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
The Prime Minister’s imprint is writ large in all Ministries, which are headed by his favourites.
After all the hullabaloo over the formation of the new Narendra Modi government, there should have been a sense of catharsis, some feeling of continuity with many old names featuring as a cladding and awe at decisive changes in the big league. But it doesn’t inspire emotions, either of excitement or despair. For the Modi 2.0 Cabinet is not just an upgrade of version 1.0 but a total overhaul. The message is very clear. The Prime Minister will be aggressively pushing the BJP’s nationalist vision, means business from the word go and wants to do it with a beehive mindset of anodyne co-workers who are congruently attuned to his schematics. So while old performers continue with their briefs, those not falling within his bandwidth have been moved out. Also, he didn’t reward a stupendous electoral performance with a prize if the candidate was not good enough. The big move was, of course, the induction of his deputy Amit Shah as Home Minister and a virtual Number 2 in government. It would be easy enough to attribute Shah’s ascension as a reward for crafting both Modi’s and the BJP’s political journey to an unassailable position today. But Shah as Home Minister means he will not just be tasked with the law and order machinery. One can expect him to push the BJP’s vision for Jammu and Kashmir — if not Article 370, then maybe Article 35 A — take a tough line on militant and Naxal terror and drive the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in border states, particularly Bengal. With Arun Jaitley choosing to stay out of the government, Modi will be counting on Shah to be his sounding board. However, both Modi and Shah, as the dream team which gave BJP its moment in the sun, are not leaving the party unattended as Assembly elections tumble in one after the other and the BJP’s real intention in winning Vidhan Sabhas is to get comfortable numbers in the Rajya Sabha. The name of another of Modi’s favourites, JP Nadda, is doing the rounds as BJP president, that role now more crucial than any Government post. Rajnath Singh, yet another tall leader whom the BJP needs to keep the primacy of Uttar Pradesh, moves to Defence. But Modi is perhaps counting on his seasoned maturity and low-key style of working to shake up defence acquisitions, in recent times overshadowed by the Rafale imbroglio.
The second big takeaway is that of Nirmala Sitharaman breaking the glass barrier and taking charge of the all-important Finance Ministry. She is expected to address slowdown in investment and industrial production, tackle unemployment and more importantly convince India’s corporates that she is good enough to push reforms. Having worked assiduously with former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, she is expected to follow through with the PMO shadow-coaching reformatory moves. The other woman Cabinet member, Smriti Irani, despite being a giant killer at Amethi, has Woman and Child Development in addition to the old Textiles. With Modi having won a sizeable percentage of women voters, one can expect some empowering policy initiatives. The import of S Jaishankar, who replaces the towering Sushma Swaraj as Minister for External Affairs (MEA), shows that technocrats are going to get lateral entries. It is by the same logic that Hardeep Puri continues to remain in the Council of Ministers. A huge Modi favourite, Jaishankar will harmonise the PMO with MEA and helm critical initiatives vis-a-vis Pakistan, US and China at a time of trade wars and oil sanctions. With Shah and Jaishankar, Modi has created a muscular phalanx in presenting India to the world. The entry of Ramesh Pokhriyal, who has got Human Resource Development, bears the imprint of the BJP’s ideological anchor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). So cultural nationalism will be an ongoing project, one that envisages changes in curriculum not undertaken before. The Sangh wants a new education policy and reforms in the higher education system. Of course, there are those who remind us of all the good things of Modi 1.0 — the doer Nitin Gadkari retains his hold on infrastructure and now has MSMEs, Ravi Shankar Prasad sticks to Law, Dr Harsh Vardhan has regained the Health portfolio, Prakash Javadekar has Environment and Information and Broadcasting while Piyush Goyal, till recently the front-runner for Finance, has kept Railways and added Commerce and Industry. Apart from the tokenisms to castes, States and allies, the Cabinet has only one theme, that of the charioteer Modi, who keeps space and atomic energy as his plum picks but will have the only say among his yes men.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Air traffic management at Delhi will become easier with a new ATC tower, yet delays in modernisation are worrisome
Delhi Airport has over the past decade overtaken Mumbai as India’s largest airport, so much so that almost half of all Indian air traffic flows through the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Now the new 103-metre tall Air Traffic Control tower, which has been physically ready for a couple of years, is finally set to start operations. This tower that will allow ramp, approach and departure controllers grand sweeping views of the airport should also finally be able to allow simultaneous departures and arrivals on Delhi’s runways. It will also hopefully allow the authorities at the Delhi Airport to get cracking on rapidly improving allied infrastructure as well. The collapse of Jet Airways and the subsequent decline in passenger traffic have eased the congestion at the terminal temporarily but with airlines like IndiGo, Vistara and SpiceJet continuing to expand, adding more domestic and international services out of Delhi, traffic should reach numbers that were there before Jet’s demise by the end of the summer and growth should come back to the market shortly. This means that the Delhi Airport operators will need to get cracking on stalled infrastructure building projects such as a new fourth runway and the two new terminals that have been planned. The fact is that Terminals 1 and 2 are either well past their maximum capacity or too old to continue. They need urgent rebuilding.
This is not just a problem at the Delhi Airport. Across the country, several large aviation infrastructure projects are currently stalled other than at Bengaluru, where work is continuing fast on the new runway. Air travel has transformed India’s economic growth but with aviation infrastructure across the country pushed to its maximum limits with the current infrastructure, the new Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has a challenge on his hands to ensure that growth does not slow down. New aviation infrastructure such as the new Navi Mumbai, Mopa and Jewar airports have to be built quickly to keep pace. There are other systemic challenges that have to be countered as well, some of them regarding protecting passengers rights and keeping profiteering to a minimum. At the same time the Civil Aviation ministry has to be mindful of the overall health of the Indian airlines. A brand new tall tower might be a nice landmark but the problems around the industry have to be tackled urgently first.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The dismal showing of the Samajwadi Party in UP has put Akhilesh Yadav’s leadership under the scanner. He has to re-unite factions and rebuild grassroots networks
In 2011, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav led a spirited campaign against the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. As SP president, he toured the length and breadth of the State — sometimes on cycle — calling the then BSP Government as one of the most corrupt regimes in the annals of Uttar Pradesh. He even called it a pathar wali sarkar (a Government of stones) — an oblique reference to Mayawati’s penchant to build parks and statues. This mutual mistrust and antagonism was so deep-seated that the subsequent SP-BSP trust alliance always seemed cosmetic and superficial.
But before this misadventure, Akhilesh’s hard work bore fruit when in 2012, the SP won the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh with a huge margin. Mulayam Singh Yadav was then the national president of the party and he surprised all by projecting Akhilesh as the Chief Minister. At the age of 38, Akhilesh, then an MP, took oath as the Chief Minister on March 15, 2012. This, political pundits say, was the beginning of the new era in Yadav politics. Talks then centered around how Akhilesh, a foreign-educated young man, could transform the impoverished State, which is home to around 23 crore people, into one of the most developed States in the country.
People had pinned hopes on Akhilesh because of the legacy he carried. Son of wrestler-turned politician Mulayam Singh Yadav, it was believed that the young leader was well-conversant with political ups and downs. Mulayam was three-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh besides being the Defence Minister in 1996 during the United Front Government. So, for Akhilesh, politics was nothing new. He had brushed shoulders with the high and mighty and was well-versed with every Machiavellian manoeuvre.
But the high hopes were soon dashed. First, Akhilesh failed to keep his family together. The way he carried out a bloodless coup, replacing his father with himself as national president of the party, did divide the party. Mulayam, after all, was the reason for SP’s claim to any sort of relevance. The rift widened so much that uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav parted ways and formed his own party, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), which inflicted larger damage to the SP in three Yadav pocket boroughs of Kannauj, Budaun and Firozabad in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. All old-timers in the party, who had build the SP brick-by-brick and whose advice was worth a pound of gold for Mulayam, were left ignored and their constituencies were taken up by the new blood.
The courtiers in Akhilesh Yadav’s durbar were rich, having no practical understanding about the ground realities or imperatives. They became the eyes and ears of the former Chief Minister. Such was their influence on Akhilesh that they started campaigning for the 2019 elections very late. Some even advised that campaigning through WhatsApp was enough because the SP-BSP alliance would fetch dividends as the arithmetic just would not fail. They argued that the battle was between 85 per cent (combination of Dalits, Muslims and backwards as represented by the alliance partners of SP, BSP and RLD) versus 15 per cent (upper caste), which would undoubtedly go in their favour.
One of the courtiers of Akhilesh Yadav had told this reporter poetically that the bouquet of caste in this alliance was spread from western Uttar Pradesh to eastern Uttar Pradesh and also had its footprints in Rohilkhand and Bundelkhand.
The just-concluded parliamentary poll results came as a rude shock to the mahagathbandhan as it stood completely decimated. In this ignominious defeat, however, the BSP can walk away with its head high — if one can say so — because the party won 10 seats where it had drawn a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. But it is Akhilesh, who has to face the bigger question, because while his family members lost the election, he failed to increase his tally.
In the 2014 election, the SP had won a total of five seats — all the winners were from the family. Besides, Mulayam (who had won from Mainpuri and Azamgarh), other family members of Akhilesh, namely Dimple Yadav and his two cousins Dharmendra and Akshay, won the elections. In the bye-election after Mulayam vacated Mainpuri, another cousin of Akhilesh, Tej Bahadur, romped home. SP’s total tally further increased to seven after it won the bye-elections of Gorakhpur and Phulpur in 2018.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party once again won five seats while Dimple Yadav (Kannauj), Dharmendra Yadav (Budaun) and Akshay Yadav (Firozabad) lost the elections. Besides, Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh) and Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri), three Muslim leaders —Azam Khan (Rampur), Shafiqur Rahman Warq (Sambhal) and ST Hasan (Moradabad)— emerged victorious.
The defeat has raised many questions on Akhilesh’s leadership simply because it is the second time the SP has contested the election under him. As national president of the party, he had contested the first election in 2017. In fact, it was his idea to enter into an alliance with the Congress. His political acumen was even questioned back then because as a performing Chief Minister, who had carried out a spate of development work, including the construction of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, he did not need a prop. With the tagline of his campaign as ‘Kaam Bolta Hai’, his inclination to go for an alliance with the Congress showed that he was unconvinced about his own work and did not have the stomach to drive hard political decisions or go it alone. In that election, the SP’s tally reduced from 226 to 47.
In 2019, again, he showed political nervousness and entered into an alliance with the BSP and RLD to contest the Lok Sabha election. Some termed it as the election story of 2019. The result, however, was pathetic. Akhilesh not only lost seats but his party’s vote percentage, too, came down. (SP’s vote percentage is 18 percent while it is 19 per cent for BSP and 50 per cent for the BJP).
His father and the wily SP founder Mulayam had publicly said that Akhilesh had “lost half the battle” when the latter chose the politics of alliance. He had even admonished his son, saying that the SP was not battle-ready as it was relying too much on Mayawati whereas the BJP had started groundwork almost a year ago.
Mulayam’s words have proved prophetic. The SP stands vanquished today, primarily because neither the Dalit nor the Yadav vote was consolidated enough to ensure transference to each other’s candidates. The results announced on May 23 punctured the invincibility argument and now the alliance stands exposed. The BSP, SP and RLD have around 39 per cent vote share while the BJP and its ally has over 50 per cent of the vote. This shows that the myth of castes moving at the diktat of leaders does not hold good anymore.
Akhilesh is standing at the cross-roads now. He is carrying the legacy of Mulayam Singh Yadav while the reputation of SP that senior leaders like Janeshwar Mishra, Rama Shankar Kaushik, Babu Lal Yadav, Md Azam Khan and Reoti Raman Singh had built through blood, sweat and tear is at stake. Uttar Pradesh has witnessed how Ajit Singh floundered the political legacy of Chaudhry Charan Singh. His politics of aaya ram, gaya ram and fondness to align with the ruling party has reduced the RLD to a political non-entity.
Akhilesh should take lessons from the failure of Ajit Singh. He should try for a reconciliation of the party and the family. The first step should be to hand over the baton back to Mulayam Singh Yadav. Shivpal Singh should be brought back and he should start touring the State. He should open his doors to the party workers. It is time for Akhilesh to smell the coffee or otherwise he could be heading Ajit Singh’s way.
(The writer is Executive Director [News] with The Pioneer, Lucknow)
Writer: Biswajeet Banerjee
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Cong will have to take the values it holds dear like those of equality, fighting violence with reason and scientific temper to the people and convince them by action
The performance of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections was extremely disappointing and it is important for a responsible political party like it to accept the verdict of the people with humility. It is also important for the party to understand the pulse of the nation better and showcase itself as a more viable alternative to the BJP. Perhaps most importantly, however, it is important for the party to highlight that the battle between the Congress and the BJP is not one of mere political power but one of ideology.
This ideological battle is often depicted as a fight on TV screens broadcast by news channels. In the past five years, this ideological battle has been depicted as a sensational fight. The sequence of events typically follow the described course: An outrageous statement by a BJP leader like Sadhvi Pragya (about Godse being a deshbhakt) followed by TV channels with a room full of pundits lending their expertise, either admonishing the outrageous statement or finding some sympathy for it. This descends into a shouting match between the two sides, further fuelled by TV anchors who have realised that this is the easy way to capture the attention of the public. I will admit, the Congress and other Opposition parties have often fallen into this trap that only helps TV channels. The reality, however, is that first, the Congress’ ideological battle with the BJP cannot be won in the privilege of air-conditioned TV rooms but will instead be tested over time on the ground. Second, to reduce this ideological battle to a “debate” over statements of agent provocateurs does India and its citizens no service. Instead the Congress will have to now take the values it holds dear like those of equality, fighting violence with reason and scientific temper to the people of the country and convince them by action rather than TV rhetoric. So what happens to these TV channels and what will become of these inflammatory debates?
In this backdrop, I have to say that I am extremely pleased that the Congress has decided that it will send no spokespersons for TV debates. While this position appears to be limited to the next month, I would welcome sticking to this stand for the next five years. This is because news channels now resemble soap operas where TV anchors have pre-decided the plots and sub-plots. Where if the debate appears to be dying, some will ensure that the masala remains till the end. Of course, I don’t mean to paint all TV news media and all anchors with the same brush. But you know who you are and more importantly, every reader of this article has a few of them who spring to mind. I am, therefore, happy that the Congress will do its part to prevent this embarrassing practice from continuing.
I remember there was a time when media houses and TV news channels engaged in genuine investigative journalism. They would raise questions and go where their investigation led them. News channels were led by the aim of fulfilling their role as journalists and earned viewership through dedicated research and brave questions. Has that time gone? An examination of the past few years does seem to suggest so. If not, what explains the unbelievable lack of focus on issues that the country is actually grappling with?
In Jharkhand, for example, why are media houses not raising questions about the huge number of starvation deaths and the failures of the state government that has led to these deaths? Why are there no debates about how the land of tribals in Jharkhand is being taken away from them without any form of rehabilitation? At the national stage too, why have our news channels not raised questions about the intelligence failure that led to the death of our brave soldiers in Pulwama? How did such a massive attack occur and why haven’t we been provided any answers by the government?
Who is supposed to ask these questions? Yes, the Opposition must, as the Congress did over the past few years. But what happened when these questions were raised? Spokespersons were brought on debates where the topic would inevitably be framed along the following lines: “Is the Opposition anti-national for questioning the government at this time?”
Once the debate has been framed in the manner detailed above, the discussion on TV is no longer a discussion or debate about how we can improve our intelligence infrastructure or how do we prevent our soldiers from dying in the future. Instead the debate is now: Is the Opposition anti-national or not? What a tragedy.
It is no coincidence then that the only real investigative journalism we have seen in the past few years has been through print media outlets. This is because the nature of print journalism restricts it from doing what TV channels do. Turning important issues that require examination and questioning of authorities to shouting matches and sensational headlines.
So I welcome seeing how our TV news channels will react. As the government in power with clear majority for what will be 10 years in 2024, PM Modi will have no excuses. They will have to answer questions about a failing economy and how they plan to revive it. They will have to answer questions about why there are no jobs for India’s youth. They will have to answer questions about why certain Indians feel targeted due to their religion and caste as the events of the past week have shown.
Without a shouting match between the Opposition and the government, TV anchors will now have to face representatives from the BJP government and have to look at the actual work that has been done and what the numbers on the ground are. Their TRPs will then depend on how they question the government and whether they can get the government to answer questions the government may not want to answer. Let’s see if these news channels are up to the task: The nation wants to know.
(The author is president of Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee)
Writer: Ajoy Kumar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The RJD chief failed to evolve with time and ignored the omen that threatened to shatter his image as the messiah of the entire OBC pantheon and usher in his doom
When Lalu Prasad, then a rustic Yadav chieftain and a well-established cheer leader of the JP movement, was crowned as Chief Minister of Bihar in 1990, among his backers were both Left and Right — communists and the BJP — who found a common enemy in the Congress. Thirty years later, Lalu is in prison on corruption charges while his party is in the doghouse. Lalu, the phenomenon who overturned the template of India’s politics, today faces apathy of the very section of the populace that once saw a redeemer in this man who spoke their language and promised them salvation from centuries of discrimination and disgrace.
Lalu Prasad was always seen as a wily politician — someone who could even count the feathers of a flying bird. But the fact remains that he took no time in frittering away the gains of the casteist “Mandal” politics. Primarily, because he lacked the vision to foresee that by mocking development, encouraging corruption and lawlessness, and giving Yadavs a carte blanche to do what they pleased to do, he was turning against his own clan and the very forces of social justice that brought him to power.
Lalu failed to evolve with time and ignored the omen that threatened to shatter his image as the messiah of the entire OBC pantheon and usher in his political doom. Over a period of time, his comrades in arms of the social justice movement — Nitish Kumar, Ramvilas Paswan and others — deserted his caravan, reducing it to an assembly of Yadavs and Muslims alone. The way extremely backward castes led by Nitish Kumar and Dalits, under the stewardship of Ram Vilas Paswan, came together to challenge the Muslim-Yadav combine by joining hands with even the upper castes in the Lok Sabha polls has a clear message. Unless Lalu Prasad’s outfit goes through a complete metamorphosis, it will never again regain the crown of Bihar.
It was this lack of political foresight that saw Lalu forcing Nitish Kumar to walk out of the alliance government in 2016. It was this lack of political foresight that stopped him from walking the extra mile to protect the RJD-JD(U) alliance in Bihar. The break-up of the promising political collaboration and the return of Nitish Kumar to the saffron fold made for a watershed event in national politics that sowed the seeds of disintegration among the anti-BJP forces. Critics will say that Nitish acted out of “opportunism” but it was Lalu who wrote the script for his exit. Lalu and his son Tejashvi kept humiliating Nitish from a public platform, leaving no opportunity to remind him that he was a Chief Minister at their mercy. He also didn’t give a free hand to Nitish in taking administrative and policy decisions and wanted the latter to be at his beck and call in the matter of transfer and posting.
When the CBI, apparently at the behest of the BJP, began to tighten the screw against Lalu and his family in a railway hotel scam, the RJD chief did the final miscalculation. Instead of asking his son to resign from the Cabinet to save the alliance government, he tried to bear and grin it. An image-conscious person like Nitish Kumar realised that if he continued with Lalu, the JD(U) would end up paying the cost of policy paralysis of his governance. Lalu did not realise that his interest lay in making every possible compromise to stop Nitish from going to the BJP. The miscalculation not only gave the BJP a chance to share power in Bihar through the backdoor but also broke the backbone of Opposition unity at the national level. Nitish, a Kurmi leader, had the image and social background to challenge Modi at the national level. He was the lone leader who could have been a rallying point for consolidation of extremely backward castes behind the Opposition. The breakdown of the RJD-JD(U) alliance was a turning point in national politics and precursor to the return of the Modi regime at the Centre.
Lalu’s supporters may argue that Nitish had made up his mind — for some reason or the other — to join hands with the BJP and Lalu could have done little to prevent the parting of ways. However, few care to ponder that it would not have been so easy for Nitish either to go back to the BJP after the sort of bitterness that existed between him and Narendra Modi. He must have felt so suffocated that he decided to swallow his pride and accept the leadership of his bitter rival, who had even questioned his DNA. It was at this moment when Lalu should have acted like a statesman and made any number of sacrifices to ensure that the Opposition remained united against the Modi government.
In parting ways with Nitish Kumar, Lalu thought he could challenge the BJP-JD(U) alliance by bringing together several non-Yadav OBC outfits under an overarching umbrella of social justice. But he didn’t realise that though casteism was rooted deeply in the soil of Bihar politics, the State had also tasted the flavour of development under Nitish Kumar’s decade-old rule. The elaborate network of roads, 24-hour electricity supply and the end of the kidnapping for ransom trade had brought much relief to the people. The State’s revenue collection and development expenditure took a huge leap in 10 years. And the voter was not ready to turn the clock back. So when Lalu (let’s assume that it was he who was dictating the course of RJD politics from behind the prison walls) tried to expand his M-Y alliance by roping in other backward castes like Kushwahas and Mallahs and joining hands with Upendra Kushwaha and Mukesh Sahni, the experiment had few takers.
A section of Yadavs may have emotional reasons to support Lalu Prasad in his moment of crisis, and Muslims may have their own compulsion to remain hyphenated with him, but the rest of Bihar found no reason to leave its future in the hands of someone like Tejashvi Yadav, who had spent most of his time in ridiculing and humiliating Nitish Kumar.
Perhaps, Lalu got swayed by the successful experiment of the 2015 Assembly polls when the OBC and Dalits were up in the arms against the BJP over RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s controversial statement against caste-based reservation. But Lalu forgot that the presence of Nitish Kumar by his side played a big role in mobilising the entire groupings of OBCs and most backward castes. The voters were assured that if Nitish remained at the helm of affairs, Bihar would not go back to the days of the jungle raj.
Lalu tried to raise the same caste passion in the Lok Sabha polls when he opposed the Modi government’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to candidates of the general category. Lalu ignored the advice of his senior party colleagues like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who openly criticised his decision. While Lalu’s decision completely antagonised the upper castes, Nitish Kumar’s hold over the EBCs is so firm that the former’s gambit failed miserably.
The outcome of the polls showed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s astutely cultivated EBC lineage and Nitish Kumar’s sway over the non-Yadav OBC went a long way in blunting the edge of Lalu’s rusted caste device. Lalu failed to realise that times were changing and the hackneyed slogans of social justice didn’t mean much to a new generation of voters oblivious to the obnoxious caste discrimination of the past. The days ahead could be nightmarish for both Lalu and his party. His health is sinking and there is no hope of his release from jail any sooner. Both his sons are on the warpath and voices against Tejashvi’s leadership have begun to rise in the party. Going by the Lok Sabha trends, the RJD will face an existential crisis after next year’s Assembly polls.
Lalu may have given a voice to millions of socially deprived people but he failed to hear their yearning for change. With empowerment comes aspiration, which is a major catalyst for a political shake-up of the type that has turned a political giant into a fallen messiah.
Lalu once jokingly said, “Jab tak samosa me rahega aloo, tab tak Bihar me rahega Lalu.” The master of metaphors and similes that he is, it was his way of saying that, whether a winner or a vanquished, he would forever be remembered for his contribution in empowering the poor and hapless multitudes.
(The writer is Political Editor, The Pioneer)
Writer: Navin Upadhyay
Rahul Gandhi went after the youth voters but they rejected him. Maybe because he and his mother ignored the party’s capable and tested young leaders. The BJP won because the Congress conspired to lose
Even before the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) landslide victory in the recently-concluded elections, there was a healthy disrespect for family dynasts in the Congress among the young BJP-leaning ideologue. If you mentioned the irony of the fact that several of the BJP’s own cadre of youth leaders are second or third generation politicians, they would argue that they had worked in their constituencies and elsewhere. Some like Poonam Mahajan, the BJP’s youth wing leader and daughter of Pramod Mahajan, travelled across the country constantly to ensure that the BJP got the youth vote. While all dynasts are born into politics, Congress dynasts, they always argued, enjoyed the trappings of power without wanting to do the work for it. All except one, a man whom most young and old leaders inside the party always respected — Sachin Pilot.
And after the Congress won the Assembly polls in Rajasthan and made the much older Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister, many found it surprising, although several people in the BJP were jubilant albeit a bit sad for Pilot. This one decision, they said, completely exposed the Congress’ claims to represent the youth and not only would this decision cost them the popular vote in Rajasthan, where Narendra Modi remained hugely popular even as the Congress won the Assembly polls, it would expose Rahul Gandhi’s claims to “love” the youth as hollow. This was not just the opinion of those inside the BJP. Several commentators in the Congress ecosystem were not just puzzled at the decision, some were outright apoplectic. And even though some might claim that this decision was made by Sonia Gandhi or because of some outstanding land cases against Robert Vadra in Rajasthan, it was an illogical decision.
As several of the old guard in the Congress study their defeat at the hustings, they will likely learn that this one fact was weaponised by the BJP against them and no matter how many cool campaign numbers that the Congress commissioned and Rahul Gandhi’s appeals to the youth, the treatment of a genuine young and hard-working politician was going to count against the leadership. However, Pilot is not the first young leader to be sidelined after working hard. The last one was Jagan Reddy, again the son of a successful Congress politician and one loyal to the family in YS Rajashekhar Reddy. One who might have even returned to the party fold had Rahul Gandhi the grace and sense to have apologised to him for his mother’s indiscretions and told him to let bygones be bygones. Instead Rahul Gandhi entertained the Telugu Desam Party’s N Chandrababu Naidu even though most opinion polls were indicating that Jagan Reddy was ahead in the race. We all saw what happened, because at the end of the day, sheer electoral numbers do not lie. Jagan wiped the Telugu Desam Party almost clean off the floor of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and totally out of the Lok Sabha. And while it is not correct to blame Rahul Gandhi for ditching Jagan — that is completely on Sonia Gandhi — he could have salvaged the situation. Again, another tickmark for the Congress party’s amazing ineptitude with regard to youth. The young leaders which the Congress did not up this time were people like Gehlot’s son who lost and Kamal Nath and P Chidambaram’s sons, who won their seats but at what cost? Ignoring Pilot and Jagan Reddy might have cost them the ability to cross at least a hundred seats and blunt Modi’s massive edge among young first and second-time voters.
You get a sense of Modi’s immense popularity among younger voters clearly through the results in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where there is no doubt that young voters have voted for him in droves. One could argue that Modi is no spring chicken either but he has a message that resonates with the younger population, a message that goes beyond caste and infuses a sense of national self-identity. In both those States, younger voters did not just ditch the Congress, they also ditched two young leaders of caste-based parties in Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav. And if Modi and Amit Shah are to be remembered for anything in three or four decades, it will be for finally smashing through post-Mandal Commission caste-based identity politics. While many cannot swallow that defeat, the meltdown not just appearing on social media but in distasteful articles by full-time antagonists of the Indian State, this election must not just be remembered as one that the BJP won through complicated social engineering and excellent delivery of subsidies, but one that the Congress conspired to lose.
All is not lost for the Congress. If they have to take a youth pivot, they have to do it now. They have to not only cleanse the party of the old guard whose clothes are still stained by the extreme corruption of the UPA-2 era but also promote hard-working young leaders instead of promoting those stuck in the ivory towers of Delhi and Mumbai. In this, they should not only take a page out of the BJP’s book and see how effectively Poonam Mahajan and her team have mobilised the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha while the Indian Youth Congress is in a coma, but also look at one of their own in Sachin Pilot and the one they lost in Jagan Reddy. Otherwise the Congress will, like many in the old guard, wither away and die.
(The author is Managing Editor)
Writer: Kushan Mitra
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Shakuntala Kulkarni’s avant garde artworks at the Venice Biennale compel onlookers to ask questions, says U Nair
Most people associate the Venice Art Biennale with the national pavilions in the Giardini (Biennale gardens) or the main site at the Arsenale — the former dockyards. At the India Pavilion at the former, visitors are swirling around the cane cages of the brilliant artist Shakuntala Kulkarni, and for once the language of the selfie is inclusive of avant garde contemporary Indian art. Utterly feminine, tall bamboo cane ensembles are catching the interest of the visitors for their quaintness.
These artworks belong to her project Of bodies, armour and cages (2013-2018) in which historical objects like the armour and the elaborately designed costumes/dresses of different communities are brought together in the contemporary context by re-articulating the usage and the medium. In collapsing and metamorphosing the two, she blurs cultural and visual boundaries.
Caged bird
When you look at the long-skirted cages and bodies, you can’t help but think of Paul Dunbar’s famous poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In an interview to me in 2013 she said: “For long, I have been making inquiries into body violence, atrocities and experiences of women in different spaces. The impact of these atrocities against women are uncertainty and loss of freedom and power. Women are often blamed for crimes that happen against them; the men are set free and walk around with their heads held high. Morality or norms make a woman lose power.”
But she was cautious to state that she didn’t want to show women as weak beings. “I never show women as victims,” she said emphatically. “They are victimised. They are not completely weak. I show how they fight it out, how they deal with it. My question is simple: This is how society is. How do I, as a woman, live powerfully?”
Linear and delicate cane
Shakuntala’s sculptures have an Indian insignia. “ I used the armour as a metaphor to explore how I could protect my body,” states Shakuntala. “I borrowed from all kinds of cultures; Naga masks, Rajasthani ghagras, hair styles from Bollywood in the 1960s — my pieces have no cultural, geographical or religious boundaries. I used cane because I am comfortable with it; also, it is linear, delicate and looks grand. There are rings, bangles, flared skirts and it is very feminine.”
As you look through the cane — the ideation seems full of multiple perspectives.The cane is tenuous and tensile, flexible yet delicate in a strong sort of way. No doubt there are many references — history culture and the beauty of dances, Kathakali and Manipuri costumes and regalia become a translation — that are royal yet replete with rhythmic intonations.
Between dualities
Her thought process is fascinating, “I wanted to explore what happens when you have a costume as protection… There’s a freedom you experience when you’re in armour, but at the same time, some part of your body is caught. You’re trapped but you’re also secure. That to me is interesting.”
Visitors at Venice are fascinated by the very structure and the grandeur of the armour which is masculine, stiff, strong, lasting and peerless in nature. The cane figures and heads provoke us to ask questions. The cane armour /costumes in this project speak of the grandeur too. But the elaborately structured dresses look relatively feminine, linear, fragile, and organic in nature, protecting the body, breaking the gaze by the joineries of the pieces of cane and the weave. In more ways than one these cane installations are reflective of ‘interesting times’ in the words of curator Ralph Rugoff. These sculptures were part of her solo show at Chemould Gallery, Mumbai last year.
Writer: U Nair
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Congress needs to look at the present crisis as an opportunity to change itself to modern-day needs. A new strategy must include infusion of dynamic second-rung and strong State-level leaders. It must be a blend of experience and youth
The Congress is going through an existential crisis even as party chief Rahul Gandhi has been authorised to restructure the organisation at all levels last week. Indeed, the party needs such ruthless surgery. Gandhi offered to resign taking 100 per cent responsibility for the defeat in 2019 polls but during a Congress Working Committee meeting, party leaders asked Rahul to stay.
There can be no doubt that the Congress has barely managed to improve its tally from its all-time low of 44 seats in 2014 — it has now won 52 seats but the buck stops with Rahul Gandhi as party chief. It is the media, which has been demanding Rahul Gandhi’s ouster but the question is: Is Rahul Gandhi the only problem the Congress is facing now? No. The problem lies elsewhere. The Congress is facing a combination of issues, including a leadership crisis. The last time it faced a similar situation was when there was erosion under the leadership of Sitaram Kesri in 1998. That time, Sonia Gandhi stepped in and arrested the erosion. Now, the lack of a thriving organisation, proper vision for the future and failure to project itself as a credible alternative to the BJP and disconnect with the voters are the real problems. The Congress also could not lead the Opposition to challenge the Modi juggernaut.
Perhaps, the failure of Rahul is that he did not choose the right people for the right job as he collected around himself non-political leaders who had no electoral understanding or experience. He seemed a confused lot as he could not spell out the present Congress ideology or its message. The NYAY scheme, too, was announced late and it could not percolate down. The Congress scion did not have any electoral strategy to match the BJP’s excellent campaign. Rafale and chowkidar chor hai slogans were just not enough. Moreover, there were only two star campaigners — Rahul and Priyanka. Senior leaders were not utilised in the campaign. Even bringing Priyanka into politics was a decision too late. Also, the party did not build on second-rung leaders. How could the party win the elections when it did not have booth-level workers or foot soldiers who could carry the party’s message to the people?
The Congress may not dump the Gandhi family as it has no other leader on whom the party can repose trust. The party will not allow Rahul Gandhi to quit even if he persists and will go through the same drama after Sonia Gandhi resigned in 1999 when leaders like Sharad Pawar questioned her foreign origin. When Sitaram Kesri was expelled in 1998, Sonia Gandhi was ready and waiting. Today, most senior leaders in the Congress are too old while most junior leaders have lost the recent Lok Sabha polls. So who could steer the party when its morale is so low? As a temporary reprieve, it will try to find a buffer between Rahul and the party and might go for a working president to share Rahul’s work. This has been its formula all along when leadership comes under attack.
There is no doubt that the Congress should reinvent itself if it wants to survive. Perhaps, it can take a leaf out of the former Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had coined the word “new labour” in October 1994 conference speech as part of the slogan “New Labour, New Britain” before the party came to power. The new Congress should take into account the changing scenario in the country and study what the new voters and aspirational youth want instead of harping on its past glory.
The Congress has reinvented itself earlier, too. Indira Gandhi showed them the way in 1969 when the party split and again in 1977 when she launched the Congress (I). Rajiv Gandhi spoke of the power brokers in the 1985 AICC session and tried to change the party. PV Narasimha Rao’s Congress moved towards the Right-wing with reforms while Sonia Gandhi brought it back to Left-wing welfare politics. Rahul’s failure is that he was not able to sell his political or economic vision to the public.
There is still time to implement the much-needed facelift, which can be decided after a Pachmarhi or Shimla kind of brainstorming session. The new strategy should include infusion of dynamic second-rung leaders and strong State-level leaders. It must be a blend of experience and youth. The party should re-establish connect with the public.
Even at this stage, all is not lost in the half-a-dozen States and the party can hope to win some more in the upcoming Assembly elections in the next five years. If it decides to change itself ruthlessly with the single aim of electoral gains, it should begin now. It needs to look at the present crisis as an opportunity to change itself to modern-day needs. Change is the only constant thing and the party should realise this.
(The writer is a senior political commentator and syndicated columnist)
Writer: Kalyani Shankar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
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