The spread of COVID-19 among Shia devotees in Iran should give all religious bodies food for thought
COVID-19, a global pandemic triggered by a virus that emerged in China late last year, has had several fascinating story threads. First in list is the Wuhan-based ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who tried to alert the Chinese authorities about the spread of the disease before it became a critical issue but was instead censured, although in death, he has become a national hero. Then there is the story of the “31st case” in South Korea, about a woman member of a cult who became a “super spreader” and was linked to almost 80 per cent of the 8,000 plus cases registered in that country. Thankfully, strict action and information transmission by authorities managed to slow down the spread and contain fatalities, too. In Iran, however, inaction on the part of the authorities in closing major sites of Shia worship has led to a national catastrophe. Coronavirus cases have exceeded 17,000 and over 1,700 deaths have been reported officially. A large number of the 255 Indians diagnosed with the virus are believed to be Shia pilgrims, many of whom had visited Qom. Opposition to closing religious sites by both religious authorities and politicians has clearly led to this crisis. Fanatical devotees have not made things easier.
India should learn lessons from both Iran and South Korea as well as the Vatican, which has even cancelled Easter festivities this year. The Maharashtra Government has taken a positive step by closing the Shri Siddhi Vinayak temple in central Mumbai. Other State Governments must follow suit. Major temples, masjids, gurudwaras, churches and other religious sites must be shut down. On this front, the Government has to be completely secular. Major religious celebrations must be curtailed, if not postponed, such as the Uttar Pradesh Government’s plans of a big Ram Navami celebration, the first one since the Supreme Court paved the way for the construction of a new temple in Ayodhya. In Tirupati, even though the authorities wanted to restrict the entry of devotees, more have thronged. This highlights the fact that in times of crisis, people turn to their gods. But devotees must be made to understand that their god is not running away. Like global civil aviation, religion, too, is a major vector for the spread of this disease. If “flattening the curve”, as authorities desire, is to be achieved, then organised religion has to be curtailed this time. Not everybody will agree but faith is in the mind and not prostrating oneself at a holy site. The latter can wait awhile.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Irrespective of India’s Look East and Act East policy, bilateral relations between New Delhi and Naypyidaw have been stalled because of China’s dominance
Following an infructuous spell of looking east, India’s Act East Policy (AEP) is hobbled by snags in connectivity, continuing insurgencies, agitations, blockades and extortion in the North-east and replication of some of these very problems, especially insurgencies and snarls, in decision-making in Myanmar, the launchpad and fulcrum of AEP. Last month, the visit of Myanmar President, U Win Myint, to India reminded us of AEP anew.
The open-door policy is intended to usher in development in the North-east, which could in turn facilitate the closure of insurgencies. For the Look East Policy to work, it was necessary to press the “pause” button on democracy and, instead, support the ruling military junta. Reversion to democracy, albeit partial, has been achieved as I discovered last month in Yangon through a joint civil military leadership, with the Army having the last word.
At the core of AEP is connectivity — by road, rail, sea, inland waterways and air. The strategic geography in the North-east channelises this outreach through the narrow and sensitive Siliguri corridor, the vulnerable chicken’s neck of the region. Choices for bypassing the Siliguri constriction were to transit through Bangladesh and/or use the sea route to reach insurgency-free Mizoram on the Myanmar border — from Kolkata to Sittwe Port in Myanmar and upto Mizoram.
Earlier, Bangladesh had rejected Indian requests to connect Myanmar through the Port of Chittagong upto Agartala and thence to the Myanmar border. What is being operationalised now is the costly and delayed Kaladan multi-modal access from Sittwe to Myanmar/Mizoram through Rakhine and Chin States, currently beset with insurgencies by the Arakam Army. Therefore, instead of working this project south-north, it has been reversed, starting from Mizoram to Sittwe, which will have a 1,000 km special economic zone (SEZ) and a gas land pipeline from its gasfields to Gaya in Bihar. A number of roads to and through Myanmar to the east are under construction and completion, thus enhancing the AEP connectivity grid.
Unique to Myanmar is the civil-Army joint leadership arrangement under an Army-dictated constitution of 2011, which ensures that 25 per cent of the elected seats in Parliament is reserved for the Army. As the Constitution forbids Myanmar’s popular leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League of Democracy (NLD) from holding office, she is a State Councillor in the improvised system, which allows her the number three position in the State hierarchy after the President and Vice President; whereas the “C” in C Senior General Aung Hlaing, who calls the shots, is at number five. The Constitution reserves the posts of defence, home and border affairs Ministers for the Army.
The NLD wants to change the Constitution, which requires an unachievable two-thirds majority in Parliament. Last week, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi unsuccessfully tried to pass the Constitutional amendment. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is in his second term, which will end in April 2021, and efforts are on to accommodate him as the Vice President. This may introduce a modicum of civilian control over the military. While the Army is popular in the countryside, it is disliked by the urban elite. It disapproves of the overwhelming Chinese presence and meddling in Myanmar’s internal affairs. But others don’t mind them as they have the money to invest and develop the country.
Another historical challenge facing Myanmar is its myriad insurgencies, which like the cluster on the Indian side, is a hurdle for AEP. At the time of independence, many States in the erstwhile Burma had sought self-determination and separation but the Panglong Agreement of 1947 promised to settle Centre-State relations even as the Communists and Karens favoured independence. Today, there are more than two dozen active and dormant insurgencies, the active ones in border States like Shan, Kachin, Chin and Rakhine. The world’s most complex but elaborate peace process is in Myanmar and it consists of unilateral, bilateral and a nationwide cease fire agreements, prone to violations and formal and informal dialogues backed by the international community, prominently by China.
The year 2019 was bad for the peace process. The 21st century Panglong Union Peace Conference with 10 nation-wide ceasefire signatories and the high-level Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting could not be held, though the Union Peace Dialogue took place in July. Both the failed meetings are likely to be held after the national elections later this year, which the Lady — reference to NLD leader Daw Suu Kyi — is expected to win but with a reduced majority. For various reasons, her popularity has waned but there is no alternative leader.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar this January and signed 33 agreements, of which the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (like the economic corridors with Pakistan and Nepal) was the centre piece. All three strategic corridors seek access to markets but two have an eye on warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Surpassing India’s port potential at Sittwe is Kyakpyu, the deep-water port coupled with SEZ and ultimately road, rail, oil and gas pipelines radiating through Myanmar north of China’s Yunnan province. China’s footprint is enormous: There are hordes of Chinese in the north. Though the controversial $3.6 billion hydel dam at Myitsone has been put on hold, bilateral trade stands at $17 billion and China holds 40 per cent of Myanmar’s foreign debt of $5 billion. Xi signed separate agreements with the Senior General and State Councillor while hailing the new blueprint for comprehensive strategic cooperation and the new 2+2 strategic dialogue, Myanmar’s first with any country.
