Mukesh And Nita Ambani Organise An Industrial Scale Sanatani Dharma Wedding With Glitzy Celebrations Over Four Months For National And International Guests

This was the mother and father of tradition observing, and yet modern, big fat Hindu Wedding. Perhaps this is a contradiction in terms, but as the saying goes ‘we are like this only’.

This wedding will be difficult to surpass in scale, size, banquetry, jewels, watches,  presents,wedding outfits, vehicles, jets on hire, star power, associated  razz-ma-tazz -  a potent messaging for years to come.  It is a wedding that has set a record on par with anything that went on in the reign of Louis IV, the Sun King, at Versailles, or at the coronation of the Emperor Bokassa I in the Central African Republic (CAR). Except, here, the essential difference is that the Ambanis will not go bankrupt. Far, very far, from it.

The wedding most deliberately flies in the face of Gandhian simplicity, Macaulay induced squeamishness, notions of taste and vulgarity sought to be imposed by some.

And yet, it ran true to the best traditions of Sanatan Dharma. The Ambanis conducted a Bhandara in Mumbai for four months that fed hundreds of people. They organised and paid for mass weddings of poor people with gifts of clothes, gold for the brides, and rupees one lakh each for the grooms.

Their own celebrations and wedding was unabashed, massive, exuberant and cost some $156 million. Some say, the preliminary bash at Jamnagar alone cost $150 million.

Mukesh and Nita Ambani, who head their second-generation business along with Mukesh’s mother Kokilaben, find themselves near the top of Indian industry. They have spent an estimated 0.5% of their wealth on the four month wedding extravaganza. But then, Mukesh Ambani, 67, is the richest man in Asia, and the 9^th richest man in the world, with a personal net worth of about $ 124 billion.

The wedding and celebrations were criticised by the usual suspects, who want India to be seen as an impoverished country and feel threatened by this strong show of  North Indian Hindu tradition and culture. The Ambanis however are used to it. They put on a similar show for the marriage of their daughter Isha in 2018, for which they had invited American entertainer Beyonce.

This wedding will take time to sink in for its full import, but it spoke to the world of the coming of age, not just of a leading industrial group, but of the Bharat of 2024. One that is on its way shortly to becoming the 3^rd largest economy in the world. One that will go from a $ 4 trillion in GDP to three times as much at the very least, fuelled by its 7% growth rate, the biggest amongst major economies in the world. A country that believes it will be a developed country in every respect by its centenary year 2047.

 The pre-wedding celebrations were kicked off at the Ambani petrochemical complex and city of Jamnagar. Dozens of national and international big-wigs came to it among the 1,200 guests. They included Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.  This time, Rihanna came to perform, as did many Bollywood stars. Diljit Dosanjh  electrified the audience with his performance.

It is also there in Jamnagar that Anant Ambani, the groom, and the youngest Ambani son, works and lives as the resident Director in-charge. Anant Ambani has also created an animal hospital and sanctuary over 3,000 acres in the area. This too was unveiled to the public as an opener, with Anant emphasising it was a sanctuary for traumatised and injured animals, including elephants, and not a zoo.

The Ambanis have restored and rebuilt scores of Hindu temples in the Jamnanagar-Chorwad area in Gujarat, which they hail from. One or two of the temples were featured in the media recently, as part of the wedding build up.

The Ambanis are also major sponsors of Lord Krishna temples, including the Shrinathji Temple, at Nathdwara in Rajasthan. Here too, they made preliminary visits leading up to the auspicious occasion.

Wedding celebrations continued aboard a yacht in Italy, during a four-day cruise in June, from Palermo to the South of France with stops in Rome, Portofino, Genoa and Cannes for a series of parties. Several international singers including The Backsteet Boys and Kate Perry were engaged to entertain the selected eight hundred odd guests. Several restaurants were engaged to provide vegetarian fare such as focaccia, paneer tikka-beetroot, and goat-cheese kebabs. In addition there were lobster sandwiches.

Many locals however, were irate, at the taking over of Portofino exclusively for the Ambani guests. The Genovese complained about the loud music till nearly dawn.The Ambanis paid for the privilege, and all the local authorities were satisfied, if not the uninvited local media.

 And the wedding celebrations culminated in multi-day ceremonies and occasions in Mumbai in mid July.

Prime Minister Modi attended the Ashirwad, held the day after the nuptials.  The final celebrations were entertained by American singer Justin Beiber. The several days here were attended by most of India’s A list actors, others like John Cena, Kim Kardashian, politicians from the ruling party and the opposition, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, cricket superstars Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendar Singh Dhoni.

But contrast this with our earlier projections. Fortunately, long gone are the days when Prime Minister Nehru called in a snake charmer to amuse Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s - nearly twenty years after independence. A telling photograph of the event was followed up by Mrs Kennedy becoming a guest of the Maharaja of Jaipur to live in a palace, enjoy royal banquets and entertainments, and witness polo matches.

Nothing much was done, it seems, to change the Kiplingesque ‘Jungle Book’ style image of an India of Gunga Din, Fakirs on beds of nails, others who could climb an unsupported rope, and of course, tigers that roamed the forests, still allowed to be hunted by VIP guests from Britain. And yes, snake charmers for the King Cobras.

