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

 

 

 

The Indo-Russian Silver Lining

As the Western sanctions against Russia begin to bite, it is clear that India stands to gain substantially from its neutral stance going forward. This even as Russia’s special military action in Ukraine enters its fourth week.

President Zelensky, deluded by ambitions of joining both NATO and the EU, egged on by the US and NATO, is under the impression that he might arrive at an acceptable negotiated settlement. He thinks the attrition being experienced by the Russian forces subjected to his NATO given weapons will prevail.

The Russians are very clear that they want a neutral and demilitarised Ukraine and probably one that leans towards Moscow rather than the West. It might want to retain the Black Sea ports as well as much larger tracts of Ukraine than was clear at the beginning of the conflict in defence of the independence of the Donbass region.  

If the end game has begun in terms of the shooting war, there will certainly be much Western discomfort with the terms of the peace to follow. So, for quite some time yet, the sabre-rattling, for example from across the border in Poland, will not stop.

The number of Ukranian refugees are approaching four million. They will pose severe challenges to a Europe not used to anything like it since WWII. Many of these refugees may seek asylum, because their homes and work places have been destroyed.

NATO Europe, convinced that Russia could attack beyond Ukraine, will keep arming itself, and the sanctions on Russia will not be lifted. The nuclear threat will only grow from both sides. The only long-term solution may be to roll back NATO from all the former Soviet protectorates. Europe will have to take the lead in this, because America may prefer to play hard-ball because of its military vested interests, and because of its location across a capacious Atlantic.

The Russians stranded abroad will however be able to make their way back home, despite problems being faced after a sudden cut-off of their money supply because of the sanctions.  

All this turmoil in Europe will have only a limited impact on India. The US has stated, and is on record, that it understands India’s special military relationship with Russia, and is reluctant to impose sanctions for its importation of the portable S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. This, even though it sanctioned NATO member Turkey for the same purchase.

India has not only placed orders for several batteries of the S400, but is in talks to purchase the S500 Prometheus systems as well. These missile shields are considered to be the best in the world as present.

There are a number of other ongoing military collaborations with Russia, for the manufacture of nuclear submarines, fighter aircraft, India’s aircraft carrier programme, its missile programmes, and so on. This is in addition to a strong impetus given to India’s atmanirbhar hardware manufacturing in defence, and inclusive of electronics, IT, cyber-jockeying, AI - all interconnected in today’s security calculus.  

On the other hand, India’s criticality as a US partner in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region, bilaterally, and as a member of QUAD has great significance.

India is seen as the only large military power that can be seen as a counter to Chinese ambitions in the region. This is naturally of paramount consideration for an American public opinion wary of direct involvement in theatres far away from its own shores. The Vietnam and Korean wars of a previous generation are not forgotten, let alone the recent inconclusive involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supplying military equipment is one thing, but getting involved with nuclear weaponised powers with more body bags streaming back home will destroy any American political leadership.

Such complex and overlapping concerns in the current geopolitical situation must be carefully weighed, and the responses calibrated on both sides. But it also means greater strategic autonomy for a nuclear weaponised India to suit its own best purpose and self-interest, without any effective Western bullying.

India is in the process of importing Russian crude oil at a nearly 30% discount, and payable in Rupees. This even as Europe has not banned the importation of Russian oil and gas. The US has now banned its own, relatively slight, imports of Russian oil and gas, after failing to persuade its European allies to do likewise. NATO may be a long-standing military alliance, but it has grown selective even in the European theatre.

This effectively means that Russia’s main export, apart from military equipment, is not curtailed. There will, no doubt, be shipping, logistic and payment pipeline difficulties because of the sanctions, but it may end up in generating new and competitive ecosystems not dominated by America and the Western Alliance.

 Russia has suggested Indian pharmaceutical companies can fill the void caused in its medicine requirements also sanctioned by the West. India is already exporting large quantities of wheat to Europe and elsewhere to take advantage of the disruptions from Ukraine.

India has had long-standing, reliable, and warm ties in military equipment and cooperation with first the USSR, and now Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The jointly developed BrahMos missiles are acknowledged as some of the deadliest in that space.

It is no wonder that a host of countries, including Taiwan, itself under considerable threat from China, want to buy it in different configurations for use in land, sea and air.

The irony of the global changes occasioned by the warfare in Ukraine is that our other diversified suppliers of military equipment, such as France and Israel are more or less in the US/NATO and Western Alliance camp. Will they be able to extend hearty cooperation in a pinch, if the US does not want them to?

QUAD partners Australia and Japan are also arraigned against Russia. So, is the QUAD, already differentiated from the AUKUS military alliance, now dead in the water?

