PoK, Here We Come!

Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Here We Come!

The informal summit at Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, has some unremarkable, if solid, agenda items. But these could have appeared in any bilateral state visit between the heads of government of India and China. These concern trade, investment, technology, tariffs, visas, broad-based terrorist threats and so forth.

Such matters can, and do, also get taken up at other venues and summits that dot the annual calendar. These, jointly and severally, afford handy delegation level talks on their sidelines.

But an informal summit like the one in Wuhan, China, and the one now, which allows several hours of one-on-one informal meetings, can work on medium term strategic issues better than most other formats.

The defensive positions and formal reservations can be set aside as already read, as both leaders come to them extremely well briefed.

The type of work they individually and jointly do at such summits therefore, may not emerge into the official lexicon on either side, let alone the public domain, for a considerable time after.

Even if certain sensitive things are agreed upon, the enabling actions that are put into motion, also take time to fructify.

But, as a consequence, these confidential tete a tetes as a diplomatic construct, can truly tackle game-changer issues.

Which is possibly why India and China have begun to hold them soon after the lengthy stand-off at Doklam.

In a broader context, that is no doubt impelling, China is under considerable financial pressure and stress even as its economic growth has halved from peaks of a few years ago. This is a widely held perception in strategic circles, though details of how tough the situation is are hard to come by, given China’s opaque systems of governance.

But, it is safe to assume that China carries massive debt, most of the legacy amounts from its high growth years being internal debt, as otherwise, if it were external, the world would be privy to it. Suffice is to say, its foreign exchange dollar/euro reserves, though it runs into trillions, is not even a fraction of what is the position here.

There is also the massive amounts owed to China by a host of impoverished or fairly poor nations that have availed of China’s offer to build large infrastructure in their countries. Yet other countries have sold China their land and mines. China’s ongoing liabilities are considerable without commensurate revenues to balance it.

That China has obtained masses of such infrastructure on long lease in these countries when they have been unable to pay instalments against their debt, inclusive of tax holidays and other favorable terms, does not, as yet, help its cash flow. Nor does it make China popular in this day and age, because it smacks of colonial style imperialism.

Nevertheless, to get this reality going into economic viability, China needs people to use, and pay for the facilities they have created. But even a couple of years after Hambantota and Gwadar are operational, next to nobody has come to call at these ports.

In the case of Gwadar, the resentment against both the Pakistanis and Chinese felt by the Balochis makes it a volatile prospect for trade that needs to pass from that port through and from Pakistan.

In the case of Sri Lanka, nobody else seems to want to use a Chinese port, when China has gone out of its way, in the garb of helping, to menace most of the countries bordering the South China Sea, and even further afield in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), that will absorb at least $ 60 billion of China’s money, is also in financial trouble. Investment from China has slowed of late as a consequence, and the costs of keeping what has been put on the ground secure have risen exponentially. It is also extremely vulnerable to a conventional war between India and Pakistan. This could well be provoked by cross-border terrorist attacks and the belligerence against India of Pakistan’s armed forces along the international border or line of control (LoC).

Pakistan, on its part, is unhappy that the CPEC has not generated very many Pakistani jobs, or contributed substantially to its economy while saddling it with massive debt. A politically unstable Pakistan, run, de facto, by its all-powerful army, is near bankrupt. It is totally dependent on loans from the multi-lateral lending agencies, and China. Aid is also taken from whichever quarter it can secure it. This makes the future prognosis even bleaker.

Besides, like the Palestinians before them, fellow Islamic nations are reluctant to fund Pakistan. It is widely seen as a basket case and bottomless pit, that carries the opprobrium of being terrorist central too. America’s strategic dependence on Pakistan, because of its long standing involvement in Afghanistan has diminished. And this to the extent that the US is pulling out of the region irrespective of the consequences.

The prospect of piggybacking on an “Islamic nuclear capacity” is no longer as alluring as it once was, given the fate that engulfed Col. Gaddafi of Libya, and the pressures being exerted on would-be nuclear Iran.

And using seconded or retired Pakistani troops, trainers and advisers, in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has not yielded very good results versus the Houthi rebels, or even for routine security work internally.

As Pakistan’s sole benefactor cum colonizer today, things are not going very well financially for China. It is forced increasingly, to protect its sunk investment, to prop up the Pakistani military with money, planes, guns, and tanks. This, at its own expense, to all intents and purposes.

China’s tariff negotiations with the US, its biggest export market still, are not going very well either. President Trump is determined, like none other before him, to wring unprecedented concessions out of the People’s Republic. This is altering the status quo drastically. This more so because Chinese exports to a slowed US economy, and a recessionary Europe have dwindled over the last several years. There is little upside in prospect even in the medium term. 

China’s production costs have also risen substantially occasioning many foreign manufacturers to emigrate to Vietnam, Bangladesh, and India. It is in urgent need of finding other markets, and India, with its size and population, is a good prospect despite a handsome trade surplus in China’s favour already.

India, on its part, has steadfastly refused to join China’s belt and road initiative, unlike Nepal, because  the CPEC runs from Xinkiang via PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, which are both Indian territory that it intends to reclaim. This, more so, after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and the reorganization of J&K into two union territories for now.

In is thought, in the strategic thinking of the Government of India, that it is impossible to remove  Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession till the rest of the territory is reclaimed from Pakistani occupation as well.

India has vowed to do so of late, at the opportune time. It has also made it clear to China that any infrastructure it has built, or is in the process of building in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, is without its expressed permission. This includes the road and associated infrastructure, a dam in PoK and so forth. The native people of the region are also unhappy with the Pakistani-Chinese occupation and want to revert to India at the earliest.

The time is ripe therefore, and perhaps the matter has been, or will be, discussed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President XI Jinping at Mahabalipuram.

If China tacitly approves of India reclaiming PoK/Gilgit-Baltistan and uses its good offices to hold Pakistan to a token resistance; a case can be made for India joining the belt and road initiative in return.

This will give new life and strength to the whole enterprise, without  compromising China’s abiding support to its ally Pakistan, and  the latter’s legitimate territorial integrity.

That Baluchistan that contains the port of Gwadar, will chafe at the bit and seek independence from Pakistan, is a real, if separate, issue, and China will have to come to terms with it later, perhaps in league with India.

However, subduing Pakistan’s aggressive instincts, its calls for jihad, including its cross-border terrorism, is as much in China’s best interest as India’s.

 Trade cannot flow between Xinkiang and Gwadar, and all points of the compass within India, and via Pakistan, if peace and tranquility is not secured. China can make this happen, if it undertakes an about turn from the long held policy of using Pakistan to bait India.

(1,418 words)

For: Sirfnews

October 12, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

The Shingle Is The Same,But Everything Is Changed

The Shingle Is The Same, But Everything Is Changed

Ancient civilisations have a predilection for retaining the markers of the ages they inherit. Rome is always careful to leave its ambience as the “eternal city’’ undisturbed. China reveres its storied and ancestral past, and is loathe to rip apart even its modern ideological structures. This, also if they have outlived their purposes in certain areas. India has always been a confluence of cultures and ideas. These have formed and travelled both outwards and inwards in a wide arc of influence and inspiration. To not take this along into the future, even as perversions are corrected, would not do its essential ethos the justice it deserves.

The People’s Republic of China is today a considerable capitalist success, second only to the US in terms of the size of its economy. It is still Communist, in name, and political organization; but no longer in terms of its economic policies.

This change has been wrought since the 1980s, under the guidance of its late great leader Deng Xiaoping, who decided to change direction. This, after the collectivisation failures and excesses of the Mao era came to an end with the Chairman’s death. Particularly, since it did not add much economic value, and was marked and scarred by a tremendous cost in human suffering. Chairman Mao’s administration, since 1949, is credited with having killed over 30 million of his own people.

China has made quick economic strides since the 1980s, with 30 years of continuous double-digit growth, using its version of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

However, it was helped in this spectacular performance, by not allowing for the tumult of democracy. Since 1997, it has had to endure the freedoms of democracy, in a limited way, and as an exception, in Hong Kong. This, of course is due to historical reasons, because the island was under British colonial administration for a very long time. This may have been authoritarian too, but European democratic ideals, and the principles of free trade were taught, revered, and were, to some extent, implemented. Hong Kong was, and is, a dynamic trading citadel.

Having got Hong Kong back in 1997, after 156 years, under the treaty obligations signed by an imperial Britain with Qing China post the Opium Wars, China has tried to proceed with delicacy and caution.

Even now in 2019, China continues to profess a principle of “one nation, two systems”, for the benefit of the advanced and sophisticated people of Hong Kong and the sake of their promised autonomy. However, it has been tightening its grip over the island very gradually over the years.

But now, its centralised ways are facing embarrassing opposition from the residents, who think very differently from those who live and work on the mainland.

China’s stiffening stance under President Xi Jinping, might be because it calculates that it can afford to substitute very successful Shenzen, on the mainland, in place of Hong Kong, and not suffer in terms of connectivity and trade with the rest of the world.  But, as may be expected, the people of Hong Kong are not amused. Most people in Hong Kong however, particularly the wealthy, have seen the writing on the wall, and are emigrating to other countries, including Singapore and Canada.

In addition, scant miles away from Red China is Taiwan, formerly the island of Formosa- now constituting all of The Republic of China, which is democratic, and fiercely independent of the mainland.

The vagaries of history may have to answer for why Red China continuously claims Taiwan to this day. But, it is a separate country today, recognized by the whole world, and backed in its independence by the US. It was born after Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his Nationalists fled the mainland after losing the fight to Mao Tse Tung and his Communists in 1949.

So China lives cheek by jowl with democracy, both within its own territory in Hong Kong, and in the lost territory of Formosa/Taiwan. But it manages to follow a different drummer ideologically for itself.

It has long been speculated how long China can hold out before its masses reach out for more political freedom despite considerable prosperity compared to the old days. But for now, under President Xi Jinping, things seem to be in control. A repeat of the Tianeman Square protests of 1989 seem unlikely on the surface. Although a slowed economy, running at half of its boom years in terms of GDP, the tariff wars with its biggest export market in the US, and massive national debt, could fuel unrest at any time. The world is perpetually running blind to a certain extent when it comes to China, and will only find out if anything comes out in the open.

India too is going through a transition. It is redefining the meaning of secularism and socialism inserted into the preamble of the Indian Constitution during the Emergency of the 1970s. From the early days after independence in 1947, a Hindu majority country was seen to pointedly favour its minorities. 

This was the norm for decades, and led to a distorted sense of both entitlement in certain quarters, and glaring exclusion in others. The unfairness of the situation was not thought to be remarkable. In fact, the people of the country were lectured and hectored to shun majoritarian tendencies.

The present government is actively engaged in rectifying the situation with the enthusiastic backing of over 40% of the electorate. In fact, if the NDA allies are counted, the percentage is closer to 50%. The remainder of the votes are fragmented and no other political entity can boast of much more than 30%, if that.

This transitionary period is not without its share of heartburn, particularly as the once mighty and seemingly all- knowing have been replaced by the electorate.  In economic policy too, the earlier dispensation professed to spend on the upliftment of the poor, even as it neglected the engines of growth. This led to runaway inflation, as expenditure bore no relationship to income, in a deficit fueled and extremely corrupt administration. The money for the poor only saw under 15% of it reaching its destination.

Today, the welfarism continues but so does growth. And the benefits for the poor reach them in every instance without middle-man pilferage.

In a very telling way, both secularism and socialism have come to mean very different things today. Secularism is now an even playing field for all. 

Hinduism is allowed its rightful place in the public discourse without imposing on any of the other religions. But by the same token, manipulated and forced conversions are being checked. However, because of decades spent with a tilted outlook, evening the balance may look revanchist to those who have been dispossessed of their authority. This is not right, despite the caterwauling, but can nevertheless be understood.

In a sense, both India and China have decided to retain the framework created and established by their founding fathers, while modifying the content to suit present times and the demands of the future.

The recent changes in J&K however have shown up the limitations of retaining unfair legal structures. So, in a way, the conversions made there must be seen as exceptions that prove the rule. There is a new secularism, a new socialism, as practiced by a renewed and resurgent India.

China is on its way to seeking global leadership based on its considerable success. This, of course, is not without its obstacles. India, on its part,  is busy course-correcting internally as much as externally to remove the impedimenta to its future greatness. It is also determined to seize its leading position in the comity of nations, economically, politically, militarily and culturally.

Will there be increasing convergence between the two Asian giants? Rivals, even senior and junior ones, will never converge, and so this seems unlikely. A transactional cooperation, yes, will increase as the time goes on, but good fences always make for good neighbours.

(1,324 words)

October 2, 2019

For: Sirfnews

Gautam Mukherjee

The Worm Always Turns

The Worm Always Turns

India’s economy, structurally sound, and much admired by the international rating and lending agencies for its probity, has been beaten down to a growth rate of  5% GDP in the June 2019 quarter. Growth has also been slipping for five quarters.

This has excited much comment, but needs to be seen in perspective. Domestic consumption is sharply down, jobs are being lost in the formal sector, and even core sector parameters are in the doldrums. But, given all this and more, there is no existential threat whatsoever.

We are still ticking over, making treaties, purchasing armaments, strengthening our defences, furthering our diplomacy and international reach. We hold strong foreign exchange reserves, even as chunks of foreign investment exit the stock market, and the rupee takes the battering of its life.  

Most developed countries, suffering from miniscule growth, or mild to severe recessions over a prolonged period, think 5%  is still enviable. But of course,  it is a sharp come-down from our own peak performances of the recent past.

As an emerging economy, though even now in the top ten, if 5% were to become the annual figure instead of just the latest quarter, we have to see it through the prism of the embedded growth propulsion in our DNA. And this, for decades to come. There is much to be built, improved and modernized. There is always a demand push towards addressing huge deficits in infrastructure and systems to tap our full potential in all sectors. This downturn is cyclic.

However, given resource constraints and a massive 1.3 billion population, our relatively responsible management of the economy, despite inheriting almost 11% of banking assets in NPA, we are not doing too badly. And we are indeed collecting on the Non Performing Assets by a more determined pursuit of economic offenders than ever before in our 72 year history. But the very cure may be the culprit too. Austerity in government money management has reduced demand and consumption.  

On the plus side, again in an unprecedented way, the Modi government has itself steered clear of all scandal and corruption since 2014. This has been combined with delivery of welfare to the poor without leakages.

Our sovereign and domestic debt levels are modest yet, with even domestic debt at around 80% of the $2.8 trillion economy and external debt at some 5% . We will, it appears, never become a banana republic at this rate! The Indian government has never defaulted on a payment obligation so far.

 This debt scenario is the main difference with the mature developed economies, many of whom owe many multiples of their GDP. Some, are to all intents and purposes bankrupt, only kept afloat by their lenders. Others are having difficulties just servicing the debt, let alone bringing it down or spurring growth.

The current 5% in India is comparable to the 4.7%  in the quarter at the end of UPA II (2013).  It had tumbled from a high of over 9%  at its peak. And this, with inflation surging in the double digits too. The UPA could not even blame demonetization or GST, as it does now with its ravaged and much diminished presence. However, high oil prices did plague it at the time.  

This was the state of play under the stewardship of eminent economist and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It is therefore quite droll that Singh is making bold to vehemently criticise the present position.

Through all of Modi 1.0, the economy turned in a performance of over 7%  in GDP despite inheriting a scorched earth economy. The other chief parameters such as the fiscal and current account deficits and inflation have also been admirably controlled throughout, and continue to be in check into the first months of Modi 2.0.

However, because of the sharp slowdown, the government is now easing money supply to different sectors and reducing interest rates. It is also removing road blocks to FDI. In addition, the PMO itself, rather than the apparently Leftist and 1980s style Garibi Hatao Finance Ministry,  is working on each distressed sector. This  includes those that can provide an early boost, such as Real Estate and the Stock Market.

Indications are that business, industry ,  the farmers, rural India,the  stock market and international investors  have confidence in, and are appreciative of, the recent government efforts to revive growth. Particularly after a most peculiar budget presentation in July. The unfeeling budget in July caused a lot of economic damage in the aftermath, but the recent response of the government to sharp all round criticism has helped matters immensely.

Now the doomsday scenario projected by some of the government’s critics is far from justified. The corrupt, mostly from the decade long UPA regime circa 2004 to 2014, and its adherents, are being brought to book alongside. And this is indeed very  uncomfortable for those who may be next in line.

There are some international headwinds from the battle of tariffs between America and China but this is affecting the whole world. The tensions with Pakistan and China post the turning of J&K and Ladakh into separate Union Territories could, however, have a silver lining. The focus has shifted to PoK as a bargaining chip for India. America wants India’s military help in Afghanistan, where India has sunk over $20 billion in Afghan infrastructure already; and China wants India’s participation in the CPEC. PoK could well be the price for India’s cooperation. Other countries such as Russia, France and Britain, all permanent UNSC members, may play along too, goes the informal buzz.

A total solving of the Kashmir imbroglio with gain of  long lost territory, along with a defanging of Pakistan, will have strong economic benefits in the medium term.

The ideal way to approach the current economic situation therefore is to regard it as an opportunity that may not present itself again.  

We have mature skills and diplomacy on our side today, and there is nothing wrong with the economy that can’t be fixed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is acutely conscious of the importance of boosting the economy to aid India’s progress, and enjoys a very high level of public trust. He is ably backed by a very can-do Home Minister in Amit Shah. This has resulted in moving forward the safety and security of this country, diminishing threats from multiple directions. This too has long been a drain on the exchequer.

Large sections of those MPs and MLAs who sit on the non-treasury benches are also supportive of this government. All this makes for a very worthwhile economic springboard for the near future.  

The early life of legendary American entrepreneur J Paul Getty presents some pointers on what is possible. With an education in California and Oxford, Getty became, not a diplomat, as he first thought, but a freelance oil prospector and dealer in oil leases in Oklahoma.

This was early in the 20^th century, when the so called “seven sisters”, The Standard Oil Company, Shell, Union Oil Company, General Petroleum Company, Richfield Oil, Texas Oil Company, Tide Water Associated Oil Company, were huge and integrated, and went on to dominate the international oil business too.

Getty and his father were pioneering, seat-of-the-pants, independent drillers, known as “wildcatters”.  The Gettys leased likely plots, rigs and crews, like many others, but repeatedly struck viable quantities of oil. In a short time, apprenticing under his father, helped by his legal acumen, feel for a likely lease, and experience, J Paul Getty parlayed his own “gushers” into a first $1 million in profits by the age of 24.

And then, to everyone’s astonishment, he retired to two years of utter hedonism. Bored with the exclusive life of pleasure, Getty came back into the oil drilling business at 26. Thereafter, he multiplied his fortune, eventually buying a superior building block. Getty purchased his way into one of those large integrated oil companies by patiently accumulating its common shares. He started in after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, when bluechip stocks were severely beaten down. In time, almost a decade, he had control of Tidewater, a big oil company that had refining, marketing and distribution reach, but bought some of its crude oil from others. Later in the day, by now a billionaire, Getty competed with the Seven Sisters in Arabia too.

India is at a crossroad and watershed today, but there is no need to expect anything but greatness and growth in its future. It has a clear vision of where it wants to go with its $ 5 trillion and $10 trillion roadmap, and its destiny is to be in the top three economic powerhouses of the world. With no structural shortcomings, Modi is, and will continue to steadily take the right policy decisions. This will strengthen  the economy/infrastructure, security, and technological modernization of this country. There will be holistic and all-round development.

Judging things quarter-to-quarter is an American practice we have adopted, and it  has its advantages, but we should not allow ourselves to lose the woods for the  trees.

(1,504 words)

September 3^rd, 2019

For: SirfNews

Gautam Mukherjee

Gear Changing From A Soft Power To A Hard One

Gear Changing From A Soft Power To A Hard One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,396 words)

August 21, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(1,441 words)

5^th August 2019

For: Sirfnews

Gautam Mukherjee