Prime Minister Nehru saw no contradiction between his ardent Fabian Socialist principles and admiration of Soviet five-year plans which India aped. Alongside, he established the first of top-class government financed higher education institutions, dams, heavy industry. Heavy industry was to take up the ‘commanding heights of the economy’, and be regarded as the modern ‘temples’.

Nehru was notoriously against promoting Hindu temples, Sanatan Dharma and its traditions, because he thought they were both majoritarian, and obscurantist to boot. He stoutly opposed the restoration of Somnath Temple destroyed by Islamic invaders, including Allauddin Khilji, for example. It still got done, with the help of first President of India, Rajendra Prasad and others.   

Subsequent years after Nehru, but persistent socialism inflicted shortages of everything, saw restrictions on the number of wedding guests, scarcity of milk that occasioned bans on milk based sweet meats for weddings and ceremonies. Things were so bad it is difficult to believe nowadays.  

Today we still have erstwhile Maharajahs, but they do much more than play polo and take pictures of wild animals they are banned from hunting. Some are politicians, others are hoteliers, conservationists and industrialists.

 Yes, we are proudly Hindu, but we are also doing everything possible to realise our potential in the modern world. The spectacular wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is a tribute to this fact.

(1,208 words)

July 14^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The Original Sin Of A Badly Managed Brexit Eventually Led To The End Of Conservative Rule Of 14 years

The landslide Labour Party victory in Britain after 14 years could be beneficial for the India-UK relationship. Britain should be hungry for trade, industrial collaboration and new markets, and India could provide a very lucrative opportunity. The outgoing Tory government has failed to fill the trade vacuum after Brexit, even though the referendum and vote to exit came eight years ago.

With India, Rolls Royce has signed an agreement, but only as recently as January 2024, to work with India’s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), to manufacture MTU Series 4000 Marine Engines in India for the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. Rolls Royce makes a range of state-of-the-art naval application engines. This, at GRSE’s Diesel Engine manufacturing plant at Ranchi. Rolls Royce has also signed a seven-year agreement with Azad Engineering, based in Hyderabad, for it to manufacture critical components for its aircraft engines, again at end January 2024.  

More initiatives in line with India’s atmanirbhar defence manufacturing policy could be welcomed by New Delhi. Let us hope the incoming Labour government acts with more urgency than its predecessor. The FTA agreement should have been finalised at least a couple of Diwalis ago, but Keir Starmer has already referred to it as a priority on the campaign trail.

The ‘original sin’ as far as domestic politics in Britain is concerned, was committed by the Tories, when they held the 2016 referendum on Brexit. This act, under David Cameron as prime minister, was expected to result in a negative vote against leaving the EU. Instead, as is often the case in such yes or no binary votes, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. It was a narrow thing, 48% against to 52% for, but it illustrated the famous British class divide. The poor and working class voted to leave EU, the middle classes and above wanted to stay part of Europe.

David Cameron, an upper class ‘toff’, most recently acting as Rishi Sunak’s Foreign Minister, had also risked his arm with Scotland in a similar referendum in 2014. There, only 44% voted for Scottish independence, while an unprecedented 86% of the electorate voted in that referendum. And so, Cameron thought to repeat the feat with regard to the EU.

The Scottish vote had gone along the lines expected. It proved to be a setback for the separatists including Scotland’s then ‘First Minister’ Nicola Sturgeon and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). Sturgeon worked as head of SNP from Cameron’s day to the early part of Rishi Sunak’s prime ministership, but with no real traction for SNP’s separatist plank.  

Coming to today, in the 2024 election, the Labour Party took most of the Scottish seats, with the separatist SNP Party nearly wiped out, winning just 9 seats. Scotland definitely does not want to leave the United Kingdom.

David Cameron promptly resigned after the Brexit vote, and left the matter of negotiating Brexit with the EU to his successor. After that, Tory prime ministers came thick and fast trying to get out of the EU with reasonable terms. Of these, the oft described as ‘bizarre’ Boris Johnson was the most successful. But Britain has not recovered from this radical surgery still. And amongst other things that brought Tory rule to a decisive end 14 years later, Brexit is one of the thorniest thorns embedded deep in the flesh of subsequent economic woes.

Anti-incumbency is a hydra headed thing, and most analysts advance more recent causes such as high prices, unemployment, withdrawal of a host of subsidies that have made it harder to live. The government revenues have proved inadequate and further borrowings have become unsustainable.  Inflation is rampant, and prices have sky-rocketed. So much so, that ordinary people are struggling to put food on the table.

Illegal immigration, taking scarce jobs from those who most need them, is a hot button issue that the Tories have tried and failed to tackle.

Meanwhile, The Labour Party has been reforming itself. It got a new, centrist leader along the ‘New Labour’ lines of the very successful Tony Blair.

Keir Starmer, the PM elect, exudes a kind of stodgy dependability that lacks the Blair charm and silver tongue. It won Blair the Labour victory and prime ministership in 1997. But Starmer is well away from the dour resentfulness and anti-semitism of his Labour Party predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. He is, however, not that far in image from former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, 2007-2010. Brown was earlier a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is credited with reforming Britain’s monetary and fiscal policy under Tony Blair.