Perhaps such extreme exigencies may not occur at this time, but recent Western policies and their pointed insularity do give India a lot of food for thought. If we go to war with China and Pakistan we may well be on our own. Can Russia stand by us in a conflict with China? If any country has the gumption to do so, it is probably Putin’s Russia. On the other hand, could Russia engineer a rapprochement between India and China? Why does the Chinese foreign minister want to visit India despite the standoff along the LoC?  

Meanwhile, oil prices have begun to stabilise at around $ 80 a barrel, down from a dizzying $118, even as Saudi Arabia has indicated it could sell to China in Yuan. The dominance of the US dollar as the pole currency is being altered by recent circumstances.  

Russia is determined to achieve its strategic objectives in Ukraine flying in the face of immense pressure and the proxy war from the EU, NATO, America, and the broader Western allies.

China is being warned by America that there will be consequences imposed because of its neutrality, moves to help Russia with purchases of crude oil, loans, a Yuan-Ruble platform, Chinese banking to nullify the effects of an exclusion from the SWIFT banking system.

China may not budge, but will have to walk the diplomatic tight-rope because its trade with the West is worth more than ten times its trade with Russia.

 Interestingly, Russia’s Burger King franchisee has refused to stop operations despite advice from the parent company in the US. Russia has legitimised patent and copyright piracy, and is in the process of seizing Western assets including over $ 10 billion worth of leased aircraft.

This proxy war may not go all that well for the West, anymore than the shooting war is going for Zelensky and his beleaguered countrymen.  

(1,289 words)

March 19^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Unprecedented Times In Uttar Pradesh And Punjab Predicted By All Exit Polls

There has never been a time when an incumbent chief minister, having completed a full five-year term, won a second consecutive term in the politically bellwether state Uttar Pradesh (UP).

Only BSP’s supremo Mayawati and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav have ever completed a full-term in office in UP before Yogi Adityanath, and it is they who are also featured in the unequal contest of 2022.

The SP is expected to as much as double or even treble its tally from 2017 in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, but fall well short of the half way mark in the 403 seat house.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi  and his heavyweight ministers from the Centre, their ‘Double-Engine Sarkar’, is about to pull off this pathbreaking feat.

This replete with heavy does of Vikas and Suraksha, surges of Hindutva from pride of never-seen-before progress in Ayodhya and Varanasi, ‘Baba’s Bulldozer’ revving its engines and demolishing the properties of the wicked, Bahubalis put to flight, killed, or behind bars.

Then there is the huge economic gains in the state’s GDP, rocketing it up from No.8 to No. 2 amongst all states, supported by the start of massive strategic industrialisation, loads of highly visible infrastructure implementations, the betterment of agriculture and sustained welfare measures for the poor.

For the first time perhaps, such positive and nation-building factors seem to have swamped the traditional electoral calculations of caste, religion, employment as socialist largesse, even vendetta politics designed to settle scores. 

The projected win in UP along with the retention of Bihar puts the BJP/NDA in the pole position for winning the general elections in 2024. That is why no stone was left unturned in the nurture of this state and the relentless campaigning.

This is the trendline, according to all the different Exit Polls revealed on Monday 7^th March evening, after the last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls ended. They give the BJP a minimum of 225 seats in the Times Now-Veto poll and as much as 326 in the upper end of the India Today-Axis poll.

As far as exit polls go, the remarkable thing about this sextet, sponsored by various TV News media houses, is that they all indicate the same trend-line for all the five states surveyed.

That they by and large have stuck to the fewer pre-poll surveys, is another noteworthy thing. It implies very little changed during the seven phases of polling in Uttar Pradesh and the one-dayer in Punjab, in particular, despite the best efforts of all contenders.

If the results on the 10^th of March bear out these exit poll findings, it would appear that the voters, which include large numbers of women, had made up their minds in advance.

The other huge development these exit polls point to is that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP[Gautam Mu1] ) is going to win the state of Punjab, on its own, with a majority. Here the numbers have tightened in AAP’s favour since the pre-poll surveys.

This success, if borne out on the 10^th , will change the binary nature of Punjab politics which has long been dominated by the Congress or the Akali Dal-BJP combine.  It was taken as a given that the Sikh dominated state would not brook the advent of an ‘outsider’.

Some scepticism on the pre-poll and exit poll findings on Punjab have been expressed. This is based on the overestimation of AAP’s showing in 2017,  when they nevertheless bagged 20 seats.

This time it looks like there is no stopping Arvind Kejriwal and his designated chief minister face Bhagwant Mann. Not even constant barbs about Mann’s alcoholism have made a dent. Nor have doubts and innuendos raised about the AAP’s fraternising with Khalistani elements. Punjab has apparently voted for decisive change.

It is clear that an AAP win in Punjab will reverberate in national politics. Based on how well AAP does in the state, and how stable its government proves to be, this party could conceivably win in other states too.

It has narrowed the credibility gap with regard to AAP’s appeal beyond the half-state of Delhi in one fell swoop, and nothing will be the same for it again. AAP has gained substantially in stature via this projected win. And once again, the minimum has it short of a majority at 51 seats in the 117 seat assembly. This per ABP News CVoter poll, but the maximum has AAP at 111 in the News24-Today’s Chanakya poll.

Assuming an AAP win, it will be the rise of a new force standing on the ruins of the Congress Party in Punjab despite  the latter’s contortions in recent months. As for security of the border state, there is no real basis for assuming the AAP will take it less seriously than it deserves. The recent collusive and seditious menacing of the prime minister on his aborted visit to a border area of Punjab demonstrated that perhaps it is Congress that cannot be trusted.

In Manipur it appears to be a clear and comfortable win for the BJP, but Congress still lives in Uttarakhand and Goa.

In both states the exit polls reveal very close contests between the BJP and Congress. In the end, if these polls are borne out for the hill state and the beach state, then adroit post-election management may win the day for either side, assuming there is no outright win, however razor thin.

A Congress win in either or both states will help it survive better in national politics, with just Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh in its kitty with its own chief ministers after the loss of Punjab.

Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra have Congress participation, it is true, but it would be a stretch to call them Congress states.

However, as it stands, the exit polls on Uttarakhand and Goa reveal voter unhappiness with the performance of the BJP over the last five years. In Uttarakhand, there were three different chief ministers, and only the current incumbent  Pushkar Singh Dhami seems to have struck a chord with the people of the state.

In Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, and his flock have been dogged by complaints of massive corruption. This even though Sawant was hand-picked by former chief minister and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. If this is so, both the central leadership and the local organisation in Goa need to make changes fast if they manage to retain the state.

 

(1,067 words)

March 8^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

---

 [Gautam Mu1] Aadmi Party

 

How Many In the Opposition Are Jihadi Patrons?

In the midst of this election season, a harsh trial court verdict awarded the death sentence to 38 of 49 accused in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case of 2008.  The quantum of punishment in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case followed on from the initial verdict on February 8^th, 2022. Another 11 were awarded life imprisonment for the length of their natural lives. There were 38 acquittals as well by Special Judge AR Patel in the Ahmedabad Sessions Court.  Of these 38, as many as 17 will stay in custody over accusations in other cases.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself targeted  in the carnage of 13 years ago, along with the entire top drawer leadership in Gujarat at the time, hailed the long-delayed verdict.

In an emotional speech on the campaign trail at Hardoi, Lucknow, and Varanasi, he said he had vowed that the perpetrators would be brought to justice, holding a fistful of the blood-soaked soil at the time. He then suggested the Samajwadi Party (SP), main challenger to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh 2022, is sympathetic to such terrorists.

The announcement of the quantum of punishment in the Ahmedabad Blasts Case, coincided with the surfacing of a photo of Akhilesh Yadav, the SP supremo and former Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh, hobnobbing with Mohammed Shadab, father of Mohamed Saif.  The latter is one of the accused who has also been condemned to death, not only in this case, but the 2008 Jaipur serial blasts case as well.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh joined the prime minister by  also accusing the earlier SP government of attempting to withdraw 13 cases against some of the Ahmedabad Blasts and other attack accused terrorists who hailed from Uttar Pradesh. He also confirmed that Mohammad Shadab operated as an important functionary of the SP.  Adityanath said the judiciary refused the SP government’s requests to withdraw the cases in 2013.

From the SP point of view, such sympathetic posturing with jihadis is probably deemed essential to woo their minority voters. It has become something of a norm in some Opposition circles. After all, the Congress Party has long done it too. Most recently they have offered full-throated support to the radical Islamic organisation Popular Front of India (PFI), and its student wing, the Campus Front of India (CFI) instigated hijab row.

This too has likely been timed to vitiate the election atmosphere amongst Muslim female voters in Uttar Pradesh. To avoid a ban, the PFI is distributing its activity into a number of NGOs at present. This, of course, is a tried and tested Pakistani terrorist organisation strategy.

Congress is seen to be close to Pakistan as well as China and there are documented interactions between the grand old party and these enemy countries that suggest making common cause to bring down the Modi Government. There is no attempt at a nationalist outlook.  A senior Congress leader, both a Modi-baiter and a Pakistan lover, has recently questioned the Modi government’s accelerated militarisation programme.  He wonders why it is needed.

The Shiv Sena is also seen pandering to minority concerns including those that emanate from Pakistan, in a marked departure from its stance when it was led by Balasaheb Thackeray. This is because it fears its erstwhile Hindutva favouring voters have abandoned it for the BJP. This, on the formation of the Aghadi government with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress.

Collectively, these politicians, with others fearful of their own survival such as KCR from Telangana, question and cast doubt not only on the central government’s declarations, but even on those of the Armed Forces.

Meanwhile in the border-state of Punjab, also in these polls, putative front-runner the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is accused by one of their estranged senior founder members of cosying up to the Khalistani separatists. The Home Minister has promised a detailed investigation. 

Power at any cost seems to be the motto in much of the Opposition.

Minority attacks against innocent civilians, institutions, commercial areas, hospitals, restaurants, have been part of the discourse for many years now. These sometimes boil over into full-fledged riots and arson as well. This is in addition to military targets, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

All of this terrorist activity is aided and abetted by Pakistani terrorists,  domestic moles, Bangladeshi terrorists, Maoists including Urban Maoists (aided by China), North Eastern Separatists, Maoist conclaves in Central India,  and other fifth columnists, financed by foreign interests. The ones involving Muslims have increased in frequency after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. And now there is a fresh grouse in certain radicalised Muslim quarters over the totally legitimate building of the grand Ram Temple ay Ayodhya.

But most of all, it is the BJP/RSS combine that is seen as a threat, not only by the minorities who see it as a loss of power and privilege, but the political parties that depend on them for their performance at the hustings.

SP is a prime example. As is the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal. The Congress is furious too, but stands discredited amongst the bulk of the voters all over the country.  The AAP in its bid to power in other states, has added the Khalistanis to the Muslims it woos assiduously in the little half-state of Delhi it controls.

But those who depend on minority votes are willy-nilly drawn into anti-national activity they find difficult to defend when it comes to the surface in the judiciary and the media. This in turn hardens the attitudes of the majority community, unifying them over caste, region and the lure of the Communists and the Left. This makes it increasingly difficult for Muslim-backed parties to come to power. There is, therefore, a certain desperation in the air that is resorting to violence.

While details of court submissions from the Ahmedabad Blasts Case from prosecution and defence lawyers over more than a decade and the sentencing order have not been put out in the public domain yet, the blasts were carried out reportedly in revenge for the 2002 Godhra Riots.

There is open treason as well. The key conspirator, Sadar Nagori, leader of the banned SIMI, one of the 38 handed the death sentence, said ‘The Constitution does not count for me’ after the verdict.

More than 246 were injured and 56 killed in the multiple blasts from more than 22 bombs in 2008, many of them concealed in bicycles and let off at crowded places in Ahmedabad. Modi, wanting to milk the back story, made a opportunistic point of wondering why the SP had chosen the bicycle for its symbol.

In the context of thinly populated Canada’s recent firm handling of illegal blockades that brought the shenanigans to an end in under three weeks with no casualties, the Indian government’s soft stance on terrorists and their patrons may well need to be reviewed.

If the fear is that international media will rise up in condemnation, it might do some good to reflect on why our Gandhian approach is disregarded, and Modi is called a dictator and a fascist anyway. Surely it is agenda driven, and the main task of the West, the Chinese, and certain Islamic countries, is to retard the growth and strength of a resurgent India.

The Opposition, in cahoots with separatists and Islamists suits them well. India is meant to be weak and biddable in their book. The New India is much too assertive for the neo-colonialists. And a Hindu resurgence is incomprehensible to many.

On our part, we seem to be changing too. The Modi Government is aware of the exasperated public opinion. Recent pronouncements of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on China and our neutral stance on Ukraine are neither apologetic, nor submissive.

(1,292 words)

February 21^st, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Punjab Elections: Channi-Vadra Parochialism

It makes for quite a composition. A Christian-Dalit-Sikh just months old Congress CM (and CM candidate) Charanjit Singh Channi, atop a red tractor. And a Congress High Command nominee, Priyanka Vadra, of mixed parentage, perched to his side and slightly behind.

Channi calls Priyanka Vadra a ‘Punjaban’. This, despite Priyanka being half Italian plus a mixture of ancestors from other regions, none of them Punjab. Channi thinks she is a Punjaban, only by virtue of her marriage to an Anglo-Indian Punjabi combo from, (originally), Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. 

Channi declares from atop the tractor that ‘UP, Bihar de bhayye’ should leave Punjab. At the time, the televised photo-opportunity gets a quota of claps and wolf-whistles from the faithful before the duo. Vadra herself claps and grins her delight, displays her dimples, her much mentioned Indira Gandhi nose.

Channi’s inexperience in high politics shines through as he explains after a substantial backlash from the BJP’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Nitish Kumar CM and supremo of the JDU in Bihar.

Channi says, to make matters worse, that he meant the Aam Aadmi Party leaders such as Durgesh Pathak, Sanjay Singh and Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP are seen as the front-runners to form the next government in Punjab by the findings of several opinion polls.

Prime Minister Modi, taking Channi at his word, pointed out that Guru Govind Singh was born in Patna Sahib in Bihar. Guru Ravidas, a Dalit icon, said the prime minister, whose birth anniversary was just celebrated, was born in Uttar Pradesh.

In Patna, CM Nitish Kumar said he was ‘stunned’ by the comments. He continued, ‘Do they know what is the contribution of the people of Bihar in Punjab and how many are living and serving there?’

Channi then fell over himself to course-correct. He said ‘Those who come from UP, Bihar and Rajasthan and work in Punjab-Punjab belongs to them as much as it does to us’.

Vadra, chimed in with ‘ All that CM Charanjit Channi said was that Punjab should be run by Punjabis’.  Yes, but she may find that the people of Punjab choose the so-called outsider AAP instead this time.

Besides, there could be darker motives in the Congress. The Khalistan movement is beginning to revive. The storming of the Red Fort had one of its proponents, Deep Sidhu making no secret of it. His recent death in a car crash and the subsequent funeral where slogans for Khalistan rent the air are sobering realities. The Canadian Sikh/Khalistani financial and physical contributions to the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA stir and the farmer protests thereafter are threats to India’s internal security well recognised by the government at the centre.

Some Punjabi Sikh politicians like Navjot Singh Sidhu have precipitated  foreign policy embarrassments by going to Pakistan and embracing General Qamar Javed Bajwa, their Army Chief. Another stalwart of the Pakistan loving brigade, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s photograph was plastered all over Congress promotion material recently. Since he hasn’t said a word lately, a rumour started that he had probably died. However, happily he is very much amongst us, but Congress probably wanted to remind the public of his sympathies.  

Other Sikh Punjabis as a whole are apparently not interested in sharing any power with its 38% plus Hindu Punjabi population, let alone the outsiders being targeted by Channi and Vadra here.

Would they ideally like Punjab to be an exclusively Sikh, perhaps Khalistani state? Pakistan’s ISI is keen on this outcome, and is reportedly doing everything possible to assist. Some reports suggest the AAP is also not averse to joining hands with the Khalistanis and their aim of creating a breakaway independent state.

Of late there has also been a huge upsurge in evangelical conversions of Sikhs to Christianity and the establishment of scores of new churches. Charanjit Singh Channi, a product of this process, and possibly the Congress High Command led by Sonia Gandhi, are apparently in favour. What this implies in terms of national security in this, a border state is not very clear, unless it leads to greater Western influence. 

 There is a massive drug problem in the state as a result of a nexus between elements on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan international border, some associated with the Akali Dal. Drones have also been regularly dropping arms and ammunition on our side, along with drugs, to finance the anti-national activity.

The Congress government in Punjab, particularly after the exit of Captain Amarinder Singh as CM, have raised strident objections to the extended patrolling of the border area by the BSF at the instance of the centre. West Bengal, where the same action has been taken simultaneously, is also vehemently opposed to the BSF presence along the border with Bangladesh.

This trend of parochialism and localism has been on display in a number of other states going to elections, most recently in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee and the TMC scored big by portraying The BJP as predatory outsiders.

It has also been on display at other times, as in the move to reserve government and private sector jobs for the people of the state elsewhere. But most recently, Haryana was disallowed by its High Court to reserve 75% of the jobs for locals. These are trends with far reaching consequences, as the best people for various jobs may be disbarred just for not belonging to a given state. In addition to reservations for weaker sections which are rife already, this additional populism may soon become unworkable.

Nevertheless, there are a number of election-time pledges to reserve jobs for Punjabis from different political parties. Ditto in other states, which have gone, or are still going through the various phases of the polls. 

The fissiparous tendencies, being fanned by the Congress Party, seen to be in consultations with both Pakistan and China, were given voice and encouragement recently by MP Rahul Gandhi. In his speech in parliament, he called India a ‘union of states’ rather than a nation. He suggested they had every right to formulate their own policies to suit themselves. Rahul Gandhi also left out the entire North East of India in a recent tweet on the extent of India. He placed himself as opposed to the idea of a centralisation of power, and the prime minister acting like a ‘king’.

Here seems to be a plan afoot with the Congress party and those others unable to secure gains in electoral politics, to try and challenge the law and order situation on the street instead. The latest Hijab agitations, which it backs along with some Islamic organisations, is yet another example of this strategy.

But at the same time, it is creeping up as an overall Opposition strategy to bring down the NDA. So what if it loosens the bolts of national unity in the process?

(1,135 words)

February 18^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Hijab Agitation: Election-Time Disruptive Manufactured Piety

The grandest of mosques as well as the humblest ones, in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, all of Arabia, and around the world, do not let Muslim women pray in them. They are exclusively male provinces, adults and children alike, when the faithful are called to prayer five times a day.

Women are expected to pray at home. Some places allow women to congregate separately in the open courtyards outside the mosque buildings.

In many parts of the orthodox Muslim world such as current day Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, women are still required to be covered head to foot in burkhas when they go out. Any violations are dealt with harshly. There are religious police keeping vigil.

The separation of the sexes in public areas, beaches, swimming pools, the ability of women to step out with men who are not their husbands or brothers, their ability to seek or continue in employment, run businesses, or drive cars are by no means automatic entitlements. This unlike their male counterparts, married or unmarried. The restrictions placed on female attire also varies from country to country in the Islamic world.

But, overall, it is clear that Muslim men control the narrative on what is permissible. It is therefore rare to see any agitation led by women in Islamic countries.

However, in India, the CAA agitation at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi where arterial roads connecting Delhi to Noida were blocked by squatting agitators for months, was almost exclusively peopled by Muslim women. When it  spread to other parts such as North-East Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata, once again there were almost exclusively women protestors, sometimes ensconced with their young children. As a consequence, the authorities were forced to treat the agitators with kid gloves despite their illegal and mostly unauthorised occupation of public areas not designated for protests.

The sudden appearance of the Hijab agitation in some schools of Karnataka, spreading outside them to Maharashtra and Delhi, has been called violative of the ‘religious freedom’ of Muslims. This is how the Popular Front of India (PFI), a hard-line Islamic organisation, peopled by men, framed it. Its student wing The Campus Front of India, (CFI) ‘counselled’ some Muslim young women to prioritise Hijab wearing in schools over the need to receive education in the last quarter of 2021. The agitation then began in December 2021. Many Muslim women subsequently joined the CFI themselves.

In Delhi, the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islam Hind is reportedly working on spreading the agitation  nationally, with its epicentre in Delhi.

The Congress Party has come out in support of the demand to wear Hijabs to school. Lawyer and former Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has called the Hijab ‘row’  an issue of freedom of choice. Lawyer and former union minister of different ministries Kapil Sibal has sought to move the hearing on the hijab ban  from the High Court in Bengaluru to the Supreme Court (SC) in Delhi. In addition, a separate plea has been filed in the SC on the subject.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry has made bold to summon a senior embassy official Suresh Kumar in Islamabad to condemn the Hijab ban in Karnataka. Its foreign minister has also tweeted on the subject, accusing the Indian government of refusing education to young Muslim women and attempting to confine them to Islamic ghettos. India reacted by Suresh Kumar calling all these comments and accusations ‘baseless’.

Malala Yousafzai, now married and safely ensconced in the UK, has demanded that young Indian Muslim women be allowed to wear the Hijab in Karnataka schools. She finds it ‘horrifying’ that they are not allowed to. This after being shot in the head for merely attending school in Pakistan, circa 2012.

The Hijab agitation comes shortly after Pakistani franchisees of important international companies active in India such as Hyundai and Kia Motors, Suzuki Motors, Toyota, KFC, PizzaHut, international car battery companies, and so on, issuing advertisements in favour of the Pakistani version of Kashmir Solidarity Day and ‘right to freedom’. That this was followed by a slew of apologies from the parent companies for the unauthorised use of their names, is how that ended.

So, spontaneous agitation this is not! It is likely more sponsors will emerge in the coming days for a familiar toolkit keen on promoting riots, a bad investment climate for foreign investors, and painting the present government as communal. Some media organisations abroad are already wading in.

However, for now, Karnataka, via their School Education Department of Karnataka under Section 133(2) of the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, has  called for  school goers to wear clothing which protects ‘equality, integrity and does not hinder with public order’. A round-about way of saying respect the uniform. This directive has led to some schools banning the Hijab. Madhya Pradesh, likewise has followed suit.

The legal plaint against the ban has been referred to a three-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court including its chief justice, and efforts to get the Supreme Court to intervene have not borne fruit.

There is a raging debate in the media on the pros and cons of the Hijab agitation at this time when five states, notably Uttar Pradesh with a sizeable Muslim population, are going to the polls. It is seen by some as an effort to influence female Muslim voters and blunt the favourable impression many have developed towards the BJP. This not just for a vast improvement in law and order parameters in Uttar Pradesh but also after the central government outlawed arbitrary verbal, phoned, emailed and whatsapped Triple Talaq. Other TV warriors have, of course, been waxing eloquent on religious rights.

The demand to be allowed to wear Hijabs to schools over and above the uniforms in Karnataka and the religious trend it implies, are not universally seconded by young Muslim women across the country. In Bihar, young Muslim women went on the rampage, pelting stones at the gates of their hostel, after being asked to wear burkhas on campus. They said the superintendent of their hostel in Bhagalpur was trying to implement Taliban style Sharia Law in the hostel. The authorities are looking into their complaints.

Meanwhile, anti-hijab protests, mostly of young Hindu men in saffron scarves and turbans, in counterpoint and counter-polarisation, have sprung up. Hindutva organisations such as Hindu Jagrana Vedike (HJV), Bajrang Dal and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Sri Rama Sene, have reportedly asked students affiliated with them to organise these protests. The organisations have also sought to draw in other Hindu youth.

What is clear this time is that the various Toolkit Warriors are not getting a traffic free one-way street for their manufactured protests. Countering efforts have been quick to react. There is both polarisation on one kind and counter polarisation of the other kind. It is likely however that agitations on both sides of the fence will disappear once the five assembly election results are out on March 10, 2022. Till next time the elections roll around in 2023.

(1,163 words)

February 11^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

   

 

Rahul Gandhi: The Practice Of Selective Amnesia

The practice of selective amnesia is a time-tested technique used by Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and/or his speech writers.

He did it again with a series of outrageous allegations against the government of Narendra Modi from his middle-row-corner perch in the Lok Sabha during this Winter Session. Ostensibly, he was commenting on the presidential address.

The assumption from his handlers is probably that if the nationally televised speech is emotive, and delivered with a degree of verve, a section of the public sympathetic to the storied Congress Party, can be swayed.

This, irrespective of all the missing bits of the argument. Emphasis is all. Never mind the specious content. That can be left to the supporters of the ruling party to mull over and argue about. The shooting and the scooting would have been accomplished anyway. Some will ask if Rahul Gandhi is ready at last. At least he delivered a 44-minute speech with the bizarre arguments coherently put.

There is also the urgent necessity of yet another ‘coming of age’ claim to the leadership of the combined Opposition, should it manifest.  Open challenges from Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, riding high on her victory against the BJP in a keenly fought assembly election, must be thwarted. And then there is the dark horse Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, waiting to first take Punjab in the upcoming elections, before possibly casting his hat into the ring as well. Veteran warriors such as Sharad Pawar might possibly be content with playing king maker in 2024. Others, such as KCR and MK Stalin are also stirring.

As for the technique of the speech itself, it deserves marks for audacity. That it is impossible to start India’s recent political history only from May 2014, when his party was routed in the general elections by the BJP/RSS/NDA combine, is something Rahul Gandhi finds difficult to accept.

He repeatedly called Narendra Modi, a very successful elected politician with over 20 years in high office, risen from very humble beginnings and a small town in Gujarat - a king, by implication a dictatorial figure.

This coming from a political dynastic scion who has enormous if unexplained wealth, and has never worked for a living, unless you count being an MP. There was a preening for the cameras to rival a Lawrence Olivier soliloquy. The irony of it was he was doing so in a proudly republican parliament. And that it is comic to accuse this government for having no sense of history, coming from him.

 The fantasies are lurid. For Rahul Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, who started it all for Rahul Gandhi, if you refuse to count Subhas Chandra Bose, was probably a sterling democrat. One who never acted ruthlessly against his opponents. One who was fiercely antagonistic to Chinese ambitions in Tibet and the Akshai Chin. One who objected strenuously when Pakistan ceded part of the Akshai Chin to China so that it could build a road to Tibet through it. One who didn’t give up the seat offered to India in the UNSC, saying pehle aap in a wonderful demonstration of political magnanimity. One who tamely lost huge tracts of Indian territory to China in 1962.

But Nehru said, (or did he, according to Rahul Gandhi’s selective amnesia), it didn’t matter, because ‘not a blade of grass grows on it’.

The trouble is, seven years of uncovering the unvarnished truth about the Congress-UPA governments, their multiple blunders and deceptions, not to mention the massive corruption, has left little room for taking the moral high ground. To pose, again and again, as the saviour of the poor, is not in accordance with the facts.

Rahul Gandhi does not remember that it was the UPA government of Manmohan Singh, remote-controlled by his mother Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of the Congress Party, that refused to retaliate militarily against 26/11. Was this so as not to upset Pakistan? If this is an example of how the Congress prevented China and Pakistan coming together, then heaven help us.

 The righteous dream continued. Nehru was followed shortly by a kindly, democratic, Indira Gandhi, who never invoked Article 356 of the Indian Constitution to topple elected state governments, in what Rahul Gandhi called ‘A Union of States’. She didn’t use the IAF to bomb Mizoram to quell dissidence. She never imposed the draconian Emergency. Nor did she invade the Golden Temple in Amritsar with tanks and soldiers.

 Indira Gandhi was followed by Rajiv Gandhi, who never condoned the massacre of thousands of ordinary Sikhs in retaliation for the assassination of his mother in 1984.

Then there was the Rahul Gandhi version of The Tale Of Two Cities, the Dickensian tale on the French Revolution. The oft applied characterisation of the Two Indias, a repeat of his earlier ‘suit-boot sarkar’ jibe, namely, one for the very rich, and one for the rest. The key angst was against the rich companies in the formal sector, Ambani & Adani in particular, versus the alleged neglect of the MSME Sector. Tata somehow was not mentioned. But even Bollywood has largely dropped this rich-girl-poor-boy trope in less Socialist times.

According to Rahul Gandhi, ‘Make in India’ cannot go forward without the MSMEs and the unorganised sector. It is doomed.This flies in the face of the considerable success of the aatmanirbhar defence manufacturing initiative of the Modi government. L&T, not one of his usual targets, is manufacturing thousands of crores worth of defence equipment.

Job creation is impossible without encouraging the MSME sector says Rahul Gandhi, completely ignoring all the financing efforts made by the Modi government in this regard. MSMEs have also attached themselves to the major industrial initiatives being taken by the large companies in concert with the Government of India.

Rahul Gandhi plumps for a consultative vision of the union of states which he alleges is missing. He ignored the strident non-cooperation of the Opposition allied to the Congress Party, both in parliament and outside it, on the streets. Other political parties, who do not adhere to the Congress line, can and have found common cause on a case-to-case basis multiple times over the last seven years.

He alleges that the institutions of India are being captured by the ruling government, and included the EC and the Judiciary in this. There are already some legalistic reactions to these comments.

His suggestions that the autocratic ways of the Modi government will reap the whirlwind do not jive at all with the iron-fisted High Command culture of the Gandhi family. That it has brought the Grand Old Party to the point of near extinction both as a Party and one in power, is the real truth that Rahul Gandhi can’t deal with. He thinks he can make it all better by somehow getting rid of Narendra Modi from power. But every attempt makes the BJP/RSS/NDA more successful.

The people, the voting public, even the Congress Party rank and file, and not a few of its leaders, don’t seem to be buying his arguments. But, in the world of Rahul Gandhi and his remaining sycophants, this was a dazzlingly brilliant speech.

His bizarre attack on the Home Minister Amit Shah wearing his house slippers while visiting Manipuri politicians were asked to leave their street-shoes outside, was a failed attempt to paint this government as imperial. The sanskari point made by Minister Piyush Goyal was all but lost on him.

Rahul Gandhi does not remember the way he himself treated Himanta Biswa Sarma, the present NDA Chief Minister of Assam. Rahul Gandhi cancelled several appointments urgently sought by Sarma when things were slipping in Assam, before finally seeing him as the then Congress President. Sarma said how in this final meeting, Rahul Gandhi concentrated on feeding his dog Pidi biscuits while largely ignoring Sarma. This occasioned Sarma to leave the Congress Party. And in due course, this resulted in the loss of Assam and the North East for the Congress.

The US has made it clear it does not agree with the fascistic innuendos and other allegations made by Rahul Gandhi in his speech of February 2^nd, 2022.

The attempt to loosen the bolts of national unity by suggesting ‘fissiparous tendencies’, a term much used in the seventies if not by Rahul Gandhi, are good for federalism, is probably the most pernicious of his comments.

 The praise of China’s clarity of vision also makes people wonder what the content of the agreement the Gandhi family signed with the Chinese on behalf of the Congress Party entails. We would, of course, have to apply to the Chinese Embassy in Chanakyapuri to find out.

 

(1,436 words)

February 4^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee