the opposition. So is the possibility of a Uniform Civil Code and One Nation One Vote all seen to favour the ruling NDA if implemented.

So now, the idea is to shatter the perception of a unified Hindu vote bank into many caste shards. Rahul Gandhi, eager to woo the OBC and Dalit/Mahadalit sections, which constitute some two-thirds of the total in most states. This is apparently up from the Mandal Commission’s 52%. He has coined a new slogan -Jitna Abadi, Utna Huq in more or less record time.

His haste has quite ignored his, and indeed most of the opposition’s assiduous wooing of the Muslim minority vote since the very beginning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to point this out, and wondered what was to become of the Muslims under opposition rule. This, even as he promised to look after them as part of his Sabka Vikas, Sabka Viswas umbrella.

Is I.N.D.I.A abandoning the maximum of 17% of Muslims nationally, in favour of the 66% of Hindus under the various backward castes? Is the desire to wrest them away, particularly the Mahadalits who have been voting en masse for the BJP, now overwhelming? Or do they believe the Muslims have nowhere else to go anyway?

Can they possibly succeed? What will their credibility be if they fail, given their poor grassroots organisation, and not enough time left to make the new pitch stick? Could it all go horribly wrong, as it did for VP Singh by stirring up the aspirations of the neglected, without any of them being met?

It is true that reservations have only worked fitfully in all the years they have been used, with the creamy layer within the caste groups, garnering the benefits. The concept of any of it reaching the last man has been no more than theoretically possible so far.

Also stirring up the demand for reservations may mean reservations for too many for any of it to be meaningful. Can reservations already given to some be withdrawn in favour of others? Cutting into reservation blocks, as is the demand from Congress and others in the Women’s Reservation Bill just passed after 27 years of wrangling and non -starter attempts, could leave all sides disgruntled.

This entire caste census and its aftermath, reservations within reservations like so many Matrushka Dolls, could be the opening of a Pandora’s Box. Many analysts have begun to point this out.

The Communists have little to lose. They only control Kerala now, and seem in no danger of losing it. So, taking a Trotskyist line on the means justified by the intended ends suits them.

Congress is taking a bigger and wilder gamble and could come unstuck.

TMC is not in favour of this caste ploy because it is well entrenched with the Muslim minority in West Bengal.

DMK is strong in Tamil Nadu and has cast the Sanatana Dharma calumny as a contribution to the I.N.D.I.A alliance for what it is worth, and a sneer at the Cow Belt North. It does not have ambitions outside the state, and is not receiving any criticism over this overt attack against high-caste Hindus from its chief rival the AIADMK.

Besides the Stalins and others in DMK are quite largely Christian.

Leon Trotsky was the chief theorist of the early Russian Revolution known for his seeming ideological flexibility. After the early demise of Lenin soon after the Communists came to power, the pragmatic Stalin, from peasant and non-intellectual stock, had no use for Trotsky’s sophistry.  Trotsky fled to Mexico fearing for his life, but Stalin’s goons found him there and killed him.

The Indian Communists practice a form of Trotskyism all the time, speaking against caste and religion when it suits their objective, and the opposite at a time like this. They feel safe in the knowledge they are unlikely to be assassinated here in India. So why not exploit the benefits of democracy by calling it the worst kind of fascism? And why not take from the Chinese when they offer it?

Trotsky once said, to paraphrase the cynicism of his thinking, lay out the various lies in front of me and I will pick out the truth from amongst them. His exact quote was ‘Tell me anyway-Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies’.

Sitaram Yechury, with the most Hindu of names, a Brahmin as it happens, is not only a survivor, but a good student of Leon Trotsky.

(1,168 words)

October 4^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

OBITUARY

MS Swaminathan Legendary Agri-Scientist Who Catalysed The Current Grain Surplus For 1.44 Billion People, Dies At 98

The legendary scientist, born in 1925, that transformed an India that was dependent on wheat shipments as food aid from America, into a food surplus nation, has just passed away in his home in Chennai at the age of 98.  

Lauded on his demise by the President, Prime Minister, Home Minister and Agriculture Minister amongst many eminent and ordinary Bharatiyas, Dr. Mankombu  Sambasivan Swaminathan is succeeded by three highly educated and accomplished daughters.

Assisted by the influential American agronomist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug, the exceptional vision of Dr. MS Swaminathan transformed India’s staple food yields.

From near famine conditions in 1960s Bharat, Dr Swaminathan catalysed the Nehru Government effort towards the ample production of the ‘Green Revolution’ that matured fully during the regime of Indira Gandhi as prime minister.

It all began with a 100 kg bag of seeds of the Mexican Dwarf Wheat sent to Dr Swaminathan by Dr Borlaug. From this small beginning, the wheat yields in India grew more than ten-fold. This was occasioned, after Dr Swaminathan’s conviction in the matter, and his extensive studies in India and several countries abroad.

MS Swaminathan turned down opportunities to work in America, in order to return to his home country to make what turned out to be his singular contribution.

Swaminathan’s early and yeoman efforts towards the introduction of high yielding and disease resistant varieties of wheat, rice, potatoes, and other crops ended the period of chronic food shortfalls in Bharat once and for all. It is said Ms Swaminathan chose his profession as a agricultural scientist after noting the ravages of the Bengal famine in the 1940s. 

MS Swaminathan recognised the potential of the Mexican dwarf wheat varieties early in the day, causing Nehru to write to the Rockefeller Foundation that was financing Dr. Borlaug’s research in Mexico. Swaminathan invited Borlaug to tour India and see conditions for himself, which Borlaug did in 1964. Thereafter, the 1970 Nobel laureate sent Swaminathan a bag containing 100 kg of the Mexican dwarf seed created by Borlaug at the International Centre for Wheat and Maize improvement in Mexico. Dr Swaminathan’s intent was to breed these with varieties from Japan.

By 1956, Mexico had already become self-sufficient in wheat using Borlaug’s dwarf varieties, and Swaminathan was convinced Bharat could do likewise.

On receipt of the new varieties of wheat, Swaminathan started them on a number of experimental plots in different places in Bharat and noted their high yields and disease resistance. Along with his team of scientists, he then organised large numbers of farmers to plant the new varieties in several parts of the country but most notably in Punjab. In 1965, the Indian Agriculture Minister C Subramaniam aided the process by ordering 250 tonnes of the seed.

Swaminathan also introduced new varieties of potato including a frost resistant variety he had developed while working in Wisconsin, USA.

In addition, Swaminathan developed rice varieties with better carbon fixation which allowed for improved photosynthesis and water usage.

Dr MS Swaminathan completed his batchelor’s degree in agricultural science followed by a postgraduate degree in cytogenetics. He served as the Director General of The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. He also served as the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in 1979. In 1988 Swaminathan was appointed President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Dr MS Swaminathan won a profusion of national and international awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1971, The World Food Prize in 1987 and the Padma Vibushan in 1989. Swaminathan was awarded scores of honorary doctorates throughout his active life.

He was a pivotal figure for decades in India’s march to not just self-sufficiency in food, but creation of enormous surpluses for strategic reserves and exports. This even as the population has more than quadrupled since independence along with a doubling of life expectancy.

(653 words)

September 29^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

KSA Is Now In The Driving Seat For the Bharat West Asia Europe Corridor Incorporating Road, Rail, Port ,Digital Connectivity & Backed By The US

 His Royal Highness Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), Crown Prince and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), (on behalf of his ailing and elderly father King Salman of the Royal House of Saud), has launched his State Visit to India on the 11^th of September 2023. This is his second state visit since February 2019.

This state visit has come immediately after MBS attended the very successful two-day G21 Summit, concluded on the 10^th. A number of new agreements are likely to be signed during the one-day bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi at Hyderabad House in the capital. Bharat and KSA have also become strategic partners and will be signing the minutes of the first meeting of a strategic council formed for the purpose. Bharat is presently Saudi Arabia’s second largest trading partner but the potential to grow it in quantum and volume terms is considerable. MBS clearly sees this, and is putting his policy heft behind this endeavour alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Agreements on defence, security, trade, services, labour, manufacturing, supply chains, energy, including alternate and renewable energy, agriculture, food security, digital technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), two-way investment programmes, cooperation in space, are some of the areas that will be covered.

Of course, the big new development at the G21 Summit is the massive infrastructure project announced. It was one of the biggest, important and immediately tangible announcements at the Summit. An integrated road, rail, port, ship, sea and digitally connected corridor leading from Bharat through West Asia overland as well as land/sea to Europe, will be commenced within 60 days by all the countries concerned. It will also link the regions it passes through with electricity connectivity and incorporate green Hydrogen pipelines.

It is inclusive of, and will involve, most of the countries in the West Asian region including the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Israel, and then on to Europe by land, as well as via Port Haifa in Israel and Port Piraeus in Greece. It is a massive project involving trillions of dollars in investment, expected to come from in-country resources, multilateral sources such as the World Bank and IMF, some private investment, all underwritten by the US, which is also a member of the I2U2 strategic initiative. It is likely to earn huge resources as well when completed. It has the potential of speeding goods movements from Bharat to Europe by as much as 40%, saving both time and money.

This new set of integrated routes will be an alternative to the overburdened and out-of-date Suez Canal.

The KSA was drifting away from the US after the controversies and criticisms  raised against MBS by America after the grisly murder of dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi in Turkiye. So much so, that Saudi Arabia drew closer to China that even brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The KSA also did Yuan trades with China for its petroleum exports to the dragon.

President Biden therefore looked visibly pleased at the G21 Summit with Bharat’s initiative of this new Corridor that drew KSA, an old ally, back into the US sphere of influence.

The new and momentous announcement threatens the Chinese debt-trap creating Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its recent growing influence in West Asia that even sought to mediate in the KSA War with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Soon after the announcement of this new corridor, G7 member Italy announced its withdrawal from China’s BRI via its Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, very much present at the G21 Summit.

From the Bharatiya perspective, the straws have been in the wind for some time. Adani is already redeveloping Haifa Port in Israel. Haifa is famous from WWI as the place liberated by Bharatiya troops working in the British Empire Army. Those brave mounted soldiers are immortalised in a sculpture facing Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, which was once the residence of the British Indian Army Chief.

Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a visit to  Athens, Greece, on his way home from Johannesburg where he had gone to attend the BRICS Summit. Greece was last visited by Bharatiya Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, way back, in 1983.

Piraeus Port development in Greece is also on Adani’s radar. Greece is keen on becoming Bharat’s gateway to Europe as expressed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Karerina Sakellaropoulou during Modi’s day-long recent visit.

The Adani Group has been foremost in modern port development and green infrastructure projects in Bharat, and even coal-mining in Australia. It has been active throughout the last ten years, and even earlier, starting with the highly modern Kandla container handling port and terminus in Gujarat.

Indian Railways has reformed and revived its abilities and could well play a stellar part in the new West-Asian portion of the corridor.

India’s Reliance Industries, one of the world’s biggest petroleum refiners, is an early mover in the area of Hydrogen production and its application in transport amongst other things.

Officially called the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), it is being hailed as a modern-day Spice Route. It is expected to stimulate economic development throughout the Eurasian corridor. In the European section, participants include France, Germany, Italy, the US and the EU.

The MoU drafted at the New Delhi G21 has been signed by India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union.

 In an initiative that will enthuse the 55 nation African Union, newly a part of the G21, the United States will simultaneously invest in a rail line from Angola in Central Africa, to the Indian Ocean.

China, that absented itself from the New Delhi Summit, is not only stymied diplomatically by these initiatives, it really does not have the money anymore to see its BRI dreams through as the sole financier. The 146 signatories to the BRI will, no doubt, begin to abandon it, following Italy’s example.

Saudi Arabia will play a pivotal role in the West Asian section of the corridor along with the UAE, Israel and Bharat. But through this back-to-back state visit, MBS who’s stopped in New Delhi since the 8^th of September, seeks to expand the strategic partnership with Bharat into multiple avenues. The endeavour is to take it far beyond being one of the world’s biggest petroleum producers. Bharat, on its way to becoming the 3^rd biggest economy in the world with a projected GDP of over $10 trillion, is equally keen on the win-win development.

 

(1,074 words)

September 11, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The G21 New Delhi Summit With 43 Countries -Invitees, Multilateral Institutions, The Global South & The African Union

This G21 can only be seen as Bharat’s unprecedented and spectacular coming- out-party at the high table bedecked with gleaming silverware. It is hosted by our charismatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has established himself as a significant and influential global leader.  

The attendance underlines the recognition of this country as the unstoppable 3^rd largest global power by 2030, with likely a $ 10 trillion plus economy by then.

The first dramatic accomplishment, at the very start of the deliberations today at this mighty gathering, was the induction of the 55 country African Union as a permanent member of the G20 to make it up to G21.

This represents the result of not only Bharat’s steadfast sponsorship and advocacy of this cause, but the recognition of a changing world order. It has been dominated for long and is still led by the G7 countries. Now they, at the urging of India, the obsolescence and racism of old methods, are willing to change.  The economic and political world order has remained almost unchanged since WWII with the West in the driver’s seat. However, the emergence of ancient and modern countries like Bharat that believes in its inclusive and peaceful principles has made an impact. Amongst Prime Minister Modi’s many ‘one world’ coinages, he uses the term ‘Humancentric’ which seems to resonate with other leaders.  

In a counter to Chinese neo-imperialism, institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are going to receive a $ 200 billion injection announced by the United States. Terms will be renegotiated to offer better lending formats to the African Union and other countries of the Global South, groaning under massive and unsupportable debt.

African countries have had to pay as much as five times as much for its multilateral loans which have ended up badly roiling their economies. China has in recent years exploited this anomaly with rapacious terms for  their development loans. These were extended, sometimes to access rich mineral resources, and at other times to push China’s Belt and Road Programme (BRI). Almost all of it however has been bogged down as bad debt because there is little bankability of these developments. It has, in turn, been putting immense pressure on the Chinese economy as well.

The most powerful and significant countries of the world are all here in New Delhi for the two-day summit, with two notable exceptions.

President Putin preoccupied with the Ukraine War, sent his venerable Foreign Minister Lavrov. President Xi Jinping, probably occupied with immense domestic economic ‘turmoil’, as characterised by senior members of the ruling CCP, sent Premier Li who is well known for his economic management. However this came unstuck with his disastrous handling of the severe lockdowns in major Chinese cities during Covid.

Both Russia and China heads, seen as ever closer allies, stayed away from the recent ASEAN Summit in Jakarta as well.

The United States, represented in New Delhi by President Joe Biden has expressed disappointment with China’s no-show. Its tacit and active support to Russia in the conduct of the Ukraine War, along with its belligerent satellite North Korea, is of particular concern. America has also criticised China’s latest bizarre ‘standard map’ that not only claims various territories in India and along the South China Sea, but seeks to disrupt the ‘rules-based-world-order’.

A number of affected countries at ASEAN, and here at the G20 Summit, along with Bharat, have condemned the new Chinese map and China’s attempt at muscle flexing.

Bharat pulled out all the stops to set the environs with flowers and fountains, a spanking new state-of-the-art venue, the host hotels tricked out to be at the top of their game, the approaches, monuments, selected shopping locations, Bharat’s proud digital accomplishments and processes, enormous security preparations, were all decked out in celebratory mode. This comes at the culmination of some 40 meetings of the G20 spread out all over the country.

Inside and outside the summit venue, Bharat’s 5,000 plus year old history and culture was showcased. It was replete with magnificent statues of a number of Hindu Gods. Prime Minister Modi received the honoured guests in front of a replica of the Konarak Wheel from the Sun Temple in Odisha. A massive 27 feet high dancing Nataraja made of Ashtadhatu, fronts the G20 venue dubbed a  Bharat Mandapam.

There is considerable consensus on matters like Climate Change, alternate energy development, and opportunities for the Global South. But the Ukraine War has the US and the G7 countries in a mood to insert a critical reference against Russia in the Declaration expected at the end of the Summit tomorrow the 10^th of September 2023. Russia says a political reference has no place in a G21 economic summit.

Russia, of course, sees the Ukraine War very differently. China and India are not willing to condemn Russia unilaterally for their own reasons. India has called for dialogue to resolve the conflict and has long been saying for long that this is not a time for War. At this summit, Prime Minister Modi referred to a ‘trust deficit’ without once mentioning Ukraine, implying a solution can be found through dialogue.

The paragraph on Ukraine has been left blank by the Sherpas working on the draft declaration. This even as nuanced drafting aimed at a consensus is continuing. Will this scuttle a joint declaration at the end of the summit?

India has had both the USSR and its successor Russia as a steadfast ally and friend for decades, and some 50% of its military equipment is of Russian/Soviet origin. This has been complemented with sourcing from the US, France, Israel in recent years, and more and more emphasis on aatmanirbhar or joint venture manufacturing in Bharat.

If there is an element of peevishness and desire to steal India’s thunder that has caused Chinese President Xi Jinping to stay away from this summit, and the one in Jakarta, it is probably working against China.

Without Xi Jinping adding his sour glowering presence, displayed recently at Johannesburg for the BRICS Summit, there is no great loss. At Johannesburg, the addition of nine new members through consensus amongst the five existing members, by 1^st January 2024 did nor quite go per the Chinese plan. It robbed China of its desire to dominate the forum with just two or three additions of its own choice.

Chinese government mouthpieces such as The Global Times seem to be portraying the Chinese mood today, with its sniping against the New Delhi summit from Beijing.

The question in many minds is just how much trouble is Xi Jinping in, given his poor handling of the Chinese economy and his diplomatic wolf warrior tactics that has almost every country exasperated. He has been called out by his mentor amongst others, and under pressure, has attempted to deny responsibility for the current state of affairs.

The G21 has also announced a railway-based land/port connectivity project involving Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the US and Bharat. This new initiative is also likely to check growing Chinese influence in West Asia.

Brazil will take over the leadership of the G21 after the 10^th of September for the next year.

Prime Minister Modi is working through as many as 15 bilateral meetings and some pull-asides during these three days, ever since the leaders started to arrive on 8^th September. The bilateral with the US reportedly will advance defence cooperation and joint venturing beyond the GE 414 fighter engine deal with 80% technology transfer, and those for the Predator drones.

The one with Bangladesh illustrates the most successful relationship with a neighbouring country. Various others will each advance Bharat’s strategic partnership with its counterparts.

Initiatives to corner economic fugitives, confiscate their properties and freeze their bank accounts are likely to be internationally agreed. Bharat’s digital payment systems may be adopted by as many as a dozen countries.

Amongst all this, the retreat of China from the reformist gathering, despite the presence of Premier Li, may well be marking a watershed moment.

(1,332 words)

September 9^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee