The Third Coming Of Prashant Kishor

Is the long innings of a decade as Consultant to various political parties, except for part of Prashant Kishor’s time in Bihar, about to come to an end?

There is a growing view that Kishor is good when the going is good for his client, and not so much when the road is rocky and uphill. At the same time, his ability to sharpen political messages, coin appropriate slogans, and analyse data is much admired. The presumption that he knows better than seasoned politicians who have put in the time and hard work to reach their positions however, always works against him. This, despite his always working with the supreme leader and his or her immediate power structure. This infighting is also what brings him down, time and again.

Kishor did advise Capt. Amarinder Singh’s Punjab government in 2016-2017, and the central leadership in 2021. Amarinder Singh won handsomely. The effort did not go so well with the Gandhi family and the coterie around them in 2021. Kishor was ejected. Probably just as well for him, because it was early enough. In 2022, all five state assembly elections were lost, with a zero performance or very poor showing for Congress.

Likely at their wits’ end, the Gandhi family is willing, via interim president Sonia Gandhi, once again, to countenance Prashant Kishor and his ideas. However, Sonia Gandhi is 75 and in poor health. She would not want to take on further terms at the helm of the Party, given a choice in the matter.

For Kishor, wearying of selling his wares as a travelling salesman going all over the country for every election, is it now thought better to settle down? Prashant Kishor, reinvented as a Congress panjandrum, with specific responsibilities and performance expectations.

After all, Kishor and his organisation are aware of the benefits and pitfalls of being an outside force with unstitched, undefined powers.  Irrespective of Kishor and his I-Pac’s performance, or indeed electoral results obtained, the role seems to end on the very day the votes are counted. And they begin to sour, via criticism from party leaders, well before that.

The one exception in his career was with Nitish Kumar and his successful Mahagathbandan in Bihar, but that stint as Vice President in the JDU ended abruptly in 2022.   Reason: party leaders who criticised Kishor. And this despite Bihar being his native state.

They say the best political minds in the country come from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But nowadays, we can see Gujarat is nothing to sniff at as well.

 So can Kishor, as, say, a Congress General Secretary, with the stamp and wax seal of the Gandhi family backing him, be better positioned to weave together an Opposition alliance for the general elections of 2024?

All the political pundits agree that an Opposition construct without the Congress will not be sufficient, as the arithmetic, and the authenticity will not suffice.  Kishor does speak of the unique political space the Congress Party occupies, despite its poor showing of late. Is he right, or was that in a very different Idea of India that no longer exists, even as many disrupted and ousted by the changes, find it difficult to accept.

And yet, the biggest impediment to Congress involvement in an Opposition alliance has been, thus far, Rahul Gandhi, a fourth generation scion of the family that gave us three prime ministers. He wants to lead it, and inevitably be the prime ministerial candidate.  The trouble is, he is widely perceived  as not being up to the task.

Can Prashant Kishor somehow retain Rahul Gandhi at the head of the Opposition alliance, and, for that matter, his own head in the Party, and yet not project him as the prime ministerial candidate?  What can the Gandhi family countenance, even as it stubbornly clings to power in the near destroyed Party.  Critics like the G-21 within the Party have not made a dent.

Will Rahul Gandhi himself agree to such a fate? It is suggested that Rahul Gandhi does not want Prashant Kishor at all, and the coterie around him had him thrown out in 2021.  However, in recent days, it is Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi that wants to give it another go, even as Rahul Gandhi has gone abroad on yet another of his mysterious and private foreign visits.

Besides, can Kishor get other constituents, some of whom aspire to the pole position themselves, to agree to this?  Perhaps his main focus will be on how to get the Congress wins in 2024 up to a respectable total in three digits. He may prefer to keep things vague on an alliance till after the elections. If Congress has more than 100 seats, it will automatically be a strong contender for the leadership.

Can there be someone else from the Congress in an echo of the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi dyarchy that might be acceptable as the prime ministerial candidate? In those days, the Congress had a lion’s share of the seats in parliament, in the UPA tally. Can those sort of numbers be replicated in 2024? Given the sorry state of its election machinery at present it will be difficult. Besides we haven’t once mentioned the formidable RSS/BJP electoral machine and funding.

As a precursor, there are a number of assembly elections late this year and in 2023. Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in 2022, in which both AAP and Congress will contest, and then Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2023.

Can Congress, with Kishor on board, do well enough to actually bag one or more of the states currently with the BJP? It seems unlikely, but even a better showing could help Kishor’s credibility.

If Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh, or both, are lost however, Kishor’s days in Congress may be numbered. Unfortunately, in or out of the Party, once an election strategist, always thought of as one.

Unless compensation comes, say, via Karnataka, a money-generating state, one in which Congress has solid minority backing. It is badly needed, given its empty coffers.

Gujarat has been with BJP for over 20 years, but who can pry it loose? If there are any opposition seats won, again by wooing the minorities, tribals, and perhaps the Patidars, they are likely to be won by the AAP.

Depending on how these assembly elections go for Congress, perceptions could change for the better or worse in the opposition ranks. Will any attempt to put in place a remote control in the hands of the Gandhi family end up breaking rather than making for opposition unity?

