Will A Full-Fledged War Cripple The Indian Economy?

Will A Full-Fledged Shooting War Cripple The Indian Economy?

NSA Ajit Doval’s Defensive Offence doctrine designed to effect a paradigm shift in strategy, has jettisoned the old ‘strategic restraint’ given up as ineffective.

The new policy envisages judicious, well-planned, flawlessly executed, overt/covert limited military action, combined with coordinated economic/diplomatic/political thrusts.

All towards promoting the strategic interests of India First. It being a pronounced foreign policy stance of the Modi government.

Looked at through this prism, the woeful war in 1962,  humiliatingly lost to China; followed by wins in  1965, and 1971 , against Pakistan, saw India reeling under the considerable financial costs of war.

Growth rates then were never in excess of 3.5%, on less than $189 billion, the 1980 figure for the economy. In 1965, the Indian economy even recorded minus 3.7% as a consequence .

The early reforms of the 1980s and the first stirrings of capitalist-style  competition, grew the country at an average of 5.6%  p.a..

In the liberalised 1990s, the growth rate averaged 6.2%.  And at the end of the decade, in 1999, we had a one location conflict with Pakistan on the Kargil heights.

But this time, the economy shrugged off its charge, and grew at 6.5% for both 1999, and the millennial year 2000.

The growth of IT and the new service economy, is said to have offset the cost-impact of the Kargil War. But it was limited to a single location after all, and was mercifully short. Yet it cost India about $15 billion.

Today, 17 years later, any war to come, is likely to be on multiple fronts, involving land, sea, air operations, running to the plains, deserts, high altitudes. This, even if we have just Pakistan to battle.

If China, ostensibly ‘neutral’ for now, decides to get involved, then we might be fighting on widely dispersed fronts.

This will geometrically progress the costs of war. Combined,  as it will be with inflation of some 200%, compared to 1999. And the war, this time, could be much longer.

However, the official Indian economy is now at approximately $ 2.29 trillion. Our present growth rate is between 7.6% and 8% projected.

Could we therefore afford a $ 500 billion war with both China and Pakistan? It is undeniably 25% of the official economy. But yes, we can manage it, but not without enormous dislocation for years to come.

But Pakistan is highly unlikely to undertake it, given its miniscule $220 billion odd economy.

And India, after all, ostensibly just wants all the cross-border terrorism to stop.

That is why, the stock market fell on the 29^th by around 450 points on the Sensex and 150 odd points on the Nifty at the close, but it stabilised on the very next day, to look ahead, to a prospect without war.

Some form of retaliation to India’s strikes, is indeed expected, but it is likely to be proportionate.

 The fact that India does possess considerable deterrence capacity, mainly due to an array of fine Mach 4 missiles, also has something to do with the caution.

Nuclear weapons power, though bandied about by Pakistan, will not be used by any of the three countries concerned, because it will assure mutual annihilation.

India’s array of Mach 4 missiles include the Indo-Russian BrahMos cruise missiles, the Indo-Israeli Barak surface-to-air, the home-grown Surya ICBMs, the French air-to-air Meteors for the Rafale fighters, the American  anti-ship Harpoon.    

Extensive preparatory infrastructure development is also on, including $5 billion worth of new roads, train-lines and airports. A new mountain corps is being raised at an estimated cost of $ 15 billion.

India’s shopping list for military hardware and associated equipment tallies up to at least $150 billion. This is being fast-tracked now.

So, as long as all this, and future pre-emptive strikes, does not tip over into war, it will actually boost the economy. It is already headed towards double-digits because of the ongoing implementation of GST, and better expected  agricultural performance.

China also, will not, want to polarise the Western powers against it. This, despite the importance it attaches to the $50 billion CPEC from Xinkiang to Gwadar.  

India can therefore expect to reap its geopolitical dividend as the designated great equaliser in South Asia and environs.  