India, though with good intentions and now sizeable civil and defence cooperation, is no match for China’s deep pockets and outreach to play the role of a regional equaliser. Still, its impressive infrastructure and capacity-building programmes have been appreciated. Japan will team up in improving quality and quick delivery of projects. While the two million, mostly Indian Tamil, diaspora is no asset, the Buddhism connect has not been tested even as Indian tourists are thronging Myanmar. India has transferred a Russian kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine and may soon sell Brahmos missiles against the $1.5 billion line of credit, of which $300 million is left. Border trade — within 16 km — is a paltry $25 million, though overall trade is around $2.5 billion, far below potential.
The flowering of bilateral relations is stalled in part by the complexity of joint leadership and the unstoppable rise of China. While Beijing has cast a string of pearls along India’s periphery, it has placed in Myanmar, an arrestor wire system of an aircraft carrier to blunt the take-off of AEP towards Asean, where China is also the dominant influencer. Myanmar’s full transition to democracy depends on progress in ethnic reconciliation and resolving civil-military tensions through Constitutional reform. Till then, AEP will remain constrained.
(Writer: Ashok K Mehta ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
A poster war over civil protesters in Lucknow, despite court orders, shows the UP Govt’s stubbornness and arrogance
The first record of bounty-hunting or putting the price on the head of a thief came from a graffiti in Pompei in 79 AD. Since then bounties and rogues’ galleries have been used to crack down on criminals, demonise native Americans in the civil war, segregate immigrants and outcasts, tame rebels and break rival chieftains and warlords in a feudatory dispensation of justice across the world. Except that these medieval practices are well past their time; clannish societies have evolved into modern nation-states that address conflict and dissent within a defined socio-political architecture. Nowadays, the most wanted list is usually issued by Interpol. As for shaming the most hated social deviants, even petty criminals have the privilege of covering their faces when they are being taken to and from courts. Yet the Yogi Adityanath Government in Uttar Pradesh overrode all democratic convention and decided to name and shame citizens who may not be guilty of any crime. As he refuses to pull down hoardings with pictures of anti-citizenship law protesters — some of them notables and proven civil rights activists — despite a High Court order on dismantling them, he has thrown us back to medieval times and worse. For by putting out their names, details and addresses, he has placed the judgement call on a dangerous entity called the people’s court, which can be easily swamped by the tide of majoritarian sentiment. Although he insists that exposing protesters is required simply because they fuelled riots and are, therefore, responsible for destruction of public property, no credible case for conviction has been made out against them yet. Besides, while the shaming walls claim that the cost of repairing damaged infrastructure should be recovered from them, there have been news reports of spot recoveries by the State police and musclemen claiming endorsement of the regime, which have been nothing but a sanctioned loot. The Lucknow administration has even served property attachment notices to several individuals. And should the courts limit it further, the State Government passed an ordinance on recovery of damage to public and private properties during political processions. So even the democratic right to dissent via sit-ins comes with caveats. Let us not even hazard a guess about the life threats we are exposing these people to officially, leave aside the incivility of an invasion of their privacy.
Much of the recent actions of the UP Government, be it against citizenship protesters or lynch mobs, would have us believe that it is a law unto itself. What prompts it to ignore the Allahabad High Court order to take the shame posters down as they “reflect colourable exercise of powers?” What compels it to be bull-headed about challenging the order in the Supreme Court despite the latter’s declaration that there is no law to back such action? The intransigence of the Adityanath Government indicates that the “baying for blood” emotion is seen as legitimate redress by a society, which has completely bought into the finger-pointing propaganda of the times. By putting out personal details of protesters and dissenters, who are as much nationalist as any of us, there is an implied punishment of the educated and informed mind, a demonisation of it as anti-Hindu and classist. Suddenly, they are more dangerous than the criminals facing serious allegations, including murder, in Uttar Pradesh. There is a message and licence to the mob here, to do whatever they deem fit with the protesters, much like the anti-semitic posters exposed Jews as the enemy in Hitler’s Germany. It is also a warning to and intimidation of potential dissenters that the establishment will go after them regardless of institutional checks and balances. Furthermore, it is consciously identifying and humiliating people for not being “Indian.” By encouraging a mob hitback against the “guilty”, the Adityanath Government could easily absolve itself of responsibility saying that matters went out of hand in a volatile scenario, just like it did in Delhi. Even if extremist elements of the Sangh Parivar get involved, they become faceless in a mob. There is, after all, a precedent of such perpetrators going unpunished. Posters and shaming walls, something that were so long confined to social media trolls, are now being made mainstream. The Samajwadi Party (SP), although belatedly, has launched a political counterpoint, putting up hoardings of accused ex-Union Minister Chinmayanand and jailed Unnao rape convict Kuldeep Singh Sengar, both former BJP leaders, lambasting the party’s sexual offender list. Of course, they were just as promptly pulled down. Protest graffiti by civil groups are an expression of their angst because the law is often an utter failure. But when an elected Government resorts to such agitprops, it appears not a protector but a destabiliser of citizenry. And it sits smug, particularly when political gains are to be made in the end.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Both the Hindu and Muslim communities have to factor in new attitudes that govern them since the old equation has collapsed. A new formula is needed to co-exist peacefully
It’s obvious to anyone, who has seen the videos and read the first-hand accounts of residents in the troubled north-east area of Delhi, that what happened there was a bloody Hindu-Muslim communal riot. Tensions were building up ever since some citizens launched a nationwide protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which often turned violent and disrupted normal life in many Indian cities for over two months. Videos shot in the affected areas of Delhi show huge pile of petrol bombs, acid, bricks and stones on the terraces of Muslim residents, including that of a Delhi legislator, burqa-clad women thrashing hapless policemen and joining the lynch mob. Such was the ferocity of the attacks that several senior officers suffered grievous injuries and a Hindu Intelligence Bureau (IB) official was hacked to death by his Muslim neighbours. He is said to have been stabbed several hundred times. One had heard of such barbarity during the Moplah uprising in 1921 and the Kolkata riots after MA Jinnah’s call for “direct action” on August 16, 1946, to secure an Islamic nation. It was a blood bath.
This is not to say that the Hindus in north-east Delhi were silent and innocent spectators. They were not and as much guilty. Seeing the build-up in the Muslim mohallas, they stocked up, too and, therefore, when the riots broke out, the streets resembled a battle field. One had not seen such hatred and violence between the two communities in a long time. So, what triggered this time around?
One, having got used to a standard diet of appeasement for seven decades, the Muslims find the “no-appeasement” policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi unacceptable and, therefore, there has been simmering discontent in the community, which only needed a trigger to explode. Some leaders of the community added fuel to the fire by citing the abrogation of the special status of Jammu & Kashmir last August and the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case as developments that hurt the Muslims. The community was, therefore, looking for a cause and the CAA came along. Then, the riots happened and it found a chance to play the victim card again.
It must also be said that this time around, there is gross miscalculation among the Muslims about the response of Hindus to their assertiveness and violence. Having watched the sociological transformation of the Hindus over many decades, it must be said that the Hindu of the 1950s or 1960s, who would stoically bear with the demands of this aggressive minority in the hope that eventually things would settle down, no longer exists. The attitude of the Western media and its Indian cohorts, who are busy spreading Hindu phobia, has proved to be highly provocative. They are actually promoting hatred and violence among these communities. The role of social media and the videos in circulation is the new-age fuel for communal conflagration. Both communities have to factor in the new attitudes that govern them. The Muslims have to realise this and arrive at a new equation for peaceful co-existence. The Hindus have to understand the anxieties plaguing this religious minority and find ways to restore harmony. Both communities must now accept that the old equation has collapsed.
Following Partition, the Muslims of India on this side of the border had the option to either cross over and become part of an Islamic State or stay put and become citizens of a secular, democratic India. Around 35 million of them chose to stay back and live in a democratic nation. They constituted about 10 per cent of the 350 million people in India after Partition. Latest estimates indicate that the Muslim population has swelled to 175 million over the last seven decades and this community is well spread out across the length and breadth of this country.
The integration of the Muslims into a secular, democratic nation that emerged in 1947 would have been easy if only the then Government, headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, had given them the option of either living in an India with a common civil code that would be uniformly applicable to all citizens across communities or to cross the border and live in an Islamic State. Nehru’s Muslim appeasement policy encouraged the hotheads among the Muslims to such an extent that even after Partition and the creation of Pakistan, some Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly demanded separate electorate for the Muslims in democratic India. Sardar Patel and other leaders felt that this demand was preposterous.
The concession Nehru made to the Muslim clergy after independence is indeed the time bomb that is ticking away and threatens to destroy India’s unity and integrity. After Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, in order to muster the Muslim vote after she split the Congress in 1969, continued to molly-coddle the ulemas. The Congress got the best opportunity to wash away its sins vis-à-vis Muslim appeasement when the Supreme Court delivered the historic judgment in the Shah Bano case and declared that divorced Muslim women were entitled to maintenance like other divorcees, as provided for in Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The court took the opportunity to draw the country’s attention to Article 44 of the Constitution, which committed the State to bring in a Uniform Civil Code. It said such a code would help the cause of national integration.
While this judgment was hailed across the country, the Muslim clergy was up in arms against the apex court’s decision. Even though Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had won the biggest mandate ever in the country’s parliamentary elections — over 410 seats — he was unable or unwilling to stand up to the mullahs and brought in a law to undo the top court’s verdict. This law, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, declared that Muslim men had no obligation to pay maintenance to their divorced wives like other men.
Given this history, the vicious propaganda unleashed by Muslim communalists in the international media against India is bunkum. India was and is the world’s biggest secular, democratic nation and its Hindu majority is very proud of it. The Muslims must acknowledge this and be wary of the false narrative being spread my mischief-makers. For once, the Union Government has begun to assert itself to correct the follies of Nehru and his progeny. This is the only way by which we can preserve the core values of our Constitution and protect India’s unity and integrity. The majority cannot allow some malcontents among a minority to wreck this.
(Writer: A Surya Prakash ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
It’s unlikely that Jyotiraditya will get something more from the BJP than what the Congress denied. Is he just a token?
At one level, nothing unexpected has really happened in the Congress. The young Turks, now not so young, are looking to give their political careers some individual purpose as the borrowed legacy of an institution called the Congress is fast ebbing away. Directionless without peer representation, and a leader who has quit the game a long time ago, they feel wasted and helpless with the old guard continuing their stubborn ways of what is right and wrong. Jyotiraditya Scindia’s resignation is just a summary of all that ails the Congress, where the young leaders want to keep the party’s nationalist ideology, passion and legacy alive but are dispirited for lack of recognition or being “too good” in outshining the Gandhi scions themselves. It is also but expected of the ruling BJP to claim the spoils of war, especially if that happens to be harvesting the peels of the shell the Congress has become. In this case, Scindia is the prize pick of the BJP, simply because he and his father before him had been part of the inner circle of the Gandhis and were the cushion around their leadership of the party. The visible impact of a Congress jolted by a trusted insider is far greater than any game of numbers. Frankly, the BJP really did not need Scindia as badly as the latter needed the party. His aunts, Vasundhara and Yashodhara, and grandmother Vijayraje Scindia, had delivered enough in their very influential capacities. So at another level, it is Scindia’s unchanged net worth that is unexpected. He doesn’t get much in the tradeoff, certainly nothing that makes him look like he is starting over. For ideological loyalty is not party loyalty and a man, who claims he has a hold on his former royal subjects, could have easily floated his own unit. But by switching over to the BJP, which he had sharply criticised over the Delhi riots fairly recently and changing his ideology after 18 long years, something that his father Madhavrao resisted for a lifetime, he surely looks like an opportunist. Besides, Scindia Jr is also encashing his family lineage to be of relevance to the BJP and is not casting away his dynastic mantle, something that the Gandhis are always accused of. Undoubtedly, he worked assiduously to shore up the Congress’ fortunes in Madhya Pradesh during the Assembly elections in 2018 and has reportedly been miffed at not being gifted chief ministership. But one cannot ignore that for all his claimed sway over the Gwalior belt, he lost his home turf of Guna in the Lok Sabha elections. Besides, loyalist party MLAs, who quit the party with him, aren’t keen on joining the BJP in a leap of faith. They would have if he had floated an independent State outfit perhaps, something that other young but dejected leaders in the Congress, like Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, are rumoured to be contemplating. A fresh start gets endorsement more easily than jaded defection plots.
The BJP, which has an ideological resonance across Madhya Pradesh, a State which continues to be the crucible of Hindutva and where its long-range grassroots warrior Shivraj Singh Chouhan scripted a success story for 13 long years, is not humouring Scindia’s royal lineage either. All he gets is a Rajya Sabha membership and a Union Ministry, something which makes his move look like personal aggrandisement than a crusade or revolt. The BJP has too many strongmen that it cannot afford to upset for want of a poster boy and won’t be risking its dynamics in a sure shot heartland bastion. The party may have lost the Assembly elections of 2018 but is within snapping distance of power with 107 legislators in the 230-member House. The Congress has 120 MLAs and assuming all its 21 MLAs are gone, will dip to 104, making government formation a skilled and institutionalised game of horse-trading. This wafer-thin anxiety was the reason that the Congress went on the backfoot in effecting a generational change in State leadership and brought in old warhorse Kamal Nath as the Chief Minister, who managed numbers and survival. This is also one of the reasons why the BJP, despite having the edge, has moved its MLAs to a hotel in faraway Gurugram while the Congress has parked its own in Jaipur. Scindia said the Congress is “living in denial” but probably, he is, too, in the process over-selling his chances. The bigger casualty is undoubtedly the Congress itself. No matter who wins what round, the fact is, it is dependent on the age-old structure of self-serving fiefdoms belonging to its hawks, who have passed on timely interests earned to the ruling first family and claimed to have ownership on what works for the party. Scindia’s trigger could very well encourage its disenchanted brigade, who, unlike Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, have no space for growth to bleed out as well. The biggest casualty is politics itself, returning to the age-old ways of manipulation and deceit rather than just relying on a transparent verdict.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
With the promise of acknowledging the awam as the real stakeholders, the newly-floated JKAP is making a big departure from the prevailing cult of personality-driven politics
March 7, 2020 will be flagged as a very significant date in the short history of the newly-formed Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). On this day, the first major political development took place post the reorganisation of the erstwhile State, announced on August 5, 2019 with the abrogation of Article 370. A new political entity, the Jammu Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP), was launched formally. The intransigent attitude of the “Gupkar gang” to accept the new reality — that separatism and terrorism would be things of the past as would dynastic rule — had brought to a standstill political activity, the heartbeat of democracy. The indifference shown by the Kashmiris towards the Gupkar Gang had not only taken them by surprise but also conveyed a message that the people in Kashmir are fed up with opportunistic parties bordering separatism.
The people were hoping for a new leadership to fill the political vacuum thus created. They were hoping that the old order would give place to a realist regime. However, complexities of Kashmiri politics prevented that from happening. In that scenario, the initiative was seized by a group of old politicians, who were willing to accept the new reality and move away from soft separatism. Unfortunately, the new entity comprises rejects of the old order.
This is significant considering the administration’s attempt to devolve power to grassroot leadership through development of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) has failed to yield the desired results due to various reasons. Though the BJP continued to raise issues of public interest, the people were feeling the lack of a viable alternative. Thus, the formation of the JKAP, drawing from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) under the stewardship of ex-PDP Minister Altaf Bukhari, has raised some hope, if not generate reassurance. On the face of it, the new party is an amalgamation of leaders who have parted ways with the parties led by the intransigent Gupkar Gang. The biggest sufferers are the disintegrated PDP and the sinking Sonia Congress. A sangam (confluence) of differing ideologies, beliefs and loyalties, the JKAP has yet to come out with a clear-cut ideology which would guide its future course and survival, since no political party can survive merely with the assurance of raising the current issues faced by the awam in the changed scenario.
Nonetheless, it is a very bold move under the present circumstances, though it could turn into as much of a puppet as the NC or the PDP. The easiest way for it would be to pass the buck without carrying out any introspection within its own house. The new party has an advantage to begin with but it would need political acumen, personal sacrifices and matured leadership to turn this advantage into a successful combination with wide acceptance. It would need to avoid being labelled as yet another Kashmir-centric party by adopting a holistic approach and rising above regional and religious considerations. It appears to be a Herculean task going by the present composition of the party because most of the heavyweights belong to Kashmir and the leaders who have joined from Jammu do not enjoy the same status. Most of the ex-legislators have their own pockets of influence and hence will ensure the party’s penetration among the awam.
The party has chosen a few issues on a priority basis and flagged them to be raised on behalf of the people. However, these will serve no purpose except to keep the people amused temporarily. The reversion to Statehood, which is on the top of the agenda, is a non-issue as it has been repeatedly said that the existing arrangement is temporary with a view to fighting terrorism, separatism and widespread corruption. Both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, architects of the reorganisation, have assured the nation on more than one occasion that statehood would be restored as soon as normalcy is achieved. To keep its promise alive, the Union Government has ensured separate awards by the 14th and 15th National Finance Commissions for J&K and Ladakh UTs, as a departure from the routine practice of combined awards to the Home Ministry in respect of the UTs.
Negotiating the domicile laws for people of the UT could be controversial and tricky for it. The people fear that such a move will further curtail employment opportunities for the youth of the UT and lead to a demographic disruption in the Valley.
Their apprehensions were further fuelled by the fact that the J&K High Court on December 31, 2019 invited applications from across the country for filling 33 vacant non-gazetted posts. Thankfully, the notification was cancelled after Opposition parties in Jammu slammed the move and pressed for enactment of laws for safeguarding the interests of the local youths. Though the notification has been withdrawn by the Government for the time being, the Centre is reportedly examining other options for opening up employment opportunities, land ownership rights and seats in institutions of higher education, including professional colleges, for non-Kashmiris. This is similar to what has been done in other States like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and other Northeastern states, which are covered under Article 371 of the Constitution.
Fortunately, the party has not set its eyes on early elections and has given adequate hints of it not expecting the elections to be held in the next one to two years, till the process of fresh delimitation is completed. The fact that the party admits to the need for meeting “rational aspirations” of the people, without promising them the “moon and the stars”, sounds good but one only hopes that it sticks to its promise in letter and spirit.
The bane of J&K politics has been the “wada khilafi” (broken promises) made by the Gupkar Gang, that led to the disillusionment of the youth and was one of the causes of the emergence of the “gun culture” in Kashmir. With the promise of acknowledging the awam as the real stakeholders, the newly-floated party is making a big departure from the prevailing cult of personality-driven politics. Another noble thought, but one that needs to be watched as the days go by, since actions will speak louder than words.
Altaf Bukhari in his press conference also mentioned the Jammu & Kashmir Bank and it being “converted into sub-office of the Anti-Corruption Bureau.” Here one wonders if the businessman in him has overshadowed the righteous politician image that he perceives to build. The people are elated by the fact that the Jammu & Kashmir Bank has been saved from becoming a personal fiefdom of the Gupkar Gang and is now being reformed to become a true bank of the people. They want the corrupt to be exposed, nepotism and favouritism prevailing in the bank to end and for the awam be the real beneficiary. Bukhari and his party will have to come out with a clear stand on this. The major issue left with the party immediately is to focus on development and the economic well-being of the UT. It is heartening that Bukhari has chosen to draw inspiration from Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, whose tenure at the helm of the State’s affairs can undoubtedly be termed as the golden era of economic development. Bakshi not only avoided discriminatory politics but also did not allow the rise of fundamentalists in the Valley by encouraging and promoting the Sufi culture. One can just hope that the JKAP rises to those ideals and works for the return of peace, harmony and co-existence, the hallmark of the Bakshi era. The party must come out with its vision document at the earliest and formulate a clear road map for economic revival with alternatives and options rather than sheer rhetoric. Bukhari and his team will do well to remember that there is always resistance to any transition and change management should form the JKAP’s key strategy. Neither should he allow himself to be used as a mouthpiece and implementer of Delhi. His integrationist ways should not result in a trust deficit all over again.
(Writer: Anil Gupta ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The politics of otherisation has now reached the chambers of our minds with a stamp of officialese, courtesy a regime that predicates religion as not only proof of identity but loyalty
Now that the embers of the Delhi riots are being washed away by an unseasonal rain, drowning the sad memories of how we can become refugees in our own land, there is talk about “heroes.” There are reports of how Hindu families sheltered Muslim neighbours in the city’s northeastern parts as the mob rampaged through their homes and hearths. There have been umpteen reports about Hindu samaritans helping the battered and bruised, rushing them to hospitals, arranging aid supplies and setting up shelters. There was also this report of a Hindu man taking down a saffron flag from atop a desecrated shrine and restoring our faith in humanity. Some would say this represents the syncretism of our civilisational ethos, the fabric of a cultural legacy that can never be torn asunder, the equality of humans as it is meant to be. Others, depending on which side of the discourse they are on, would probably call it the big-heartedness of a triumphalist faith over another. But in the end, it is all about characterising a good deed, even lionising it as one, rather than normalising it that is deeply troublesome. It is this need for categorising our behavioural pattern that represents why “otherisation” has deeply penetrated us at the societal level.
So much so that the majoritarian guilt syndrome is just as consciously executed or recognised as the awareness of minority victimhood. I am glad I grew up in Kolkata, where the cheek by jowl co-existence that we need to define so fervently these days was always a lived experience. During my kindergarten years, it was the Muslim weavers at my father’s jute factory who would drop me to school and back, bicycles on normal days, atop their shoulders on rainy days. My parents thought nothing about me playing with their children in the common playgrounds in front of their staff quarters. I cannot forget Qurbaan, who would buy me clothes from his meagre budget during Eid, along with those for his children. His wife would cook an elaborate feast that he would bring over to the house and we would all partake of the flavours and joys together. He and his family were a constant in my life till the day I got married. Then there was Abdul at my grandfather’s home in Lucknow, who embodied the summer afternoons of my long and lazy vacations, when I would read in the courtyard and he would tell me stories while pounding and mincing meat on his wooden board for the finest kebabs that I could almost swallow. If my grandfather encouraged my reading those afternoons, Abdul would regale me with animated stories and legends of Lucknow nagri, so much so that I am still teary-eyed about this city even when both have gone. Feel it in my pores as the lanes of Qaiserbagh and Aminabad. There were many others, drivers, shopkeepers, the candyman, gardener, the barber and what not, what you would call service-deliverers in today’s terms. But my bond with them was never about a relationship of convenience. Growing up with them was in the normal flow of everydayness. It was never to be screamed out as exception, simply because it was the rule. It was also about an informal but worldly-wise education. Today, in retrospect, such experiences would be labelled as my father’s liberal experiments with classlessness, his brashness in entrusting a significant part of my childhood to strangers who were just about skilled but not educated enough, and along with my missionary education, an erosion of my Hindu mooring. The fact is he had strengthened it in the process.
Nowhere is every puja, be it of Lakshmi, Saraswati or Narayan, solemnised at home with such frequency as it is in Bengal. Be it a bout of jaundice or malaria, my mother would immediately perform a puja for gratitude and fortitude. The home pujas made divinity supreme over rituals and prioritised the personal God over the regimented one. The worship of Durga and her Kali avatars, which the zamindars turned into huge community, all-faith affairs, has historically codified plurality as a socio-cultural-religious credo. In the Bengal that I grew up in, pujas were a matter of people’s pride, an efflorescence of its creative expression, not an emotion to be whisked and shredded to prove a point. By throwing me into this eco-system, my father had never ever betrayed his pain and anxieties over the Partition, of which he was a sufferer. He knew displacement, denial and destruction first hand but chose to resolve it his way like many others, levelling the furrows than upturning them further. He was very particular about not privileging anyone over any other.
He found solace along the river at Dakshineswar, a Shakti peeth dedicated to Kali and her most ardent devotee, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who embraced a multi-faith approach to divinity as a cosmic essence, soul evolution as the only enlightenment. Swami Vivekananda, who carried on his legacy and who kept Hinduism relevant as a world religion, is sadly only quoted for exhibitionism while his plurality gets trampled day in and day out.
Midway through life now, through its many comedies and tragedies, weddings and funerals, there have been Muslim friends, peers and colleagues who have stood by me as steadfastly as family. Quite naturally. So it bothers me immensely when they question their Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, when they ask whether their parents and grandparents were right in choosing India as homeland during Partition or when they wonder about applying for citizenship or work visas overseas. How does one console them for their systematic marginalisation, the dilution of their stakeholdership in nationhood? There is no explaining to young Muslims how their ancestors fought the elitist Muslim League’s imagined fears of slavery in a majoritarian land, when current truth is stranger than past fiction. Would we have imagined marking the entrance to our homes with religious motifs as a necessity than choice? Or thought about reconverting shrines that are few centuries old than building new ones? Would we have imagined classifying vegetables and meat as Hindu or Muslim? That’s precisely what is happening in Uttar Pradesh, with vendors tagging their religion on their signages. So after identity theft, there is going to be an economic denial. As a “not so god-fearing Hindu,” hosting guests for dinner with decided preferences could now be tricky business.
The politics of otherisation has finally set in. It is an accumulation of prejudices, both latent and overt, simply because it now has a stamp of officialese courtesy a regime which predicates religion as not only proof of identity but loyalty. It has seeped in because of a nationalist thought factory that spins history lessons as a retrospective duel with invasions than learning lessons from them. You cannot blame the fundamentalist fringe like Bajrang Dal or Vishwa Hindu Parishad anymore. For their thinking is mainstream now, accepted by the educated elite in drawing rooms. They may have pushed in from the fringes but it is the porosity of the intelligentsia which has yielded to their osmotic pressure. Because we need an excuse to justify our failures. And an easy one at that. Unlike the economy, global trade winds and poverty that we have no control over, we need an aggressor we can tame visibly. So we have created a new enemy within our own and transferred all our non-functioning abilities to “termites” and “viruses” detected after 70 years of incubation. Mainstream acceptance is the most dreaded monster, for it means obeying handed down guidelines and abjuring any responsibility towards nation-building.
The establishment’s segregatory policies and practices have hurt and alienated the enlightened “Indian Muslims” whom it is so desperate to reassure in public. Not that the latter aren’t trying; if the recent protests over the citizenship law are any indication, then Muslims have emerged as rightful citizens protecting their existence than outsourcing their crusade to either the clergy or votebank politicians. Many elite Muslims, so far confined to their own spheres of excellence, are now stepping up as demanding citizens. Yet they feel vulnerable without the armour of a stereotype. Though there have been no major separatist protests that you would associate with minorityism in other nations, we could see a radicalisation of an unknown kind if justice fails them now. For the “Indian Muslims” have never sought any autonomy or privileges as their co-religionists in Kashmir have, and they have existed pan-India with local sensibilities. They have considered India their holy land.
The public parade of anti-CAA protesters in Uttar Pradesh, some of them proven activists, presenting them in a rogue’s gallery and recovering costs of damage to public property from them, legitimises this hatred as mainstream and taints an entire community with the same brush. There is no room for dissent, just acquiescence. No space for conscience, but extremism.
What we once dismissed as hilarious is dead serious. Consider the diktat warning Muslim men against marrying Hindu girls or women or the toxic masculinity of Hindu men declaring their right to marry Kashmiri women post the abrogation of Article 370. Such claims are finding a ready receptacle in drawing room chatter over evening drinks. A Hindu may not know all stanzas of Vande Mataram but a Muslim unable to recite them — albeit under fear of the gun as seen in the Delhi riots — is a traitor. It is not that Muslims haven’t been ghettoised or targetted before for political gains. They have. But the problem now is that we have cast them away in the poisonous gas chambers of our minds.
(Writer: Rinku Ghosh ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
From the perception that few women are found in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, emerges the paradox that the disbalance is by choice rather than any constraint
As the world celebrated another Women’s Day, on March 8, this time under the shadow of the lethal Coronavirus, with scientists and medical professionals across the globe working round the clock to develop a vaccine to counter the virus, it is pertinent to reflect on the rather ambivalent relationship between gender, on one hand, and research and technology, on the other. From the almost unanimous perception that much fewer women than men are found in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) emerges the paradox that the gender gap in science education is the result of choice rather than any constraint. Women, particularly in advanced societies, voluntarily pursue careers in other fields rather than STEM. This paradox needs to be unbundled, especially in the current grim environment wherein men and women need to stand shoulder to shoulder to decimate the killer virus and restore normal life and health in the world.
Traditionally, several scholars and policymakers have pointed out male domination of STEM fields, with historically low participation of women in these professions. The reasons for this gender disparity are reportedly lack of encouragement from parents to daughters for pursuing higher studies in mathematics and science and laboratory experiences and financial resources needed to study these subjects, all of which favour men over women. The fact that the privileged professions with high remunerations in STEM fields are dotted with men is an undisputed corollary of this gender gap.
A 2018 survey conducted by Mastercard and Incite, titled Revisiting Women in STEM, carried out among 136 Indian women, working in both STEM and non-STEM jobs, arrived at some intriguing results. It found that 45 per cent of the women respondents working in STEM jobs were dissatisfied with their current career choice and also did not expect to continue in the job for their entire work life. Regarding the reasons for this discontent, 46 per cent cited the need for constantly updating their skills in STEM careers, 39 per cent were unable to adjust to the long hours and commitment needed in these jobs and 36 per cent were apprehensive of working in a male-dominated office environment. In addition, 24 per cent complained that women were less likely to be paid as much as men in these high-profile occupations. All of these are valid reasons for women to be wary of joining the science and technology bandwagon but they have serious implications for attracting bright, young women into these streams.
The situation is complicated further by the play of discriminatory forces constantly seeking to limit the frontiers of higher education and employment for women, especially in conservative societies across India. Academics and experts in the field of education also argue that the gender gap in India’s technological workforce is an outcome of the lack of both infrastructure and quality teachers in technical institutions of higher learning that fail to accommodate more women students. This discrimination is exacerbated by the persistent male-female and urban-rural divide in India’s pedagogical landscape.
In consonance with these findings, scholars using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) have also repeatedly asserted that gender inequality in educational outcomes in India is a product of social backgrounds, access to learning resources and cultural attitudes, which lead parents to prioritise their son’s education over daughter’s education.
The IHDS, carried out by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in collaboration with the University of Maryland, in two waves, in 2004-05 and 2011-12, points out that the prevalence of a gendered education system stemming from India’s patriarchal society has created all-round fissures in educational attainments.
This issue is also flagged up in a 2019 paper by leading IHDS researchers at the University of Maryland’s Sociology Department titled, The Emergence of Educational Hypogamy in India. The paper argues that though women today are more likely to be involved in higher education than before, often even being more educated than their spouses, in terms of subjects, they are still more representative in traditionally considered “feminine” fields such as humanities and social sciences, while men are more likely to be in the STEM fields, which generate higher economic returns in the labour market.
Coming back to the Coronavirus, in an article in The Independent last week, Ian Hamilton, lecturer in mental health at the Department of Health Sciences, University of York, takes the discrimination argument further. He claimed that due to differences in the immune systems of men and women, there is a need to develop two different strains of the vaccine as women often have more severe adverse reactions and higher antibody responses to disease. But sexism is likely to prevent woman-centred research.
In such a situation, women may end up receiving sub-optimal treatment, leading to higher mortality. He cites the example of the last global pandemic, SARS, when even the World Health Organisation (WHO) had pointed to the gender gap in data, specifically relating to the serious impact of the disease for pregnant women that was not sufficiently addressed by the SARS vaccine.
“From cancer to Coronavirus, there isn’t an area of health research or science that is not gender-blind. Science, it seems, is institutionally sexist,” fulminates Hamilton. He links this medical sexism to the paucity of women in senior research roles and a gender imbalance in technological laboratories dominated by men who may never be able to fully understand a woman’s health experiences. It is also widely suggested that women may be found aplenty in early-career levels of medical research but their male peers are more likely to ascend the professional ladder and become professors.
However, there is light beyond the tunnel, as women scientists are currently seen to be increasingly pro-active in their fight against the Coronavirus. Among the most prominent of them is an all-women team of four scientists, led by India-born Nita Patel, Director for Vaccine Development and Antibody Discovery at the Novavax Laboratory in the unassuming neighbourhood of Gaithersburg, Montgomery County of Maryland, USA. And there are other women scientists around the world involved in the same pursuit.
Patel and her team are working day and night to isolate the virus and find a breakthrough vaccine against Covid-19 using recombinant nanoparticle technology. When an ABC7 news reporter asked her what signal it would give young girls if the vaccine came from the hands of women, Patel said, “Well, that’s encouraging for young girls to become scientists. You know, I’m a woman (and can say) that’s awesome.” Novavax is aiming at an extremely aggressive timeline, having reached phase-II of development of the vaccine. If they get the next phase of trials right, they could hit the market with a viable vaccine in as little as three months.
However, Patel and her team are not the only women engaged in the grim battle against Coronavirus. Kathleen Neuzil, director of the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development, who co-leads a consortium established by the National Institutes of Health at Emory University in Atlanta, to quickly tackle new infectious diseases, is also working in this area.
Another notable STEM researcher is Lauren Gardner, a civil engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, who has led a team to build a map based on information collected from various sources in China, the US and elsewhere to track the spread of the virus and locate areas where the virus is taking hold in real time and where it may attack more in future. Surely, these path-breaking endeavours by women would not only provide succour by saving thousands of lives against the killer disease but also influence STEM research and policymaking in the long term. Can we still say that STEM is not for women?
(Writer: Anupma Mehta ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Given the abject failure of our political class in preventing and/or controlling riots in the national capital, has the time come for the idea of a new politics?
The clutch of recent developments centred round the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the stomach-turning communal rioting in north-east Delhi raises a couple of fundamental questions: Have India’s politics and politicians failed the country? What is the future of politics in the country? The questions are relevant given the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) claim that its victory in the recent Delhi Assembly elections heralds the advent of a new kind of politics in the country — kaam ki rajneeti or the politics of work.
AAP’s work in improving schools, healthcare services in the form of mohalla (neighbourhood) clinics, providing up to 20,000 litres of water free to each household and drastically reducing electricity bills has brought it 62 out of the 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Nevertheless, the conduct of its leaders and legislators during the recent communal riots in Delhi has launched a thousand arguments.
Two things require attention. The first is their claim that they are not responsible for the Delhi Police’s abysmal performance as the force is controlled by the Union Home Ministry. The second is their overwhelmingly perceived absence from the scenes of violence. Both require critical examination.
As to the first claim, the fact is that the Union Home Ministry directly controls the Delhi Police. The question of the latter’s as well as the Delhi Government’s respective roles, however, comes up in the context of preventing and/or controlling violence. While police action is critical in the matter, the fact is that the police act in a social, political and administrative context and the Delhi Government might have been able to compel it to act even though the Union Home Ministry controlled it. The presence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP Ministers and leaders in troubled areas might, for example, have put policemen on the ground under pressure to act, particularly if the netas had stepped forward and confronted the mobs. Otherwise, the men and women in uniform would have been held responsible if anything had happened to them.
Chief Minister Kejriwal visited the hospitals. He also visited some of the riot- affected areas along with Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. But that was after the violence had more or less subsided. He had also called for curfew to be imposed and the deployment of the Army besides announcing a slew of measures, including the payment of various amounts of compensation, ranging from Rs 10 lakh to the kin of those killed to Rs 25,000 for each rickshaw destroyed. All this, however, is what any Government is expected to do in the aftermath of a serious communal riot and the AAP Government should have been seriously remiss if it had not. Neither is it the same as visiting affected areas when violence is raging; nor does it make up for failure to do so.
Had they been present, AAP leaders might have confronted the mobs with their followers and halted them in their tracks. If groups of common people in some localities could do it and save lives, homes and places of worship, there is no reason why they could not do so. AAP spokespersons have waxed indignant on television and elsewhere, saying that their MLAs and leaders were very much on the ground, forming peace committees, asking people not to resort to violence, providing relief and solace to the disconsolate and those rendered destitute. Since one does not want to believe that what they were saying was not true, and given that the overwhelming majority of the people seem to hold that AAP leaders were conspicuous by their absence, one can only conclude that they were present but not visible.
This writer can only speculate on how this could have happened. One possibility is that those in the higher echelons of AAPs hierarchy have received pills that make them invisible for pre-determined periods. These might have been originally given to them to inspect unseen the effectiveness of the Government’s delivery systems on facilities provided to the people but were now put to use during the riots. The other possibility is that they have achieved a level of spiritual elevation that enables a person to leave his/her corporal body behind and traverse the cosmos in his/her invisible astral self. Only they did not travel millions of light years in seconds to explore distant galaxies but visit riot-torn areas offering solace in subsonic voices that most people did not hear.
Of course, as invisible as them were leaders of most other political parties. Did they also have the invisibility pill and the capacity for travelling in their astral bodies and speaking subsonically? Whatever the reason, their invisibility shockingly underlines their lack of concern for the people and political inertia. All this leads us to the sentiment whose relevance has not been withered by the years — politicians and political parties in India have failed the people.
This lack of faith in politicians and parties has clearly led to spontaneous protests like the Shaheen Bagh sit-in and meetings, rallies and processions by students’ and citizens against the Citizenship Act. The question is whether the development would prove ephemeral or the protests would coalesce, widen their concerns and transmogrify themselves into a new political formation with a well-defined ideology and programme.
One must go beyond kaam ki rajneeti for this to happen. Work gets done in a political, economic, social and cultural environment and a moral universe. It will not benefit the people if a Government prioritises crony capitalist interests; liberty will not be realised on the ground if sections remain in economic bondage and/or suffer discrimination. One would need a philosophy of freedom based on compassion, humanity and a commitment to liberty, cradling a programme to further social and economic justice and India’s cultural and religious diversity, to realise the goals of the Constitution. Also, one would need money to build up such a political formation. Corporate entities would not provide it; they would bet on parties in power. One would have to depend on crowd-funding, which will not be easy. Finally, the architects of such a movement must have the wisdom to keep their ambitions on hold and weave an intricate tapestry of plural relationships to make a nation-wide political structure possible. But then, as Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” Has the time come for a new and very different political formation in India?
(Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The Govt can’t turn away and must allow a debate on who is guilty of the Delhi violence
The confrontationist positions taken by the ruling BJP and the Congress-led Opposition in Parliament over the Delhi riots cannot be simply dismissed as a breakdown of decorum or institutional morality. It is an indication of helplessness when the glorious tradition of debate and discussion that characterises parliamentary democracy is at stake, when dictated silence replaces Question Hour as the real national agenda. It is a desperation of the representative legislature to make itself heard when a determined executive brooks no opinion and has its way. It signifies the erosion of another institution where citizens could express their angst through their representatives. And when the Speaker stays away from a session upset over what he claims is legislators’ pillorying behaviour, then he is abdicating the huge responsibility of the Chair in ensuring debate in the first place. The Opposition wants an immediate discussion on the riots while the Government wants to postpone it after Holi. Frankly, Delhi, which has been ripped apart by unprecedented violence in decades, with more generational damage to people and their way of living than just the toll of 53, is an issue burning enough. And even on the extreme end of the polarised arc, the Government could have appeared “muscular” enough to take questions than appear fragile in its evasiveness. In the end, it is Delhiites who are forlorn in a cross-fire of narratives that obfuscate the real provocateurs and perpetrators. First, the Delhi Police is at its worst crisis of credibility with allegations and videos ranging from it being a mute spectator to acting in a partisan manner. And although the tipping point of the riots was the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which privileges religion as an eligibility criterion and has both defenders and protesters, it is only the latter who are being demonised selectively. In such circumstances, the nation does need to know facts as they are and not propaganda that has acquired the stamp of officialese. Even a Government driven by the ideological push of majoritarianism cannot survive a hitback if it doesn’t attempt some sort of an outreach to the people. Courtesy its segregatory policies, it has hurt and alienated the enlightened “Indian Muslims” whom it is so desperate to reassure through grandiose statements and who have not stirred up major separatist protests that you would associate with minorityism in other nations. Yet, with the latest brand of “otherisation” politics and by predicating legacy data and religion as proof of identity, the Muslim community is vulnerable. If the law and order machinery now fails minorities and there is no perceived sense of justice, then we may end up radicalising them. The public parade of anti-CAA protesters in Uttar Pradesh, presenting them in a rogue’s gallery and recovering costs of damage to public property from them, legitimises this hatred for dissent as mainstream. The cost of creating a new enemy within our own and transferring our non-functioning abilities to “termites” and “viruses” detected after 70 years of incubation may just be too unmanageable.
People can mount pressure only in Parliament through their legally elected voices. For civil society has found no solace even in the judiciary, which has doubted its intentions instead of granting it a listen. Former civil servant and activist Harsh Mander, who assumed a humanitarian role to calm the blaze of fury, helping and rehabilitating abandoned survivors, is now an enemy of the State, guilty by suspicion. It doesn’t matter he has had a clean record so far, he is just as bad simply because he had questioned the judiciary’s emaciated role in restoring civic discourse over CAA. It is deeply distressing that the Supreme Court should deny him a hearing over an egoistic tit-for-tat battle about his earlier remarks instead of hearing his plea for registering FIRs against those who made hate speeches. In the end, this action has diluted the seriousness of the plea itself. The hand-out executive has tamed all institutions into submission no doubt. But it still owes accountability to the people who voted it, not the other way round.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Given the freeze in the relations between India and Nepal, it is time for New Delhi to engage with Naya Nepal in a way that it is assured of the sincerity of its words
Soon after the peaceful conclusion of the civil war in Nepal in 2006, several political observers were of the view that it be referred to as “Naya Nepal.” Naya, a Hindi-Nepali term, refers to a “new” nation that emerged at the cost of 17,000 lives after a decade-long civil war. Changes primarily included the ouster of the centuries-old monarchy and Nepal’s transition into a democratic State, where the king was no more considered to be the sole administrator/protector, the restructuring of the country from a Hindu State to a secular one, the inclusion of the Maoist guerrilla fighters into the mainstream political process, reinstating of the multi-party political system and providing political freedom and adult franchise to the people.
Naya Nepal also faced the challenge of writing a democratic Constitution, giving justice to families who had lost their loved ones during the civil war, maintaining political stability, narrowing the thaw between the Pahadi and Madhesi groups and improving the state of the economy, which was in a shambles due to the war. While the civil war affected the internal structure of the country, it had an enormous impact on its foreign policy, especially towards India. It is often believed that Nepal, a country that falls between the two Asian giants, India and China, has been a ground for competition between them to strengthen their influence, precisely due to its strategic location. While China aims to focus on protecting its interests in Tibet, India wants a stable neighbour. Traditionally, India has been a friend of Nepal. The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed in 1950, recognises the “special relationship” shared between them. The uniqueness of this pact is characterised by open borders, free movement of people, deeply rooted socio-cultural ties and people-to-people relations.
However, with a change in its internal structure, there has been a change in the thought process of the new regime. Today, Nepal’s narrative is so-called nationalistic, extreme and abhors pro-India sentiments. The anti-India tirade among the Nepalese population is not new. Despite all efforts to improve bilateral relations, distances have only grown. It is here that sincere engagement is essential to reduce differences.
Need for a template: The anti-India sentiment is acutely “political” and has become a part of everyday life, where a daily dose of dislike is being given to the Nepalese population, based on selective information. While in the past, several attempts were made to isolate Nepal from India, in the last five years, differences have become grave.
During several democratic movements in Nepal, in 1960, 1990 and 2006, India played the role of a well-wisher to bridge the gap between the erstwhile monarchy and the democratic forces. Amid these natural ties, a fallout in the relations is not unnatural, considering the nature of interaction between the two countries in the last five years.
The beginning: The year 2014 was promising for India-Nepal relations for two reasons. One, Nepal was the second neighbouring country Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited after taking charge in August 2014. This was also the first bilateral trip by an Indian Prime Minister to the Himalayan nation in 17 years. This signalled the priority the new Government accorded to better the strained relationship with Nepal. Then again, the Prime Minister returned to Kathmandu in November 2014, to attend the 18th Annual Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). This summit was another opportunity for India to minimise the existing trust deficit with Nepal and other regional neighbours.
Second, the two countries revised their diplomatic channels of communication. This was indeed a strong message for other competitive powers that India would continue to maintain its goodwill and developmental works in Nepal. India’s swift despatch of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams to Nepal during the 2015 earthquake to carry out rescue operations in affected areas was a major friendly operation. Later, India’s financial assistance to Nepal for relief and reconstruction of the damaged property showcased the “naturalness” of its relation with Nepal.
Blockade: In September 2015, the Constituent Assembly of Nepal promulgated a new democratic-republican Constitution. This happened seven years after Nepal’s transformation into a democracy. While Kathmandu rejoiced the hasty completion of a new Constitution, issues like the rights of women, demarcation of the federal boundaries and marginalisation of the Madhesis took a violent turn. As a result, movement of goods and people were obstructed due to violence and arson at the India-Nepal border.
Nepal was quick to call it an India-imposed blockade, which was outrightly rejected by the latter. This saw a heated discussion in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament and was categorised as the biggest national emergency in Nepal. The alleged blockade was used as a tool to influence masses in Nepal during the 2017 local and 2018 national elections, too. Since then, the blockade has become an issue of national emergency in the neighbouring country.
Threat perception: In 2016, Nepal implemented its first National Security Policy (NSP). While the then Nepali Congress-led Government hesitated to use blockade as a national security threat, the present KP Oli-led Government has amended the NSP and categorised “blockade” as a national security threat. It needs to be mentioned here that through the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, New Delhi had assured Kathmandu that it would not face any external aggression on its part. In the past 65 years of diplomatic interactions, Nepal has felt secure. Therefore, Kathmandu’s sudden change on matters of mutual security is worrying because it has more political connotations rather than a will to resolve issues.
Cutting people-to-people ties: The updated National Security Policy 2019 under the Communist regime in Nepal has not yet been made public and it is believed that it is the use of the term “blockade” that has ruffled feathers in New Delhi. Meanwhile, during an interaction, an advisor to the Nepalese Prime Minister indicated that Nepal intends to regulate its borders. The word “regulate” incorporates limiting the transit points at what has been a largely open border, establishing a dedicated Border Security Force and treating travelling through land routes at par with air routes in terms of document requirements for citizens of the two countries.
Nepal may well cite security reasons for these upcoming upgradations but this will impact the movement of people from the bordering regions. Notably, people-to-people contact cannot be established between the two countries, a move that seems to be acceding to China’s request. While India and Nepal enjoy natural people-to-people relations, restrictions on the free movement will come at a cost to India.
Border disputes: Last November, Nepal objected to the release of a new map of India. It said that the boundaries in the Kalapani region were shown wrongly and sent diplomatic notes to New Delhi. India clarified that in no way does “the new map revisit boundaries with Nepal.” It still maintains this position on the issue. The two countries have resolved 98 per cent of border disputes. The Indian side believes that an objection on Kalapani, too, can be resolved diplomatically. However, this does not seem to be the case in Nepal.
Eminent persons group: In 2016, the two countries appointed an Eminent Persons Group (EPG), consisting of relevant experts from India and Nepal, to review bilateral treaties and agreements between the two countries, including the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. While the group has submitted its report with recommendations to both Governments, it remains under wraps. Reasons are unknown but it stands as a ticking bomb for India. The EPG report may not be a critical issue for us but it is a matter of national prestige for Nepal. Not making it public will put all the blame on India.
In international relations, diplomacy is considered to be the first and the last best resort to resolve bilateral or multilateral issues. India may have assured full diplomatic support to Nepal. However, until these issues are part of the political mandate, the present challenges cannot be resolved. From a foreign policy perspective, Naya Nepal is more challenging and complex for India. The alleged border blockade, the Madhesi movement and now the Kalapani dispute have all become part of our neighbour’s national narrative which is undoubtedly hateful and extreme. While all is not lost for the two countries, the increasing presence of China in Nepal and pending bilateral issues between New Delhi and Kathmandu require the best efforts from India’s side.
(Writer: Rishi Gupta ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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