The buzz is in terms of organising one-on-one contests between the BJP and Congress in as many seats as possible. This presupposes other parties will stay away to prevent cutting into each other’s votes. I can’t see a resurgent and ambitious AAP agreeing to this in view of a near headless-toothless Congress. 

Mamata Banerjee of TMC has long advocated that the opposition should let its strongest constituents contest on their own turf without cutting into their votes. So TMC in West Bengal. DMK in Tamil Nadu, and so on.  But Congress has no pucca turf it can call its own anymore. It gets a tally based on a few seats from everywhere, and the one or two states it still might retain going forward.

Banerjee also seemed to suggest that the political party that garners the most number of Lok Sabha seats should be allowed to lay claim to the prime minister’s slot, in the event of a BJP defeat. However, this was after her thumping win in West Bengal against the BJP, and before pulling a set of blanks in Tripura and Goa. Her one-time acolyte, Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP, has similar ideas, particularly after winning Punjab convincingly.

In all this, Prashant Kishor’s usefulness lies in the fact that he has worked with many of the dramatis personae. He can therefore keep tweaking and nuancing the pulls and pressures in the lead up to the elections. He can jet around like Kissinger carrying missives and suggestions between the chief ministers.

However, his disadvantage will be the perception that now he comes as a Congressman, no longer as a detached consultant.

 (1,367 words)

April 21^st 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Cow Belt Dreams And Elsewhere Screams

P.C. Sorkar, a famous Magician from the 1930s till the beginning of the seventies, in the days of magic shows and circuses, had a highlight in his act.

He kept conjuring what he called ‘The Water of India’. It was a nice unifying sort of gesture, because the water was indubitably sourced in India when he performed his Indrajal magic show in-country.

And the water was probably not the same when he took his magic show to Europe, Japan, and other parts. In those instances, Sorkar probably expected the audience to accept that it was the Water of India, not because he had brought it from home, but because it emanated from his hands.

The BJP is essentially a ‘Hindi belt’ phenomenon, though it has won two terms at the Centre and has spread its wings to the North East plus a solitary outpost in the South, in the form of Karnataka. It could be well on its way to All-India domination as well, if it resists some of its sillier impulses.

It was fathered by an eminent Bengali, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, in its Jan Sangh avatar. Mookerjee, a beacon of the Hindu Mahasabha prior to founding the Jan Sangh, is credited with saving West Bengal from the clutches of the Partition, and protesting the separate status of J&K. Mookerjee, briefly a member of Nehru’s union of ministers, is also credited with giving the Jan Sangh, which became the BJP, its strong Hindu nationalist posture.

This too has given rise to the Hindi-belt BJP’s fetish for vegetarianism. As if  being Hindu is equal to being vegetarian as well as revering the cow. It was however far from any Bengali mind like Mookerjee’s.

Before Air India was sold to the Tatas, it served vegetarian food only, in its latter days as a government owned entity with the Modi administration at the Centre. That this stance has no takers in BJP ruled Goa, all the eight states of the BJP ruled or allied North East, let alone in various Opposition ruled states, has seen this effort come a cropper.

The language however remains the hankering of the so-called ‘Cow Belt’. It wants to exalt the status of Hindi over other languages obtaining in the sub-continent, and demote English at the same time. This has never sat well with other regions, and probably never will.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has proclaimed an ever-lengthening motto in his ‘Sabka’ slogan; and loyal lieutenant Home Minister Amit Shah, should desist from stirring this particular Hornet’s nest. 

English, the non-frictional via media means of communication for all parts of the Union of India, as spoken and written here, is distinct from its usage elsewhere. The English of the colonial masters, the United Kingdom is different. As is the one used in America, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and many other countries formerly colonised by the British.

Indian English has not only contributed many words to the English dictionary, but has developed a rich and varied literature of its own. Characterising Indian English as something other than native, is both narrow-minded and inaccurate.  English has much greater depth and range than the Hindi used in government communication or on the street. Which is, of course, a far cry from Sanskritised Shudh Hindi, the province of an erudite few.

Besides, English usage makes Indians comprehensible in large parts of the globe, and gives Indians, many with an excellent command of the language, an edge in IT, Engineering, the service industry, and many other disciplines.

 Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are both proud Gujaratis themselves.  However it didn’t keep Shah from essaying a confusing exhortation on the usage of Hindi in Sarkari communication recently.

This follows on from a milder attempt made by Shah in 2019, at Hindi Diwas celebrations, when he said, ‘If there is any language that can tie the whole country in one thread, it is the most spoken language of Hindi’.

That the Gangetic plains are the most highly populated part of India, is the pedestrian reason why so many people actually speak Hindi. But this is conveniently ignored, in this so- called quest for imposed unity. Amit Shah is the Chairman of the Official Languages Committee, but should  perhaps resist his innate biases.

Shah said Prime Minister Modi wants more usage of Hindi as opposed to English as the ‘Official Language’.  There is no attempt to work through the logic of this move that has angered many people unnecessarily.

At the 37^th meeting of the parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah asserted Hindi was the official ‘Language of India’, implying Indian English, as spoken and written here, was somehow alien.  By way of justification, he said 70% of the Union Cabinet’s agenda was prepared in Hindi. He didn’t say that most of the Cabinet may not be very good at English, but the thought is  nevertheless implied.

Amit Shah said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English, as opposed to other local languages. This two-tier system with more Hindi instead of English usage, and other languages pushed down the ladder, is only comfortable for Hindi speakers.

To others, it is an aggravating insult. But this did not seem to stop Shah’s initiative. He said the North Eastern states, now under the BJP fold, had agreed to make the study of Hindi compulsory till Class 10. Many tribal texts in the region are being rewritten in the Devanagari script.

Hindi, is, as it stands, just one of 22 official languages. And most of the states in the Union of India have been organised along linguistic lines. To fly in the face of all this makes little sense. It is likely to promote regional chauvinism rather than unity.

The Opposition quickly labelled this latest attempt as one more effort of ‘Hindi Imperialism’, vowing it will be resisted by non-Hindi speaking states. As expected, West Bengal was quick off the mark with its sharp criticism. This was matched by outrage from most of the southern states, Maharashtra, Odisha and other non-Hindi speaking regions. Political parties other than the BJP were unanimous in their condemnation.

Hindi may be beloved in the top BJP leadership, but the universal Water of India it is not. It is more reminiscent of another of P.C. Sorkar’s famous magic tricks, called the ‘Floating Lady’. It was a routine featuring the illusion of ‘aerial suspension’. Ordinary fakirs from 19^th century India, and even the great Houdini, called it simply, the ‘ Indian Rope Trick’.

 

(1,082 words)

April 12^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Freebie Mates With Collapsible Gates

We have two countries on our doorstep, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, with collapsed economies. So collapsed, that re-flotation is a herculean task.  So far out of control are they, that their survival as political entities may be in jeopardy. 

If these countries were commercial entities, they would be Chapter 11 bankrupts, with caretaker managements to realise what value could be salvaged from the wreckage.

Senior bureaucrats have come calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of a fate like Sri Lanka, or Greece, if not for the whole country, certainly for certain states bent on distributing freebies they cannot afford.

States, profligate with promises of free this and that, in order to win elections. This is something of a winning formula for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), if not also for quite a few other state satraps and their parties. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal were also mentioned. 

Right now, it is the AAP that is in focus, even as they are off to try the same voodoo in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh for their forthcoming elections.  The formula is freebies for the masses, with a heavy slug of minority appeasement politics where the latter are present in number.

Both Punjab and Delhi, now with AAP, are in dreadful financial condition. One, Delhi, has been driven to the point of destitution by two consecutive terms of AAP politics. Very few promises have been kept on the development side, as in buses, new schools, colleges, hospitals, roads. Yes, subsidies on electricity and water have been given to the poor, and correspondingly loaded on to the rest of the bills.

The other, already run aground by Congress and Akali Dal administrations before the AAP win, has no money to afford Arvind Kejriwal’s extravagant promises. It has massive debt that cannot even be serviced from state revenues.

The bureaucrats are rightly worried. Bhagwant Mann has already come calling on Prime Minister Modi to ask for Rs. 50,000 crores as a first tranche of a special Rs. 100,000 crore package for the border state of Punjab. The threat, if any, implied, and wreathed in yellow turban clad smiles. The other states mentioned, also come, shawls and bouquets at the ready, for begging trips to see the prime minister. Most end in anger and frustration once back home when they don’t succeed.

This point of break down caused by devil-may-care spending, had also come to India, the whole country, in 1991, via Rajiv Gandhi’s excesses on the back of an unreformed low growth economy. It was thought to be the fag-end of Nehruvian Socialism.

But no, it saw a revival for another decade, with the surprise win for Congress in 2004, after the failure of BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign and election.

Under Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, (and remote-controlled  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh), plus her extra constitutional Leftist National Advisory Council (NAC), welfare expenditure went through the roof. 

There was MNREGA, set up for the election of 2014. But, good as it was, it didn’t do the trick. It should have, as per the formula, but there were Hindu nationalist forces at work.

 What happens when there is an imbalance? Between 2004 and 2014 we didn’t develop any infrastructure to speak of. The armed forces got no aircraft, ships, or tanks. Exports languished. Imports burgeoned. Industry lacked investment and ‘animal spirits’. Commission agents, speculators, and real-estate prospered.

Pakistan could do no wrong. The terrorism in Kashmir and all over the country went unchecked. China just helped itself to Indian territory with not even a murmuring from us. We could not afford to get annoyed.

 This longish interlude, marked by huge corruption, was preceded by six years of the Vajpayee administration that saw India boldly go nuclear-weaponised, and establish the Golden quadrilateral of excellent highways.

But, all in all, after over 30 years since 1991, we can clearly say that, in our case, the bankruptcy turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

When it happened in 1991, we had just a week’s worth of foreign exchange reserves, and were about to default on our international debt payments. We had to first of all fly out some 40 tonnes of our gold reserves to Switzerland. This held the wolf away from the door, while the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), worked out a rescue package attached to a long prescription of economic reforms.  It was a prescription that was non-negotiable, if India wanted to see a second tranche of funds.

Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who took over after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, was probably our most learned prime minister to date. He seized upon the dictation from the WB and IMF to pry this country loose from the death embrace of socialism that had brought India to this pass.

The same malaise of reckless spending, a good deal of it on armaments in this case, brought down India’s all-weather friend, the mighty USSR. That too in the self-same 1991.

The friendship endures with the rump, which is Putin’s Russia.  President Vladimir Putin, an erstwhile KGB man of Soviet vintage, still thinks the economic mismanagement that dissolved the Warsaw Pact, broke the Berlin Wall, and dissolved the USSR, is plain unforgivable.

He has worked on reviving some of his nation’s former glory, via several annexations and alliances with countries in the neighbourhood like Belarus, Hungary and Serbia. The ongoing special military action in Ukraine, is also part of it.

In India, it is the liberalisation and economic reforms of 1991 that has sown the seeds of a prosperity that was never imagined by socialist India.

It is true that with 1.4 billion people headed towards 1.7 billion by 2050, despite a slowing birth rate, that every one of our citizens, via the inexorable logic of per capita income, will not be well off. This, even when our dollar economy more than trebles to $ 10 trillion plus.

But yes, this country will have the third largest economy in the world, perhaps as early as 2030.This is predicated however on a judicious mix of welfarism, and growth in the GDP, by all other means. Welfarism is unavoidable with at least 400 million poor people, with over 100 million below the poverty line. But we cannot be cavalier about it.

We cannot summon our finance minister, as Sonia Gandhi summoned Chidambaram and order him to write off Rs. 60,000 crores in farmer loans, off budget, only to have another Rs. 50,000 balloon up in just one year. That sort of monkey business didn’t work for Idi Amin’s Uganda, and it certainly won’t work for us.

We cannot really afford to have backed down on farm reforms that would have put money, perhaps even doubled and trebled the income of the small farmer, because of pressure from rich farmers in Mercedes Benz SUVs. But we have. And there’s the danger. The wolf is never that far from the door.

The suicides of poor farmers go on unabated. The rich farmers and commission agents pretend to have won the day for them, when everyone knows it was nothing of the sort.

Socialism of the irresponsible kind that wants to give tax payer money away to the poor, particularly in our perpetually overspending and indebted states, is touted as equity and justice politics. Politics of the people. A people, largely illiterate and poor, not familiar with the laws of economics, but armed with the universal franchising vote. A freebie is well understood. How the government pays for it is the government’s business after all.

And yet, in such a system, where the poor are handed sops, the productive forces, the rich, inevitably get richer. They may be a very small part of the overall population, but it is they that grow the economy.

To make it count and not let all the riches fritter away in non-productive expenditure, there have to be laws against making free with tax payer money you don’t have. And the politics that blackmails the Centre for unrealisable promises. It may be a good way to arouse the rabble. But this is abetment to anarchy, a lack of integrity, and not democracy.

Prudence and good economic management insists that AAP style conjuring of  pie-in-the-sky bonanzas must be outlawed and nixed. Unfortunately, the temptation to use ‘jumlas’ is something the BJP is also no stranger to. Jumlas are not designed to deliver. Is that the answer? Otherwise, who will bell the cat?

(1,411 words)

April 4^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

How Are Hindus Treated In States Where They Are In A Minority?

He who pays the piper plays the tune. For over 50 years of independent India’s 75 years, the national polity has been run by the Congress Party, supported quite often by the Communists. This dispensation, by and large, took the Hindu majority for granted, confident that discriminatory and prejudicial practices against them, largely unconstitutional, would not be protested.

So the Nehruvian regime and the subsequent dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhis, assessed that they could get away with it. That they have eventually lost almost all their perches in the states and the centre is also a consequence of this blatant unfairness.

The Hindus, particularly after the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s, have decided to vote against Congress domination in increasing numbers. But for at least five decades, the second-class treatment of Hindus was the norm, and set the theme for the States and Union Territories to follow. Accompanied by the Congress appointed academics and intellectuals with well-paid sinecures and most of the media. Everyone of these people made a virtue of their outlook by dressing it up in Marxian hues.

The various coalition governments that came as the Congress hold weakened, began to change things.

These were occasioned by the followers of Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan in the 70s. Their influence gave birth to a number of strong regional parties of Yadavs and Dalits in the electorally dominant cow belt. In the South, simultaneously, the upper castes in power were overthrown by ADMK and AIDMK politics in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere.

Congress reacted autocratically with the infamous Emergency during which the descriptors Secular and Socialist were inserted into the Preamble of the Constitution, and subsequently weaponised.

The changes in the popular mood amongst the lower castes seemed to give the Congress leadership no clues about the need to change.

The Hindu may not have protested at the drop of a hat like the dominant national minority, but it began to vote in a different way, as did, ironically, the Muslims, sick of being used without true benefit.

The minority vote bank stopped being the exclusive preserve of the Congress Party. Still no correctives were applied. Instead, Congress undertook a competitive appeasement. This might have been good for the Muslim rank and file, but it queered the pitch for the Hindus even more.

The coalition governments that came next with the fragmentation of the voting patterns, were unstable, pulling in different directions at once. Nevertheless, they were a precursor to the ultimate arrival of Hindu majority BJP governments eight years ago.

Then, the political thematics indeed began to change.  But the Opposition called it Saffron Communalism, and hoped against hope that it would be a flash in the pan.

The earlier six-year term of AB Vajpayee, a decade before Modi began his central innings in 2014, made some changes in tone and tenor, but it was hampered by the compulsions of coalition dharma, and being taunted as communal. That it was the pot calling the kettle black was lost on the so-called secularists.

The ideological parent of the BJP, the RSS, had long been erroneously blamed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi. It was even banned for some of the early years after independence. Nathuram Godse was once an alleged member of the RSS. But in due course, the Hindu intellectuals began to question whether Godse was not, in fact, a Hindu patriot, who eliminated a blatantly Muslim appeasing MK Gandhi. And whether the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that dominates Congress politics to this day, ever had the welfare of Hindus in its heart.

How did the discrimination against Hindus become state policy? First there was an assumption that the minorities needed special privileges to keep them from being swamped by the numerically dominant Hindus (80%). This, after the country had been partitioned hastily, with enormous loss of life and property, amid stark religious lines.

Despite heated opinions on every side, this was essentially done by the departing British, as a malicious parting shot in 1947, including the loss of PoK. Like other partitions engineered by the British, it has left the pot of animosity simmering ever since, with occasions when it boils over. There have already been four wars with Pakistan, with the threat of another never too far away. And yet, the politics of minority appeasement is careful not to speak against Pakistani sponsored terrorism. Instead it futilely looks for a hook on Saffron terrorism to hang its narrative on.

Then there were the provisions in the Indian Constitution, bequeathed to the nation in 1950, that were misused by successive central and state governments. Article 26 guarantees freedom to all religions to manage their religious affairs including their finances and properties.

In reality, almost all Hindu temples, shrines, properties and associated institutions such as muths, are, if not fully nationalised, certainly quasi-comandeered by state governments.

The average state not only maintains oversight on all administrative activity, but uses large parts of the huge temple finances as they see fit, for matters that have nothing to do with the Hindu faith. Even their lands are handily encroached upon by the government. 

By way of contrast, various Christian Church properties, seminaries, retreats, schools, colleges, the latter largely government assisted, are run exclusively by Christians. The Church has one of the largest land-holdings in India, a legacy from British/Portuguese times, but these have been left undisturbed by independent India. 

Likewise, the Mosques, extensive properties/land, Madrassas, Seminaries, quite a few originated from Moghul times, are run exclusively by the Muslim Waqf Boards without any form of outside interference.

Many temples however have been demolished both by the Christians in Goa during Portuguese rule, and by the Moghuls, as a routine, with no effort at retribution or restitution by the Government of India.

The Spanish Inquisition was brought to Goa and horrific atrocities perpetrated on its Hindu population in the Catholic Church’s conversion drive. Likewise, The Moghuls slaughtered Hindus at will in their millions during their rule, and were only challenged by the Mahrattas, and later by the British, who took over from them.

 But the pristine status of Muslim and Christian holdings and practices puts their culturally aggressive religious bodies in a disproportionately powerful position. In states where the political domination is from the Muslims or Christians, the abuse of Hindus can, and has gone as far as genocide.

In addition, the domination of Sikhs in Punjab has also proved to be increasingly inimical to the prospects of Hindu Punjabis, as well as migrant populations from other states. This is another case of a national minority in pole position in its home state, and its subsequent unforgivable behaviour, despite linguistic affinity. This phenomenon is also rapidly becoming the case in West Bengal, where the social engineering supported by the state government favours a demographic shift in favour of Muslims, both indigenous and imported from Bangladesh.

Both are border states closely watched for leverage by Pakistan and China. The other place, small as it is, where deep threats are at work, is Kerala. There a long-standing Communist administration, the last bastion after the loss of Tripura and West Bengal, aids and abets Islamic extremism in its dominant pockets. This is a variation on the theme, but Kerala operates at the expense of the Hindu majority and a significant Christian minority.

But this hands-off policy is not the case with the financially rich major Hindu temples where the devotees donate crores of rupees and other offerings in jewels and gold. The revered Tirupati Temple is a glaring instance of government hands in the till.

The recent freeing of the Char Dhams in Uttarakhand from all government control is a refreshing exception going in the other direction. The Supreme Court thinks all the Hindu temples should be free of government controls but the states and possibly the centre are still not listening.

In addition, Hindus are in a minority in 10 states, but unlike the Muslims and Christians, get none of the minority benefits. They cannot do so unless the states or the centre decide to designate them a minority. There is no legal impediment, and yet this has been rarely done, if at all. Maharashtra has designated its Jews as an official minority, but the Hindus have no such champion.

In Congress times, the North East was isolated, and saw little infrastructure development. It was run by the Centre, mainly via financial grants because it had little revenue generating capacity on its own.  Religious conversion was rife. This collusion also served to keep it in the electoral fold of the Congress.  

Since 2014, and particularly after Assam was won by the BJP, its leadership played a stellar role in roping in the smaller of the eight states that comprise this region, and hold just 5% of the population. According to the 2011 census, Hindus constitute 58%, Christians are 16% and Muslims are 22%. Scheduled tribes are in strength in the North East, and almost all are Christians.  

The friction with the Hindus, that mostly reside in the valleys rather than the upper reaches, is palpable.

But the present political dispensation is ameliorating matters by relentless development of the region that is creating new facilities and local job opportunities. There has been huge infrastructure development by way of roads, bridges, tunnels, railway connectivity, as well as stadiums and training colleges. The North East is regarded as strategically important to keep Chinese ambitions at bay, as well as material to the development of India’s Look East and BIMSTEC Policies.

 The BJP/NDA states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Assam are all being drawn into the mainstream.  

There are 47 items in the Concurrent List, meaning those topics on which both the Centre or the State can legislate. There are as many ways to favour one lot of people over another, because these subjects cover items such as criminal law and procedure, preventive detention, trade unions, industrial and labour disputes.

Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution which deal with freedom to practice one’s religion without hindrance, and the management of their religious affairs in all aspects of it, has never treated Hindus fairly. This more so in places where they are reduced to a minority.

In Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, almost every Hindu and Sikh has been driven out or killed.  But what of India itself? The only way to right the wrongs of independent India’s distorted ideas of secularism, is to declare India a Hindu Rashtra. This must come sooner rather than later.  

(1772 words)

March 29^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The Propaganda War Between Russia and the Western Alliance Over Ukraine

Soon after Russia began its special military action on February 24^th, 2022, a surprised America under the Biden administration, NATO, EU and the broader Western Alliance, began a high decibel media campaign to demonise Vladimir Putin and the Russian military. They haven’t gone so far as to condemn the Russian people at large, but they are trying to turn them against Putin as the sanctions bite, and perhaps effect a regime change. It is naive of the West, but that is the wish. There appear to be shortages, of sugar, of tea, of condoms, but Russians, the older ones have been there before.

Part of the propaganda campaign was, no doubt, to distract attention from its own folly that brought on the attack, as pointed out by former President Donald Trump. Trump was and is not in favour of making an enemy out of Russia.  President Biden, on the other hand, did not think Putin would have the gumption to call the Western bluff. After all, Russia had never reacted with its military in three decades of provocation.

An American professor, Noam Chomsky, a Liberal-Left icon, once said, ‘Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state’.

America and the Europeans have framed Russia, as if it were still the USSR. Its democracy is not taken seriously, its parliament, its clutch of wealthy oligarchs that dazzle the earth with their capitalist gains notwithstanding. The West, greedy as ever, is busy freezing Russian assets, snatching away the Chelsea Football Team, seizing luxury yachts. Next, they intend sanctioning everyone in the Russian parliament.

In India, the only way to get the Russian point-of-view is to extensively search the internet, because we can no longer turn on Russia Today. In addition, pro-Russian You tube channels, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and other social media perches, disappeared. Even some independent Russian digital media, amenable to donations, working from outside Russia, blinked off the internet.

Very recently, The Russian Embassy in India has started putting out bulletins and programmes on You Tube. But it is anybody’s guess how long it will be before these too are blocked.

What we get 24x7 is a stream of human-interest stories on the suffering of ordinary Ukranians, and scenes of destroyed buildings, burnt cars, the carnage being caused by Russian bombardment and missiles, the children and babies they are wantonly killing. There are constant blubbering interviews with suddenly displaced refugees.  These are interspersed with announcements of  sanctions imposed, with further threats about more to come. Biden does not listen to Zelensky’s entreaties for air cover, membership of the EU, membership of the NATO. As the end approaches, Zelensky says he can’t agree to any Russian demand on his own, he needs a referendum.

Nobody in the Western Alliance talks of the culpability of NATO and its ever-expanding thrust into Eastern Europe, incorporating one former satellite of the former USSR after another, over the last thirty years. All protests from Russia were ignored.  Former President Mikhail Gorbachev saying that it was a violation of the spirit of the agreements at the dissolution of the USSR was also ignored.

Today, those who are still outside NATO’s embrace, such as Sweden and Finland, who have lived peacefully because of their scrupulous neutrality, are being scared into thinking of applying for membership. Likewise, former Soviet satellites Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Russia, in turn, is threatening consequences if there are more additions to NATO on its doorstep. The road to WWIII is indeed defined if the Western Alliance does not back down. Russia has made it clear it will use nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened. NATO must be thinking the same thing.

Meanwhile, civilian targets are being destroyed, said the Western media feeds, calling Putin a ‘War Criminal’ and reporting Russia to the ICJ. Western media neglects to state that the Ukraine armed forces locates its missile launchers and rockets, along with its soldiers, in densely populated civilian areas and buildings, in order to use the populace as human shields. This includes Ukranian soldiers dressed in civilian clothes, and even some in Russian uniforms for ambushes on Russian military convoys. Schools, Malls,theatres are employed, and when they are destroyed with people trapped or buried underneath, there’s the propaganda  value.

This general tactic of using civilians, or pretend civilians, is very popular in the Gaza Strip to garner public sympathy. That it is being cynically applied in Ukraine by President Zelensky, does not prevent the Western Media into building him up as a hero, and extol the virtues of the Ukranian resistance.

On CNN, many US retired generals are interviewed on a daily basis.  As lifelong soldiers, being rather more straight-forward than politicians or professional journalists, some have spilled the beans. There are NATO trainers and combat experts embedded with the military in Ukraine. Also trained mercenaries of various provenance. This, even as the official position is that NATO can and has been only supplying arms and ammunition from outside.

NATO involvement by way of finances, training, armaments, logistical support, intelligence, is not recent, or initiated post the Russian action of February 24^th, but several years old.

The Ukraine Armed Forces have been terrorising the largely Russian-speaking   Donbass region for all the years since 2014-2015 when the Minsk Agreements were arrived at, but not implemented on the ground.

It is an intensification of the harassment in the Donbass region that prompted the unilateral declaration of independence from Ukraine of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in February 2022. This was promptly followed by Russian recognition and the move into Ukraine.

What the Western media does not like to dwell upon is how well the battle is going for the Russians. Instead, they quote President Zelensky that thousands of Russian soldiers, as many as 6,000, have been killed so far, including five Russian Generals. He also claims, Ukranian forces have destroyed scores of Russian tanks, fighter aircraft and helicopters. Why then, one wonders, does Zelensky call for a Russian ceasefire almost every day? And if this is true, why is Vladimir Putin undeterred, and planning on inserting more troops recalled from Armenia?

 In fact, a land corridor is more or less captured now between Russian ally Crimea, a peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and these two new republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Kherson, also in the Donetsk region, had been taken. With the imminent fall of Mariupol port in South Eastern Ukraine, and the ongoing attack on Odessa, the main port near it, things are looking grim. When both are captured, Ukraine will become land-locked. It will be cut off from the Black Sea/Sea of Azov altogether.

The key battle that will break the back of the Ukraine resistance is the capture of its capital Kiev. Russian convoys have made their way up from the South and East of the country but are not inclined to conquer the city street-by-street with its more than 500,000 structures. Russia can, of course flatten it and its features of considerable historical, sentimental and religious value. Reluctance to do so has resulted in a siege and selective destruction, the cutting-off of food, water, utilities, communications, that is making it increasingly difficult for its two million residents, including all of Ukraine’s main troops.

If it took nine months for Mosul in Syria to fall, there is no reason to expect the fall of Kiev to be over quick. However, the Syrian experience will be used by Russia to hasten matters, because the sanctions and their bite does not allow a long window of time.

This brings us to the Russian attack via Belarus, its ally, that has now permitted the location of Russian nuclear weapons on its territory. It is located to the north of Ukraine, and shares one of its borders with Poland, as well as another with Lithuania and Latvia, all NATO countries. The Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus are to warn-off any NATO adventurism. And then there are its hypersonic missiles, now used twice in Ukraine, for the first time by any power. It is from Belarus that the battle has been joined for the cities and territories on the Western side of Ukraine.

That Ukraine, like Belarus, was one of the founding members of the USSR in 1922  is why Russia thinks it is righting a historical wrong. If only the West did its homework.

(1400 words)

March 23^rd, 2022

For: The Sunday Guardian

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Regime Change Ushers In A New Current Affairs Narrative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

(2,017 words)

March 22^nd, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The End Game In Ukraine And Beyond

In week four of Russia’s military action, it is dawning on the pro-western forces in Ukraine, the broad Western Alliance, the US, NATO, that, despite providing it with arms for a robust resistance, the whole of the country is about to fall to Russia.

Dreams of long-term organised resistance or even engendering a long-lasting guerrilla war against Russian occupation are fading fast. This before 30 days are up, and despite all those Stinger and Javelin anti-tank missiles that worked so well in Afghanistan. Here, there is different topography. Ukraine is a flat wheat and edible oil growing country. There are no caves and crevasses with tons of protective bunker-busting bomb proof hidey holes. Loitering killer drones too, which might be sent, if they can get into the country and survive Russian missiles out to destroy them before they can be used, are unlikely to turn the tide.

Russia is knocking on the doors of Kiev, pounding its outer suburbs with missiles, and has already taken most of the port and regional cities. A fifth of Ukraine’s population, some four million people, have streamed into neighbouring countries as refugees. Armed individuals are not being engaged in street fighting by the Russian military. Instead, Russia is pumping in more troops relocated from Armenia for the big push to come.

President Zelensky’s bluff that generations of Russians will regret it if Russia does not ceasefire and hold one-on-one talks between President Putin and President Zelensky, is being called.

Zelensky might be implying that his forces have a nuclear weapon, but President Putin and the Russian forces are undeterred. After all, nobody is in doubt about the number of nuclear weapons Russia has, and that Putin has already put them on second-stage alert.

If there is a nuclear exchange, or even a single warhead used, all of Europe will be subjected to radiation and nuclear fallout. Russia is the world’s biggest country, and has 11% of its land mass. It has a much better chance of weathering a nuclear attack.

A former US general, now retired in Little Rock, Arkansas, once Bill Clinton’s stamping ground as Governor, said on CNN that with the impending fall of Ukraine, there will be nothing but the ‘thin red line’ of the NATO country borders to separate them from Russian menace.

Even totally one-sided reportage from CNN and the BBC cannot hide the fact that the situation is now grim for Zelensky’s forces.

Brutal and wide-ranging sanctions are not working to restrain Russia. Particularly, since Russia continues to sell $1 billion of oil and gas to Western Europe a day, and is still paid for it via the SWIFT banking mechanism. This fact alone has cracked NATO wide open.

Calling Vladimir Putin a war criminal is laughable, after American and Western Alliance atrocities in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, in recent times. To speak of the right to sovereignty and rule of law for Ukraine, while using the country to offshore over 30 US biowarfare laboratories is more hypocrisy if not diabolical.  It echoes Chinese charges that the Wuhan bat virus Biolab was/is also an American funded entity. It is no wonder that the US has been careful not to directly accuse China for the Covid Pandemic that has killed over 10 million people worldwide.

Besides, where was this talk of sovereignty when America attacked Iraq on trumped-up charges of weapons of mass destruction, (WMD), destroyed a well-ordered Iraq under President Saddam Hussein, and created a chaos that persists to this day?  Ditto in Libya. These are oil rich countries, and America has benefited from deposing their stable strong-man governments such as Muammar Gaddafi’s. Its European allies like France have also taken the opportunity to test their military equipment such as the Rafale fighter against the Libyans.

Attempts at mediation by France, Germany, and Israel, in this Ukraine conflict, are veiled pressure tactics because they do not acknowledge Russia’s long-standing concerns about the conduct of Ukraine.

Instead, we are treated to the relentless human interest and suffering stories in the Western media. This is in stark contrast to near blackouts of the savage attacks in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan and indeed in Serbia in the eighties. All these wars were perpetrated by America and its allies and were not condemned by the media. But Russian attacks in Syria and Iraqi attacks on the Kurds are well known.

This time however, the US, NATO and the Western Alliance are hoisted on their own petard, after leading Ukraine up the garden path with implied promises of EU and NATO membership. It was never a serious idea, because the West does not dare execute it in the face of long-standing Russian warnings. Instead, since this battle gone wrong for the West, Russia will stand eyeball to eyeball with NATO after the fall of Ukraine.

In addition, and possibly desperation, America is pressurising India and China directly and via its allies to move away from their neutrality. In the law of unintended consequences, this is now provoking signs of a possible rapprochement between India and China. One that could break the deadlock along the LaC and restore normal relations.

China has been highly critical of the sanctions imposed on Russia. It is likely to use the Yuan to bail Russia out of the financial sanctions and support it with the Chinese banking system.  It will certainly buy oil from Russia. Saudi Arabia too has expressed its willingness to sell its crude to China against the Yuan.

American foreign policy is indulging in panicked knee-jerk action.  Overnight it has withdrawn sanctions against Iran and Venezuela so that it can freely sell its petroleum.

The self-same Iran under US sanctions was being used as a pressure point against India buying its oil. Today, Russia is selling its crude at a discount to India, inclusive of paid-for shipping. There will be a Rupee-Ruble transaction mechanism for trade between the countries, outside of the US dollar domination.

Likewise, Iran is offering its petroleum to India, that imports 80% of its requirements, on a Rupee-Rial basis for trade with it. This would get  both countries away from various financial restrictions imposed on all who deal with Russia.

Britain has been foolish enough to suggest that sanctions against Russia should be maintained even after the end of the Ukraine conflict to deter it from menacing the European NATO countries.

Being next to Russia across the Black Sea hasn’t worried Turkey any. It requires no visas for Russians, despite being a NATO ally. It bought the S400 missile system from Russia and was duly sanctioned by the US. India has done likewise, but America is hesitating to impose sanctions as yet.

The sanctions regime may be suffering from over-use, and this is resulting in nobody taking them very seriously.

But what price then, for NATO protection going forward for all the former Soviet protectorates? With a resurgent Russia on its borders, has it not traded one set of vassalage for another, with no democratic rights to protest against  American/NATO  dictation if the de facto situation is taken into account?

What about the costs and indebtedness for massive arms purchases that small NATO countries will have to bear for choosing to be members? And what about the US and Western Europe that will have to maintain massive troops and equipment on the ground? Who will pay the bill?

Was it worth it to try and finish off an assertive, militarily powerful Russia, albeit with a smallish economy, and try and topple Vladimir Putin? Instead, Russia has neatly turned the tables. The future may well have to result in the roll back of NATO from all the former Soviet protectorates in order to satisfy the Bear.

America has made a hash of it and lost the respect of friend and foe alike. Countries under threat have realised they are on their own.  India will no doubt be recalibrating its strategies to suit its priorities. In the short to medium term trade relations and military cooperation with Russia will boom. But can India rely on America and the Western Alliance, bilaterally or even in the QUAD, with its tendency to blackmail its supposed friends?

(1,344 words)

March 20^th, 2022

For: Sirfnews

Gautam Mukherjee