For: The Quint

(697 words)

September 30^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

India's Military Deterrence Policy Will Raise All Boats

India’s Military Deterrence Policy Will Raise All Boats

What happens when end-of-life-cycle military equipment and antiquated/inadequate infrastructure meets heightened tensions?   

Everything pending is fast-tracked, technology leap-frogs, billions are spent.

This is all beneficial, provided military preparedness and strategic deterrence does not tip over into actual war.

Our new battle stance is what Ajit Doval, National Security Adviser (NSA) calls “Defensive Offence”. It is short of an all-out shooting war, but not shy of seeking and using opportunities to take the fight to the enemy. Means employed can be overt, covert and political/economic.

This new policy could continue to stretch beyond our borders, mostly in the form of training and strategic infrastructure building. Therefore, more work can be anticipated, for example, in Afghanistan where we could be building a dam on the Kabul river next.

And, of course, we will develop facilities at and near the new Iranian port of Chabahar. We will probably also offer ‘material support’ to the insurgencies in PoK /Gilgit-Baltistan, and Balochistan.

It is clear we cannot do all this without substantially increasing the budgetary allocations, in 2017, and beyond.

 But India has not really bought any military hardware since the Rajiv Gandhi administration, 30 years ago.

It has refurbished, retro-fitted and refreshed various weapons platforms to keep going, but now they are not only obsolete, but finally stretched to the end of its days.

But, given that China has a 20 year head-start, we need to prioritise.  What will give India maximum strategic gains?

In one word- the answer is - Missiles.

India has done well with satellites and missiles in the interregnum, and must build further on these strengths.

It’s now down to supersonic speed and strike punch. Mach 4 missiles, state-of-the-art AWACS surveillance, air-fuelling systems to extend range and air-time, satellite monitoring, attack helicopters, drones.

And also, the stealth of submarines, preferably nuclear ones, that can stay down indefinitely.

India has developed some cutting edge missile systems. These include the Indo-Russian BrahMos Block III cruise missile, Barak 8, the Indo-Israeli surface to air (SAM) missiles, being fitted on Indian warships, the secrecy shrouded Surya ICBMs, the air-to-air Mach 4 plus Meteor missiles to be fitted on the Rafales.

Additionally, India has ordered $81 million worth of 21 Harpoon anti-ship missile systems from Boeing for its fighter jets.

It is also why we are positioning hundreds of BrahMos missiles in the North Eastern Arunachal Pradesh theatre- enough to set Chinese teeth on edge.

 We need hundreds of new aircraft, in addition to the time-tested  French Mirages and Russian Sukhois we do have. The MiGs are old now, and the Rafales have just been ordered. What next, India produced US F-18s, Swedish Griffens?

The home-grown Tejas, recently inducted, will come in greater numbers.

Helicopters- the Russian multi-task Kamov-226 will be manufactured in a joint venture here shortly. The formidable American twin-rotor AH-64 Apaches and Chinooks will soon be with the Indian Army. Boeing already manufactures componentry for them in joint venture here. Drones from Boeing, are also under discussion.

Indian produced war ships, aircraft-carriers in collaboration with the US and Russia, submarines, both the six French Scorpene diesel-electric units being made jointly in India, and several more nuclear submarines after the indigenous Arihant, are on the anvil.

India has bought 145 American M777 howitzers for $750 million from BAE Systems, to replace the 30 year old Swedish Bofors guns.

$1 billion worth of high-powered automatic rifles, make not yet finalised, will be inducted in place of the old ENSAS.

But since exceptions prove the rule, we have also deployed tanks, more than a 100 of them on the flat plains of Ladakh.

We need Light-weight, high velocity bullet-stopping helmets, quality bullet-proof vests, good night vision goggles, fire-retardant tents, high altitude clothing, shoes.

Our list of defence requirements runs to at least $150 billion worth, making India the biggest defence customer in the world.

In addition, we are furiously building roads, bridges, train-lines, ports, tunnels, fuel-reservoirs underground, airports, strips, helipads; all to support rapid troop/military equipment movements. $ 5 billion will be spent by 2020, to build a new set of roads, railways and aerodromes alone.

New mountain corps, an armoured brigade and two new infantry brigades  at an estimated cost of $ 15 billion will be raised, especially to guard  the Chinese borders.

Nuclear weapons and installations, that assure mutual and complete destruction, must nevertheless be constantly upgraded and maintained.

All this will benefit GDP and enhance the lives of civilians. If deterrence is achieved, we will have the best of all worlds- raised boats, security, and progress.

For: ABP Live

(754 words)

September 28^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Altering the Map?

Altering the Map? 

In an episode of BBC’s 18^th century copper-and-pilchards serialised  drama Poldark, set on the beautiful Cornwall coast,  a character philosophises strikingly. He says that in order for a person to be happy, three needs must be fulfilled-namely Comfort, Purpose, and, Certainty.

He meant it in the context of the minor key of everyday life, but the same needs do actually exist in the life of nations too.

It wasn’t just political theorist Friedrich Hegel who spoke of the ‘march of nations’ in terms of destiny. Many other visionaries still speak of a ‘manifest destiny’ that has no choice but to unfold in time.

Pakistan’s destiny, evidently, is to disintegrate. It was born out of hubris and false premises in 1947. And in 2016, it is having a very difficult time holding on to a shred of common decency, let alone character and fidelity.

Pakistan has come to realise that it is hurtling towards self-destruction, no matter what. So, it doesn’t seem to care anymore. It thinks nothing of recklessly firefighting lies with more lies.

Meanwhile, India, as its uncomfortable geographic neighbour, has  also been working its way towards its manifest destiny.

And this destiny is an altogether loftier one. It is likely to take it all the way, and in every way, to the front rank of nations. From a third world economy to start with, it is being described as an emerging economy, on its way to becoming, first, a low-middle-income one, and then a middle-income one, and finally- a developed nation.

The disconnect, between these two neighbours is bred by the choices each has made since independence.

But now, having failed on its own as a nation state, Pakistan has converted itself into the most abject kind of vassal to its other powerful neighbour, China.

And China, having learned from a couple of centuries of utter humiliation at the hands of the imperial powers, changed gears in the 1980s for the very much better.

From its version of failed Communism that murdered over 30 million of its own people, it has risen to become a prosperous $12 trillion economy. This to India’s trifling $2 trillion presently, but you wouldn’t know it for all the options it constantly considers!

Pakistan however, with an economy smaller than that of the state of Maharashtra, is slave to a very powerful master indeed.

And so, when provocations come to India from Pakistan lately, India must consider Pakistan and China together.

It is true, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at Kozikode recently, after 18 Indian Army soldiers were massacred at Uri, that there have been 17  cross-border attacks by Pakistani terrorists in the last 8 months.

The Indian security forces have killed over 110 terrorists, more than ever before in a similar time frame.

But the moot question is, what gives Pakistan the gumption to go on and on with this policy?  How much more can India endure without stern retaliation?  Pakistan’s  ‘thousand cuts’ policy  may be working but their deeper wish to polarise Indian Hindus and Muslims to daggers drawn enmity has failed resoundingly. We are not, and never will be, at each other’s throats. But we are certainly sick of  the cross-border terrorism.

In the very first flush, Pakistan did manage, with British conniving, to grab PoK and Gilgit/Baltistan from India. It also took Balochistan, from itself, and the Kalat, in 1948. But, its persistent villainny has all gone downhill since then.

It lost wars with India in 1965, and in 1971, when it also lost East Pakistan. True, both of these wars were in the pre-nuclear era on the sub-continent.  

But then, Pakistan also lost a limited war with India, after mutual nuclear weaponisation, in 1999, at Kargil.

But now, it is sure, as we also are, that India cannot win anymore because of its conjoining with China. This has been given strategic shape for all the world to see and assess, in the form of the, at least, $50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

This is a formidable ‘beltway’, running from China’s Muslim majority, and restive, province of Xinkiang, via Gilgit-Baltistan, via Islamabad, through 48% of its land-mass in captive Balochistan, to Gwadur.

This road and the bounty it is expected to generate, is China’s great hope of resurrecting its drastically slowed economy, after its export led growth has been stopped in its tracks.

It is the CPEC that will give access to the Arabian Sea, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the region’s oil, Balochistan’s minerals, Iran, Central Asia- all from and through the state-of-the-art port envisaged at Gwadur.

China expects, due to its geographic contiguity, to dominate the whole  South/West/Central Asian region by land, sea, and air in due course. The CPEC, and Pakistan’s compliant slave status, euphimistically dressed up as all-weather friendship, is vital to this ambition.

What is in the way however, is a legitimate Indian claim on PoK and Gilgit Baltistan, and the water sources for Pakistan that India controls in J&K.

Other inconveniences include the opposition of the native Shia population in PoK/Gilgit-Baltistan, and the opposition of the Balochi people at the other end of the road too.

Pakistan and China have jointly gone about it with blatant suppressive vigour, killing, maiming, jailing, raping, bombing, abduction.

Pakistan has also faked regional elections, and set up puppet regimes to do its bidding in both areas.

But lately, India has joined the fight, fed up with Pakistani interference in the Kashmir Valley, by openly encouraging the insurgencies and publicising their plight internationally, and via its free and powerful media. It may soon grant asylum to the exiled Balochi leaders who have applied.

In days and months to come, India will probably take a number of punitive steps short of war. It may dilute the Indus Water Treaty that has been in place for 56 years. It may declare Pakistan as a terrorist state by act of Indian Parliament. It may abrogate the unilateral most favoured nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan.

India is also working on securing its borders even more stringently, and will deal with all incursions as hostile enemy actions to be responded to with redoubled force. Other interventions, across borders are also under consideration.

On the diplomatic front, India is working hard to isolate, name, and shame, Pakistan as a terrorist state.

However, no full-fledged war is envisaged at this time, unless one is thrust upon India by Pakistani or Chinese actions.

While India is prepared, to an extent, to fight a two- country-multi-front war with both nuclear weaponised countries, it will be ruinously expensive.

Hopefully, at this point in time, any realistic assessment by our antagonists will  also reveal India’s capacity to do substantial damage to both China and Pakistan, despite the limitations of its military machine.

This should deter any adventurism on their part, desperate as they are to remove the threat from India to their CPEC plans, once and for all.

What China and Pakistan must realise is that they have no chance of getting away with it today. India has become geopolitically important as an equaliser in the region.

In 1962, Chou-En-Lai and Mao Zedong’s China confronted a stupid and naive Indian leadership. There were no missiles, protective shields, satellite surveillance, or nuclear weapons in play then. Still, China had to withdraw due to US pressure.

 Today, not only is India, on its own, strong enough to hold out for quite some time, it is bound to be supported by the rest of the UNSC and its allies, in the event of joint Pakistani-Chinese overt or covert aggression.

India’s  supporters may not put boots on the ground, but thankfully India does not need it. International experts and trainers will, of course, be inducted.

India will certainly need, and receive, limitless quantities of the most advanced military equipment, far superior to anything China possesses.

Nor can China access better weaponry from elsewhere, given its relative isolation on the world stage.

It is eloquent that Chinese-made weaponry is not in demand for money anywhere in the world. This, despite its considerable manufacturing establishment, that is reportedly starting to pinch quite hard.

This confrontation, if it comes, may grievously damage India’s economy, but it will put paid to China’s global ambitions for the near to middle term future.

Support from the OIC, from beleaguered countries like Turkey, and sundry other nonentities in military terms, does not add to the Chinese-Pakistani heft, or axis.

As such, they are, and will remain, on their own, to fight their battles for themselves with North Korea, possibly in tow.

As this confrontation rachets up, short of an all-out war, China would do well to take a good hard look at the penurious but toxic company it keeps.

And, alongside, ask itself a philosophical question.

Just how much of this is pride before the fall? Because, where is the comfort, purpose, or certainty, in this ambition; particularly for the second biggest economy in the world?  

For: Nationalist Online

(1,491 words)

September 26^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Paint It Black

Paint It Black

The Modi government’s Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) 2016- at 45% tax, cess, and penalty, all inclusive, is rumoured to be turning  into a damp squib.

Though the government has not put any figures to the amounts/values disclosed, and taxes obtained so far, almost at the end of the 4 month period of its currency, this, citing confidentiality - unofficial sources put it at much less than the Rs.50,000 crores it had hoped to collect.

The government’s  ill-conceived scare tactics, a departure from past, more unctuous schemes, is backed by a recently passed, and as yet untried, draconian law, against black money hoarders. It has not, reportedly, impressed the money bags.

They have seen or heard of 10 such schemes already, between 1951 and 1997, some of which even offered better terms.

This, despite the moral hazard of rewarding tax evaders. But then, all voluntary disclosure schemes suffer from this infirmity. It boils down to- does the government want the money or not.

But most were failures still, with only one in 1985/86 yielding Rs 10,778 crores in taxes, and the VDIS scheme 1997, run by then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, garnering Rs. 33,000 crores.  But then, VDIS 1997 charged a flat 30% tax, with no add-ons.

In the 1997 scheme, and every other past scheme, the ‘voluntary’ tax-payer that did come out of the shadows, to ‘regularise’, mostly his undeclared immovable property, got away, as a practical via media and additional hidden incentive, with a massive undervaluation of assets.

It was that, or nothing, for the government. This, at even 50% of what they were actually market priced at/worth, and  so, the  tax paid thereby was also at half of  the nominal percentage charged to tax. So in 1997, it was just 15%!

Something like that may still be operative in 2016, but remember that the property market is in a slump at present, and some owners may think this undervalues their property, even for discounted taxation purposes.

And there was no draconian new law before, or in 1997, to try out on the unimpressed.

The still unimpressed in 2016 however, are told that much data has been allegedly mined on him and his doings, to be unleashed once the amnesty period ends. How this will pan out, remains to be experienced. But the whole thing does not sound very politic. To annoy masses of urban well-to-do is not desirable, even for a clear thinking Communist, let alone the BJP.

As it stands, till the 30^th of September, only days away now, no questions will be asked on source of funds as long as the 45% is paid.  

For a while, the administering arm, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), ensconced centre-stage in the Finance Ministry, was itself confused about whether a person could actually pay the tax and penalties with black money. But when hardly anyone came forward, the CBDT clarified that the taxes could be paid using ‘unaccounted for’ cash.

After the deadline, there are criminal prosecutions and jail sentences lying in wait, per the new laws. And yet, the rumour goes, IDS 2016 will   be hard pressed to even recover the money spent publicising it!

Not that VDIS 1997 did any better 19 years ago, if one draws up both sides of the balance sheet. I know, for a fact, that the advertising costs alone, in 1997, was much in excess of Rs. 33,000 crores!

The reason that many people are still sitting on the fence is, due legal process will have to be followed. And in India, it will take a month of Sundays, with the eventual outcome, including appeals, pushing back the final verdict for many years.

For people protecting enormous ill-gotten, or previously concealed wealth, a long period of ponderous litigation, is just what the doctor ordered.

A similar prior flop show resulted when this government, went trying to repatriate concealed and untaxed money of resident Indians stashed abroad.

This, in order to redeem one of its most memorable election pledges. It attempted to look in bank accounts, tax havens, properties invested in abroad, Panama, The Bahamas, etc.  But again, hardly any catch resulted.

The CBDT personnel, clearly out of their depth, were confronted by a thicket, in places, a veritable tropical forest, of expensive to probe international and sovereign laws to deal with, holding companies, proxy directors, cross-holdings involving NRIs, and people with other nationalities, extradition treaties, and so on.

It is no wonder that most Indian bribe-takers in defence deals, are so brazen, issuing loud challenges for proof of their involvement. They know the Indian government cannot catch them, with the best will in the world, at least, not via due process, and not through that tangled thicket abroad either. And we have no Abu Ghraib or Guatanamo for tax offenders with en-suite water boards. At least, not yet.

It is unclear however whom the latest scheme, IDS 2016, and the threats of retribution, after the expiry of the four-month amnesty period 1^st June to September 30^th , is designed to intimidate. And whom indeed, it aims to please. Where does the politics of the thing lie?

If it is designed to impress the numerous but ordinary, poor, voter, who pays no tax either way. If so, it is not going to resonate with his voting bone. Taxes the rich pay, or don’t, are not very high on his priority list. And neither does it afford him  much malicious, vicarious pleasure, to see traders and businessmen, leaders, sundry grand people, many of whom are his employers, harassed by a  political system that runs, itself, on- you guessed it, black money!

Large, threatening, print and TV advertisements, that fly in the face of earlier promises of curbing ‘tax terrorism’, have been roundly ignored by the target audience.

Presumably, so paltry is the yield, just days from when the scheme ends,  that the infamous raid parties have reportedly hit the chole bature and jalebi walas in Khao Gully in Mumbai. This, to try and meet their targets.

A voluntary scheme therefore, has been turned into a hustle, if not a  desperate shambles.

What will happen later? Will recalcitrant people in the Opposition be targeted using the draconian black money law plus the money found under his mattress? Will the black money laws become a weapon in the hands of the government, never mind how much tax money it produces?

But, underlying this cumbersome and slow motion cops and robbers show, is the undeniable fact of a too narrow taxation base, both in terms of individuals, numbering just some ten lakhs. This out of a huge population of 1.25 crores.

There are also some 10,000 listed public companies, and perhaps ten times that number, private, smaller, small, outside the bourses.

Not a lot, for the essentially rent-seeking CBDT to harass, even if the foreign investors are roped in.

What is needed desperately is to expand the tax base and lower the nominal tax rates. P Chidambaram did this in his ‘dream budget’ around the VDIS scheme, citing the tendency towards greater compliance at lower tax rates (The Laffer Curve).

Since then, nobody has tried to push tax rates down, and include, say, rich farmers. Will this government do so? If it does, it might actually collect more taxes and fewer brickbats.

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,221 words)

September 22^nd, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

No War! Trading Cuts And Bites With Pakistan Is Best

 No War! Trading Cuts & Bites With Pakistan Is Best

The ‘Dogs of War’ are baying on Twitter/Facebook, in editorials and TV debates, post the Uri massacre at the Indian Army’s brigade HQ.

But let us realise we are not going to fight Pakistan alone this time, their nuclear sabre-rattling notwithstanding.  

And the first casualty of an all-out war would be the sudden death of India’s ‘fastest growing economy in the world’ tag.

Without war, at 8% growth in GDP in 2016-2017 per Niti Aayog projections, the trend sustaining - and the forthcoming GST dividend could add another 2% by 2019.

A further 1% could come from a well-watered rural economy, this year, and for two going forward, thanks to the El Nina effect.

India could well grow its $2 trillion real economy and its $2 trillion stock market capitalisation for the next two decades, at compounded double digits. It has every chance of becoming a ‘low middle income economy’ within a decade, even given the size of its population.

But only if it does not take this bait of war.

It would then, over time, be in a much better position to sharply increase its military spending from the paltry 1.7% of GDP at present, contribute along the way towards regional security, and grow stronger with each passing year both economically and militarily.

China’s $ 50 billion CPEC in Pakistan is its meal-ticket to economic revival, and this is at the core of the true narrative of present developments.  

It has already occasioned joint protection of the work ongoing in Gilgit/Baltistan, and mass arrests of protesters there, even before India asserted its claim on PoK and the territory, just five weeks ago.

At the other end of the proposed CPEC, in Balochistan, thousands have been killed ever since India declared its support for its independence movement.

Many more ethnic Balochi men, women, and children have been abducted and gone missing. All this is now fodder to the mill at the UNGA in New York for the first time.

But apart from the likelihood that we would lose this war, given China’s vast military superiority, we would certainly set our economy back a decade at least.

Our GDP rates would plummet. A per day cost of war in 2016 would top Rs. 5,000 crores, considering Kargil, a one theatre operation, in 1999, was estimated to cost between Rs. 5000-10,000 crores a week.

A 14 day ‘short war’ today would cost  at least Rs. 250,000 crores, assuming multiple fronts and contingencies, and raise the nation’s fiscal deficit by 50% to about Rs. 8 lakh crores, up from 5.32 lakh crores in 2015-16. This was a healthy 3.9% of GDP, down from 4.1% the year before. This hypothetical war will also have a sharp knock-on inflationary effect.

It would also ruin the upward trend in FDI/ FII investment, take a 50% hit on the bourses, drop the rupee to Rs. 100 to the US dollar, put paid to our high tech manufacturing ambitions and render bleak the chances of revival in the near term.

War with Pakistan now would suit China very well though, and eliminate a strong rival from contention.

China’s determination to protect the JeM, keep India out of the NSG, shower nuclear power stations, military equipment, enter into defence pacts with Pakistan, has to be also viewed in this context.

However, this is not a ‘do-nothing’ prescription against Pakistan’s very competent ‘sub-conventional warfare’ model.

If India changes course, to stick, no matter how insolent the provocation, to responding likewise, we can give tit-for-tat indefinitely, and even make some pre-emptive thrusts and parries. Honour and blood will yet be served, while our economy keeps chugging forward.

India can ramp up its own ‘Defensive Offence’ programme, long advocated by spymaster and NSA Ajit Doval, and create mayhem in India’s legally owned  PoK/Gilgit-Baltistan.

We can also fan the revolt in independence-seeking Balochistan till success is theirs. With these regions breaking away as the ultimate objective, other regions, like NWFP, and Sindh, are likely to join the revolt.  

We can provide, men, materials, training, diplomatic and economic support long term. We can use proxies, ‘non-state actors’, specialised operatives, soldiers, commandos - but all in mufti and disguise with ‘plausible deniability’ stencilled on them.

 And this, with plenty of scalps taken to assuage what Pakistanis have been doing to us for over three decades.  This slow burn would also prevent China from wading in, and blaming us for the privilege!

Besides, our diplomatic effort to isolate Pakistan as a terrorist state is working. Not only is it under censure from America, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, but also from Afghanistan and Bangladesh, in the SAARC.

More condemnation, perhaps even economic sanctions, may well be on its way.

But not only does Pakistan and China want to seize the Kashmir Valley to secure the CPEC and water flows; humiliating India and trashing its global aspirations, are also important objectives.

This diabolical joint plan is meant to be decisive, but how can it be, when it is essentially a ‘war of a thousand cuts’, in operation since the 1980s?

For: The Quint

(842 words)

September 21^st, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

The Time Has Come For India To Get Serious About Hindu Studies

The Time Has Come For India To Get Serious About Hindu Studies

Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Veena Sikri, currently the Chair of the ICCR Committee for Assessment of Indian Cultural Centres,  recently introduced an erudite Irishman, a no-onion-no-garlic Hindu scholar to a small group in New Delhi.  

The gentleman is coincidentally from the Swami Vivekananda era Sister Nivedita’s home-town, in Ireland.  The brief interaction, with a select group of invitees, took place at the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF), premises at 9, Ashoka Road, New Delhi.

Incidentally, the very rooms occupied by the Foundation today, were once occupied by a much younger Narendra Modi, in the nineties, before he became Gujarat Chief Minister. This was when he was a BJP spokesperson, frequently seen on TV panels broadcasting out of New Delhi.

The Irishman we met is the Director of the Oxford Centre For Hindu Studies (OCHS). This organisation is located in Oxford, that too for the last 20 years, currently on Magdalen Street, in a small space between two shopping malls.

But OCHS is a bona fide part of the hallowed Oxford University offering, with all the academic quality and rigour that implies. 

OCHS was introduced to Oxford University originally via the good offices of its Theological faculty, traditionally, culturally and historically, devoted to Christian studies.

Now OCHS qualified students go out to  research/guide/teach in Religious Studies faculties in Europe, America, Africa, Japan, indeed all over the globe. And Das, its Director, encourages them to expound their well informed and considered views as ‘public intellectuals’.

India herself has been largely missing-in-action in this endeavour so far, with a mistaken Nehruvian belief that religion, particularly the Hindu religion, is obscurantism, and will hold back progress.

Nehru as India’s first prime minister, actively discouraged any governmental involvement or support in the propagation or dissemination of the Hindu  religion. He even frowned on private attempts to do so.  This tone and tenor set by him, has largely been the story for the 70 years since Independence.  

Meanwhile, at least in the course of the last twenty years, seeking scholars from all over the world have come to earn a doctorate in ‘Hindu Studies’ from Oxford University.  

The Irish-Hindu prime-mover of OCHS we met goes by the name Shaunaka Rishi Das, in the manner of some Western devotees of Hinduism who take on a Hindu name without much regard to caste associations. Or perhaps, in all humility, making sure that ‘service’ to humanity, rather than caste pedigree, is the meaning highlighted in the name chosen. 

OCHS has been quietly doing serious work on a non-sectarian and apolitical basis over the years.  This, said Das, has been a strategic decision to successfully skirt any controversy.

Currently, OCHS is about to inaugurate a Bhagwat Puran project, a mammoth undertaking, as the Purana, in the uncompromised Sanskrit original, is in 14,500 verses. The project will be launched, in Chennai between the 6-8^th of January 2017.

It will draw upon many streams, narratives, styles, and traditions, from different parts of ancient India on the Purana.

Another book on the anvil is on the prominent and well-funded  Swami Narayan Sect from Gujarat, that not only boasts of magnificent temples in India, but also in London (Neasden) - visited by British royalty, prime ministers, politicians, tycoons, and many-hued celebrities.

Other works in progress include the Bhakti Movement in the ‘Braj era’, Bengal Vaishnavism, and the confluence of Hindu, Christian and Islamic traditions that pre-date the British Raj.

Although the OCHS is little known in India as of now, The Oxford University Press, and Rutledge, have published a number of its scholarly works on, for example, the Tantra traditions.

There is also a Journal of Hindu Studies, and a programme of Continuing Education on Hinduism online as well.  

Das made the very relevant point that Indian Christianity is 2,000 years old, and peculiarly and distinctly Indian in its cultural moorings, and Indian Islam is not the same at all as that which prevails in parts of West Asia. The Sufi traditions of Indian Islam are quite unique.

OCHS is now working to collaborate with a number of well-established universities in India, who have all been welcoming. Together, it proposes to work on academic explorations of Hinduism so that this work, neglected here for so long, can be extended, into the land of its origin, with both primary and secondary resources developed locally over time.

Das pointed out that faculties of Religious Studies do not exist in Indian  universities as of now, but there is a great need to establish them in a format that will work alongside India’s  ‘secular’  constitutional position.

The manner in which OCHS is strictly non propagandist, sectarian or political, does, in fact, fit the ‘secular’ needs of India.

But unfortunately, in the attempt to be secular, there are no serious Hindu studies being conducted in Indian universities at all, leaving the field to be sometimes distorted via Western and other foreign efforts that do not adhere to the highest standards of academic research.

The best Indian work, and it does exist, is currently being done in  various Ashrams and religious organisations only.

But in the public space, the  raging debate between aggressive Marxism from the socialist, and the Left, versus the Nationalist Right, are both missing the need to speak from the point of view of India’s considerable cultural and philosophical ‘Heritage’.

It is time, said Shaunaka Rishi Das, to plant ‘oak trees’, that no man can expect to see full grown in his lifetime. But still, there is the civilisational need to plant the oak trees anyway.

For: Nationalist Online

(920 words)

September 14^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee