Communist dictatorship survived in China while it peacefully expired in Russia. It still looks solid even today: Xi Jinping effectively declared himself President-for-life. But communist rule in China has now reached the magic age of 70. Is it immortal? Probably not
Another of the five-yearly anniversaries has rolled around and it’s time to write another think-piece about the long-term meaning of the massacre on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. But 30 years later, what is there left to say?
Great changes were already underway in the Communist-ruled parts of Europe in 1989. Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Soviet leader, visited Beijing after the students had taken over the square in late April and he obviously thought that the same process was underway in China. Maybe it was, but it was violently aborted — and it has still not recovered.
That’s not what people thought at the time. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of students were killed on the square — the soldiers burned the bodies in a massive pyre right on the square, so there was never an accurate count. Hundreds or thousands more died elsewhere because similar demonstrations were put down in every major Chinese city. And we all thought: This will never be forgotten.
The students weren’t counter-revolutionaries. Their hero, the man whose death they were honouring when they occupied the square, was Hu Yaobang, a life-long communist, a veteran of the Long March, who believed that it was high time to ease up on the controls four decades after the communists took power in China.
For that Hu, the then General Secretary of the Chinese communist party, had been forced into retirement by the party’s hard-liners in 1987. But everybody knew what he wanted and when he died two years later, the students came out to demand it again: Government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and free trade unions.
The dominant conservative faction in the Chinese communist party responded by killing them and then set out to erase all popular memory of what had happened. It can’t be done, said all the journalists outside China: They will never be forgiven. The crowds will be back on the streets one of these days and there will be a great reckoning and radical change.
Well, not. Thirty years later, most Chinese millennials are ignorant of exactly what happened in 1989. The older generation remember, but they dare not mention it in public and they are a dwindling minority. Journalist Louisa Lim has accurately described contemporary China as the “People’s Republic of Amnesia”.
Why did this happen and has the notion of a freer future really gone down the memory hole in China? Start with the fact that the Soviet Union was 72-years-old in 1989, whereas the Chinese People’s Republic was only 40.
That extra generation meant that there was nobody still in power in Russia who had actually ordered the deaths of thousands of people. Not only the revolutionary generation but also the Stalinist generation were gone and by the 1980s, the career communists, who had climbed the greasy pole of power, were mere bureaucrats.
They thought they were hard men, too, but in fact, they weren’t anything of the sort. A few of them tried to carry out a coup and restore communist rule in 1991, but they were actually trembling with fear as they spoke on TV and they were seen off in a couple of days. Whereas China’s rulers in 1989 still had lots of hands-on experience with killing people. Some of them, like Hu and his successor Zhao Ziyang, were genuine idealists, who felt that the party’s controls must be loosened now that the revolution was an accomplished fact. Zhao actually went to the square at dawn on May 19 and addressed the students, urging them to hold fast to their demands.
“We are already old, we do not matter anymore,” he told them — but Zhao already knew that he had lost the argument and that the communist party leadership had decided to clear the square by force. He had also been stripped of his own position and would live the last 15 years of his life under house-arrest.
The actual massacre was delayed for a further two weeks because the soldiers in Beijing had been fraternising with the students and could no longer be trusted to kill them. It took two weeks to replace them with fresh troops, who knew nothing about what was happening in Beijing and would obediently kill the ‘counter-revolutionaries.’
So the communist dictatorship survived in China while it peacefully expired in Russia. It still looks solid today: The current leader, Xi Jinping, has just effectively declared himself president-for-life. But communist rule in China has now reached the magic age of 70. Is it immortal? Probably not.
Communist rule in the Soviet Union would probably have survived if the economy had been growing strongly. What brought it down was the insolence of absolute power combined with an abject failure to deliver the goods economically. The Chinese communist regime is very insolent, but it will probably survive as long as it delivers the goods.
However, China has a market economy now and market economies have recessions. The official Chinese growth rate is still six per cent, but the real rate of growth has already fallen to somewhere between three per cent and zero. The next five or 10 years should be quite interesting.
(The writer’s new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy and Work)
Writer & Courtesy: Gwynne Dyer
Delimitation of constituencies in Jammu & Kashmir is essential to end regional discrimination and dominance of one particular region over the other two
Among the many problems that engulf Jammu & Kashmir, regional discrimination tops the list. Not very long ago, there was a misconception in the country that Jammu & Kashmir means Kashmir. Many official documents of the Government, as also the media, very often referred to the State as Kashmir. Even the important organs of the State, which included police, administrative services and broadcasting services, are even today referred to as the Kashmir Police Service, Kashmir Administrative Services, Radio Kashmir and DD Kashir. The media, while reporting incidents in the Jammu region, still headlines them as happening in Kashmir. This misconception has been created deliberately by the Kashmiri rulers, who have ruled the State ever since its accession with India, to ensure Kashmiri dominance over the other two regions of the State.
Both Jammu and Ladakh have opposed the Kashmiri hegemony ever since early 1950s when the Constituent Assembly was formed and thereafter, the Sheikh Abdullah-led Government began to rule the State. The Kashmir-centric leadership, with the blessings of Congress-led Nehru Government at the Centre, began systematic degradation of Jammu region in order to express their annoyance against the Maharaja and Dogras. Ladakh was also taken for granted and neglected for being a Buddhist majority area.
However, Sheikh Abdullah, who enjoyed absolute power, institutionalised the hegemony through arbitrary allotment of seats among the three regions of the State when the Constituent Assembly was convened in 1951. The elections were held arbitrarily without any formal authority to conduct elections and women were debarred from enrolling as voters. A total of 100 seats were delineated for the Constituent Assembly. While 25 seats were reserved for the residents of Pak-occupied areas (POJK), elections were held for the remaining 75 seats. There was no delimitation done, nor any yardsticks were laid down for the distribution of seats to the three different regions of the State. The figure of 75 was also borrowed from the Maharaja to whom goes the credit of establishing in 1934 the first elected legislature known as Prajasabha, which had 75 members (both elected and nominated, including the members of the Maharaja’s Cabinet). Out of the 75 seats for which elections were to be held to elect the Constituent Assembly, 40 were allotted to Kashmir, 33 to Jammu and two to Ladakh.
To ensure control of the legislature, Sheikh Abdullah played this fraud with the people of Jammu and Ladakh, ignoring the basic principle of proportional representation since Jammu had larger area and almost equal population with Kashmir. Though Ladakh had the largest area, it was sparsely populated. Jammu Praja Parishad, a political party in Jammu, objected to the discrimination and boycotted the elections. The National Conference (NC) won all 75 seats and Sheikh Abdullah was elected as the Prime Minister of the State. The last session of the Constituent Assembly was held on January 25, 1957, and the new Constitution came into force from January 26. A bicameral Legislature was envisaged for the State.
Meanwhile, a delimitation commission was constituted in India in 1952. However, J&K has not constituted a single commission till date while the rest of the country has benefitted on four occasions so far. In J&K, delimitation has been done only once in 1995, ordered by the then Governor Gen KV Krishna Rao. Delimitation Commission is tasked with redrawing boundaries of various Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies based on the last Census of 2011. In view of Article 370, the Delimitation Commission ordered by the Government of India does not have jurisdiction over J&K. But no such commission has been ordered by the State Government as well for obvious reasons.
Till 1988, the strength of the Assembly continued to be 100 with 75 elected members. The number was increased to 111 vide the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir (20th Amendment) Act of 1988. Of these, 24 seats are designated for areas under illegal occupation of Pakistan and remain officially vacant as per section 48 of the Constitution and are not taken into account for voting and deciding quorum of the House. Elections are, thus, held for 87 seats, of which Kashmir has the majority share of 46 seats, Jammu 37 seats and Ladakh four seats. Once again, region-wise distribution of seats was done arbitrarily to ensure continuation of Kashmiri dominance. The term of the Assembly is six years, contrary to the rest of the country where the legislatures have a five-year term. There is no justification for the same except to emphasise the State’s presumed special status and flaunt Kashmiri identity. However, the delineation for additional 11 seats was done only in 1995 — on orders of the then Governor, by Justice (retd) KK Gupta, who allotted six seats to Kashmir and five to Jammu. Logically, the next delimitation should have been held in 2005.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Farooq Abdullah, who returned in 1996 as the Chief Minister, played the biggest fraud by passing a resolution in the State Assembly, freezing delimitation till 2026. Concerned with the rise of growing anger among the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions against Kashmiri dominance, Farooq amended the State’s Constitution through 29th amendment of 2002, inserting a new para in Section 47 (3) of the Constitution, freezing fresh delimitation till first Census taken after the year 2026. As a matter of fact, no fresh delimitation is possible till 2031 because that is when theCensus would be due after 2026, a master stroke of Farooq to ensure continuation of Kashmiri hegemony. While Section 49 grants political reservation to SCs, the STs (Gujjars, Bakarwals, Gaddis), which form more than 12 per cent of the State’s population, are denied the political reservations. Going by Farooq’s dubious master stroke, justice cannot be provided to the tribal communities of the State till 2031. Around 24 seats earmarked for the people of POJK serve no purpose except to strengthen our claim on the illegally occupied part of the State. About eight-10 seats out of these should also be allotted to Jammu since all POJK refugees are settled in Jammu region. Using his guile and influence, Sheikh Abdullah did not let any of the refugees from Mirpur-Muzaffarabad belt settle in Kashmir though going by geographical proximity, Kashmir should have been the natural habitat of refugees from Muzaffarabad. The displaced community of Kashmiri Pandits should also have reserved seats in Kashmir.
Der ayad durust ayad (better late than never) is a popular saying. The initiative being taken by Modi 2.0 Government, with Amit Shah heading the vital Home Ministry, is a welcome step to end regional discrimination and dominance of one particular region over the other two. This is vital to bridge the growing divide between the three regions to ensure unity of the State. By empowering the people of Jammu and Ladakh, vital stakeholders and separatist forces will be hit hard and pave way for return of peace and normalcy to the troubled State. Apart from removing inequity and anomaly of regional disparity long suffered by people of Jammu, who form 44 per cent population of the State and occupy 26 per cent of the State’s total area as per the 2011 Census, fresh delimitation will also provide representation to all reserved categories in the State Assembly.
It is not intended to raise finger on the validity of the Census 2011, but the people need to know two glaring observations in the Census that question the large gap of about 15 lakh between the populations of two regions. First, the entire migratory population of Gujjar, Bakerwal and Gaddis that account for 12 per cent of the total population (14,93,299) and is a floating population has been included in the population of Kashmir region. Second, about two lakh Kashmiri Pandit population is also included in Kashmir’s population. The fact is known world over. Kashmiri Pandits migrated in the early 1990s and 66 per cent of them are staying in the Jammu region. The rest are divided between Delhi and other parts of the country. Hardly a few thousands Kashmiri Pandits continue to stay in Kashmir. The point to highlight is that if factual position is taken, Jammu region has more population than Kashmir.
Also, while constituencies in Kashmir are delineated for a population of 35000-40000, many in Jammu have an electorate of lakh plus. While Kashmiris want to heap the benefit of floating population to show that the region is more populated than Jammu, when it comes to granting them political reservations, they deny them the same. This explains the political dynamics of State which were heavily skewed in favour of Kashmir. Since the State is under President’s Rule, legislative powers of the legislature are vested with the Indian Parliament and executive authority is with the President in accordance with Article 356 of the Constitution. Therefore, in order to amend Section 47 of the State’s Constitution, Parliament’s approval will be needed based on which the President will issue the Presidential Order, paving way for the Constitution of a Delimitation Commission. In order to protect multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious and inclusive ethos of State, it is necessary to bridge the widening distrust between the three regions. Regional disparities have to end first before other measures can be taken. All eyes and hopes of the people of Jammu and Ladakh are on Modi 2.0.
(The writer is a Jammu-based political commentator, columnist, security and strategic analyst)
Writer & Courtesy: Anil Gupta
AAP Govt’s free public transport move for women could set a policy benchmark across genders and cities
Is poverty the price of prosperity? Paradoxical as this may sound, the experience of both developed and emerging economies seems to reinforce this reality. This is especially true for vast metropolitan conglomerations such as Mumbai, Mexico City, Manila and increasingly Delhi. The overcrowded slums in these cities coexist cheek-by-jowl with serenely decked-up bungalows that house the rich, the powerful and the beautiful. The neighbourhood slums or multi-storey ghettos exist to service the “other half” so to speak. This stark class differentiation compels city administrations to devise policies to cater to the conflicting needs of rival sections. The Delhi government’s controversial move to make public transportation free for women comes in the category of such a contradictory policy. Predictably, its intended beneficiaries have welcomed it, but the rest are miffed. Critics say women should not be specially favoured in the age of gender equality, while its proponents assert that the city administration must be responsive to the financial and security concerns of women commuters. A more widespread charge against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi is that it has been overtly populist and opportunistic by announcing this move just a few months before the City-State’s Assembly election. It would, however, be unfair to blame AAP as even the biggest national parties such as the Congress and BJP have both indulged in the same. In fact, Delhi is relatively prosperous compared to most States of the Union and can afford a fair degree of populism. It is also a fact that Delhi’s two-crore plus population is highly disaggregated with thousands of poor people from neighbouring States migrating almost daily. India is a free country in which there are, rightly, no curbs on internal migration unlike, say, China.
Will this help decongest the Capital’s overburdened roads? In all probability — No. But it will definitely help working woman commute at lesser cost while their greater numbers should make metro coaches safer for travelling. If this experiment succeeds as it surely will, a debate on making public transport free for all must follow. Arguably, it was once a socialist ideal and socialism itself has been thrown out of the window almost everywhere in the world. But when public transport was virtually free in Socialist Bloc countries, the world was far less prosperous than it is today. In fact, the gains of capitalism allow us to adopt more socialist policies than hitherto conceivable. Running public transport should not in any case be guided by the idea of profit and loss. The state has certain responsibilities towards its citizens and providing affordable and efficient public transportation in all large urban conglomerates is one of its duties. This point was emphasised by none other than India’s own Metro Man, E Sreedharan, who was highly critical of the public-private model adopted for Hyderabad. He said that public transport infrastructure is very expensive and recovering costs both of construction and operations through fares is simply not possible. So subsidies are a must. The question is how much subsidy is the optimum. That in turn depends on its objective. If the idea is to facilitate urban commuting and help generate more from the work force, the state must look upon public transport infrastructure as investment in economic growth. There was a time when peak hour traffic in Beijing consisted of pedestrians, metro commuters and bicyclists. Cars were few and far between. Today traffic jams in the Chinese Capital are as bad as New York, suggesting a degree of prosperity unthinkable even two decades ago. Traffic explosion may be the downside of prosperity, but that does not mean we adopt Pol Pot-like measures to stymie growth. Therefore, a subsidised growth model is a must for metro rail if our urban hubs are to prosper. Delhi, with its visionary Chief Minister is probably the right man to lay the footprint for a free yet viable metro network in all major cities of India.
It appears that the summers are getting hotter. It is time we looked at climate change making the summers worse
Headlines are screaming about how temperatures across the country are hitting record highs. On social media, users are posting pictures of their car thermometers in cities like Delhi often displaying readings of temperatures rising above 50oC. As many as 10 places in India currently figure among the 15 hottest in the world. Further, according to the Ministry of statistics and programme implementation, heat waves and cold waves in the country have increased greatly over the past two years. While the number of heatwaves increased 14 times in 2017 compared to 2016, the number of cold waves spiked 34 times in the same period. The fact of the matter is that summers in India have become progressively warmer over the years. While the heat that builds up over north and central India creates a large low pressure zone, which draws in the rain-laden clouds from the Indian Ocean, the temperatures are now hitting deadly levels, making living and working outside downright dangerous for the people. Not everyone has the privilege of working indoors, sitting comfortably inside the office premises. From delivery boys to traffic policemen and women as also service staffers, who work in this unbearable heat — all risk their lives just as they are doing their daily routine jobs. They do not have a choice and we doff our caps to these brave souls working in these truly atrocious conditions. One irony of soaring temperatures is that it makes those, who can afford to use air conditioners, use them more. There is nothing wrong per se. In this heat, any creature comfort that can make one feel cooler is a must. But air conditioners work by exchanging heat and the exhaust from them, in homes, offices and cars make the outside air hotter still. And then there is the power needed to power all the cooling devices, made from polluting coal as India still generates a bulk of its electricity from thermal sources. To make matters worse this summer, when the thin air is usually blowing around, air pollution levels normally reduce dramatically but this year, Delhi’s Air Quality Index has been stuck in the severe category for days. One reason for that is likely the more intense measuring of pollution nowadays, but residents in cities across North India feel the air they breathe and they will tell you that it is dirtier than usual.
The example of air conditioners and how their use has built up a positive feedback cycle making the heat worse is a prime example of climate change-driven by our everyday actions. And we can feel that the average temperature is rising year after year when we step out into the heat and feel our skin sear and notice the roads melt. This is just another challenge for the new Government, how to balance the needs of the population with the environment. You can’t stop people from using air conditioners if they can afford it and more Indians can afford it every year. But you can mandate more efficient air conditioners alongside better building design and strive for cleaner energy sources. One of the keys to protect oneself from the heat waves is to avoid exposure to direct sunlight during the hottest time of the day, around noon time. Alongside, State Governments must play a proactive role in implementing the NDMA guidelines, which lays down the measures to prepare, protect, and mitigate the ill-effects of heat waves. With advanced meteorological forecasting systems, the public can be alerted as soon as the temperatures cross the threshold limit. They must be advised about the precautionary measures to be taken, especially the most vulnerable lot. It is only a matter of time when the headlines will scream out that the temperature in Delhi, which is after all a city of 20 million souls, will exceed 50oC at a measuring station. By then, it might be too late to turn back time even as the effects of climate change causes an increase in extreme weather-related events.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
China is a good example of how it has balanced environmental protection and economic growth. India must learn from Beijing to tackle air pollution
Air pollution has become an unwitting part of our daily lives along with its health and economic consequences. This, despite the tremendous efforts being made to bring down the scale of pollution through path-breaking measures aided by researched scientific studies. Today, the entire world’s attention will be focused on air pollution as it happens to be the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, which is being hosted by China. World Environment Day, celebrated since 1974, is the United Nations day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect the environment.
Since its inception, the World Environment Day has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is celebrated in over 100 countries. Above all, this day has become “people’s day” for doing something to take care of the Earth. That “something” can be local, national or global. This year’s theme of ‘air pollution’ is apt as this issue has been causing immense concern to the well-being of humanity across the world. Globally, it is estimated that air pollution is responsible for 3.1 million premature deaths worldwide every year and 3.2 percent of the global burden of disease.
Epidemiological studies revealed that there is a link between air pollution and diseases with public health importance such as cardiovascular diseases for instance, stroke and ischemic heart disease, cancers and respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases related to air pollution include acute respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and asthma. India is one of the main sufferers of deteriorating air quality levels. Though the Government is making efforts all-year round to mitigate its effects, no noticeable dip in air pollution levels have been registered. This year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has released a song titled, ‘Hawa Aane De’ to spread awareness among the general public regarding air pollution and its adverse effects on the eve of the World Environment Day. Even the traffic police has been roped in to create the required consciousness regarding air pollution and associated problems.
The World Environment Day is also referred to as the ‘Action Day’ when people around the world are expected to take meaningful action in their own way possible and do their bit for planet Earth. The day symbolises the efforts to save the environment and is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action. However, the current state of dismal air quality levels and withering environment is indicative of the fact that intense and productive action is needed almost on a daily basis to save our ambient air quality. In this regard, perhaps it is not coincidental that China is hosting this year’s ‘World Environment Day’. The country is increasingly being recognised by the world for its hard and aggressive domestic stand on matters pertaining to environmental conservation.
China was at the receiving end of severe air pollution levels till recently but concentrated and non-negotiable policies are slowly turning the tide in its favour. Besides, China is also planning to adopt more efficient and targeted measures during its continuing campaign against pollution by not relaxing the targets or easing crackdown on violators. One of the first measures adopted by the Chinese Government was to give autonomy to regional pollution control authorities to curb the production of heavy industries in their region, depending upon the local air quality level. This helped it bring an end to the earlier practice of imposing nation-wide production curbs on heavy industries in response to spike in air pollution levels in some regional areas. This impacted the economy negatively than actually curbing the pollution levels.
The bevy of policy initiatives taken up by China has made the world sit up and take notice. The efforts of China to control the pollution levels are nearly 20-year-old and according to a research conducted by UN Environment and the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau (BEE), it is evident how Beijing’s air quality management programme has evolved and makes for a sustainable strategy for the future. The report by BEE specifically mentions, “This improvement in air quality didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of an enormous investment of time, resources and political will.”
Figures of improvement in air quality speak for themselves. Reeling under the pressure of ever worsening air quality, Beijing adopted systematic and intensive measures in the beginning of 2013. Thanks to unwavering and concentrated efforts by the Government — which was fully supported by the disciplined population — by the end of 2017, fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) had fallen by 35 per cent and by 25 per cent in the surrounding Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Over this period, annual emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM10) and volatile organic compounds in Beijing decreased by 83 per cent, 43 per cent, 55 per cent and 42 per cent respectively. Much of this reduction came from measures to control coal-fired boilers, provide cleaner domestic fuels and industrial restructuring. This by itself is an area of learning for India.
What is the backbone of this firm Chinese resolve to bring down air pollution levels? It is definitely not a set of token efforts played mainly for optics by the Government as in other countries. In fact, Beijing’s air quality management system is supported by a comprehensive monitoring, evaluation, pollution source apportionment and emission inventories. It also contains wide-ranging legal standards and strict environmental law enforcement. Air quality work is supported by economic policies, public participation and coordination on air pollution prevention and control in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. These robust networks of actionable laws and policies have helped China achieve something that other nations suffering from falling air quality standards are still grappling with. Without doubt, Beijing’s efforts, achievements, experiences and lessons in air pollution control over the last 20 years are worth analysing and sharing in order to progress global environmental governance.
Beijing has achieved impressive air quality improvements in a short span. It is a good example of how to balance environmental protection and economic growth. India is ambitiously targeting aggressive economic growth that might outpace Chinese economy eventually. But what will this progress cost us? A country that loses its environment and gains economic prosperity has only won in short-term and lost in long-term. Therefore a balance is of utmost importance. The World Environment Day in India must come to mean the significance of this balance.
India must rejig its environmental priorities and ensure that the annual World Environment Day is utilised for stock-taking and assessment of efforts taken in the last year. As a first step, the new Government must set actionable goals that are time-bound and specify penalties for relevant authorities for not adhering to the deadlines. People, too, need to be held accountable for the environment and sufficient measures must be envisioned and implemented that seek to awake environmental consciousness of the common man and also ensure that willful and deliberate polluters of environment are exemplarily punished. Would these measures be harsh for India? Maybe not if one factors in the suffering undergone by the environment and our fragile ecosystem till now.
It is time to quantify the progress made by us in safeguarding the environment. Celebration of a specific day by caring for the planet for that particular day is woefully inadequate. This has to be a year-long effort until we reclaim our environment. As China has shown, this is very much possible.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
Writer: Kota Sriraj
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The JD(U) chief has reminded the ruling NDA why it must abide by the coalition dharma and not dismiss allies
India’s experiments with coalition governments may have had varying degrees of success, sometimes as that of a keeper of checks and balances, sometimes as deal-breakers for policy implementation. But by and large, India has evolved its coalition dharma with artful management of consensus politics. Alliance governments are now not just part of the political grammar but no party, no matter how big its verdict, can afford to ignore the contribution made by its regional partners. Without that arrangement, there would not have been a combined vote surge or the number of seats. The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), should know this too well, now that it is into its third edition. But the huge individual numbers for the BJP (303 Lok Sabha seats, majority being 272) may have led to hubris and a confidence which was definitely not there before the elections. In fact, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his wingman Amit Shah had carefully worked on adding more and more allies, even the smallest, months before the polls, unsure as they were of the verdict. True, numerically the BJP can afford to be blatant but the question is would the numbers appear on the tally had it not been for its notional inclusive approach? It is in this light that the BJP should remember the virtues of flexibility and sensitivity rather than arrogance and rigidity. Had it been wary, it could well have avoided the kind of tiff it had with Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief Nitish Kumar.
Nitish was reportedly upset at being offered no more than one berth in the Union Cabinet though he claimed 50 per cent seats of the total NDA tally from Bihar. So he chose to stay out of the government and offer only outside support to NDA3. Not only that, he declared that the JD-U would not join the NDA government in future either if tokenism was the only criterion. Agreed the BJP had a bigger seat tally to justify reducing the quota for allies but during the election, it had accorded some allies like the Shiv Sena and JD-U greater space in seat allocation and had hence built up expectations of primacy. In that case, there should have been equally open talks at the allies’ meet before government formation. In a hitback, Nitish did not include a single BJP member as he expanded his State Cabinet on Sunday and inducted eight of his legislators. Although some firefighting was done saying one seat was left for the BJP, speculation was rife that fissures within the NDA were getting deeper, given the fact that Nitish’s relationship with the BJP has always been uncomfortable, the alliance being one of political necessity than ideological compliance. In fact, Nitish’s socialist belief systems have always been antithetical to the BJP’s and had not Bihar’s former strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav painted him into a corner, disagreeing with his clean politics than his own dynastic one, Nitish would not have had to make this unhappy compromise. But wily that he is, Nitish is also keeping his self-worth intact by just extending support and not participating in governance, giving the BJP some anxiety before the Assembly elections next year. In fact, most of his State Cabinet inductees are from the backward and extremely backward castes, the numerical consolidation of which has also been the target of the BJP. Besides, if the success of the Biju Janata Dal has proved anything, it is that a fair bit of equidistance helps. By staying out of the government, Nitish is also hoping to get special status for Bihar ahead of the Assembly election. By taking the moral high ground, he is appealing to his electorate. Besides, should the ruling BJP get aggressive about pushing contentious issues like Article 370 or the latest language chauvinism — ideas Nitish detests — he can claim distance on secular grounds. Also, the failure of Lalu and Congress has left Bihar a fertile ground for new political alignments ahead of the Assembly elections. The BJP, too, cannot take everything for granted so early in the day.
Writer: Pioneer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Modi-led new Government deserves six tension-free months to put its plans and promises in action mode. Meanwhile, the Opposition must set its own house in order
Narendra Modi 2.0 has begun on a triumphant note for the BJP and its allies. Obviously, it has come as a shock to ‘seasoned’ politicians, none of whom — with all the experience of electioneering behind — could anticipate such a massive mandate in favour of Narendra Modi. Many of them thought the 2014 victory was a fluke; that people were tempted by what they called ‘unfulfilled promises’. Congressmen were convinced that people would return back to the grand old party; other parties thought that their caste base was intact as Modi could not bring back black money, out of which every Indian was to get 15 lakh in his/her account. Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav dismissed the panel of spokespersons of the party. Congress has decided not to send spokespersons for TV debates for a month. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) continues to complain about ‘good EVMs’ and ‘doctored EVMs’. All of these indicate the level and intensity of pain the defeat has inflicted on major Opposition parties.
Yes, it is a sharp indictment inflicted by the people on them and it will be tough for these parties to come out of the shock. They are best advised to seek solace and guidance from what Alvin Toffler had written a couple of decades ago: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” Think of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who was travelling to various places, making an attempt to bring Opposition parties together and offer a national alternative — even a Prime Minister! In his own State, he was facing the Assembly elections. Probably he knew nothing about which way the wind was blowing there. Literacy has so many dimensions. The contours of Indian electoral politics have undergone a silent though major transformation over the years and those, who continue to depend upon taking the voter for granted, will just vanish from the scene. One can be sure that the fate of Trinamool Congress (TMC), SP, BSP and Indian National Congress — still keen to continue the politics of 1980s — shall be observed very closely even by international pundits of electoral politics.
Pre-election activities to the 17th Lok Sabha polls shall be remembered in history for the absence of efforts by Opposition parties to comprehend the prevailing mood of the electorate. Absence of strategic deficiencies and restlessness among all major Opposition parties was visible all around. They targetted Narendra Modi, and were not against the BJP. The manner chowkidar chor hai boomeranged indicates the absence of “unlearn and relearn.” After the elections, Opposition parties face a bleak future. They are a worried lot as this election could herbal a total transformation of the Indian political scenario during the next five years. Political parties based on caste, sub-caste and communal considerations, mostly owned by individuals and families, have already sensed grave danger to their very existence after the renewed arrival of Narendra Modi on the national scene. In the 2014 elections, his popularity cut across caste, creed, regional or parochial considerations. He could even make a dent in the Muslim community votes, which indeed was a great achievement even as the numbers were not so impressive. Modi has endeared himself to the liberal and educated Muslim community on the one hand and on the other, to those who are grateful to receive gas connections, pucca houses, toilets and several other benefits. The Opposition knew it well — though they could not accept it publically for obvious reasons — that some of the schemes launched by Narendra Modi had impacted millions of families who were deprived of basic facilities and human dignity for ages. A gas connection, toilet, pucca house, a bank account, health support, farm insurance and the like brought achhe din to crores of families — without any discrimination. This was one well-thought out step that related every member of the beneficiary family to Prime Minister Modi on one-to-one basis.
Here was a Prime Minister, who was worried about the smoke in the kitchen of the poor and the embarrassment suffered by women who had to suffer due to the practice of open defecation all along. He had the courage to speak about it from the ramparts of the Red Fort. He could set the entire nation on the move — clean India an ODF India. Not that these concerns were not highlighted in policies and programmes earlier, but implementation mostly remained on files only. Things are different this time: A family that uses toilets now shall never let it go non-functional in the future. Those, who are used to the luxury of shining marble-floored attached toilets for four-five decades, just could not visualise the impact on the families getting a toilet for the first time.
Think of the political leadership of the first two decades after independence. Most of them had impressive saga of sacrifices and sufferings behind them. They had worked with the people, understood India, were practicing Gandhian values, knew India likes and adores those who comprehend the import of non-accumulation; Aparigrah. People are just trying to find one person in public life who practices Aparigrah like Modi in his real life. The newly elected MP from Balasore, Pratap Sarangi, comes in this category. He received the maximum applause while taking oath as a Minister of State in the new Cabinet. He lives in a thatched house, rides a bicycle and created history by winning the election without any expenditure. People are keen to know more about him, his lifestyle and the way he conducts himself. They are least concerned about his caste or political affiliation. This India is now emerging. It has naturally caused great concern among those who find their citadels of power, affluence and authority crumbling under the upthrust from below — the rise of neglected people, deprived people and those who were presumed destined to suffer forever.
People are no more impressed by lavish lifestyles, long cavalcades and hoards of favour-seekers around their leaders. Gradually, India has developed distaste for avoidable pomp and show, particularly by elected representatives, including those occupying high positions in the Government. It was left to Narendra Modi to realise that the red beacon on vehicles was disliked by practically everyone in the public. By one single act, he won over innumerable fans throughout the country. One could enlist several such successful initiatives that have changed the psyche of the people of India. They are breaking the barriers in Indian politics, freeing it from the bondages of caste and communal shackles. The real and realistic change is taking place in villages and small towns of India. And this indeed is a very encouraging sign. The manner in which political parties and leaders are incisively analysed in village chaupals and roadside tea stalls can often become an eye-opener for political pundits. Voting patterns in States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are rare examples of the increasing maturity of the Indian voter. They installed Congress Governments in these States just six months ago, but extended full-scale support to Modi in national elections. It is this newly-acquired skill of discrimination that represents an increase in the strength of democracy.
The new Government deserves six tension-free months to put its plans and promises in action mode. The Opposition can utilise this time to set its house in order. Most regional parties are facing some crises or the other. There is disappointment in parties like BSP, SP, NCP, TDP and there is immense frustration that has manifested most in West Bengal, or in speeches of leaders like Farooq Abdullah, Mamata Banerjee or Mehbooba Mufti. The best course open for Opposition parties is to direct their leaders and workers to go to villages, stay there for at least a month, if not more, and find out what people really need and what impacts them. Take one example: If instead of going abroad for two months on a secret mission, Rahul Gandhi had stayed — at least once in five years — in Amethi for that much period, he would certainly not have suffered a humiliating defeat. He would have gathered tremendous experience in understanding India if he had gone to take medicine from the local health centre, accompanied a farmer to the police station to get an FIR registered, visited sarkari schools to find what happens to the mid-day meal scheme.
Smriti Irani maintained her links even after losing the 2014 elections and her doors were open 24X7 to anyone coming to Delhi from Amethi. This was bound to pay dividends. It worked and she could achieve what was considered impossibility by most experts. It will be interesting and rewarding if someone could study and analyse how many candidates, who came second in 2014 elections, really kept in touch with their electorate for five years. My presumption, sadly enough, is not encouraging at all.
(The writer is the Indian Representative on the Executive Board of UNESCO)
Writer: JS Rajput
Courtesy: The Pioneer
To rise again, the Congress needs to reinvent itself and strengthen the organisation. It must play the role of a credible Opposition not by criticising every move of the Government but by supporting it for the acts that are in the nation’s interest
The Congress has gone back to the tried and tested leadership of Sonia Gandhi by once again electing her as the leader of its parliamentary party in its hour of crisis. Calling it “unprecedented crisis”, Sonia herself acknowledged the numerous challenges confronting the grand old party. Claiming that several decisive measures were being mulled to strengthen the organisation, she hinted that Rahul Gandhi would continue as the party chief though he had offered his resignation to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) after the defeat. In one voice, the CWC rejected his resignation. By now, it is clear that neither will the party give up on the Gandhi family nor will the family will give up its power over the 132- year grand old party.
Rahul Gandhi should learn a lesson or two from other Opposition leaders, who, too, were humiliated in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has already made changes to her party to get ready for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has asked his party to be prepared for the 2020 Assembly polls. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has begun her street-level fight to prepare for the Assembly polls. So, the fighting politician will not sulk as Rahul Gandhi did for the past few days. If the general is demoralised, what happens to the foot soldiers?
Rahul Gandhi’s pep-talk to his party MPs last week sent the right signal that it will fight back in Parliament and outside as that is what is expected from a responsible Opposition leader. He said, “We are 52 MPs. I guarantee you that these 52 MPs will fight against the BJP every single inch. We are enough to make the BJP jump everyday.” But to do this, Rahul Gandhi should come to Parliament regularly and lead from the front. So far he had been irregular in his Parliament attendance. If public meetings and rallies brings a leader in direct contact with the people, the Parliament is where the Opposition should take on the Government effectively through debates and discussions. Sonia Gandhi optimistically predicted that, “In an unprecedented crisis lies an unprecedented opportunity…Undeterred by the many challenges that lie ahead, we will rise again,” she said.
To rise again, the party needs to reinvent itself and strengthen the organisation. Rahul Gandhi’s first challenge is to show that the Congress is not a spent-force.
Second, he should make efforts to unite the Opposition to function in a cohesive manner in Parliament on issues that matter. Now that the NDA has emerged with 352 seats in the Lok Sabha, passing Bills will not be a problem for the Modi Government. But this is where the Congress and other Opposition parties should be vigilant. An effective Opposition does not need numbers but members, who can raise the issues effectively. Did not former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi face such turbulent times in Parliament during the Bofors scam days, though he had a brute majority of 415 members? A dozen of Opposition leaders, including Madhu Dandavate, Somnath Chatterjee, Indrajit Gupta, Jaipal Reddy and KP Unnikrishnan not only raised issues effectively but also saw to it that Rajiv Gandhi lost power in the 1989 elections.
Third, the Congress should strengthen the Opposition by winning cooperation of parties like Biju Janata Dal, YSR Congress Party and Telangana Rashtra Samithi among others during parliamentary debates and discussions.
Fourth, though there is no provision of a shadow Cabinet in the Indian system, the Congress can think of encouraging its MPs to develop expertise in certain domains. This will come handy for the party. After all, it has several experienced ex-Ministers. Lastly, the party should live in the present and not in its past glory as no legacy however strong can go on forever.
The role of the Opposition is not to criticise every decision of the Government but support issues of public interest. Boycotting the Parliament, stalling business and hitting the streets will not work. Modi-bashing days are over after the BJP registered a stunning victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It is time to look ahead. Ideas of secularism/fundamentalism have no longer any appeal going by the way the BJP is growing. What Congress needs is to find an identity, appeal and a new narrative. After all, it has to face several Assembly elections before the next Lok Sabha polls in 2024. The Congress as a credible Opposition is critical for Indian democracy because despite its losses, the party still remains the only political force as a counterbalance to the BJP’s surge.
The Congress should work towards building a cohesive Opposition and take note of what the Prime Minister said in a televised address: “Whatever happened in these elections is in the past, we have to look ahead. We have to take everyone forward, including our staunchest opponents.” If he is looking ahead, so should the Opposition.
(The writer is a senior political commentator and syndicated columnist)
Writer: Kalyani Shankar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The US President has walked the talk and removed India from the preferential trade list. The ball is now in our court
Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal could not have expected that soon after the smiles and photo-opportunities ended, he would be thrust into the deep end of India’s trade problems, with United States (US) President Donald Trump keeping his promise to remove India from the General System of Preferences (GSP). This programme allowed Indian exporters access to US markets at zero duties to the tune of $5.6 billion every year. While Trump’s trade wars across the world have focussed primarily on China and the European Union, India has never been far away from his gaze. He had warned that the GSP would be lifted back in March and the US Commerce Secretary even visited India last month in the midst of the elections. The US might have been persuaded to delay any punitive action until the new government was sworn in but that it was single-minded and unwavering was evident from its decision taken hours after Goyal barely took over from Suresh Prabhu at Udyog Bhavan. Goyal will have to use his experience of working in the US as an investment banker to good use now. Trump’s entire economic agenda has been based around removing what he considers ‘unfair’ trade practices by other nations on American imports. This has completely upended the global trade applecart and it is ironic that a President from America’s pro-Capitalist Republican Party has almost torn globalisation asunder. Negotiations with the US will not be easy, it wants more access to the Indian market for its agriculturalists. The US has also complained about sourcing rules for e-commerce firms like Flipkart, now owned by American retail giant Walmart. American financial services firms such as MasterCard have complained vociferously against India’s data localisation laws.
At the same time, India has been a rich hunting ground for American technology and services firms such as Google, Facebook and Uber. And US foreign policy advisors see India as a bulwark against China’s increasing economic and military might, with India being an essential part of the ‘Quad’, a nebulous alliance between Australia, India, Japan and the US. It is essential for the US to realise the strategic importance of India in the coming decades, particularly as the trade wars with China are effectively the first shots in the conflict between the two nations. At the same time, India has to balance some of the US’ more legitimate demands for lower duties and greater access. Goyal, therefore, has a difficult time on his hands, balancing flagship programmes like ‘Make in India’ with Trump’s ego. But he has no options.
Writer: Pioneer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
We must have the ability to use our vast range of assets in a coordinated manner to provide the synergy required to realise our foreign policy, security and economic objectives
After years of speculation, the Government has finally bitten the bullet and formally named the heads of the Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD) and the Defence Cyber Agency (DCA). The head for the Defence Space Agency (DSA) is expected to follow soon. These three tri-service divisions will function under the Integrated Defence Staff supposedly to foster “integration, synergy and economy” among elements of the three services. By standardising and integrating their training, equipping and logistics, it is hoped that their utilisation can be optimised, thus providing maximum bang for bucks.
All of this is meant to convince us that our military hierarchy understands modern warfare in all its complexities and is taking the necessary steps needed to ensure that it has the tools at its disposal to deal with a full-spectrum of conflict — from operations other than war to a nuclear conflagration. While one cannot speak about the capabilities that either the DCA or the DSA may plan to possess, there is little doubt that the establishment of AFSOD in its present form leaves much to be desired. In fact, if one were to be brutally honest, its establishment is nothing but a poorly concealed effort to pull the wool over the eyes of our political leadership, unless they were in on it and the tax-paying public.
While the need for establishing a Special Operations Command, as suggested by the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012, may well be debatable, it is a given that our strategic ambitions are constrained by the fact that we face two nuclear armed adversaries with disputed borders. Given that one of these nations is an economic and military powerhouse, it implies that the primary focus of our security establishment must remain on our immediate neighbourhood. We cannot, however, lose sight of the fact that as we rapidly develop, PricewaterhouseCoopers considered India to be the third largest economy in PPP terms in its February 2015 report, ‘The World in 2050’. Further, our sphere of influence is also likely to expand beyond the regional.
A growing Indian diaspora and increasing economic interests world-wide make it necessary for the Government to look at enhancing its capabilities to protect its interests abroad. We must have the ability to utilise our vast range of assets in a coordinated manner that would provide the necessary synergy required to ensure that we can successfully meet our foreign policy, security and economic objectives in our areas of interest and influence. This requires tri-service special operations capability grounded in the reality of our circumstances that will enable focussed capacity-building and the establishment of linkages within the security establishment and other Ministries towards their employment at the strategic and operational level, especially with regard to the conduct of ‘Out of Area’ contingencies.
Sadly, the AFSOD is hardly in a position to do anything of the sort, given the meagre resources that have been placed at its disposal. The very fact that it is being established outside of the National Capital Region ensures that its General Officer Commanding can never become the single point advisor on the conduct of special operations to either the Chiefs of Staff Committee or the Cabinet Committee on Security, which is required for the type of tasks envisaged to be undertaken. However, all this apart, what is truly despicable and astounding is the blatant attempt to use bureaucratese to stall logical development in order to protect vested interests. All of this will, in the end, be at the cost of lives because special operations are not only inherently risky and dangerous but also have very little margin for error.
One cannot help but notice the similarity in the manner in which the United States military went about establishing its joint special operations capability. As most may know, the disaster of ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ in 1980 — the failed mission to rescue American hostages held in Iran — was attributed to the lack of jointmanship and a convoluted command and control set-up, among other things. In order to correct the situation, the Army first tried to consolidate all Army Special Operations Forces (SOF) under 1st Special Operations Command in 1982. The lack of a unified structure led to concern within the Senate Armed Services Committee, which resulted in the Department of Defence, creating the joint special operations agency in January 1984.
This agency was, however, flawed as it had neither operational nor command authority over any SOF. In 1986, the The Goldwater–Nichols Department of the Defence Reorganisation Act of 1986 was passed, which appointed the chairman chiefs of staff committee as the single point advisor to the Secretary of Defence and the President. In addition, they also forced the establishment of joint theatre commands, with the commanders-in-chief also having direct access to the Defence Secretary and the President. Despite stiff opposition, the Nunn-Cohen Bill was passed in 1987 and amended the Goldwater-Nichols Act to establish the United States Special Operations Command under a four star C-in-C as a separate command, which supported other theatre commands. In 2014, it was re-designated as a combatant command.
Clearly, it is not in our interest to undertake such a torturous process for developing our SOF capability. Given our limitations in terms of resources and employability, we must play smart and establish an agile and flexible architecture that ensures we meet all our operational requirements, while at the same time avoiding establishing bureaucratic silos and duplication of capabilities, visible elsewhere. While military reorganisations tend to be carried out incrementally, given the nature of operational commitments, in the context of our SOF, the necessity for transformative changes is inescapable.
History tells us that our political leadership and bureaucracy, both civilian and military, are extremely averse to change as we are inclined to aggressively protect our own turf. However, as SOF will play an increasingly vital role in protecting our national interests in the future, it will be logical to reorganise them in the manner that they not only meet our future needs without the need for additional changes, but also show the way forward in enhancing tri-service jointness.
This will only be feasible, given the entrenched views that exist, if it is a top-driven exercise initiated at the highest level. The military leadership has choices to make. It can either remain wedded to age-old perceptions and ignore the need for change or it can take the initiative and turn it into a modern military that we deserve and can be proud of. That we are fated to repeat our follies, till we are willing to learn from history, is an old adage that’s best not forgotten. A repeat of 1962 is the last thing that our political, military and bureaucratic leadership would wish upon themselves.
(The writer, a military veteran, a consultant with the Observer Research Foundation and a Senior Visiting Fellow with The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai)
Writer: Deepak Sinha
Courtesy: The Pioneer
In his first speech after a mammoth electoral victory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had summarised what would best define not just India’s but the axis shift in world politics. “For years the Left had its ideology but we translated that into reality,” he said with conviction. Justifiably so because he proved a theorem that is being borne out by the rest of the world, where the right-wing is drawing strength from all sections of people — hordes of ordinary people to be precise — to becoming a mainstream entity than just being a fringe benefit or aberration, depending on its tolerance or virulence. So the narrative is not about right-wing dominance but about right-wing populism.
In that sense, the Modi phenomenon is in continuity with a global pattern really, one that is sweeping the Far East, through the European continent and lunging across the Atlantic. If Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are the twin polarities in the West and East, then there are several in between other than Modi. Consider the frenetic rise of Brazil’s new far-Right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who created a series of social movements that gave him the pulse of the people. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Turkish president Recep Erdogan have overturned the Left-inspired liberalism and made it their own. In Thailand, the compliance of conservatives is the reason for the continuity of military rule.
So what is the reason for this socio-psychological behaviour profile in a post-globalised world? It would be easy enough to dismiss it as born of hopelessness and desolation, climbing out of a similar trough seen between two World Wars whose belly fired up fascism and gave us a Hitler. He successfully built “otherness” as a reason for Germany’s ills before suggesting his outrageous solutions. But we are not in the Great Depression or a World War but in a globalised world which was meant to equalise and share resources. Or at least attempt to do so. What has happened in the process of an increasingly flat world of give and take, in no small part aided by the massive empowerment courtesy digitisation, is that it has led to total deconstruction of traditional social-economic structures. In its time, globalisation was a dream concept advocating free trade across borders and by extension an exchange in services, capital and ideas. All sounded good. But down the years, as industries shifted due to outsourcing from the rich to cheap-labour economies, leaving in their trail job losses in affected countries, and as home manufacturing got hit by cheap imports, like it has in India, too, the anxieties about losing identities, resources and self-worth began gaining traction. Worse, the process quickly mutated to economic imperialism and colonisation where the dominant manufacturer countries like China quickly created debt economies with highly imbalanced deficits. In many countries, the entry of multinationals meant loss of land for lavish units and sweatshop conditions for local labour. The second biggest problem that arose from free movement of skilled labour was immigration, an influx that worked when subservient but not when it claimed equal stakeholdership in the host country. So if supposedly the most apolitical country like Sweden is becoming intolerant of immigrants, leave aside the crisis fuelled by Brexit, then anti-globalisation is a bigger sentiment and the neo-age protectionism advocated by Trump its mere expression. Research has shown that in the US, the regions hardest hit by globalisation have become more politically extreme.
Besides, human psychology is such that while you want to flow with the world, share the same living indices, you still crave for primacy in your manageable unit, your controllable home and the community. This rationale is tied by cultural factors, religious beliefs and a national identity, which while acknowledging the presence of all kinds of otherness, is deeply distrustful of it. It is this undercurrent, which was dumbed down by liberals and free world economists, that has bubbled up now, forcing a review of existing theories and paradigms. This deep discontent is also the reason why traditional civil liberties, of the kind that is supportive of human rights, protection of minorities and progressive and democratic values, are under attack. Simply because they do not acknowledge the crisis of “otherness,” somebody else stealing your job, somebody else taking over the economy, somebody else denying what could be due to you, somebody benefitting from doles and, therefore pushing you to poverty. In short, the classic psychological “blame game” that lets you assign victimhood to yourself. It is this idea of exclusionary torture that doesn’t fit in with the traditional idea of Left liberalism, which, as Russian President Putin and Italy’s Five Star movement have shown, has hybridised to remain relevant. This reactionary wave is the bedrock of the radical right. Seen through this prism, Modi’s “Make in India,” the projection of an enemy snapping at our borders or the one within as entitled minority and caste votebanks, make acceptable sense.
Of course, the Left, which has been reduced to a rump over a longer period of time, made the job easier. Its version of trade unionism dwindled since the 1990s and has since pejoratively been seen as a deterrent to economic activity than as a guarantor of local jobs that the Right has successfully marketed. The Singur movement, a watershed marker in the decimation of the Left, which catapulted Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, showed that for a party which initiated land reforms, it could be blatantly smug about land acquisitions too.
Most importantly, the class interests that it so abhorred were solidified by its own internecine machinery of outsourced implementers. In relying on its ground machinery of people, who might not have been ideologically committed but were communicating with the grassroots, the Left lost its empathy and the right to leadership. Which is why a slum-born Mamata seemed more credible at the time just as the tea-seller Modi, who is born of the silent suffering kind and is more local than global, is now winning hearts.
A World Values Survey shows that people are increasingly disaffected with their government and are more willing to support authoritarian leaders, thinking that their robustness will give them a voice that civil society, so far an ivory tower of privileged and impervious intelligentsia, has denied them. Ironically, it is also the children of globalisation, the millennials — the generation that is disconnected from historicity or hasn’t lived through catastrophic world events really and whose reality is shaped by what is floating on the internet brand of unpoliced democracy — who are seeking another kind of destiny, a dream crafted on their terms than the one bequeathed.
They also haven’t felt the impact of authoritarianism unlike those in transitional generations. As they don’t have the same negative experience of authoritarian rule and are complacent about democracy and democratic stability, they are naturally inclined to any change of status quo, especially one that is iconised by social media cults. All authoritarian leaders, Modi included, are harnessing them as their neo Army and leading them to a promised land at a time when the world seems to be running out of promises in the first place.
(The writer is Associate Editor, The Pioneer)
Writer: Rinku Ghosh
Courtesy: The Pioneer
FREE Download
OPINION EXPRESS MAGAZINE
Offer of the Month