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Editorials - 27-03-2022

P Chidambaram writes: Why cannot India say that the war is unjustified? Why cannot India appeal to Russia to stop raining bombs on the civilian population and destroying homes, schools and hospitals?

I have been extremely distressed by the war which Russia is waging on Ukraine (that will enter the 32nd day when you read this column). When I began to take interest in developments around the world, six words uttered by Pope John XXIII (the ‘Good Pope’) had made a deep impression on me: No More War, Never Again War.

Since then, of course, there have been many wars in the world — big, small; short, long; on own territory, on the border, in a far away land; proxy wars etc. The one eternal truth that emerged from these 20th/21st century wars was that there will be no winner at the end of the war. War appears to offer no solution to any festering problem. Despite India’s convincing victory in the 1971 war, India and Pakistan remain bitter rivals locked in a territorial dispute. Despite two superpowers taking turns to ‘liberate’ Afghanistan, that country is under the firm control of the Taliban.

Pot & Kettle

Thirty years after Russia supposedly threw off the yoke of the Communist Party, Russia’s ruler is a former member of the feared intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union. Mr Vladimir Putin has been in office since May 2000 and wields absolute power. Under Mr Putin’s rule, Russia has annexed Crimea, recognised the two break-away ‘republics’ of the Donbas region of Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk), prised two regions from Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and extended military assistance to Syria to quell a civil war. However, nothing prepared the world for the war that Russia is waging on Ukraine.

It must be admitted that everything that Russia has done in the last 20 years, the Western countries, especially the United States, had done in the 20th century. Regime change was a favourite pastime of American presidents. Instigating civilian unrest, engineering military coups, plotting political assassinations, installing puppet regimes, imposing economic sanctions — nothing was forbidden. The most deplorable and unjustified war waged by the United States was in Vietnam. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq on the blatantly false pretext that Saddam Hussein had accumulated weapons of mass destruction.

Cause is no cause

What is unfolding in Ukraine is a heart-rending tragedy. The origins of the Russia-Ukraine war may be traced, partly, to the unrelenting expansion of NATO. At the end of the Cold War, unified Germany took the place of West Germany and the then US Secretary of State James Baker assured Russia that NATO will not ‘move an inch beyond Germany’. The German border was 5,439 kilometres away from Russia. Since 1999 NATO has expanded to include 14 new member-countries. As Georgia and Ukraine tilted towards the 30-member NATO, and the organisation too seemed willing, Russia drew the red lines. If the two countries joined NATO, Russia will be staring at NATO across its border. Far from NATO not moving an inch beyond Germany, NATO would have arrived within an inch of Russia.

Russia was genuinely concerned about its security and it received no credible assurances from the US or other NATO countries, but no one had crossed the Russia-drawn red lines. In fact, when Russia annexed Crimea (which was part of Ukraine) and two regions of Georgia were absorbed into Russia, the US and the NATO countries quietly acquiesced. There was no reason for Russia to escalate its opposition to Ukraine and start a destructive war.

The extent of devastation and destruction in Ukraine caused by the war is horrendous. Of Ukraine’s population of 44 million, nearly 3.5 million have fled the country and another 6.5 million (including half of all children) have been displaced from their homes. Towns have been razed; the port city of Mariupol has been reduced to a rubble. Millions are stranded without food, water or medicine. Thousands have been killed. Yet, Ukraine’s President and the people are defiant and have refused to surrender. Whenever the war ends, there will be no winner. Certainly, Russia will not be a winner. It will not be able to ‘annex’ Ukraine. On the contrary, Russia would have earned a hostile neighbour and a permanent enemy, it would have lost thousands of young soldiers and billions of rubles worth of military hardware, many young and talented Russians would have quietly left the country and its economy would be crippled. Russia will gain neither security nor respect.

Diminished India

As an Indian I feel helpless. I am clueless about the Indian government’s policy. In my view, no argument can justify the war. So, despite the six principles outlined by the External Affairs Minister, why cannot India say that the war is unjustified? Why cannot India appeal to Russia to stop raining bombs on the civilian population and destroying homes, schools and hospitals? Why cannot the Prime Minister travel to Moscow and Kyiv and try to mediate a ceasefire like the Prime Minister of Israel, who is making a brave attempt to do so? What has rendered India so incapable of any initiative and so impotent to intervene?

This essay is not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the conduct of foreign policy. This is a personal view that I hold and that I have heard from several thoughtful observers: the silence in the face of a grave moral challenge and the repeated abstentions in world fora have diminished India.



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Tavleen Singh writes: Dissent is so absent from the conversations in India today that there are not even questions asked about why we have not moved away from our debilitating dependence on Russian armaments decades after the Soviet Union died.

Last week marked a month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian president made an appeal for people who loved freedom and democracy to come out into their cities, their streets and their squares bearing symbols of support for Ukraine. In India the day passed without anyone doing this as has every day since Vladimir Putin began his horrifying war against the people of Ukraine. It is so evil a war that maternity homes, hospitals, and shelters marked ‘children’ have been bombed. Flourishing, beautiful cities have been reduced to rubble. But these atrocities evoked in India barely audible noises of sympathy, condemnation, or concern.

It is not just the Government of India that has seemed unmoved by the horror of what is happening in Ukraine. Ordinary Indians seem equally impervious. It is my unhappy task to spend some time every day on Twitter because it is today’s public square. And what has astounded me is the number of people who are not part of the BJP’s troll army who have expressed hatred of the West and deep sympathy for Russia. Putin’s argument that he was forced to invade Ukraine because NATO was inching too close to Russia’s sphere of influence has more support in India perhaps than in any other democratic country.

Having spent my formative years in an India that was deeply anti-American and passionately pro-Soviet, memories of that time have returned in floods every time I made my excursions on social media. I cut my political teeth when Indira Gandhi was prime minister and remember that there was not a single newspaper office in Delhi then in which you could express admiration of the Americans without being called a CIA agent.

At the same time, it was considered perfectly acceptable to be quite literally in the pay of the Soviet Union. People who sent their sons and daughters to American universities were not ashamed to expound hypocritically upon the ‘evils’ of capitalism in the drawing rooms of Delhi. This had something to do with the East India Company mindset that developed collectively under the British Raj. Then came our shift from grim socialist economic policies to more liberal ones and India changed. Or so we thought.

It appears now that the change was illusory. Beneath our obvious affection for American colleges, culture, food, airport novels and Hollywood appear to remain intact political ideas that have a more definite connect with autocracies than democracies. While trying to make the case on social media that we should at least be horrified by the way Putin has attacked civilian targets, I have found myself subjected to an avalanche of tweets that order me to shut up because there is no difference between what the Russians are doing and what the Americans did in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But there are differences. Big, vital differences. It was the American media that attacked its own government for its wars. In Russia journalists who criticise Putin end up jobless or dead. It is the strength of American institutions that halt the possibilities of an autocrat taking charge. We saw this most recently when Donald Trump tried to cancel a general election to stay in power.

What has disturbed me most in the past month is to see the number of young Indians on social media who seem to believe that autocracy is a better idea than democracy. So, I have not only been told to shut up about my sympathy with Ukraine but to remember that the Prime Minister knows best what is in India’s national interest and a ‘presstitute’ like me has no right to question this.

This contempt for dissidence has been manifesting itself for a while on social media. It is not just well-known BJP trolls who screech their hatred of ‘libtards’ and liberal values but genteel housewives, doctors, teachers, writers, and students. It is as if they have not noticed that as a country that proudly claims to be the world’s largest democracy, liberal values are to be cherished and not treated with disdain. Could it be possible that in the ‘new’ India it is autocrats like Putin and Xi Jinping who have become the new heroes?

Ukraine’s only crime was that it demanded the right to be a free and democratic country instead of one bullied into submitting to the will of autocratic Russia. It is extraordinary and very sad that Indians, with no known political allegiances, do not see where India should stand. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced in the past month. Women and children have died horribly in shelters that would not have been attacked under the international rules of war. And, yet the only voices of sympathy for Ukraine I hear in India’s public square are those that say that we cannot speak out openly against Putin’s atrocities because we rely on Russia for our military supplies.

Dissent is so absent from the conversations in India today that there are not even questions asked about why we have not moved away from our debilitating dependence on Russian armaments decades after the Soviet Union died. Putin’s ugly war has revealed a side of India that proves those international watchdogs of democracy right when they label ‘new’ India as being only ‘partly free’. Listen to voices on social media and you will discover that most Indians wear this label as a badge of honour.



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Empowerment robs the woman of her agency and seems like a charitable gift bestowed by the man or society at large.

It is bandied about like a miracle mantra for righting all wrongs, but the term “women empowerment” itself sounds disempowering at best, a condescension at worst. Women don’t need to be empowered, they are the power. And that, in long-held patriarchal hierarchies, takes time to manifest itself, working its way up like a trellis through gaps called opportunities. Empowerment robs the woman of her agency and seems like a charitable gift bestowed by the man or society at large. The assumption being that had they not considered her worthy enough of attention, she would not get there. The woman then seems like the recipient of favours and is expected to be grateful for a good turn done by somebody else.

Last week, British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe understood this the rather hard way. After a long-drawn series of diplomatic efforts, Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrived in the UK from Iran after six years of incarceration. She was ostensibly picked up for spying, but Iranians used her as a bargaining chip to extract something from the UK. All she did on her return was protest against being used as a tool of British diplomacy and ask why she couldn’t have been brought home much earlier. Expected to be demure and thankful to the authorities for negotiating her release, she was trolled for being “ungrateful” and for questioning her “saviours”.

So, what is it that had everybody gunning for her? For one, she said it like it is, implying that her release was delayed to prolong negotiations over the UK’s repayment of a 400 million-pound debt it owed to Iran. Two, she contradicted her husband Richard, who thanked the British government for getting his wife home. “What’s happened now should have happened six years ago,” she thundered. Third, she spoke her piece looking good, neatly turned out, bright nails and all, looking every bit the fighter than the victim. And although former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said that Zaghari-Ratcliffe didn’t owe anybody gratitude but the system owed her an explanation, she was judged, shamed and abused for not conforming to the stereotype that is so casually handed out to women to wear. A poster unbelievably read, “BTW – wish I looked that good when I am ‘broken’. #sendherback.” Some even lambasted her for allowing herself to be caught, by “stupidly” travelling to a hostile country in the first place.

Everybody forgot that while she stood free on a podium, she fervently appealed that other political prisoners be freed from Iran. She just reminded everybody that she was grateful that her imprisonment had given her an opportunity to understand their plight, that civilised London society was ungrateful to those in captivity, who provided them daily fodder to rant against injustice at global high tables.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe reminded us of many of other unthoughtful words that we like to “empower” women with. Some of them are “woman boss” or “bosswoman”, making her look like a sub-species of bosses and somehow less capable or different. If she is too “bossy”, then you undermine her original vision as being unrealistic and impractical. Then there’s “mompreneur.” The maternal traits in a woman certainly don’t make her different from any other aggressive entrepreneur. Besides prefixing “mom” makes her look cutesy and needy for some serious consideration because she has fulfilled her primary social responsibility to the human race by birthing and raising a child. It is about under-cutting her self-worth, definitely not enabling it. And the one we get routinely is, “She’s a strong woman.” Next time you say that to anyone, remember that she appears so because she has run out of options in life. Women don’t need to be gender-qualified for the roles they play, the attitudes they embody or the personality they become. They certainly don’t need words that sound encouraging but imply that they finally deserve something.

The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness or gratefulness depending on the context. Today’s context demands that we be gracious. Not only to Zaghari-Ratcliffe but to all women out there.



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Kartar Singh Sarabha was 19 when he was hanged to death in Lahore in 1915. By then, the engineering student from University of California, Berkeley, was a writer, publisher, co-founder of the Ghadar movement and a freedom fighter.

AS THE AAP government in Punjab orders its offices to put up photos of its mascot Bhagat Singh, what is little known is that there was another, a revolutionary who also died young, who was his hero.

Kartar Singh Sarabha was 19 when he was hanged to death in Lahore in 1915. By then, the engineering student from University of California, Berkeley, was a writer, publisher, co-founder of the Ghadar movement and a freedom fighter.

Prof Chaman Lal, who has penned a book on Sarabha, says Bhagat Singh’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha would never start a meeting without first garlanding Sarabha’s photo.

Dr Gurbhajan Singh Gill, a poet-historian, recounts how Bhagat Singh’s mother Vidyawati told him he always carried Sarabha’s picture in his wallet. “He used to tell her that Sarabha was his ustad.”

Bhagat Singh was seven when he first saw Sarabha. Newly returned from the US, with a fire in him against the British empire, the 18-year-old would visit Bhagat Singh’s father Kishan Singh. The court ruling convicting Sarabha mentioned that Kishan Singh had given Sarabha Rs 1,000 for his movement. “It was a very princely sum for those days,” Prof Lal points out.

Dr Gurdev Singh Sidhu, an authority on the Ghadar movement, says Sarabha was born into a highly educated family — one of his uncles was a doctor in the British army while another was a senior officer in the forestry department. Sarabha, who lost his father at three and mother at 12, was brought up by his grandfather Badan Singh Grewal, who moved him from Malwa Khalsa high school to Arya High School, Ludhiana, before packing him off to Cuttack where his uncle was posted.

At Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack, his teachers included the famous nationalist Beni Madhab Das, who inspired Subhas Chandra Bose, a year his junior. “A sharp and gregarious youngster, he must have been influenced by the two,” says Prof Jagmohan Singh, Bhagat Singh’s nephew, who has been doing research on him.

From Cuttack, Sarabha headed to Berkeley, to pursue Electrical Engineering in 1912. Soon he came into contact with Lala Hardayal, an acclaimed Sanskrit scholar, Sohan Singh Bhakna, a farmer, and Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje, an agricultural scientist who formed the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association in 1913. It was a precursor to the Ghadar Party, that was formed on July 15, 1913, with the express aim of overthrowing the British government in India. Sarabha, who had by then left studies, was its youngest founding member.

The party set up a printing press in San Francisco, and brought out its first issue of The Ghadar in Urdu on November 1, 1913, followed by the Punjabi edition on December 13. Susan McMahon’s book Echoes of Freedom: South Asia Pioneers in California mentions how besides his role in bringing out the paper, “Sarabha was one of the most active fundraisers in the organisation, holding meetings in the rural areas where the farmers donated generously.”

Sarabha worked shoulder to shoulder with the much older Ghadri “babas”, who began to call him ‘Bala Jarnail (Boy general)’.

With World War-I breaking out in July 1914, the Ghadris decided to return to India, with the plan of stoking mutiny among Indian soldiers. Sarabha sailed back in October 1914, and began to crisscross the country. “He went anywhere where there was a cantonment with Punjabi soldiers. He was absolutely fearless, people called him a dynamo. He could cycle for 100 km a day,” says Prof Chaman Lal.

He was often accompanied by fellow Ghadar party member Vishnu Ganesh Pingle from Pune. The two had met in California.

By February 1915, the British authorities had got a whiff of the conspiracy, and began to arrest Ghadar party members, ahead of their plan to stage an uprising on February 21 after capturing Mian Mir and Ferozepur Cantts.

Sarabha managed to hoodwink the cops and headed out to Russia. Lore has it that Sarabha and his friends were close to Peshawar near Afghanistan when they began to hum the song “Singh naam sher da jo chade gaj ke, bani sir sheran de ki jaana bhaj ke (Men who are brave like a lion, don’t run).” It resonated so much with Sarabha that he decided to return and was arrested early March.

The trial into what came to be called the Lahore conspiracy case resulted in the execution of 24 Ghadris.
The first FIR filed against Sarabha by the British police says he had two books, one was Indian Sociologist published by Shyamji Krishna Varma, who had set up India House in London, and the second, Speeches from the Dock, featuring Irish freedom fighters who were executed.

Prof Chaman Lal says the judges, seeing his young age, asked him to think over his statement. “Sarabha made a much stronger statement the next day, leaving no one in doubt about his intention. When asked about the three colours of the Ghadri flag, he said they represented liberty, equality and fraternity.”

Subsequently, he was awarded the death penalty. When his grandfather visited him, he made light of the sentence, telling him how everyone has to die but he would be immortalised in death.

Sarabha was hanged with six others, including his friend Pingle, on November 16, 1915.



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Legitimacy of leadership cannot be demonstrated merely by a show of hands, as is the Congress’s normal practice, the constitutional procedure would have to be strictly adhered to.

For nearly a year the Gandhis haughtily ignored the G23 letter, but have now adopted a more conciliatory tone. The attempt at some sort of rapprochement is probably motivated less by the belated realisation of the party’s rapid decline and more because of apprehensions that an open confrontation or split would offer a pretext for the Election Commission to intervene and freeze the Congress symbol, accounts and properties. Legitimacy of leadership cannot be demonstrated merely by a show of hands, as is the Congress’s normal practice, the constitutional procedure would have to be strictly adhered to. The de facto president, Rahul Gandhi, is reluctant to take formal charge as he does not want to shoulder blame for the Congress’s poor performance. On the other hand, the paranoid Gandhi family remains firm that they cannot hand over charge to anyone other than a very trusted loyalist, but one with some stature is hard to find. Incidentally, when Rahul attended the CWC, he was taken aback to find that though the meeting was deliberately packed with many special invitees, the only voices defending him were Ashok Gehlot and Mallikarjun Kharge. While leaving, he remarked in an aside to his companion that the silence weighed heavy.

Individual clout

The only G23 rebel with whom Rahul Gandhi has interacted is Bhupinder Singh Hooda. While he dismisses other party rebels as armchair leaders with no grassroots support, Gandhi realises that the Congress will be in trouble in Haryana without Hooda, who wields sizeable influence in his bastion of Sonipat-Rohtak and is the only prominent Congress Jat leader in the state. While the elder Hooda is with the rebels, his son Deepender remains in the Gandhi camp. Another prominent Congress family is also divided. But here the father is backing the Gandhis, while the son demands introspection by the high command. But this family’s differences are not for public consumption.

Ignoring AAP win

It is customary for chief ministers to congratulate their newly elected counterparts in other states. But many Opposition leaders, vying for leadership of the non-BJP, non-Congress space, were conspicuously silent over the Aam Aadmi Party victory in Punjab. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik were among the few prominent leaders who graciously congratulated Bhagwant Singh Mann.

Forgotten Names

Among the several nuggets that author Pramod Kapoor brings out in 1946, his meticulously researched history of the short-lived Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny, is that Admiral John Henry Godfrey, who headed the RIN at that time, was the inspiration for spy thriller writer Ian Fleming’s character ‘M’, the boss of his swashbuckling hero James Bond. In real life, Godfrey as Director of Naval Intelligence in 1939 appointed Fleming as his assistant and treated him as his son. Godfrey was made the scapegoat by his naval bosses in London and replaced the day after the mutiny ended. Another interesting character in the book is Rishi Dev Puri, a good-looking daredevil who played a key role in fomenting the mutiny, but was discharged from the navy three weeks before the actual event. His influential family whisked him away to Shimla to run the family owned Devicos Hotel on the Mall. Incidentally, Puri, who once earned a living as a professional piano player in London, was the younger brother of Vidya Vikas Purie, who, along with his children, founded the India Today media empire.

Savarkar Place?

BJP MP and president of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, has taken note of the fact that a prominent circle in the heart of New Delhi still carries the British royal family’s surname, Windsor. Sahasrabuddhe has written to the New Delhi Municipal Corporation demanding that Windsor Place, which is in any case a confusing address as it incorporates bungalows standing at the intersection of several prominent roads, including Janpath and Ashoka Road, should be re-named after Veer Savarkar. The New Delhi Municipal Committee authorities are believed to be considering the request sympathetically.

Balancing Act

In the last lap of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s campaign, party MP Jaya Bachchan made some fiery speeches against the ruling BJP, accusing it of telling nothing but lies and hiding its weaknesses by pointing a finger at others. Perhaps to compensate, Amitabh Bachchan flew down for Yogi Adityanath’s swearing-in ceremony held on Friday.



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Legitimacy of leadership cannot be demonstrated merely by a show of hands, as is the Congress’s normal practice, the constitutional procedure would have to be strictly adhered to.

For nearly a year the Gandhis haughtily ignored the G23 letter, but have now adopted a more conciliatory tone. The attempt at some sort of rapprochement is probably motivated less by the belated realisation of the party’s rapid decline and more because of apprehensions that an open confrontation or split would offer a pretext for the Election Commission to intervene and freeze the Congress symbol, accounts and properties. Legitimacy of leadership cannot be demonstrated merely by a show of hands, as is the Congress’s normal practice, the constitutional procedure would have to be strictly adhered to. The de facto president, Rahul Gandhi, is reluctant to take formal charge as he does not want to shoulder blame for the Congress’s poor performance. On the other hand, the paranoid Gandhi family remains firm that they cannot hand over charge to anyone other than a very trusted loyalist, but one with some stature is hard to find. Incidentally, when Rahul attended the CWC, he was taken aback to find that though the meeting was deliberately packed with many special invitees, the only voices defending him were Ashok Gehlot and Mallikarjun Kharge. While leaving, he remarked in an aside to his companion that the silence weighed heavy.

Individual clout

The only G23 rebel with whom Rahul Gandhi has interacted is Bhupinder Singh Hooda. While he dismisses other party rebels as armchair leaders with no grassroots support, Gandhi realises that the Congress will be in trouble in Haryana without Hooda, who wields sizeable influence in his bastion of Sonipat-Rohtak and is the only prominent Congress Jat leader in the state. While the elder Hooda is with the rebels, his son Deepender remains in the Gandhi camp. Another prominent Congress family is also divided. But here the father is backing the Gandhis, while the son demands introspection by the high command. But this family’s differences are not for public consumption.

Ignoring AAP win

It is customary for chief ministers to congratulate their newly elected counterparts in other states. But many Opposition leaders, vying for leadership of the non-BJP, non-Congress space, were conspicuously silent over the Aam Aadmi Party victory in Punjab. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik were among the few prominent leaders who graciously congratulated Bhagwant Singh Mann.

Forgotten Names

Among the several nuggets that author Pramod Kapoor brings out in 1946, his meticulously researched history of the short-lived Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny, is that Admiral John Henry Godfrey, who headed the RIN at that time, was the inspiration for spy thriller writer Ian Fleming’s character ‘M’, the boss of his swashbuckling hero James Bond. In real life, Godfrey as Director of Naval Intelligence in 1939 appointed Fleming as his assistant and treated him as his son. Godfrey was made the scapegoat by his naval bosses in London and replaced the day after the mutiny ended. Another interesting character in the book is Rishi Dev Puri, a good-looking daredevil who played a key role in fomenting the mutiny, but was discharged from the navy three weeks before the actual event. His influential family whisked him away to Shimla to run the family owned Devicos Hotel on the Mall. Incidentally, Puri, who once earned a living as a professional piano player in London, was the younger brother of Vidya Vikas Purie, who, along with his children, founded the India Today media empire.

Savarkar Place?

BJP MP and president of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, has taken note of the fact that a prominent circle in the heart of New Delhi still carries the British royal family’s surname, Windsor. Sahasrabuddhe has written to the New Delhi Municipal Corporation demanding that Windsor Place, which is in any case a confusing address as it incorporates bungalows standing at the intersection of several prominent roads, including Janpath and Ashoka Road, should be re-named after Veer Savarkar. The New Delhi Municipal Committee authorities are believed to be considering the request sympathetically.

Balancing Act

In the last lap of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s campaign, party MP Jaya Bachchan made some fiery speeches against the ruling BJP, accusing it of telling nothing but lies and hiding its weaknesses by pointing a finger at others. Perhaps to compensate, Amitabh Bachchan flew down for Yogi Adityanath’s swearing-in ceremony held on Friday.



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Nirmala Sitharaman, in her statement while moving the amendments, has clarified the tax on private digital assets does not indicate GoI's stance on their legitimacy.

GoI has reaffirmed its intent in amendments to the Finance Bill to use tax as a deterrent to speculation in virtual digital assets. The amendments disallow losses on the sale of one crypto asset to be set off against gains on another. No deduction is permitted for any expenditure other than the cost of acquisition for computation of income from sale of cryptos and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Every transfer of crypto assets will be taxed at the proposed 30% rate, irrespective of whether they are a capital asset or not. Only the proposed 1% rate of tax deducted at source will apply to transactions in digital assets. Penalties have been imposed for taxpayers who have claimed a deduction of surcharge and cess from their taxable income, but have not on their own accord paid the tax and interest on the deduction they have claimed.

The inability to set off losses will skew the risk-reward profile of digital assets, and crypto exchanges fear it could push trading activity beyond Indian jurisdiction to decentralised exchanges and foreign platforms accessed through virtual private networks. The industry feels not allowing tax deduction on the costs of mining cryptos will eventually force blockchain companies and the talent they hire to operate outside the country. To the extent that the proposed tax regime drives users from exchanges compliant with know-your-customer (KYC) rules towards underground peer-to-peer platforms, deterrence would be diluted.

Nirmala Sitharaman, in her statement while moving the amendments, has clarified the tax on private digital assets does not indicate GoI's stance on their legitimacy. The regulatory position could become clearer once the Reserve Bank of India is ready with its digital currency. Fiat digital currencies , which make transactions and monetary transmission more efficient, are inevitable as the use of cash plateaus in several countries. Speculation, and a reflex to curb it, must not draw attention away from the inherent superiority of digital currencies. This is the future of money.



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'Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big.' Deng Xiaoping's words can guide not only India but also China, out of their deadlock in these 'interesting times'.

For a high-key government, the meeting between foreign minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi - the highest-ranking official from Beijing to visit New Delhi since the Galwan clashes two years ago - has been trotted out as a low-key interaction. This is understandable, since Beijing continues to insist that the horse of unresolved border issues remain behind the cart of all other bilateral dealings, trade included. Of course, the elephant in the room is the Russian bear.

That New Delhi has held its ground regarding its neutrality in the war between Moscow and the US-led West that has Ukraine as its theatre makes the India-China conversation even more sensitive than it already was. While Wang may well have made the right noises by stating that India and China should work together to promote peace and stability around the world, Jaishankar's response to a question that India-China relations were 'not normal' and could not be normal if the 'situation in the border areas is abnormal' is a truism that holds.

Considering it was Wang, who on the phone with National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval helped 'de-escalate' the situation in Galwan, Beijing did send the right person, even if only for gesturpolitik. China also has an interest in making the 14th Brics summit in Xiamen scheduled in June a success. In other words, for the Indian prime minister to attend. That is a card, with conditions, that India holds. With no movement on the border issue, India could seek wisdom from one of Beijing's wisest. 'Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big.' Deng Xiaoping's words can guide not only India but also China, out of their deadlock in these 'interesting times'.

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For many decades, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan nursed a burning ambition to become Pakistan’s prime minister (PM) Those dreams came true in the general election of 2018, when the tacit backing of the military establishment ensured a mandate for Mr Khan. A little more than three years into his term, Mr Khan is perilously close to losing his grip on power and being unseated in a vote of confidence in the National Assembly, thanks to a united Opposition that has closed ranks with dissidents in Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Mr Khan’s failure was largely brought on by his hubris. It appears that once his grand plan to become PM was achieved, he really did not know how to deliver on virtually any front, be it governance, national security or the economy. At a mega rally in Islamabad on Sunday, Mr Khan defended his governance record, especially on development and launched a veiled attack at the army and Opposition, projecting his personal political survival as a battle for the future of Pakistan. Then there was the bizarre spectacle of two ministers in Mr Khan’s government publicly announcing that they would prefer to become suicide bombers to target the Opposition and the Parliament. If nothing else, such public pronouncements by Mr Khan and his aides – at a time when the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman has reportedly been able to gather more people for an Opposition rally – reek of the desperation within the ruling party.

Barring the success of some sporadic efforts to get the army to again throw its weight behind Mr Khan, it is likely he will have to step down sometime this week. The buzz in Islamabad’s political circles is that the military has had enough of the poor administrative abilities of the government, especially after Mr Khan sought to hold up the appointment of a new Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief last year in an apparent attempt to influence the choice of the next army chief. There are also whispers the army is upset with Mr Khan’s excessive reliance on the counsel of his wife, a pirni or spiritual guide, for all sorts of decisions. The Pakistan army, which has never covered itself in glory on its role in politics, appears to be staying neutral. But even the exit of Mr Khan will not mean the end of Pakistan’s current woes. The Opposition, if it forms a government, will have its hands full coping with a wide array of challenges.



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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi presented its eighth budget on March 26. The Budget offers an insight into what could be the beginning of an evolution in the AAP’s politics. Rather than focus on offering more populist measures or freebies, something the AAP has been known for — the economic survey has highlighted that its populist schemes have led to tangible savings for the common people, with this money aiding both private consumption and savings — the latest budget gives a lot of attention on creating more jobs in order to improve per capita income levels in the city state.

Only time will tell how much of the rozgaar (income) Budget’s objectives are achieved, but the intent shows that the AAP is slowly realising the importance of going beyond the politics of offering populist benefits and investing in long-term economic policies that target a high growth in jobs and incomes. Such long-term planning is also a reflection of the confidence of a party which has just captured power in another state. While there are many promises in the Budget, it is intriguing that the Delhi government ended up spending 2,000 crore less than what it had budgeted for 2021-22.

A welcome change in this year’s Budget has been an improvement on the share of capital spending in overall expenditure. It has increased from 25% to 29% between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Given that the share of capital spending had gone down under the same government previously, this is a welcome change. This is all the more important because Delhi has always been a resource-rich state and the quantum of capital spending is more a function of political priorities rather than of resources.



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India’s achievement of a record $400 billion of goods exports is a shining example of the way this country is being governed, reformed, and transformed since 2014 with a mission to decisively improve the lives of citizens. The surge in exports is helping farmers, artisans, weavers and factory workers, and enabling businesses, small and large, create jobs, scale up operations, become more competitive, and make a mark in the global business arena.

The export target of $400 billion seemed impossible to many in a Covid-ravaged world, where demand was weak, containers were scarce and priced exorbitantly, and the world was facing job losses and conflicts. But this did not deter Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s government from acting decisively and swiftly with a bottom-up approach in assessing the situation, identifying products and regions where exports could be increased, and adopting a partnership approach with exporters and industry bodies to deliver results.

The exports mission was revved up when the PM gave a clarion call to industry to focus on exports and inspired them to aspire for a quantum jump in India’s international trade in goods and services. The PM himself held consultations with ministries, states, Indian missions abroad, commodity boards, industry associations and experts to motivate and inspire all. He monitored the progress of exports continuously.

It was indeed an ambitious mission because the best India achieved in merchandise exports in the past was $330 billion in the pre-Covid days of 2018-19, after which the pandemic battered all global trade.

But India bounced back rapidly as policy measures, reforms, export-promotion schemes, major initiatives such as the Production Linked Incentive Scheme, and bold decisions in the face of adversity propelled India to become the fastest growing major economy in the world. Exports boomed, setting a series of monthly records that have added up to historic achievement in 2021-22.

Exports are contributing to economic growth, creating jobs and helping small businesses and workers. The world is now looking up to India as a trustworthy and reliable partner which can provide quality goods and services on time even at the peak of the pandemic.

The results are spectacular. India achieved the target nine days ahead of schedule. We adopted the whole-of-government approach and worked as partners with exporters. The government proactively helped them overcome any hurdle and encouraged them to grab every opportunity for every product in every country to help achieve the stiff target. Targets were fixed for 200 countries/territories, and special emphasis was laid on new and existing markets, lost market share, and the role of small enterprises and startups as a vehicle for exports.

But it’s not just a story of numbers. There are exciting new developments such as the export of new products, penetration of new markets, rising exports of manufactured products, an impressive 50% growth in engineering exports, and laudable contribution of small businesses and farmers, whose hard work has strengthened global food security.

Agricultural exports have risen nearly 25% to a record of nearly $50 billion. India’s farmers provide almost half of the globally traded rice. Farmers have helped wheat exports jump to a record seven million tonnes, which is softening the impact of the disruption in the global wheat trade caused by the crisis in Ukraine, a major supplier.

Similarly, coffee exports have risen to a record of nearly $1 billion, an impressive achievement for the sector where 95% of the output is from small growers. Marine exports are also booming, helping many small businesses and fishermen.

India now needs to maintain the momentum. Our manufacturers, exporters and policymakers cannot afford to be complacent in a fiercely competitive world. Indian industry needs to step up investment in research and development and focus on quality. There was a time when there was a big gap between products sold to Indian citizens and the export quality goods that were shipped out. There should be no such gap.

The government will scale up efforts to help exporters. Many recent policies will bear fruits for years to come and give the country new global champions in manufacturing and exports. There will be many success stories like the mobile phone sector, which was once heavily import-dependent, but where, now exports have multiplied and imports are drying up. Exporters will also gain from the PM Gati Shakt scheme, the National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity which the PM launched last October.

We now have to make a bigger impact in international trade. This will be challenging, but exciting and achievable. Our government has a track record of achieving very ambitious targets, be it electrification of every village in the country, the dramatic rise in renewable energy capacity along with the equally dramatic fall in its cost, the LED revolution that drastically reduced the cost of energy-efficient bulbs, as well as game-changing welfare schemes to provide ordinary citizens with the convenience of toilets, cooking gas, bank accounts, health insurance, water supply, homes, rural roads, internet connectivity and the world’s largest vaccination programme against Covid-19 with the help of vaccines made in India.

India is on track to reclaim its status as the major trading power that it once was. That is an ambitious mission, but the story of Indian exports — like many game-changing initiatives in New India — can be summed up with what Nelson Mandela famously said: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Piyush Goyal is Union minister of commerce and industry, consumer affairs and food and public distribution and textiles

The views expressed are personal



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I watched two movies last week — The Kashmir Files and 83. One exposed the flaws in the Indian Constitution and political system, while the other dwelt on human courage. The Kashmir Files opened up many wounds. Stories about peace-loving Kashmiri Pandits being abducted and compelled to leave their land are worrying. We have heard much of this before, but this film has showcased a forgotten history. I feel that Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, the film’s producer-director, has depicted the situation keeping in mind the sensitivities of the Kashmir Pandits.

There were alarming signs in the Valley long before the exodus. Let me recount some instances. An armed Border Security Force (BSF) guard was killed in the Nawakadal region of Srinagar in February 1967. This was not taken too seriously by the authorities at the time.

Assembly elections were on in Jammu and Kashmir at the time. The Congress won and Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq was re-elected as chief minister (CM). Indira Gandhi had taken office in Delhi a year earlier. She was aware of the situation in Kashmir. Perhaps there could have been a move to integrate Kashmir and Kashmiris into the mainstream at that time then, but that did not happen. Let us consider a comment made by Farooq Abdullah, another former CM of the state. He stated, “My heart weeps at the Pandit exodus.” He may indeed feel this way, but several atrocities took place during his tenure. But clearly, he seemed unable to prevent these.

The events of October 13, 1983, must also be remembered here. India and the West Indies played a one-day international match in Srinagar. India had won the World Cup just four months earlier, and Kapil Dev was the captain of the team. In a cricket-crazy country like India, his squad should have received a warm welcome. But just the opposite happened.

The Indian cricketers were booed and abused by the crowd, while the West Indian players were applauded. While seeing 83, I felt terrible for the players who did their country proud but were treated so badly. By that time, the separatists, inspired by Pakistan, had strengthened their position.

The match had to be called off due to a storm. But, there were strong forces behind the agitation in Kashmir Valley which were either ignored or overlooked. Anti-Hindu riots erupted in the Valley three years later. Since then, many Kashmiri Pandits have left their homes.

The Kashmiri Pandits who chose to relocate were vocal in their warnings about the growth of separatism and communalism at the time. This, they felt, was an attempt to scare the minorities by committing acts of violence in public places. Hindus and Sikhs have always lived in harmony in Kashmir. They have often complained that the administration did not heed their complaints. Even though those in power in Srinagar were not separatists, they did nothing to stop the separatists. As a result, pro-Pakistan forces in Jammu and Kashmir began to gain ground.

On December 8, 1989, terrorists abducted Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of the country’s then home minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, in broad daylight. In exchange for her release, the Vishwanath Pratap Singh government released five terrorists. This was the final nail in the coffin which led to a series of terrible events.

Without going into too much detail, I would just like to emphasise that if we had utilised our resources to resist Pakistan’s propaganda war and the slipshod behaviour of the Kashmiri authorities in the 1960s, the situation would have perhaps been more positive today. The migration of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley shows up the ruling class of the time and its failure to uphold the Constitution.

Nations need to learn from their mistakes and course correct. The film allowed me to begin this discussion. This in itself is a wonderful thing. I’d like to think that even half-truths could well be more destructive than outright lies.

The Valley’s mosques were indeed used to promote hatred towards Kashmiri Hindus at one time, but many Muslims also stood up for their neighbours. There were several Muslims who, without regard for their own safety, transported their Hindu neighbours out of the Valley. The warmth and friendship among these people continue even today.

Terrorists in the Valley destroyed the homes of both Muslims and Hindus. Many of these people were driven out. If a few more events like these had been included in The Kashmir Files, the overall picture would have been portrayed more accurately.

Let’s not forget that at the end of the day, this is only a movie. There is a distinction to be made between a film and actual history.

Shashi Shekhar is the editor-in-chief, Hindustan 

The views expressed are personal



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In a rally on March 20, Pakistan’s Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan praised India for following an “independent foreign policy.” He said India, despite being part of Quad and under the threat of American sanctions, imported oil from Russia. This praise is no “change of heart” for Khan as he remains a fierce critic of PM Narendra Modi’s government, but it smacked of political opportunism amid his battle to survive the Opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion.

Since Khan came to power in 2018, the Opposition has attempted to unseat him several times. It even closed ranks to launch the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in September 2020 to dislodge the Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government through protests and parliamentary manoeuvring. But those attempts failed since the PTI government had the full support of the military establishment. In its move to bring the no-confidence motion, the Opposition has sensed its most realistic chance to oust Khan and the PTI, which has been beleaguered by defections, opposition from coalition partners, and differences with the powerful military establishment.

After an initial period of cordial ties, civil-military relations have touched a new low. There are tensions between Khan and the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who may be looking at a second extension of his term in November. Khan’s frequent clashes with the military has in all probability led to a decline in support from the Army. Khan’s failure in handling key foreign policy issues, managing economic crises, and coordinating with the Opposition on governance matters makes him a further liability.

Khan has misused government institutions, especially National Accountability Bureau, to target the key Opposition leaders such as former PM Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari. He went after the PPP and PML-N through anti-corruption drives and threatened them with dire consequences. This political grudge campaign led by Khan forced the PPP and PML-N to join hands despite historical rivalries.

Even PTI leaders and allies have accused Khan of not paying heed to their grievances. And the judiciary seems to share this perception with the Islamabad High Court charging the government of bypassing Parliament.

These factors have created a perfect storm for Khan. Even if he survives, his leadership is dented. Moreover, the Opposition will ensure that it continues to make life difficult for him in the run-up to the 2023 general elections.

For Khan, this is a “do-or-die” situation, and therefore, he has resorted to what he does best – brinkmanship. He has already warned the Opposition that he would be more dangerous for them if ousted from power. He is also gathering support from the public through rallies, in which he is blaming the Opposition, the military establishment, and foreign countries for his predicament.

Khan’s possible ouster is unlikely to bring any radical change in India-Pakistan relations. The bilateral relationship has plateaued since PTI came to power. In addition to internationalising the Jammu and Kashmir issue, alleging “Islamophobia”, and supporting terror activities in India, Khan and his ministers have made several attacks against PM Modi’s government. Given this inimical anti-India attitude, New Delhi rightly is not too keen to improve ties with Pakistan, save a few humanitarian gestures.

Even if a new civilian arrangement takes over, it will be a temporary one as general elections are scheduled for August 2023. Therefore, the new government may not risk reaching out to New Delhi without the military establishment’s nod. Hence, any major reset in bilateral ties seems unlikely.

For now, it appears that Khan is likely to lose the power game. It remains to be seen if he resorts to political and legal tactics to delay parliamentary proceedings to muster public support and negotiate with dissenting party members and coalition partners.

Sameer Patil is a senior fellow, Observer Research Foundation. Sarral Sharma is a PhD scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Both have served in the National Security Council Secretariat 

The views expressed are personal



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With a frosty reception and a cold send-off to their foreign minister Wang Yi, India has put out very clear signals on where it stands vis-a-vis China. Having given away one major bargaining chip in the conquest of the Galwan Valley heights in search of genuine peace with China on the border, India is like a burnt child that dreads the fire.

In crystal clear articulation of its position two years after a military standoff along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar has told his counterpart that bilateral relations have been “disturbed as a result of Chinese actions since April 2020”. The same message was also conveyed by NSA Ajit Doval and the ball is in China’s court now.

Sort out the pending disengagement at all friction points and do away with the presence of a large number of troops in contravention of 1993 and 1996 agreements and then talk about bilateral ties is India’s message. The nation may be facing many issues with neighbours as well as the rest of the world in the wake of the Ukraine invasion but it will not be browbeaten by China into resetting ties while troops remain facing each other and China further stokes the fire with gratuitous remarks at an international forum.

It is debatable whether China needed to be received in Islamabad at the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation as an honoured guest when its mistreatment of Uighur Muslims has been so well documented. But that is an issue for the Islamic countries. India’s grouse is to do with China saying it has listened to many voices, rather tired ones after 75 years, about the Kashmir Valley. It wasn’t exactly on a good wicket then that Wang Yi was on when making overtures to India with the first visit in two years of a high functionary from Xi Jinping’s government.

What China may have considered as a search for a breakthrough in ties with India in a year when it is to host the BRICS summit has become contentious with Wang Yi speaking of a status quo based on a 1959 position. The Ukraine war and India’s ambiguous stand on it that puts it on the side of Russia along with China and Pakistan makes the present a peculiar time in world affairs. India is, however, not on the same page as China with regard to Ukraine as China is a votary of Russian offensive action.

Even in a dynamic setting post-February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine, China has not shifted about doing enough on the border situation where both sides lost soldiers in the 2020 skirmishes. The plight of Indian medicos studying in Chinese universities was brought up in talks with Wang Yi but, maybe, it would have to be an Indian initiative to find a solution to the medicos who are back home from Ukraine (war) and China (Covid).

There is absolute normality in one area of ties and that is trade. In fact, milestones were crossed recently as the India-China trade passed for the first-ever time the $100 bn mark in 2021. India, with its vast appetite for Chinese goods including mobiles, imported at least $65 bn more than it exported. Chinese figures show China exported close to $100 bn worth of goods to India. The question that arises is should India do any more towards normality of ties unless China’s outreach extends to a willingness to restore the pre-April 2020 status quo ante. Playing hardball is India’s chosen tactic now and rightly so, too.



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Spring is here. The sun has shone nonstop for a whole week! The temperatures are nearly 20 degrees Celsius. But is the sun setting on the image of the Commonwealth — dominant for a long time as the last representation of the once-powerful British Empire?  It would certainly appear so — as Prince William and Catherine tour the Caribbean to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

It is a nice life — if that is what nostalgia is all about. Once you step out and kiss dimpled babies — or dance with the natives. But then, the natives have to adore you for what you are, and not be troubled by the colonial past. The reception this time, however, has been very different from previous years.  

Wherever they go, the natives remind them of colonial slavery and want to get rid of the Queen as head of State and become a republic like India did. Even so, the royal duo carried on; Kate changing every hour into a different costume and William trying to spread cheer. Our tabloids are happy with the photos.

And the young royals, of course, were picture perfect. Catherine in all her lovely clothes and dazzling smile; William displaying the gravitas and sensitivity that he is now known for. However, the world has changed. The new world is asking for conversations and engagements which go beyond photo opportunities. William certainly seems to have grasped the zeitgeist, and has admitted as per media reports that he may not be the head of the Commonwealth — as his grandmother had so successfully been. Obviously, each country they now visit will have to have a carefully crafted interaction with the locals — acknowledging that their shared history may not always have been picture perfect.

Yes, and some of this shared history is not just about colonial oppression, but also racism based on skin colour. The “colourblind” casting of the hit Netflix series, Bridgerton, with its fake dark-skinned royals in a regency setting, possibly does more to assuage wounds than any real-life royalty. It is a fantastical version of history of course, but at least it acknowledges that dark-skinned actors could be given “regency roles” as they are every bit as competent as their white counterparts. The lead actress, Simone Ashley, is originally from India, and certainly breaks the stereotype — taking over from the very fair and lovely Phoebe Dynevor from Season 1. The fact that the white male lead, Jonathan Bailey, who plays Anthony Bridgerton, does not refer to the colour of Ashley’s skin, and that the scriptwriters did not cast her as an ayah or an Indian princess makes the narrative plausible. Simone who is from Camberley in Surrey represents the latest effort from television and film to spread “diversity”. Season 2 of Bridgerton is not as engaging as the first one, but as a “regency romance” in the best “Georgette Heyer” mould it offers an escapist fantasy where the colonial oppressed and the rulers mingle on an equal platform. It might be “fake history” but at the time of “fake news” it is quite acceptable. One is waiting for the cancel culture enthusiasts to react.

And in other bad news: there is severe inflation. Households face energy bills four times what they were last year. The one happy person is the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. A month ago, he looked like he was facing a rebellion within the Conservatives and could have been sacked. Rivals in the Cabinet were polishing their images and their swords. Now, however, thanks to Mr Putin, Mr Johnson is a war leader emulating his hero Churchill. There is no talk of any contest. It is springtime for Boris at least. There were rumours about an early election. But we hear that the Queen will be opening Parliament for the next year 2023-24 on May 10. That will be a show worth watching as this is the seventieth year she is doing it. Just imagine the Queen came to the throne in 1952, just two years after Doctor President Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the Indian Parliament in 1950 after India became a republic!

In fact, the Queen at 95 despite fighting ill-health is determined to attend the memorial service for her husband the Duke of Edinburgh next Tuesday. She has not been seen out and about for a while. The whole family will turn up for the service (sans Harry and Meghan, of course).

The war occupies us on our TV and in Parliament. There was a row about how many Ukrainians to give visas to. As it is, immigrants are not the favourites of the government any time of the year. Boatloads coming across from France have created problems not just when their boats capsize but even more when they land. Normally, the Home Office wants none of them if they can help it. Ukrainians are however different. Somehow we seem to have managed to get a few thousand Ukrainians here to move in with families who have offered them their spare rooms or second homes. But for how long? — before inflation and other woes dampen charitable British instincts?



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Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi last week was not officially confirmed till the last minute. It was the first high-level visit after the Ladakh military standoff between the two nations that began on May 5, 2020 in the Galwan Valley. There have been 15 rounds of bilateral military-level talks so far, but after some withdrawals and de-escalation measures in the Pangong Tso area, the Chinese have been trying to avoid any restoration of the status quo ante.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has just six months left for the Communist Party’s quinquennial national conference, when a decision on a possible third term for him is expected. This would break the two-term precedent mandated by Deng Xiaoping to avoid a Mao Zedong-like personality cult building. But multiple events are complicating the scenario for President Xi. His February 4 summit, on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics, with Russian President Vladimir Putin declared “no limits” to the Sino-Russian partnership. Barely two weeks later came the Russian attack on Ukraine, which was expected to obtain a quick victory and change of regime in Kyiv, but has actually led to multi-front and a humanitarian mess. The unprecedented and comprehensive trade and financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the Group of Seven advanced nations and the European Union are beginning to affect global trade and escalate energy and food prices.

China also faces a serious Covid-19 outbreak in many areas, triggered by the Omicron variant. Low levels of vaccination, especially amongst the older population, as well as the less effective Chinese vaccines have combined to create a nightmare situation in Hong Kong and other places. This is leading to lockdowns and the disruption of supply chains, already strained by the Russia-targeting sanctions. President Xi Jinping would not have liked these domestic and international complications to linger. Before the 2012 party meeting, when Mr Xi’s ascent to power began, the scandal affecting his rival Bo Xilai and the death of a senior Communist Party leader’s son in a sports car crash had caused a reshuffle of top echelons of the party. President Xi would not like the economic and health uncertainties to affect his dominance of the party.

India happens to be an external factor in that calculation. Therefore, speculation was intense over whether the Chinese emissary was on a peace mission as two important summits are scheduled later this year, for which the presence of India is crucial. These are the RIC, consisting of Russia, India and China, and Brics, a five-nation grouping, which in addition has Brazil and South Africa. Both are due to be hoisted in-person by China. Naturally, for Mr Xi, successful summits before the Communist Party meeting could create the impression of Chinese diplomatic success. They become even more important against the backdrop of the US-EU stand-off with Russia over Ukraine. While Brazil voted against Russia, both at the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, India abstained. South Africa also abstained at the UNGA.

Interestingly, while this time at the UNGA the voting went 141-5 against Russia, in 2014 after the Russian military annexation of Crimea, only 100 members had so voted.

Clearly, in the emerging re-polarisation of major powers, some dubbing it Cold War II, summitry facilitates diplomatic signalling. Hence unsurprisingly, while US President Joe Biden called the Indian position on Ukraine as “shaky”, New Delhi was flooded with suitors. Japanese Prime Minster Fumio Kishida arrived bearing investment proposals, while US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland presented options to wean India off dependence on Russian oil and defence equipment.

Australian PM Scot Morrison, whose nation alongside India, Japan and the US constitutes the Quad, also had a virtual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

If the Chinese intention was to gauge if India was ready to normalise ties, then the visit was structured inauspiciously. Mr Wang Yi, who is also a state councillor, arrived via Islamabad and Kabul. In Pakistan, he aired pro-Pakistan views on Kashmir at the foreign ministers’ conference of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). In Afghanistan, he engaged the globally-slighted Taliban regime as it regresses to its old behaviour. A cold reception in New Delhi was thus expected. South Block judged correctly that the China’s obduracy required a riposte as the China’s need for de-escalation was now greater than India’s.

In 2017, China had similarly shown flexibility to resolve the Doklam stand-off after the Brics meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg. Subsequently, not only China has dug deeper at positions near Doklam but showed no hesitation in widening the confrontation three years later in Ladakh.

The new escalatory cycle now can be broken. India’s neutrality over Ukraine addresses Chinese worry about Indian proximity to the United States, after the Quad meetings were raised to the summit level. But China’s tactical moves must not be mistaken for a strategic shift. India will continue to be seen as a potential rival.

Global Times, China’s English mouthpiece, writes that Mr Wang Yi told his Indian counterpart that “as mature and rational major developing countries, China and India should not let the border issue define or affect” the bilateral relationship. It adds that while the talks were wide-ranging, the Indian media focused “heavily on border clashes”. China wants India to accept the status quo at the border, including over the incursions across Line of Actual Control in Ladakh. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar rejected this categorically at his press briefing, asserting correctly that putting the border issue aside while normalising relations was invalid after Galwan. That was an argument India had accepted in 1988 during Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing. Since then, bilateral pacts created a mechanism for handling the border issue or even slowly resolving it, which China breached.

The public posturing and private parleys may vary. China wants an easy off-ramp by retaining the intruded areas. India wants status quo ante restored fully. It is possible the two may meet, as Global Times hints, somewhere halfway. China wants India to attend the Brics summit. India cannot do that while the Ukraine war persists.

However, China’s economic difficulties and threat of diminished access to international markets and technology make India a necessary partner. The coming months will show how much the Chinese are ready to relent. The diplomatic jockeying will continue as India uses its new leverage to bring Sino-Indian relations to even keel.



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Every society has its fault lines, be they along race, caste, religion or language. They serve only to divide society among its stakeholders and slow down the pace of progress. As civilisation advances, people discover the value of collective effort and how it helps them make rapid moves in life. The resultant composite culture stops them from reducing themselves into their primary identities; instead they cover up the fault lines with it.

India is one such society which has learnt, through centuries, the value of living together, despite the presence and influence of every possible fault line a society can imagine. There have been vested interests in its history which lie dormant most of the time and become active when they smell an occasion.

Reports of Muslim traders being kept off festivals in Karnataka temples, which are administered by the state government, signal the emergence of such interests in that part of India. Whether a state government department can discriminate against people based on their faith from a legitimate activity is a constitutional question on which the courts may take a call later but the fact is that it questions the decades-old practice only to divide society.

The Hindutva organisations which put pressure on temple committees to ban Muslim traders justify themselves saying it is their reaction to the call given by a section of Muslim organisations to organise a bandh protesting against the high court order upholding the ban on hijab in educational institutions. That the Hindutva organisations have suddenly become advocates for the respect of court orders is beside the point; the real question is whether such people should be allowed to use every possible ruse to sow seeds of hate in society.

Between the Islamist organisations who blow minor issues out of proportion and their Hindutva cousins who have no qualms about pursuing a divisive agenda, they are out to harm the composite culture of Karnataka. It’s for the people of the state to be vigilant about it and stop them in their tracks.



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