The 61 year old Starmer is a barrister who has been a human rights lawyer. He has no truck with the radical element in his party, though he recognises that they too get elected by Labour voters. Still, it is his centrist ways that has given the Labour Party a landslide victory with  412 seats in a 625 seat lower house at Westminster. The Tories are likely to end with 121.

 Meanwhile even as he conceded defeat and congratulated Starmer and the Labour Party, Rishi Sunak won his seat at Richmond and Northallerton. So did the anti-immigrant right-wing former Tory minister Suella Braverman that Sunak fired for insubordination. This, even as most of the Tory ministers lost.

Hard Right Reform UK Party leader Nigel Farage won his seat at Clacton on the 8^th attempt. Along with three others from his party, he will now be heard not just in the media but at Westminster too. The Liberal Democrats are likely to end up with about 71 seats to make up the third largest block in the British parliament.

The people of Britain have voted for change, and the old orthodoxy that determined whether one was a Whig or Tory voter has become a thing of the past. The new mantra is perform or perish, and the British politician is getting used to an electorate without loyalists.

(990 words)

July 5^th, 2024

For:Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Cannot Wish The Right Wing Away In Europe Anymore

High prices, low growth, imposition costs of a green transition, rampant and disruptive immigration that preys on limited resources, all have contributed to the rise of right-wing and far-right parties in Western Europe.

An immigrant that does not say thank you, instead attempts to impose its foreign will, is a big departure from earlier waves of foreign arrivals. Then the newcomer tried his best to integrate with the ethos of the host country and in a few years succeeded in doing so.  

The hard-liners amongst the right-wingers alone will win about 25% of the seats in the EU assembly at Brussels, in elections conducted on the 9^th of June. Predictably, they are already demanding a say in policy in proportion to their expected strength.  

The current centre-right leadership of the EU under Ursula Von der Leyen and her European People’s Party (EPP), as the biggest group, can hold out for now. It can possibly win a second term too. The EPP can obtain a majority after the counting is done, with some moderate Right-Wing support, such as from Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.  

Meloni has extended a warm invitation to perceived fellow right-wing leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to attend the outreach sessions of the G7 Summit Italy is currently hosting. Prime Minister Modi is expected to attend for a day very soon now.

So far, the radical Right, unlike Meloni’s moderate Right, has not been able to unite, but once that happens, it will be difficult to stave them off in European politics. Nationalist prime ministers are already in place in Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia, and right-wing parties are in the government of several other countries.

The right-wing reaction is to past liberal immigration policies that led to a flood of mainly Islamic middle easterners, both legal, and illegal - boat people and overland infiltrators. They do provide cheap labour but at what cost? They have come typically from Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, plus the countries of North Africa, Turkiye.

These immigrants, with aggressive anti-western attitudes, are unable to identify with the liberal post-war Judeo-Christian ethic and way of life.

So they resort to violence in the name of Allah, indulge in gang-based molestation of women, rape, murder. In their culture they do not allow uncovered women in public. And going to the West to avail of a better standard of living does not mean one has to accept their ways.

The targets willy nilly are the very native White populations. These indigenous Europeans are now fed up with immigrants exhorting them to give up their sinful ways and adopt Islam. The immigrants themselves tend to live in ghettoes that they barricade. They refuse to let the state police or other authorities into their areas even as they seek to introduce Shariah laws for their community.

In reaction to this daylight hijacking, the right-wing has now mobilised politically. Their parties are dedicated to resisting such immigrant dictation. Many want the immigrants deported and the laws tightened.

The right-wing has many other grouses beyond immigration. They resent the perceived excesses of the Green Movement, the banning of cars based on Co2 emissions, for example. They do not like orders from a bureaucratic council in Brussels. They increasingly find the EU itself stifling and restrictive, but have shelved the earlier ideas of wrecking it in favour of influencing it from within.

The people who back these right-wing organisations often disagree with prevailing economic policy they see as anti-nationalist. Likewise, many governance issues are not perceived to be in their best interests. The liberal dispensation and its court systems have laws that make matters worse by allowing the immigrants, for example, to conduct themselves with impunity.

Right-wing parties such as the Swiss People’s Party, dominate in Switzerland even though it is not in the EU. Far-rightists rule in Italy, Brothers of Italy, Lega. In Hungary it is the Fidesz. The right-wing Finns Party is part of the government in Finland. In Sweden, the right-wing Swedish Democrats are prominent. In Serbia, the right-wing United Serbia is in a dominant place.

In the recent EU elections, centre-right and far-right parties have done well in France and Germany, the two biggest economies in the EU. As results trickle in, we see that in France, the far-right Nationalist Rally has already won a big victory. Early results suggest the right-wing would win 32% of the vote, double the votes in favour of Macron’s liberals. In reaction, President Emmanuel Macron has promptly dissolved parliament and called for a snap election. If he loses still, will the right-wing under Marie Le Pen treat India with the same warmth? Most likely, as the French Right is not opposed in any way to the Modi government or the NDA.

In Germany, the centre-right is likely to win the largest number of seats followed by the far-right AfD, expected to bag second place. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Socialists cannot hope for more than coming in third. Again, India should have no difficulty dealing with Germany. In fact, the collaboration and technology transfer mechanics with the Germans could well do better. The left-leaning penchant for finger-wagging will be discontinued.

The story of the tilt towards the Right repeats itself in almost all of the 27-member country EU. And the trend line is unmistakeable.

There is a similar movement in America, with the rising possibility of Donald Trump and a decidedly conservative Republican Party winning a second term in November.

Some analysts are pointing towards a similar rightwards trend globally, though the liberal- left is also tightening its belt. Is this because of tougher economic struggles that affect everybody? The rising intolerance towards foreign immigration certainly points in that direction. Initiatives of government that further burden the tax payer rather than strengthening his arm are becoming unpopular. When they are intended to potentially benefit the cause of planetary issues such as global warming, it becomes all the more annoying because people issues should have come first.

In fact, globalisation, once the buzzword for progress, is now regarded as an inconvenience to be controlled. Import tariffs are going up and restrictive visa regimes are being imposed.

It may be impossible to retreat behind protectionist walls beyond a point, but national interests, rather than international ones, are the new points of emphasis.

Is this going to slow progress? If it does, countries around the world, and not just in Europe, seem to be prepared for it. The idea of gaining what you lose on the swing road being made up at the roundabout, is presently not very popular. The generosity of globalisation is being replaced by ‘me first’ policies. Is this cyclic and likely to revert to form once the economic conditions improve? Probably not. The bilateral give and take is the more likely model going forward, rather than outfits like the WTO or some UN agency.

(1,145 words)

May 10^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

China Is Seen As The Only Economic If Not Military Power That Can Balance US Influence In The Gulf And Arabian North Africa

Sometimes agreements made some years ago come to life. The UAE raised its relationship with China to the strategic level in 2018, and two-way trade certainly saw a fillip since. The UAE is, and has traditionally been the gateway to trade throughout the Gulf, presently sanction crippled Iran, and North Africa.

In July 2018, President Xi Jinping visited Abu Dhabi. As many as 13 financial and trade agreements were signed amongst almost 150 over the years since 1984 when diplomatic relations were established. Xi Jinping met with the then Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and the ruler of Dubai. Xi was the first Chinese supreme leader to visit the UAE in 29 years.

There  has been a persistent attempt on the part of China to establish a free-trade agreement with the entire GCC area, with the help of UAE and Saudi Arabia, but a few wrinkles such as concern over its propensity to dump cheap exports need to be ironed out yet.

China is currently seen as a power that may be able to prod the two-state solution in Palestine into being, given its influence and leverage. The leader of the Palestinian Authority also recently paid a state visit to Beijing. And this Chinese influence extends not only to all the oil exporting countries of West Asia, but rivals, Iran and its proxies, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the Houthis, elements in Syria and Iraq. China cannot be ignored also by Israel and its all-weather ally, the United States.

For the Arabs, this is a balance they seek between pressures from America and those from China. Work on this is proceeding apace. The UAE and Chinese central banks have recently renewed a $ 4.9 billion currency swap agreement. There is a cooperation agreement between the Dubai and Shanghai stock exchanges, and the UAE sovereign fund Mubadala has opened a Beijing office.

Now there is not only a state visit to Beijing from 29^th to 31^st May 2024, from the president of the UAE, but a conference of Arab nations, the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, formed 10 years ago.

Sheikh Mohamed has visited China several times before. Starting in 1990 accompanying his father, the first president of the UAE, and then again in 2009, 2012, 2015, 2019 and 2022. This time, Sheikh Mohamed said he wants to ‘enhance Arab-Chinese cooperation’. Reports say he wants to ‘finesse’ the relationship, particularly after considerable progress with the UAE relationship with India and its geopolitical implications.

This is the 40^th year of diplomatic relations between China and the UAE, and Sheikh Mohamed is in Beijing to celebrate it. Formal ties were established in 1984. In 2023, the UAE’s non-oil trade with China reached $ 81 billion accounting for 12% of all UAE trade. The UAE’s investments in China reached $ 11.9 billion across sectors like telecommunications, renewable energy, transportation, hospitality, and rubber. There is a resident Chinese community in the UAE of about 350,000 people.

For the 10^th China-Arab Summit between 28^th May and 1^st June, there will be as many as four heads of state from UAE, Egypt, Bahrain and Tunisia present in Beijing.

This, while NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Prague to discuss the fraught idea of Ukraine being allowed to hit targets inside Russia. NATO is coincidentally celebrating 25 years of its existence, but there is no unanimity of agreement on further provoking Russia .

UAE and Saudi Arabia, as the biggest middle powers in the GCC and the Gulf, though strategically close to the US for its military needs, want to settle the Palestine question perennially troubling their region. The state visit of the President of the UAE to Beijing, the first since he assumed power, can be partially seen in this light.

 Besides, China has a GDP of $17.7 trillion even in its much-weakened economy. It has had upwardly revised GDP forecasts of 5% per annum. This, by the international lending agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF, after China undertook strenuous efforts to right things lately. Stock investors around the globe are returning to China to take advantage of attractive beaten down valuations.

This economic heft in China, despite its aggressive trade practices and erstwhile, pre-Covid, ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’, is only second to that of the United States. The tension with Taiwan and all countries around the East and South China Seas are additional friction points. India has its own tense stand-off with China all along its long border alongside Tibet,  and proxy problems with Pakistan as well. Still, most countries are forced to deal with China till more effective geopolitical shifts take place. It remains a formidable trading partner with every country and is still the factory to the world.

Aware of all this, leading countries of the Gulf and Arab North Africa did sign up years ago, when China’s star was higher in the sky, for its predatory Belt and Road Initiative. Ironically, no work has been done on it in the region, better heeled than the usual ‘beneficiary’, so far.

Nearly bankrupt Pakistan’s CPEC has been, and is, struggling, and India has refused to be part of it altogether from the very start.

So perhaps UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain are not missing much, given the programme’s debt trap propensities and erratic progress. Countries such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, alongside some in Central Africa probably rue the day they got involved. Some in Europe, such as Italy, have actually withdrawn from the belt and road initiative.

While China has a vast military establishment, it is an unknown quantity when it comes to its effectiveness. Though it has not been involved in a shooting war of any size, it is not considered to be really up to scratch compared to the US technologically or in terms of its manpower under arms. Though, the size and extent of its blue water navy and submarines are indeed impressive. Likewise, its progress with hypersonic missiles and drones underpinned by its nuclear weapons prowess.

However, Russia with a mere $ 1 trillion economy, and a huge nuclear weapons arsenal, is considered to be a much more fearful military power.

The Gulf-based GCC sells 80% of its oil to China. The UAE alone exports over $ 30 billion ($32.5 billion) of its petroleum to China, and is its biggest trading partner in the Gulf, importing over $50 billion worth ($57.7 billion) of machinery, electrical equipment, broadcast equipment, and is lately making preparations to import its cheaper and very good electrical cars.

 China also offers, along with India, an increasing opportunity to conduct much of the mainstay petroleum business in local currencies to reduce dependence on a very strong US dollar. This despite the gargantuan debt America carries. China too carries a lot of external and internal debt. The difference is that the US dollar remains the main global currency for international trade.

To make the export import trade more attractive, China is now steadily devaluing the Yuan that it had kept artificially strong for many years.

What can come out of a closeness with Beijing, beyond the obvious bully-boy arrangements, is hard to say. But as a matter of hedging one’s bets in an increasingly unstable multipolar world, an actualised China of today, and an emerging India of tomorrow, is definitely important to consider.

 

(1,225 words)

May 30^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/ News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Why Iran India Russia Must Cut Through South Caucuses Conflict For the Sake Of Its Multimodal INSTC From Chabahar To Europe

Ebrahim Raisi, the former president of Iran, recently lost his life along with Iran’s erstwhile foreign minister and several others, in a helicopter crash near the Iran-Azerbaijan border. It was soon after inaugurating a joint dam project with the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. The dam is an example of the Islamic neighbours cooperating to mend fences. And perhaps a getting away from dependence on a weaker, less prosperous, largely Christian Armenia. The  North-South Corridor plans have paramount importance.

Like India, Iran has had cordial relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. This has been vitiated somewhat by Azerbaijan’s strident demonstrations of solidarity with its allies Turkiye and Pakistan. However, the lightning overnight capture of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan in 2023, has decisively changed the power equation in the region.  

France lined up In October 2023 to offer military help to Armenia. There is a large ethnically Armenian population in France. Armenia is also vaguely supported diplomatically by the US and Western Europe, and this infuriates President Aliyev in Baku. But before France could act, the game seems to be over for Armenia.

India has been a major arms supplier to Armenia, but is deeply interested in seeing the North-South Corridor into fruition. It has not said anything in support of Armenia after its failure to capture Nagorno-Karabakh for itself. As many as 100,000 ethnic Armenians have been pushed out of Nagorno-Karabakh as refugees bound for Armenia in the conflict. There are credible allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, the province has been merged with Azerbaijan as of end 2023.  

Russia has military bases in Armenia, and a defence deal with it. But it failed to supply an order for $ 400 million for fresh arms to it. Most of Armenia’s armaments are Russian in origin, leading on from the days of the USSR, when  both Armenia and Azerbaijan were part of it. Russia is unable to honour its defence commitments to Armenia at present, preoccupied with its own war in the Ukraine.

It is therefore India-made artillery, missiles, anti-tank weapons, radar, and ammunition that has been arming Armenia, much to Azerbaijan’s displeasure. Still Armenia has not been able to win with these purchases, while Turkish origin armed drones have cost them dearly.

India has just won a ten-year contract, after interminable US sanction bred delays, to manage and develop Chabahar Port in South East Iran near the Afghanistan border. The US has now quickly indicated it is unlikely to sanction India over this move. This signals a possible easing up on the US sanctions on Iran and their propensity to distort relationships between countries as they get around them.

Azerbaijan, mineral rich, is supplying petroleum to India. Trade between the two countries has grown substantially, till it is India’s 5^th largest trading partner. Azerbaijan is supported in turn by Pakistan and Turkiye. Turkiye’s military equipment, particularly its drones, one of which spotted the wreckage of the ill-fated Bell helicopter carrying former President Ebrahim Raisi, is not to be sniffed at.

 And China, with its still alive, if battered, belt and road ambitions, does stand militarily behind Pakistan and its ability to be of help. This accounts for the  likely supply of JF Thunder 17 fighters to Azerbaijan. Others from NATO member Turkiye are also in the offing.

Turkiye, under President Erdogan, dreams of restoring, at least in part, wherever it can, its influence from the days of the Ottoman Empire. Turkiye also has significant influence with Russia on the other side of the Black Sea. However the elderly Erdogan is facing serious headwinds in his earlier rock-solid popularity. Rhe country is grappling with run away and rampant inflation. There could be regime change there before too long.

The sea, road, rail, pipelines, and other multimodal connectivity to Europe via Russia from Iran, could route through either land-locked Armenia or Azerbaijan, or sectionally, to avoid instability, through both. However, Armenia may not be able to withstand Azerbaijan’s aggression even in future. And it has not been able to develop its internal infrastructure to save time and make itself the more attractive choice.

However, India has thought, till lately, that it was kosher to export arms to Yerevan (Armenia), that supports it in diplomatic fora on Kashmir and other issues. France entering the picture with promises of military help to Armenia in October 2023. This, also put pressure for a resolution of the conflict between the South Caucasus neighbours. But it took a decisive turn and France’s offer of help may have come too late.

A breakthrough of sorts between the two South Caucuses countries for a lasting peace may be on the cards. Armenia and Azerbaijan, both said on May 16^th this year that they had agreed a deal on their disputed border. Armenia will return the villages of Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Ghizilhajili, seized by it in the 1990s. Azerbaijan’s decisive seizure of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 ended three decades of rule by Armenian separatists.

As recently as in 2023, India, Iran and Armenia created a trilateral to boost the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) connectivity. This follows on from the 2002 agreement between India, Russia and Iran to create the 7,200 km long INSTC. Azerbaijan became part of INSTC in 2005, with a shorter, better connected, and economical route. Its well-developed railways and a strategic seaport at Baku are clear advantages. It has also spent billions on modernisation and electrification of its railway lines. It paved the way for the western route of INSTC that runs west of the Caspian Sea. This links Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports in Iran to the vast railway network of Eurasia, especially between Baku-Tbilski-Batumi.

Azerbaijan has invested heavily in modernising its railway network to serve as a hub for the north-south and east-west trade.  This Western route is also called the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR).

Besides, the INSTC route via Armenia’s Syunik province crosses the Zangezur Corridor, an important connector that links Azerbaijan to its enclave Nakhchivan. The territorial viability of this route is also in question and both Turkiye and Azerbaijan have raised objections.

Azerbaijan may have links with Pakistan that are disturbing to India, but it also has links with Israel that are troubling for Iran. And yet, Iran is also finding ways to cooperate with Azerbaijan.  Both countries may have preferred to work with Armenia, but ground realities are pressing, and they cannot afford to jeopardise the INSTC.

The Caucuses have been a troubled area with rival countries jostling for advantage in most of recent history as the Ottoman overlordship crumbled at the turn of the 20^th century.  News of Armenia-Azerbaijan came to the world from the savage Crimean War that made the progenitor of the Red Cross, Florence Nightingale famous. It led, at the time, to an influx of Armenians into the British-Indian capital of Calcutta, where the Armenians went on to distinguish themselves as businessmen and builders of ‘The Paris of the East’. The Armenians, who built their church, school and cemetery in Calcutta, largely left India when it gained its independence from Britain in 1947. They scattered, from Armenia, and the breaking British empire elsewhere, to different parts, including France.

(1,203 words)

May 23^rd, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India Managed Chabahar Port Is A Balancing Act Against China, West Asia, and The West For Both Iran And India

Geostrategy is increasingly becoming a process of increasing a nation’s options. Western economic sanctions bound Iran and Russia have had to seek alternatives to survive and even thrive in the realm of unintended consequences.

Sanctions as a geostrategic tool are facing their own limitations, and overuse by America and its NATO allies, is spawning efforts to get away from the US dollar as the exclusive or at least main currency of international commerce.

 Russia has been encountering sanctions from Western Europe and the US ever since the war with Ukraine, but Iran has been suffering them for many years longer. Over the years, both countries have proved ingenious by finding new trading partners and mechanisms of international trade.

China too, despite being the second largest economy in the world, and closely involved in trade with Western Europe and the US is now facing sustained headwinds. It economy has become sluggish. For a country that has been the established global manufacturer of myriad things for decade this is a difficult pill to swallow. It is increasingly facing stiff US trade tariffs and outright bans.   

 With India, China has recently overtaken the US as the biggest exporter of its goods despite restrictions imposed. This is ironic because there is no let up in the tense situation on its long Tibetan borders with India.

India is considered to be an important US partner if not full-fledged ally in QUAD, a lateral beneficiary also of AUKUS, which puts in in the same frame with a number of G7 countries including Japan, Britain and Australia. It is equipping more and more of its ports to repair and refurbish US naval ships operating in its region.  It is collaborating in its military manufacturing not only with Russia, France, Israel, but very significantly with the US.  Countries like Germany that were not agreeable to let India have access to its sophisticated military technology before have also changed their posture. India shares vital intelligence inputs with the US and other Western countries.

And yet, it faced the finger-wagging threat of Western sanctions for importing Russian oil and gas, and possibly its neutrality. Though the pressure has eased as the Ukraine War drags on. In fact, it has refined some of the Russian crude and reexported it to Western Europe.  

The US, Israel and others in West Asia are aware of India’s cordial relationship with Iran. It is based on geostrategic as well as civilisational affinities. These other countries may be coming around to seeing its advantages. Remarks of the Indian foreign minister rather than its Shipping Minister Sonowal who signed the Chabahar contract hint at this.

India has a bilateral track of value with Iran. This partnership follows on as a much more comprehensive version of a 2016 agreement that was amped up  only sectionally in 2018. But today we can see a breakthrough.

In one fell swoop it opens up a route through the countries of Central Asia by road and rail connectivity all the way up to Russia and on to Europe. It negates some of the potential of Chinese controlled Gwadar Port, the vulnerabilities of dealing with Pakistan’s Karachi Port, the fear of a bottle-neck at the Straits of Hormuz. Significantly, after Iran’s refusal to accept international arbitration, all arbitration on matters arising between Tehran and New Delhi with regard to the operations will now be settled by a three person committee sitting in Muscat, Oman. Oman, strategically positioned, trusted by both the West and India, has been an effective go-between with Iran for many years.

 It is, in the expected flowering of its potential, a second route in addition to the North-South Corridor from India, across the Arabian Sea, via UAE with connectivity to Saudi Arabia, through Israel, and on to Greece in Europe. That it is somewhat mired presently by the ongoing war in Gaza is hopefully a temporary thing. But Chabahar waking up will tend to leverage reasonableness on this parallel course too.

The problems with the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, Iran backed Houthi attacks on shipping of various nations, the Somali pirates, the bottlenecks at the Suez Canal have to be addressed.

The burgeoning insurance costs on this route, the reluctance of shippers to send vessels or cargos through this way,  the hijackings and missile attacks, and conversely, spiralling shipping expenses and delays of routing via the Cape of Good Hope cannot sustain.

Iran has been selling most of its oil to China of late in bilateral currencies, at highly discounted rates. It is also selling some of it via Pakistan to try and bypass the Western sanctions, no doubt with tacit US approval.

Russia’s Gazprom announced its first loss despite selling twice as much of the highly discounted gas to China as it was to Western Europe. Both countries badly need balancing options.

India’s sea and land route via Chabahar in South Eastern Iran means easy access to Afghanistan. This has been proved already with wheat shipments to the latter. But energised, Chabahar  has enormous potential.

India has been pressured by the US to avoid or curtail the purchase of Iranian oil and gas in the past, but with low-cost options how long can this go on? India is forced to import 90% of its ever-growing volume of petroleum. It must request the US to reconsider its position. The same had to be done when it had to import the S-400 missile shield system from Russia.

India is today in a unique position of having equity with multiple sides. It is a country useful to various others that may be looking for ways to climb down from obdurate positions. This too is recognised by Iran, Russia certainly, and tacitly, even by the US and China.

The dragon must wish it was as palatable diplomatically, but their  strident propaganda, wolf warrior ways, espionage, and trade  dumping and bullying have queered the pitch.

Chabahar is the alternative to not only  to other ports and political groups, but the stumbling Chinese ambition of the Belt and Road initiative. The UAE and Saudi ports are also eager to be included.  But Iran must be drawn from its position of hostility. If Iran does not block the Straits of Hormuz, nobody else will. Tensions can be managed.

The Indian Ports Global Limited (IPGL), its overseas ports authority, will invest at least $ 120 million into the Chabahar Port development now. A further $ 250 million odd in fresh financing is also being organised, said the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash.

‘It will clear the way for bigger investments to be made in the port’, said Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. He urged the US not to take a narrow view. The development of Chabahar will benefit the entire region, and the EAM felt the US appreciates this potential, and has done so even in the past. And therein lies the most important part of this  breakthrough that cannot prosper without US backing.

Circumstances became favourable for the development of Chabahar without constraints after Iran agreed to a control and monitoring regime on its uranium enrichment levels to prevent a weaponisation of its nuclear programme. Iran signed a joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) with the EU, the five permanent members of the UNSC, plus Germany.  

That Iran and India should be taking such a bilateral strategic initiative has raised eyebrows in multiple quarters, but is missing the essential link. And this 10 year bilateral agreement may be further extended by mutual consent.

Chabahar is a deep-water port in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, closest to India, and located on the open sea. It is 550 nautical miles from Kandla in Gujarat, and 786 nautical miles from Mumbai.

The potential  sea, road, and rail corridor will cover India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Europe -  over some 7,200 km.

(1,312 words)

May 15^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Immigrants Over Two Centuries Built America, But Biden Must Know Japan, India, Russia & China Are No Xenophobic Slouches

President George W Bush was famous for his quite often hilarious gaffes, but he has been receiving steady competition from the 81 year-old President Joe Biden. The latest Biden pronouncement may be more by way of a clumsy and ill- informed analogy gone wrong. Luckily for him, his presidential election rival, the almost 78 year-old Donald Trump makes quite a few bloopers too.

Republican contender, former President Donald Trump may be tough on Mexican immigrants with his infamous if not too effective border fence and wall, but Democrat Joe Biden, the incumbent president, is in harmony with the Democratic Party pro-immigration stance. This even in the face of internal advice that he should tough talk on the same border issue.

Of course, hordes of poor and largely illiterate illegal immigrants in 2024 who don’t speak English are not as welcome as they were in the 1870s. In the 19^th century and before, immigrants, largely from Europe, slaves brought in from Africa, and some immigration from China, helped to populate the vast country. They threw out the British colonisers, pushed back the French and Mexicans, subdued the native Red Indians, built the engines of growth, and even fought a civil war amongst themselves.

 Immigrants into the most deliberate ‘melting pot’ that is America, many originally poor and persecuted in their erstwhile home countries, have been a crucial feature of the American DNA. This is what Biden meant, but perhaps he should have stopped right there.

Immigrants into America are known and lauded for their hard work, ingenuity and grit. And Biden was addressing a crowd of mostly Asian Americans.

More recently, the brilliant IIT educated ones from India, its ‘brain drain’ and America’s gain, have been most useful in building America’s pre-eminence in IT, other technology, and commerce. Scores of Indian origin CEOs of marquee companies on the Nasdaq and S& P 100 indices have led to the joke that you can’t be CEO in America if you aren’t Indian. It is a complete makeover of the earlier American image of India as a land of teeming poor, with tigers, snake charmers and fakirs thrown in.

President Joe Biden, keen to distinguish his candidature from that of Donald Trump, decided to praise immigrants at a campaign reception fundraiser. On the campaign trail for Biden 1.0, he had vowed to enact legislation to make the immigration process more ‘humane’ in contrast to President Trump’s mostly intended, but not implemented, harsh measures. This time too, Trump is speaking of deportations.

However, as president, Biden could not make much progress on immigration legislation without bipartisan support, because of surges of illegal immigration at the southern border. And calls, from Republicans certainly, but even from Democrats, to seal the border and crack down on asylum seekers. Some went so far as to call for banning asylum altogether.

 But, the consensus is, at this fundraiser, Biden let his analogies run away with him. Biden said American allies and partners Japan and India are struggling economically ‘because they’re xenophobic’.  He included frenemy China and combatant Russia in the illustration as well.

Japan is opening up to a cautious immigration policy as it grapples with its diminishing and ageing population, and its economy has been showing signs of recovery from a 25 year-long recession. It is keen however not to import terrorism and other social upheavals into its very well-ordered culture.

India is the most populous country in the world, with 65% of its people under the age of 35. It is the fastest growing major economy in the world, with 6-7 percent GDP growth per annum, and harbours, willy nilly, nearly 50 million illegal immigrants, mainly from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

These immigrants have not been rounded up and deported in the main, in order to observe diplomatic niceties with essentially friendly neighbouring countries. However, border defences with both countries have been considerably strengthened of late. Economically, what President Biden said makes little sense. India will grow into the 3^rd largest economy in the world by 2030 or earlier, driven in large part by its domestic economy and burgeoning exports.

Japan is a NATO and QUAD ally. India is a QUAD ally and a crucial partner in America’s quest to contain Chinese geopolitical ambition. Both deserve not to be used in clumsy examples by the US president.

China, the frenemy of the US, is suffering from the difficulties of an ageing population, a consequence of its long-held one-child policy that has now been scrapped. Still, it will take 30 years to achieve a demographic dividend even if more Chinese marry and decide to have children. It is doubtful however how much immigration a communist dictatorship can attract, even if it were to try. Hong Kong, a part of China, is chafing at the bit against all the state controls that have increasingly been imposed on it. Taiwan firmly refuses to merge with mainland China in the face of constant threats, and is running an independent democratic polity. That China is doing badly in its economy is due to multiple reasons and policies of its President Xi Jinping and the CCP, but has little to do with immigration into Red China. Some of the slowdown in the Chinese economy is due to American realignments and reduction in imports.

Historically, China which called itself ‘The Middle Kingdom’ certainly was xenophobic. Likewise, so was Japan, in the days of its Shogunates.  Tsarist Russia, the USSR, and contemporary Russia, were more or less suspicious of foreigners for much of their history. India has had a long tradition of welcoming foreigners, quite often to its detriment. But, it is unlikely that President Biden was taking all this into account when he called this quartet ‘xenophobic’.  

Russia is vast but underpopulated in comparison with its mass, but it is also a relatively small $1 trillion or so economy. It cannot support a surge of immigration. However, in emerging from the erstwhile USSR, Russia is already a mixture of ethnicities from all the territories that comprised it. This, in addition to its essentially Slavic people. It is currently at war with Ukraine, where its opponent is supported by the US led NATO, and the EU, with modern armaments, training, and money.  

Russia has always been close to India and this continues despite India’s neutrality vis a vis the Ukraine war. It is India’s largest supplier of petroleum at present, and continues to be its biggest defence armaments partner.

Russia is now pulling closer to China, Iran, and North Korea, owing to their covert support in the war, and stringent Western sanctions against it. Right now, Russia cannot countenance an immigration surge. It would be both an economic burden and a security risk.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, an African American, while defending Biden’s emphasis on America’s immigrant identity, said, ‘Our allies and partners know very well how much this president respects them... obviously, we have a strong relationship with India, with Japan, and the president if you just look at the last three years has certainly focused on those diplomatic relationships’. It is true that President Biden has hosted state dinners for both India and Japan, and that he probably had no intention to disparage either of them. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby also chimed in with similar comments.

President Biden’s remarks were made at a Washington DC fundraiser that marked the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month which celebrates diversity in the US.

Illegal border crossings have contributed over 2 million people per annum since 2021, higher than ever before, and is a hot button election issue.   

(1,274 words)

May 3^rd, 2024

For:Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee