Toolkit For Woke

Stay Woke: Vote!

The Black Lives Matter movement in America, was born because White Supremacists and American Police were still killing black people on the streets. Black people, often poignantly young, who fell afoul of police call-outs. Rather than immobilise them for questioning with tasers or even billy clubs, they were shot in the head, chest, in the back. This might have been from misunderstanding, inexperience, or fear on the part of policemen operating in an environment where the right to bear arms is sacrosanct. White Supremacists, of course, work on eugenic theories of superior races. For them, the only good Black is a dead one.

But the White community is rarely subjected to such excesses unless it is from the school shootings by deranged fellow students.

The African Americans introduced the term Woke, updated and weaponised from the past participle of wake. The term has been around amongst hip American Blacks since the sixties or earlier, but entered mainstream dictionaries as late as 2017.

It means people sensitised and aware of political and racist narratives working against them. It is not a veiled call to armed counter violence.  But a person who is Woke is unwilling to be manipulated into guilt. Or oppressed with racial slurs, being called a degenerate, a habitual miscreant, looters, rioters, criminals, criminally inclined, replete with jail statistics for illustration.

It took a previous segregated generation much blood and guts to vote, in the Deep South. To change City Hall, heads of racist police, the occupant of the Governor’s Mansion and White House, – the Woke Blacks still need to Vote.

Black Lives Matter, just like the successful Civil Rights Movement before it, has, gradually been joined or supported by Hispanics, Asians, Whites, Jews, Muslims, Christians, immigrants, native Americans, the LGBT, Hollywood and TV stars, Talk Show hosts, college professors. Judges. New legislation is being drafted. Police manuals are being updated.

And increasingly, liberal politicians like Mayors, Governors, even the current President Joe Biden, the strongly African-American military, the intelligence and secret services, the CIA, the CBI.

Woke is the next stage of awareness and equal treatment in America. An evolution, for people in a country that is no longer just a Caucasian melting pot. Even though these same White immigrants did all they could to keep slaves, native Americans, Chinese, Hispanics, other Asians, down or dead.

What does wokeness mean in the Indian context?  It could mean judicial reform, accountability of politicians and the bureaucracy, better primary education and health facilities, faster agrarian reforms, efficient garbage disposal. There is a mountain of issues to be Woke about in a country emerging from feudalism like India. But, it is probably best to concentrate on what is in the hands of the people.

Since the coming of Modi 1.0, there has been a consistent if small counter narrative. This has been led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. He wouldn’t have had two successive majority terms without strong Hindu nationalist support. And so, he has set about addressing some long pending issues.

The very first is philosophical but profoundly influential. The Idea of India, propagated by Nehru, his successors in the Congress Party and government, has been ruling for decades. This unchallenged former national self-image and lode star, exalted Gandhian non-violence, inclusiveness, plurality, unity in diversity, Mughal history, socialism.  It placed the largely loss making and inefficient public sector at the commanding heights of the economy, destroyed the vestige of privilege of the erstwhile princes, made private companies bring up the rear in a mixed economy. It promoted the bizarre shackles of a licence-permit system.  Other aspects included an emphasis on higher education, non-alignment, code for being in the Soviet camp, agrarianism, development, abjectly dependent on international aid and grants.

It was the thinking of a vassal state. A modest, proletarian vision of India in the back-dated, perennial shortages sense. It was smirked at for its high falutin’ speechifying, but grinding, malnourished poverty, its rank inequalities, its rickety facilities, its failing GDP.

 It was a vision that never envisaged a rich, powerful, influential, strongly nationalist, militarily capable India, that understood its enlightened self-interest and how to defend it.  This, which we need to Woke to in greater numbers, has been introduced by an OBC prime minister, born in poverty, who never saw any glory in squalor.

The flowery but insubstantial Idea of India that Nehru concocted in his Discovery of India, an imitation of Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples, has been discarded in the corridors of power.

Instead, we have Prime Minister Modi’s New India. Under the global  economic and political churn ongoing, he has also introduced atmanirbhar, applied proudly to weapons production. Fighter and trainer aircraft, helicopters, ammunition, armoured vehicles, howitzers, machine guns, rifles, missiles, navy ships, drones, cyber warfare capabilities, missiles, navy ships, drones, aircraft carriers, conventional and nuclear powered submarines.

Enemy forces in China and India are no longer confident of any military adventurism.

There are myriad other things in the mix- locomotives, satellites, heavy launch vehicles, digital India, improved intelligence that has prevented constant terrorist attacks around the country, cellphones, start-ups, electricity, water, pharmaceuticals, urban metro systems, vaccines in the season of the pandemic.  Infrastructure built as roads, ports, bridges, tunnels, directly paid subsidies into newly banked accounts.

Modi is a proud Hindu fond of praying at our great temples and pilgrimage centres. And his affection for the TV camera ensures the Indian public sees this. As of 2014, the Hindu in Bharat if not anglicised India, has been given a proper place at the main table. One he never thought he would get. It is a source of pride and satisfaction – a classic Woke feeling.

Independence era heroes, most notably Sardar Patel, Veer Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, long ignored, if not vilified, have been lifted out of the dusty pages of recent history. Their contribution has been acknowledged. Their birth anniversaries are honoured with flowers and incense. The RSS, the BJP’s ideological guru and conscience keeper, itself has emerged into respectability after years of being banned and stigmatised.

The urban national consciousness, largely informed by educated intellectuals from the Congress era, is a tougher nut to crack. It is reared on a diet of inherited Macaulayism, Christian Convent learning, Communism, foreign universities, Abrahamic world views, the Nehruvian notion of secularism, slanted Marxist or Imperialist interpretations of history. It is all deeply imbedded, and cannot be turned for a generation or two. 

 But back at the ranch, New India is a strong Woke catalyst for a large section of the people, for long embarrassed to celebrate their own culture and religion. Now such people see many of their own, including some in saffron robes who are in power.  Nevertheless, there are, and will be attacks from the old guard, designed to subvert and shatter self-confidence. Being Woke is to stay resolute and undeterred. Knowing that a passed over order is mourning its shocking irrelevance.

The term Toolkit, long associated with workmen of various kinds is now  also used widely by political activists. They readily recognise the various component parts that go to make up their agitation- finance, political backing, a narrative to flog, projections of victimhood, articulate and photogenic spokespersons, persistence, propaganda, judicial action, headline grabbing violence and arson. They see all this as so much componentry.

Woke for New India is dependent on diligent voting so that the agenda is not trampled underfoot by a resurgence of the old guard. Changing a national narrative is no small matter. Knowing your own best interest amongst the din of alternative voices is essential. Giving up, or turning tail in panic when things go wrong is not an option.

The toolkit and paintbox of Wokeness is cultural, political, artistic, religious, educational, historical, national, international. It involves building links and allies, taking actions with an eye to posterity, pride in our ancient and modern culture and accomplishments, financial success, ability to take the fight to the enemy. Being Woke is being modern and forward looking, unburdened by the inequities of the past. Above all, remembering universal suffrage is a double-edged sword.  It’s use it or lose it.

Voting cannot be left entirely to the uncomplicated minds of the 60% who live in rural India. They have always understood the power of their franchise. But changing the destiny of India as much as Bharat is a very Woke responsibility.

(1,394 words)

May 12^th, 2021

For:  The Sunday Guardian

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Sabka Vishwas Costs!

Is there a looming demographic crisis in India? Several states, including Kerala, are also getting there, thanks to a nearly 10% gap in the pace of population growth between Hindus and Muslims. But the grim moment seems to have arrived in West Bengal.

It has been nurtured assiduously over the last decade by the ruling TMC government. The fast-breeding minority population native to the state since partition in 1947, has been augmented ever since. More so, during the Communist regime (34 years) and that of the TMC (10 years and counting). Massive infiltration from Bangladesh of its poorest and most rootless including the violent Rohingyas is the alarming feature. These are the equivalent of the CIA trained Pakistani ISI recruitment of terrorists ‘from the gutter’. This helps Bangladesh’s per capita, but certainly does not help India. It does give the TMC state government a terror arm of its own with low cost operatives who are expendable.

The burgeoning statistics, and demographic spread all along West Bengal’s border with Bangladesh tells a chilling and graphic tale.

The assembly election of 2021 illustrates the problem. It has 1.8 crore block-voting immigrants from Bangladesh on the state’s electoral rolls. This is in addition to an average of 30% of the increasingly assertive minority population spread across the state. In some areas the combined concentration exceeds 50%.

Mamata Banerjee, a three times Chief Minister, who has developed into a ruthless demagogue and instigator of violence, states all Bangladeshi immigrants are now Indians. She has bluntly announced CAA and NRC will not be permitted. RSS run educational establishments are banned in West Bengal. Kolkata has the notoriety of being the state of choice for hawala and money laundering operations.

This same demographic dividend was sought to be utilised in Nandigram. In parts of the town, where the chief minister narrowly lost by under 2,000 votes to Suvendu Adhikary, the concentration is 50%. Banerjee chose to contest from Nandigram for the first time, banking on the minority vote.

She gave Bhavanipur in Kolkata, her usual constituency, that has a large Hindu and non-Bengali population, the go by this time. Part of this was dictated also by her strident ‘outsider-insider’ campaign. A leadership and state that  probably wants to secede or force an Article 370/356 J&K style autonomy. Will the tanks have roll out, as they did in Punjab in the eighties, to quell this danger? Should the Centre wait that long? Are the neo-Khalistanis too not waiting and watching once more?

This is not the first time West Bengal has posed impossible binaries for the decision makers. The Naxalites had to be put down so brutally that the flower of a generation was lost. Only that time it fell upon the Congress led by Chief Minister Siddharth Shankar Roy to deliver the coup de grace.

Those who voted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his RSS reared BJP men into power at the centre in 2014, were sure they had backed an unwavering Hindu nationalist regime. And that Modi was backed by a disciplined political party that believed in the propagation of hindutva, Veer Savarkar style. Much of the garlanding of photographs, quotations from the great man, and a prime ministerial visit to the Cellular Jail cell in the Andamans, where Savarkar spent solitary decades, seemed to also make this very point.

It was the first majority government in 30 years. It was not burdened with the weaknesses of the AB Vajpayee led NDA coalition of a decade earlier.  And yet it was not so weak that it didn’t promptly go overtly nuclear. Nor so meek that it didn’t build the Golden Quadrilateral of national highways.

Wrongs, people believed, once Modi was elected with a thumping majority for the NDA, were going to be righted. And many indeed were.

The upper echelon of the government was and has been corruption free. Infrastructure has blossomed. The Armed Forces were addressed in terms of one rank one pension (OROP), and a huge military equipment procurement programme. This time, there were no kickbacks and middlemen commissions.

GST was launched in Modi1.0. Indian diplomacy was carried to new heights by the prime minister himself. Subsidies reaching their intended recipients has become the new normal. Digitisation in banking and government functioning got a tremendous boost. The unbanked millions were given bank accounts for the first time. Pakistan was taught a signal lesson on the limitations of cross border terrorism. China was unable to get its foot in the door near the ‘Chicken Neck’ off Dhoklam and Sikkim. The NDA improved its electoral footprint across new parts of the nation for the first time.

Come the second consecutive term in power, in 2019, again with a brute majority, two big ticket issues, pending from the dawn of the Indian Republic were addressed in quick order. The first was the swift, almost magical takeover of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, into the mainstream. The second was the verdict on the Ram Temple at Ayodhya which gave the Janmabhoomi, at last, to the Hindus. Another bout of checking China had to be undertaken in Ladakh. This, and threats along other parts of the LaC with China, are ongoing.

More military procurement, including many items being manufactured nationally is growing apace. Two attacks of the Covid -19 pandemic, one in 2020 and one, worse than last year, is raging presently.

The BJP gained 77 seats in the West Bengal assembly, up from just 3, but did not succeed in wresting the state government from the TMC. In the normal course, this would be understood as the healthy process of democracy where the voter is the final arbiter.

But in West Bengal, there is a hostility amongst the minority population egged on by the TMC and its supremo that is abnormal. Murder, rape, arson, and terror, aimed at the Hindu majority continue unabated. A band of leftist intellectuals inside and outside the state have tried to cast the TMC victory in terms of ‘Bengali pride’ and its distinctness from the Cow-belt BJP. But if it were only so innocent.

Over a lakh of people have fled to Assam and elsewhere to save their lives. Hundreds in aggregate have been murdered in just the last five years, and this continues even now, after a 217 seat win.

The Centre has refused to take drastic action so far. Is the prime minister’s hopeful policy of ‘Sabka Vishwas’, introduced at the outset of Modi 2.0 in 2019 responsible? Should the BJP MLAs, karyakartas, organisers, supporters be abandoned to their fate?

Or is this minority hostility sanctioned by the TMC mainly a West Bengal problem? Neighbouring Assam, won for the second consecutive term by the BJP, with an over 40% minority population in South Assam, also aided by massive Bangladeshi infiltration, saw absolutely no post poll violence.

Does this not make the border state of West Bengal a national risk? Almost all the violence can be laid at the door of the goons drawn from Bangladeshi imports. This gives it the complexion of a jihad against Hindus aided and abetted by the TMC leadership.

Given that the minority community live and work their businesses in closely knitted ghettos all over the state, they may not have taken into account the consequences of a backlash.  Too much too soon could trigger it. Undivided Bengal has seen some of the worst Hindu-Muslim violence in 1946.  

Can the Government of India approach the West Bengal situation with a business-as-usual attitude?

The rank-and-file BJP supporter in West Bengal is extremely upset. A government with nationalist and hindutva credentials must stop this  in its tracks with extraordinary measures. Then, to tackle the broader issue countrywide, it must pass a Population Control Bill and the Uniform Civil Code, given its majority in both houses of parliament.

 (1,301 words)

7^th May 2021

For: SIRFNEWS

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Parties Can’t Divide Castes & Piggy-Back On Minorities Anymore

This is a political obituary written a few days in advance. But should its import come to pass, it will have considerable effect on the future politics of India.

It will remove an eclipsed politician from centre-stage in Kolkata. And it will cast her party, the AITMC, more usually called the TMC, into the outer darkness. But beyond the impending defeat, it will put paid to some long-established political formulae.

It is bad enough that the minority vote has been turned into a battering ram. It is driven by an impressive population explosion, egged on by multiple wives and sharia law spouting mullahs in mosques. Then there is the creeping illegal immigration that has run into crores of people melted into the Indian populace.

Illegals, who are not grateful for a new lease on life and dignity, but who foment violence and Islamic terrorism. Illegals, given state government abetted makeovers and concocted identity papers. These sometimes even disguise Muslims as Hindus, as the national level scrutiny has hardened.

In J&K, rescued from the brink by the Modi government, there is an ongoing effort to broaden the voter base by enfranchising those who are native Kashmiris, but were left out by the previous dispensation. There is a new census and preparation of voter lists underway. The demographics of the Valley which are overwhelmingly in favour of the Sunni majority are being diluted. Ladakh, both Buddhist and Shia, is already blossoming without the domination of Srinagar, or indeed Jammu.

It is telling how, out of the five rioting people shot dead by the CISF in Cooch Behar recently, four were claimed by Mamata Banerjee herself to be ‘Muslim Rajbanshis’. How this oxymoronic feat has been pulled off in a Hindu caste is hard to understand.

Matuas, the other Hindu caste prominent in the upcoming phases of the West Bengal elections are also Hindu. How many Matuas has Mamata Banerjee managed to turn Muslim?

This demographic challenge is not just the West Bengal story. It is rampant too in Assam. The Islamic minority now numbers over 30 crores nationally. Border states cannot afford this wilful and porous onslaught. And neither can the country as a whole.

This time, the West Bengal assembly elections have not only seen unprecedented defections from the TMC to the BJP, but also the support of the lower castes and the Communists. The Communists are saying if backing Modi gets rid of Didi, so be it.

Mamata Banerjee, realising she needs more than just the existing minority vote, at almost 30%, is battling to gain lower caste votes too. They will determine the outcome of over a 100 seats in the coming phases of the election.

Meanwhile her high profile, reputedly rain-making election consultant Prashant Kishor, has washed his hands of the affair. He has blamed her squarely for excessive minority appeasement. The phases so far have apparently gone against the TMC. Kishor avers Narendra Modi enjoys tremendous popularity in West Bengal. This includes most of the women voters.

If there is a BJP sweep, nothing can be done for the TMC. If however, the election is close, who will come to Banerjee’s rescue besides the Congress? 

But as of now, the traditional schisms, cynically provoked to suit, between Tribals, Adivasis, Dalits, Scheduled Castes, other backward castes (OBCs), the upper castes, has also begun to heal. BJP won most of the scheduled caste and reserved seats for the Lok Sabha election in West Bengal in 2019.  Can TMC reverse the tide?

The deliberately engendered mistrust, even the so called lack of ‘identity politics’  bragged about by Bengali Communists, has been pushed aside. All Hindus in West Bengal are now in fear of being swamped by Islamists and see Narendra Modi as a saviour.

Protectors of Islamic belligerence such as the Congress Party are almost wiped out. Without electoral success, the minorities have shifted focus towards disruption and violence. There is rioting, arson, demonstrations, lawlessness, murders, terrorism, sharia excesses, and offensive rants against Hindus across the board.

Even Maoist threats form only a subset to this Islamic excess. As does Khalistani separatism, and side shows like the Punjab ‘Farmer’ Protests.

There is, despite severe economic dislocation occasioned by the Covid pandemic, a determination to push back. The unabashedly Hindu NDA government in the centre and in the states is refreshing for not being financially corrupt. It is also staunchly nationalist. It is working on infrastructure, welfare, and defence preparedness at a frenetic pace. The voting public is pleased.

But what does an opposition party do henceforth, when the perceptually authentic majoritarian party is ensconced very comfortably in power?

The Prime Minister promotes Hinduism personally by observing all major Hindu festivals and rituals, visiting most revered temples, in country and abroad. Once there, he does not just pose for photos. He prays as an unabashed and credible practicing Hindu. Narendra Modi performed all the dawn rituals and inaugurated the rebuilding of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya that had been blocked for over a century. That spectacle, broadcast nationally and internationally, has restored Hindu pride. This may have undone the sacrilege in Hindu eyes done by Mughal Emperor Babur’s general. But Emperor Aurangzeb’s latter day desecrations remain unfinished business.

For the first time there is a seriousness about pursuing the case for extracting the Aurangzeb built Gyan Vapi Mosque from the revered Kashi Vishwanath temple complex at Varanasi. Ditto for the Shahi Edgah Masjid nestling offensively at the Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura.

The dramatic progress made on the renovations and clearance of encroachments leading to the ghats from the Kashi Viswanath temple complex is also a matter of immense Hindu pride. Many ancient if small temples have emerged from under the encroachments. A 50 feet wide corridor to the ghats, along with a number of new public buildings for visitors and pilgrims is nearly done. Reinforcements, embankments, repairs to the ancient ghats, roof top Ganga-view galleries, are ongoing.

The word ‘Secularism’ in the Indian context has never meant a separation of Church and State. Here it has been used to boost the minorities at the expense of the majority, misusing the Indian Constitution to justify it. The minorities in turn have extracted out of turn privileges and become belligerent because of the abject political dependence on their backing.

This particular Faustian pact has run its course. Initially, for the Nehru and Indira Gandhi decades, it resulted in majority governments, with all opposition reduced to the margins. This was not just because of the minorities. In addition, the lower castes voted for the Congress Party, run by upper caste men and women. This changed in the late Sixties and Seventies with the Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan movements. After that, the lower castes developed their own leaders and a significant number of regional parties joined the fray.

This, of course, fragmented the monolithic vote. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, there was one last Congress government with an absolute majority. After that, there were only coalitions.

This changed after 30 years with the coming of Narendra Modi to the Centre with a majority in 2014.

Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress is a one-woman supremo. She has clawed her way to power in the face of Communist intimidation for two absolute majority terms. But her career is also illustrative of how the broader polity has progressed. She too was originally part of the Congress Party. She was a union minister in PV Narasimha Rao’s government, and again in the Vajpayee administration after she broke away from Congress.

Back in West Bengal, she ousted the Communists by an opportunistic anti- industrialisation agitation. It was an outdoing of the Communists at their own game. But she never recovered her economic credibility, and West Bengal as an investment destination has languished. There are no jobs, only doles, if that. Mamata Banerjee’s national ambitions will also turn to dust after she loses her power base to the BJP. Besides, she has no political successors to speak of.

So, if the TMC loses decisively on May 2^nd, it is the last bastion fallen. After this, orphaned as they are, the minorities may need to evolve a new form of political jihad. They will have to masquerade as Modi bhakts. This Trojan Horse strategy might work for a few.  Some may even be sincere. What will not work after May 2^nd is confronting the majority.

(1,399 words)

For: The Sunday Guardian

April 15, 2021

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Rajneeti As In Upsetting The Apple Cart

When the NDA was elected in May 2014, with the first majority in 30 years, it sent shock waves through the complacent body politic. Entrenched ecosystems were suddenly orphaned, though the various were still ensconced in their positions of privilege. The only problem was they no longer had a direct line to the higher echelons.

It was infuriating for people who had ruled the roost on a bogus socialism that never alleviated poverty. These worthies had also made a profession of  sneering at the very people who were now in power, including the prime minister, risen high from extremely humble origins.

When the NDA won a second term with a comparable majority in 2019, it proceeded to consolidate its hold on the Rajya Sabha as well.

Parliamentary power to influence legislative outcomes was snatched away from the Congress Party and its like-minded friends for at least five years more. This is the singular reason that it is now agitating in the streets.

What was still a basis for smirking defiance and noisy obstruction in Modi 1.0, on the thought that the incumbent government would be ousted in 2019, did not come to pass. Instead, it began to look increasingly like the BJP alone was settling in for decades to come.

There has been some opposition defections, both amongst the politicos and their supporters in the bureaucracy, judiciary, police, academia, media, institutions. But these were just the early recognisers of the new reality.

By 2021, the speed of Congress disintegration is seen to be accelerating. Similar difficulties apply to the RJD, the SP, the DMK, even the stand-offish BSP.

The TMC, under siege from the BJP as it goes to the polls in West Bengal very soon, is the only BJP critic that still runs one of the biggest and most important states. If it is ousted from government, it will mark the fall of the last bastion. If Maharashtra returns to the BJP from the troika that rules it presently, then the circle of big states in its grasp is almost complete.

Of course, the forthcoming elections additionally in Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will all have significant bearing on both the BJP and the Opposition for 2024. The fate of Punjab in 2022 is also something of a question mark.

Within Congress, a new pressure group dubbed the G23, made up of prominent erstwhile loyalists of the Gandhi family is trying now to oust it.

The great dismantling of Congress-laid foundations is due to the power of electoral success, but doing away with the erstwhile axiomatic bases of policy is highly significant too.

The foundations on which the Nehruvian ‘Idea of India’ was built had a legal and near brick-and-mortar aspect to it, apart from the myth and hagiography that went with it.

The peculiar status accorded to Jammu & Kashmir using the ‘temporary’ Articles 35A and 370 is gone. A lot of demographic jiggery-pokery favouring our massive minority was routinised in J&K, including the clandestine importation of Rohingyas. The creeping radical Islamisation of the J&K region was in the works for decades marking it as perennially unstable and a happy hunting ground for cross border subversion.  The entire sinister process has now been upended.

Then came the path-breaking Supreme Court ruling on the grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1991 by hundreds of incensed Hindu nationalists, marked the rise of Hindutva politics. Ever since, the spurious secularism of the Nehruvian era has been under attack.

The Ayodhya verdict came after over a century of legal and administrative interventions.  The historical commentary on the prior existence of a temple at the site is documented by British historians from the 1600s.

The verdict, after copious final submissions, resulted in the expulsion of the destroyed Babri Masjid, and the losing side, to the outskirts of a highway leading away from the holy city. A leading Muslim archaeologist, KK Muhammed, part of the team that carried out two excavations in 1976-77 and 2003 established that the Babri Masjid, like many other such edifices around the country, including the mosque at Qutb Minar in Delhi, was built, by demolishing a much older temple complex.

The grand Ram Mandir’s foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister himself. It will encompass over 70 acres or more around the actual new temple for gardens, a museum, a library and so on. The symbolism of the entire recreation of Ayodhya city and environs by the Uttar Pradesh state government  much beyond the temple itself, is of the greatest importance to Hindutva politics.

That process is far from complete in March 2021, but it is definitely a juggernaut on the roll. Many things like the reclaiming of other key temples at Mathura and Varanasi from the mosques that usurped them, and the establishing of a Uniform Civil Code have yet to come. This will perhaps stretch to a period beyond 2024 and a possible third consecutive term for the BJP at the centre.

But a slew of modernisation programmes, enhanced electricity, gas, water, digitisation of administrative processes and banking, atmanirbhar manufacturing, national security vis a vis China, infrastructure, diplomatic wins, economic, land, labour and agricultural reforms, are all surging ahead. So is a recovering GDP. Still, the clamour from the ousted Opposition, if anything, is getting louder.

The agricultural reforms in particular are designed to double the income of the small farmer. This is important, as even today about 60 % of the population continues to live in the rural areas and is directly or indirectly connected with agriculture. That farming is in a crisis of low yields and poor incomes resulting in much misery and a high suicide rate, is why it is urgently in need of reform.

If GST which did away with multiple cesses in favour of just one, was the signal economic reform of Modi1.0, the massive defence manufacturing and indigenous acquisition programme marks Modi 2.0 so far.

India is also accelerating its capabilities as the pharmacy to the world after the challenges of developing vaccines to fight the Covid -19 pandemic.

But the biggest beneficiary for the rural masses will come from the effects of the changed farm laws. The so-called Farmer Agitation, which has just crossed its 100^th day is due to another classic unmasking of a cabal. A group of no more than 50,000 agents, or Arthiyas, has relentlessly forced the production of wheat and paddy of questionable quality from the state of Punjab. It has forced the use of excess canal and ground water, resulting in growing salinity, and the overuse of  toxic chemical fertilisers. This, in order to extort minimum support prices (MSP) from the Government of India for produce far in excess of requirements.

They do so to earn a rapacious commission of 2.5% on all the paddy and wheat bought under MSP, for themselves. The same cabal does nothing to encourage the small farmer to grow other cash crops and vegetables which are both in demand, and could generate better incomes for them.  

The MSP system applied to the procurement of wheat and paddy, started in the 1970s so that India could become self-sufficient in these staple crops. It has long outlived its usefulness. Many other states such as Madhya Pradesh produce a better quality wheat and paddy in abundance now. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is currently holding over 200% of its requirement of buffer food stocks despite a huge population of nearly 1.5 billion people.

The Modi government passed three farm laws which freed the small farmer from the clutches of the official state ‘mandis’ and their Agricultural  Produce market Committee (APMC). It  empowered farmers to grow what they wanted and sell the produce to whomsoever they chose at their own negotiated prices. This process is facilitated digitally via the internet, via special trains to carry produce around the country, via private contract farming, and also through the existing APMCs. But the MSP regime is no longer empowered as a monopoly.

The government has since followed up the three farm laws by stating it will only pay MSP directly into the bank accounts of the selling small farmer and not via the agents.

Early favourable results of the farm law reforms are pouring in from other states. But the Punjab superstructure of parasitical agents is effectively ruined by virtue of this legislation. Therefore, the agitations may continue despite the government’s refusal to repeal the laws. But yes, another pillar of the Nehruvian order has fallen into the dust.

 

(1,421 words)

For: Sirfnews

March 14^th, 2021

Gautam Mukherjee

 

A Changed India Wants Heroism Not Sainthood

The Quad is real even as it evolves more and more into a military alliance. It is no longer shy of its intent to check China. Not only is Biden’s America staying the course set by predecessor Trump, but in addition to the four already on board, Britain and France also want to do their bit in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Russia is standing alone in partial neutrality in the waters of the Asia-Pacific, but clearly not willing to throw in its entire lot with the Chinese either.

Member Australia used its Quad linkage most recently to push back against Facebook and Google by calling on India for solidarity. India’s own face-off with Twitter a few days prior met with signal success. If  internet merchant warriors who claim to be global and yet of no fixed address for billing and taxation purposes, are en route to being tamed, can a puffed-up (on hubris) communist China be far behind?

Extensive Covid vaccine diplomacy, plus the way India has handled the pandemic despite being a populous 1.35 billion has impressed. India is on its way to becoming the premier pharmacy to the world.

China could not get the better of India in Eastern Ladakh despite its mad muscle-flexing over half a year. Its iron-clad ally’s aggression and its terrorism, is now more or less old hat, despite the attrition and expense involved.

Aware of the relentless threat on its borders and on the seas,India is now seriously getting on with the building of guns, tanks, howitzers, aircraft, ships, submarines, ammunition and drones on home turf. This even as it is buying armaments furiously from France, Israel, the US and Russia to address the immediate situation. The real battle is for pre-eminence. India is determined to acquit itself seriously as the No. 3 global power as soon as possible, China notwithstanding.

India has come a long way in its economic thinking as well. In a post Covid world with shattered economies everywhere, bold strategies were called for. It is now declared public policy to dismantle the public sector except in a few core areas. Ditto the plethora of public sector banks which will be reduced to just four or so. The Indian Railways and their stations are being transformed. Expectation of double-digit GDP growth have resurfaced.

 The government has emphasised the role of the private sector as essential partners to progress. It has explicitly commented against the limitations of big government and a stultifying permanent bureaucracy not inclined to disturb the status quo.

This is the new template set for the third decade of the 21^st century. It is a firm departure from the shibboleths of the past. Nothing, except misadventure, can prevent India from making stellar progress now. In addition, there is a strong emphasis on infrastructure modernisation, bold reform of land, labour, industry and agriculture, and a new kind of atmanirbhar that is both pragmatic and liberating.

All this is also backed by strong FDI inflows and nearly $600 billion in foreign currency reserves. This is heading towards $ 1 trillion and more in the next decade.

Today’s BJP is fusing together the threads of a scattered identity, even as it decisively sheds ideas that were never conducive to India’s future.  Contrast these new realities with the sheet anchors from the 1940s and onwards.

 A khadi-clad Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who drank a lot of goat milk provided by his pet goat, wrote that India lives in its villages. He advocated a quaint village economy and cottage industry as the great desirable after independence. His ideas were, of course, roundly ignored by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, beyond some reverential tokenism. But the reverence and affection his name invoked amongst the masses, is still used extensively by the political classes to this day.

Nehru, A fifties style Laskian socialist, set about establishing smoke-stack heavy industry. He placed it firmly in the state-owned public sector, and governed via Soviet-style five-year plans. Plans, like in the USSR, that were rarely met in the execution.

Yoked to Nehru, but for a brief two years after 1947, was Sardar Patel. He was a conservative politically, and may have guided India to a more pragmatic future. But alas, after stitching together the princely states into a country, Patel had neither the time left, nor did he enjoy the unstinted support of MK Gandhi.

That both Gandhi and Patel sprang free of the mortal coil so soon after independence was to Nehru’s singular advantage. He could proceed over the next decade and a half to leave his imprint on all that was to follow.

Jack-booted Subhas Bose, whose time upon the great stage of events preceded the nation’s formal emergence into independence, also thought differently. He saw a great, inclusive, and dynamic nation in the making, fit and able to take on the colonial overlords. But his was a muscular vision of courage, military action in alliance with the Axis Powers, and discipline. Even earlier formative ideas saw Bose pushed out of the Congress Party.  If Bose had an ideological predecessor, it was probably Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Both were not working for a Hindu Rashtra, but neither did they contemplate the Nehruvian brand of secularism to come.

Then there was the much vilified and persecuted Veer Savarkar, who not only wanted the British gone, but India to adopt a clear-cut Hindu identity. Alongside, there was Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a kindred spirit from the Hindu Mahasabha, whose heroic actions saved West Bengal from going to Pakistan. Mookerjee also chalked out the way ahead for an undivided Jammu & Kashmir as an integral part of India. Despite walking the earth for a mere 53 years, Mookerjee not only served in and quit Nehru’s cabinet, he also established the Jan Sangh, that later morphed into the BJP.

Cut to the present day and the most profound difference is in the change in the thinking of the vast majority. It has seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity rarely dipping below 70%, and the BJP/NDA winning a clear majority in parliament in every national poll commissioned periodically by private TV news channels. This, even after six years of continuous governance through challenging times.

Nehruvian secularism seems to have run its course in the popular psyche except in the minds of those who have lost power and position.  It is seen to have given rise to a stridency amongst the largest minority, at over 14% now. This community is now openly demanding cleansing of their majority enclaves of all others and the imposition of exclusive sharia practices. This kind of behaviour, seen as rank ingratitude, has annoyed and polarised the majority, hard-pressed to keep their identity and beliefs intact. That the minorities have been supported wrong-or-right not only by the Congress Party, but others with similar views such as the TMC, has further aggravated the schism. It has distanced the majority from all those who profess to uphold the Nehruvian ‘Idea of India’.

Prime Minister Modi’s call for ‘A New India’, essentially a call for modernisation of the country’s facilities, practices, and infrastructure, and economic upliftment for all, is seen as a powerful and necessary alternative. It does not carry the baggage of the Nehruvian notions.

This, even as the BJP is remarkably ambivalent on abandoning the minorities to the sections of the Opposition that depend almost exclusively on their votes. Prime Minister Modi, flying in the face of  unchanged voting patterns in successive elections, seems to believe in his his ‘Sabka Vikas’ plank.

However, the Congress Party and the TMC paint the BJP as a communal, Hindu nationalist party. This is more commonly accepted by communists, the left-liberals, elements opposed to the BJP, at home and abroad.  

However, none of this cauldron bubbling and name-calling is turning the rulers towards abject apologia. The BJP election machinery is forging ahead collecting states that have long been opposed to it. West Bengal may well be the next big prize to fall in.

The government and the voting Indian public are no longer interested in the dubious benefits of moral victories.  Even our international cricket, wrestling, badminton, hockey, shooting and sometimes tennis, has changed in attitude. We play to win.

Today, it is the heroism and derring-do of the IAF at Balakot. And the bravery and effectiveness of the Indian Army at Galwan. And on the Chushul heights overlooking China’s Moldo garrison. These are much more potent symbols of who we are, and where we are going.

(1,412 words)

For: SIRFNEWS

February 21^st 2021

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Ramp Up Defence Production Facilities To Truly Join The Top Three

For the Union Budget 2021 to be announced on February 1^st, all commentary and advocacy is agreed that the government will have to do something extraordinary. Strong growth must be restored to the economy. This cannot just be an incremental budget citing fiscal constraints and revenue generation shortfalls.

Fortunately, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already indicated that the fiscal deficit will be allowed to slip. Estimates say it is already in the region of 7.5% . However, this is a very unusual time. When money needs to be invested but is scarce, there are very few options.

This country, like most others around the globe, will also have to undertake an unprecedented and expensive vaccination process for most of the population.

 The debate is on between those who want the government to promote consumption, and those who want new money spent on productive assets that will yield a return in future.

Of course, a certain degree of welfarism is hard-wired into the Indian system with its socialist moorings. It is aimed at helping the bottom 20% of the population. This must not only continue but be enhanced in value terms. But consumption led growth, which is not organic but pump-primed, will result in a temporary uptick at best.

Will it enthuse greater investment by the private sector and lift the mood of the nation? It seems unlikely. America has followed this course, putting in billions every month straight into the general economy, while maintaining a zero-interest rate regime. This has gone on from 2008 after the housing and subprime lending crash. Still, it has only yielded a survival economy by 2020, growing at 3% on consumption alright, but with a widened gap between the 1% rich, and practically all the others. Zero interest favours those who can put it to productive use. The rest just spend their money on everyday goods and services.

In percentage terms, of all fresh monies pumped in now, some 60% needs to go into productive investments. Without this, the international rating and lending agencies will see India as a fiscally irresponsible economy going forward. The question is what will be the most profitable investment. And the answer is defence production.

Armaments are high value items with strong embedded profits. India has exported Rs. 17,000 crores worth in 2018-19 (approx. 1.5 billion), up from just Rs. 2,000 crores in 2014. The target is Rs. 35,000 crores or about $5 billion annually. The gradualism of doing this in the next five years must be fast-tracked. Can it be done in 2021 itself?

The government has announced plans to invest $ 130 billion in the next 5 years on military production modernisation. Can this be completed by 2022 with the help of this fiscal deficit slippage?

 India has purchased about $100 billion worth of armaments over the last decade or $10 billion per annum pro rata. It actually needs to procure perhaps twice as much to be fighting fit in a two or even multiple front war. It actually ends up buying much less than its wish-list because of fiscal constraints.

The latest emergency annual purchase is, in fact, upwards of $15 billion. Buying more and more from domestic production after recent policy changes is helping, but every part of the exercise, particularly the efficiency and turn-around time of domestic manufacture, needs to be accelerated.

 $ 5 billion in exports achieved in short order would claw back half of the pro rata annual expenditure over the last decade. Estimates indicate India could be exporting $ 15 billion worth annually within a decade. Again, can this time-line not be crunched, given some urgent revamping of facilities and policy initiatives.

Nothing else in the possibilities, including all kinds of manufacturing relocations from China, exports of other manufactured goods including electronics, automobiles, launches of foreign satellites by ISRO, commodities, software, even comes close.

And then there is the import substitution that comes from having a highly developed armaments industry. The money spent stimulates the economy but stays in-country.  However, this is not a swadeshi call likely to truncate quality. Let us note that the imported content of armaments currently made in India is still at 40% as of 2018, though down from 48% in 2014.  The trendline is interesting. The recently cabinet approved bid to export Akash Air Defence Systems with a range of 30 km has a 96% indigenisation figure. Nine countries want to import it.

Other items we could export in short order are the Brahmos missiles, the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers and the Astra air to air missiles. To meet both domestic demand from the Indian armed forces and foreign countries in a competitive time-frame, India must undertake a massive modernisation, expansion, and upgradation programme. This must stand independent of the general defence budget which is mostly consumed by establishment costs and pensions.

Besides, our overall defence budget at $70 billion presently, is dwarfed by that of China at $261 billion, let alone that of the US at $ 732 billion.  Let us note however that there is a demand for Indian armaments internationally, unlike for those from China. The Indo-Russian developed Brahmos missiles could be instant best-sellers if India decides to offer them to friendly governments configured to their specific requirements. This would also mean significant value addition.

The secret configurations of our own missiles and other exported armaments can be safeguarded. Most arms exporting countries do likewise. But no major armaments manufacturing country can sustain the massive costs involved without exports.

India already has a number of facilities serving the army, navy, airforce, logistics, ordnance and engineering requirements. These include DRDO and its 50 labs,4 defence shipyards, 8 defence PSUs and 41 ordnance factories.

In recent times, a number of private companies such as Bharat Forge, the Kalyani Group, Larsen & Toubro, the Tata Group, SSS Defence, HTNP Industries, Alpha Design Technologies, Bharat Advanced Defence Systems, SMPP Private Limited, have also entered defence manufacturing. We are developing a new Defence Corridor in Uttar Pradesh in addition to the older and more mature one in Tamil Nadu. But, as always, the private ecosystem cannot survive without orders. And presently, the orders are mostly from the Indian armed forces.  

Union budget 2021 needs bold strategies to move this country forward and into the reckoning for the future. If India buys 12% of the world’s arms exports by value, but exports just 0.17% of it, there is a huge opportunity that needs to be seized.

Initiatives already fructified such as manufacturing our own, sometimes in joint venture, nuclear and conventional submarines, stealth frigates, patrol boats, our own aircraft carrier, the light compact aircract (LCA), trainer aeroplanes that we have even offered to the US, the Arjun MK-1 A tanks we are inducting into the Indian Army, mobile bridges, bullet-proof vests, small arms, rifles, machine guns, carbines, armoured vehicles, transport vehicles - have all taught us many learnings.

If the biggest roadblock in the past was policy which did not want to develop an Indian armaments industry worth the name, then at present the only real drag is the pace at which we are proceeding to change the template. It takes massive investment, but so do the highways we are building at breakneck speed all over the country.

Our own security needs, our economic well-being, standing in the comity of nations, necessitates this dimension to our development. And the sooner we put urgent emphasis on it the better. We need to put massive resources behind the vision statement and policy changes to realise this crucial atmanirbhar objective.  

An economic power is vulnerable without a strong military supported by its own arms industry. Even if we cannot own the entire ecosphere, because of the practical necessity of not reinventing the wheel, making most parts of the armaments we produce is a valid aspiration. Global players like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin buy a lot of the componentry for their military planes from outside, sometimes international vendors. It is a highly specialised business, and no entity can do everything in-house profitably.

India is on its way from 6^th largest economy towards becoming the 3^rd largest by 2030. But renewed Chinese hostility along the LaC, constant friction with Pakistan and its terrorist infiltrators, plus internal sabotage by forces who wish to retard the economy, have made clear that defence preparedness is both good sense and good business.

(1,393 words)

For: The Sunday Guardian

January 1^st, 2021

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Implications Of The Last Minute Rescue Of A No-Deal Brexit

The last minute reprieve to a no-deal Brexit has prevented  the worst of a hard landing. The agreement that has come is the best one can have under the hard negotiating circumstances, with economic challenges facing both the EU and Britain.

It is most interesting that Protestant Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, will stay in the EU, while the rest of Britain leaves. It could therefore conceivably reunite with EIRE, very much in the EU, and leave the UK in due course. Already, there is an increased level of cooperation between Catholic Republic of Ireland and Protestant Northern Ireland.

Scotland may not like to stay in post Brexit Britain either. It voted 62% in favour of staying in the EU at the infamous 2016 referendum, but for the moment, it seems to have been contained. However, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) is without an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament at present. Should the SNP gain a majority in elections due in May 2021, there could well be a shift towards independence.

As for the joint administration of EU and British waters for fishing by both sides, it will remain to be seen how the catches are distributed. There is a formula agreed on for five years, after which British waters will become exclusive to Britain and likewise for EU waters for the Europeans.

It is a complex parting of ways, not only in matters of trade, taxation, movements, and commerce, but the untangling of the non-applicability of EU laws concerning anything in Britain and vice versa. Taxation is being largely kept neutral at present but of course this could change in future.

London, till now a major financial capital of Europe, will not be able to offer financial services into the EU henceforth without setting up on the Continent according to their laws. British qualifications may have to be overlaid with EU ones. Brexit has already seen quite a few international players relocating almost entirely across the Channel.

British manufacturing that imports parts from the EU has to stockpile rather than work on zero inventory or last-minute provisioning. Many will lose their competitive edge on the continent as a consequence.

The good news is that the UK can now go forth and enter into trade deals on its own bat with other countries, such as India. Bilateral trade is currently at a modest $15.5 billion in 2019-20.

Britain may be keen on a free trade agreement (FTA) with India which has a lucrative domestic market. This especially because an FTA with America may not fructify quite so easily or quickly. American goods could swamp the UK. Being part of the EU, it was the strain of more EU imports vis a vis British exports that  hastened the split. India on its part will be looking at high technology from Britain, joint ventures to improve our self-reliance, professional training in various fields and cooperation in the higher reaches of the Services Sector.

With Boris Johnson set to grace the occasion on our forthcoming Republic Day shortly, there may be a boost to the process.

India counts Britain as its sixth largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI). With $30 billion incoming over the last 20 years, it accounts for 6% of total FDI into India presently.

The UK will need to reorient its diplomatic relationship with India, as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have done. It will have to jettison some, if not all of its adversarial positions vis a vis Pakistani interests and those of China.

It must stop commenting on India’s internal matters, its politics, its leadership, certainly at any official level. This is necessary to clear the decks between the two countries. India is not interested in hectoring from its former colonial master, or partisan support given to a defeated Opposition.

The Leftist portions of British media and the Labour Party display a consistent hostility towards the Modi government. Calling an elected government all sorts of names is not endearing the British to the Indian establishment. Casting slurs on the majority Hindu community is also unacceptable.

India’s relative leverage to get sweeter terms as well as less interference in its internal affairs is now considerably enhanced. The various anti-India groups and lobbies that seem to operate freely in London and elsewhere in Britain will have to be reigned in.

If bold initiatives to reassure Indian sensitivities are undertaken by Britain, it will be first of all to its own benefit. Presently, India does have several alternatives such as France, Russia, the United States and Israel, for ongoing high technology cooperation, particularly in joint venture defence manufacturing.

Countries and companies relocating some of their manufacturing from China post the Covid-19 pandemic is also creating new possibilities and strategic depth.

Cooperation on the high seas, particularly in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific with the QUAD nations of the US, Australia, India, Japan is attracting other regional players such as Vietnam and Singapore as well.

France, Britain and Germany, Russia have also begun to contribute naval power to the region as well. All these countries are developing a common strategy to keep the international shipping lanes in the region open and unhindered by Chinese hegemony. Britain’s commitment towards this changing world order will be of particular interest to India.

While Britain as we know it now may be truncated in the years ahead, it has much to contribute by way of expertise in multiple areas to a developing India.

It will be a new relationship, based not on the erstwhile Raj or the near pointless Commonwealth, but on 21^st century realities. This as the world begins the third decade of this century. And India enters its 75^th year as an independent democratic republic.

(956 words)

For: Sirfnews

December 29^th, 2020

Gautam Mukherjee