At the time of writing, the United States still did not know who would be its President starting January. On American news channels, there was an amazing granularity of data but the anchors and analysts predicted recounts and major legal challenges remain. Like India, most other major democratic nations are wondering why the election to determine the leader of the world’s largest economy and military is so confusing. Part of the reason is a 19th century system devised to protect the rights of the States in the US, the so-called “Electoral College”, so as to prevent the highly populous metropolitan States from dominating the less populated States in the middle of the country. This is why several times since the 2000 election, which pitted Al Gore versus George W Bush, the winner of the popular vote, often by a massive margin, lost the election. Think of the American system as a “first past the post” system, but a very confusing one with each State given a certain number of electors. The winner of the popular mandate in the concerned State, even by a single vote, takes the entire boatload of electoral votes. To transpose that system here, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, one of the most highly contested States was West Bengal, and while the BJP did well there, the Trinamool Congress got more votes by a narrow margin of three per cent and by American electoral logic would have received all the 42 seats from that State instead of the 22-18 split that happened. That does not make sense. A completely proportional allocation of votes, maybe rewarding the State’s winner by giving him/her extra votes, might make more sense and also allow more equality to the vote. Currently, the States of California, New York and Texas, the three most populous States in the Union, are not even in play and almost beholden to one party. In many other nations, such a proportional system will lead to decades of unstable coalitions, but the fiercely protected political duopoly in the US might even allow this to make sense. However, highly fractured as it is, with extremists from both sides controlling the overall political discourse, the US, much like India to an extent, finds itself a divided nation where voters have piled themselves into silos, refusing to even hear sane voices from the other side. The death of centrism is an issue that is befalling almost every democracy across the world.

With States such as Pennsylvania, in whose largest city Philadelphia the “Declaration of Independence” of the US was drafted, saying that they might take up to 10 days to count the votes, and that State becoming as vital as Florida was in 2000, it might be sometime before the final tally and winner is known. Another wrinkle is that mail ballots can come in several days after Election Day and still be counted, as long as they are postmarked by then. Democrats have argued that the flood of absentee ballots and slow mail delivery in some areas make such a precaution necessary. For example, mail-in ballots from Nevada voters are not due until November 10 if postmarked by Election Day and in North Carolina till November 12. But with both candidates making public stands, Donald Trump promising to fight this out legally, it might be a long time before any result is known and that could make the fractures inside the US a lot, lot worse. Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign manager has legal teams standing by if Trump follows through with his threat of challenging the vote counts. His statement about wanting the Supreme Court to play a proactive role in case of a disputed election and the hurried confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the top court days before Election Day paint a picture of desperation. However, never in the history of the US has a President refused to concede the election. But again, this is Trump. For now, both Trump and Biden have their eyes set on the three northern industrial States, also known as the swing States — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which could very well determine who wins. And in the end, even if Trump wins, his brazen call to halt counting from the podium of the White House on the supposition that his margins are way too wide for anybody to catch up with, is unprecedented. For it not only desecrates the institution of democracy and disenfranchises voters, it also sets a precedent for other authoritarian world leaders to follow. Simply because it was done by the US President. Every vote counts and numbers have to matter over the war of perception and manipulation.

Climate change has started impacting the wildlife reserves of India. During 2019, as against the average annual rainfall of 1,200 to 1,300 mm, the Kanha National Park recorded 1,800 mm rainfall, 300 mm in a single day. This resulted in damage to the soil and water bodies that were filled with sand and debris. Many bridges were damaged in the deluge as was the vegetation. The management of Kanha National Park  needs to evolve ways to adapt to climatic vagaries and prepare a plan of action for long-term sustainability of the park, which is one of the oldest wildlife reserves of India.

One of the finest tiger habitats in the country and a haven for prey species like the barasingha, gaur and cheetal, Kanha comprises a large area of 1,949 sq km in the well-forested Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh. It has a core area of 940 sq km and a 1,009 sq km buffer zone. It was notified as a reserved forest in 1879, as a sanctuary in 1933 and finally, a national park in 1955. Like other wildlife reserves,  Kanha too got a tremendous management boost with the introduction of Project Tiger in 1973. The adjacent Phen Wild Life Sanctuary spread over 110 sq km is part of its additional core area.

It is endowed with fabulously rich biodiversity of plant and animal genetic resources. Meadows full of grasses make it a perfect habitat both for the herbivorous animals as well as for the tiger and other carnivores. As a result it has plenty of tigers, leopards, gaurs, wild dogs, jackals, wild boar, langurs, pythons and a host of other wildlife. The national bird, the peacock, is seen all over the park in abundance.

The prey base for now more than 125 tigers is more than adequate with 40,000 cheetals, 11,000 sambhars and 800 barasinghas. Kanha has 139 families of birds, including migratory ones from the Himalayas, Central Asia and Europe like the golden oriel, greenish warbler, rosy starling, brown shriek, common stonechat, northern pintail ducks, barn starling, Malabar pied horn, Indian grey horn, wagles, white-backed vultures and so on.

The climatic and geological conditions, like undulating land mass and a network of water streams, ponds and lakes, are favourable for sustaining the rich biodiversity. The range of temperature from 43 to 44 degrees in summer and minus two degrees in winter and an annual rainfall of around 1,400 mm bring a wide range of biodiversity to this park.

The authorities deserve a lot of kudos for managing the park so well. They have created adequate infrastructural and logistic facilities like housing, schooling for their children and an innovative medical scheme along with other excellent workers’ welfare measures like soft loans. The souvenir shops and canteens are run by the workers’ society and the profit is shared as bonus annually. The turnover last year was Rs 95 lakh and this year so far it is around Rs 66 lakh despite the lockdown that saw a reduced footfall. These innovative steps are the cornerstone of the park’s management policy.

The scientific management of biodiversity is focussed on interdependence of species and non-living components. The park is known for some innovative measurers like focussing on other species than the tiger. The conservation programme of the barasingha, a threatened species, is now doing very well and animals are getting translocated to other wildlife reserves. The park management had made a few novel efforts like a “School for Rewilding Orphaned Tiger Cubs” in which they are rescued, reared, trained and released back in the wild.  A “Kanha Vikas Nidhi” had been created to support the infrastructure and livelihoods of the 27 villages that were shifted from the core area.  

The State Eco-Development Board is also active in the wildlife reserves in these activities and creating a win-win situation for both the people and wildlife. However, while interacting with the staff, one thing became clear. The State Government must look into the genuine grievances of the Range Officers and other field staff on their salary structures which need to be brought at par with police and forest staff of other States. The least the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Government must do is to accede to their demands as it is their efforts that are making the forest rich in flora and fauna. This, in turn, is conserving water and helping agriculture in the area. Above all, they have made Madhya Pradesh a tiger State of India and resulted in boosting its economy through bio-tourism.   

(The writer is a former civil servant)

The chief of Army Staff, General MM Naravane’s visit to Nepal, starting today, is being seen as a clear attempt by both countries to revive bilateral relations, which are at a new low due to the map and road rows and their repudiation as Kathmandu printed its own map, incorporating disputed areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. General Naravane’s visit is a part of the unique tradition that began in 1972, when the Army chiefs of both countries were ceremonially appointed chiefs of each other’s armies. It was Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the legendary Sam Bahadur, who institutionalised the unique military relation that had both political and strategic ramifications. “When a soldier says he is not afraid of death, he is either lying or a Gorkha,” Sam would say. No two countries are privileged with similar bonding as the Gorkhas of Nepal, who serve and even die protecting India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The strategic military relations are at two levels — between the two sovereign armies and the Indian Army’s Gorkha connect.

For India, Nepal is geo-strategically the most important neighbour, dominating avenues to the Indo-Gangetic heartland. The security concerns emanate from the north of the Himalayas and have constituted the core worry. In 1959, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said that an attack on Nepal and Bhutan will be deemed as an attack on India. The Chinese have made equivalent remarks.

Nepal faces only an internal threat as the Maoists posed two decades ago. The hijack of IC-814 demonstrated Nepal’s fragile internal security system. Fortunately, it has no external threat.

In 1952, King Tribhuvan invited India to establish a military training mission, which included occupying 22 border posts along with Nepal Army but Kalapani was not one of them. By 1970, under pressure from the Communist lobby in the palace, the training facilities were withdrawn. In 1965, King Mahendra, and in 1990, King Birendra requested India to modernise the Nepal Army, which is equipped 80 per cent with Indian military hardware provided at friendship prices — 70 per cent aid and 30 per cent payment, which over time has become near gratis. According to treaty arrangements, Nepal acquires military equipment from abroad only when India is unable to provide them. But this is not sacrosanct as the US, the UK and east Europe have provisioned the Army.

The Nepal Army was tested during the counter-insurgency campaign against the Maoists, when it initially failed to meet the challenge. The Indian Army provided tactical advice and military equipment in staving off the threat which ended in a stalemate. As part of tactical consultations in September 2003, the Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism was established, which is supposed to meet twice a year. After King Gyanendra staged the royal coup in February 2005, military supplies were suspended, resulting in a rift between Army chief General JJ Singh and the Foreign Office as General Singh pointed out that blocking the flow of weapons and equipment would undermine Nepal Army’s counter-insurgency operations. Though overruled, he defended the military ties zealously.

The bulk of Nepal Army’s specialised training is held in India and it bags maximum training slots. Joint training has reached the battalion level under the Surya Kiran series and military exercises are held in both the countries. The Indian military has become the first responder during crisis or calamity in Nepal. In the 1990s, there was a horrible aviation tragedy at the Tribhuvan International Airport. The IAF rushed in several helicopters to help trace victims of the accident. Similarly, in 2015, after the earthquake, the Indian military’s immediate response was acknowledged by Nepal Army chief, General Gaurav Rana.

The second strand of bilateral relations is the recruitment of Gorkhas from Nepal in the Indian Army, which is a continuation of the British inheritance through the Tripartite Agreement of 1947, whereby Nepalese get into British, Indian and their own armies. The British had insulated the Gorkhas from the rest of the Indian Army by not allowing Indian officers to lead them. At the end of World War II, there were 51 Gorkha battalions which were divided between the British and Indian Armies. Today, the 43 Gorkha battalions, which are larger than the entire British infantry, which has two Gorkha battalions, make up the largest infantry regiment of the Indian Army. While initially all were recruited from Nepal, gradually the Nepali Gorkha content reduced to 70 per cent and currently is 60 per cent while the remaining comes from Indian domiciled Gorkhas from Dharamshala to Darjeeling. In 2015, a Gorkha battalion composed entirely of Indian Gorkhas was formed.

On an average, India recruits annually 1,500 to 2,000 Nepali Gorkhas with unending queues of aspirants. Indians have officered the Gorkhas with panache and passion that British Gorkha veterans now envy. These battalions have won gallantry awards that outmatch other Indian regiments and those Indians who doubt their loyalty should have their heads examined.

The Indian embassy has created a wealth of facilities for the 1.25 lakh ex-servicemen (10 lakh if you add families) in Nepal, who are exceptionally organised, disciplined, lately, affluent after One Rank One Pension (OROP) and beholden to India. A special Gorkha cell in Army Headquarters monitors their welfare. Pay and pensions account for the third-largest remittance after trade and tourism, and this has  remained unaffected by the pandemic or other crises.

Nepali politicians with Leftist leanings, especially Maoists, have invariably raised the question of stopping recruitment in foreign armies, especially the Indian Army. The Chinese influence in Nepal has grown dramatically since the Communist Government is in place. It has been seeking parity with India, including joint military training which started in 2017. China may object to the use of Nepali troops of the Indian Army against a friendly Chinese People’s Liberation Army. An echo was heard during Doklam.

With the Nepal Communist Party in power, the recruitment issue keeps popping up. One suspects there would be a mini-revolt in the countryside for contemplating a sacrilege as heinous as stopping Gorkhas from showing off their valour. A proposal that had emanated from the Kathmandu Embassy in 1974, recommending this infamy, was axed in New Delhi with alacrity for its potential to rob India of a vital strategic asset. The serving Gorkhas and the ex-servicemen community together constitute the one reliable pro-India constituency in Nepal that New Delhi can count on, especially when India-Nepal relations have hit rock-bottom. It is this Gorkha asset and magic that General Naravane’s visit will nurture and preserve besides creating an ambience for normalising ties.

(The writer, a retired Major General, was Commander IPKF South, Sri Lanka and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff)

It is remarkable that the United States, possibly the most diverse nation, is choosing between two old, White men to lead it out of the tailspin that the Coronavirus pandemic has caused. This is a time when the US and the rest of the world need leadership, and if America does not choose wisely, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his lackeys are just waiting in the wings to dictate a new world order. But what is the wise choice? Should the US vote for a man who has been divisive and broken ethical and moral norms, even though he did correctly call out China’s hypocrisy? Or should the US vote for a man who by all accounts is a nice guy, but has clear signs of age-related mental degeneration? Frankly, this is not a choice that the US needed to make; there are far better, healthier and smarter people on both sides of America’s political spectrum. In fact, the 2020 election in the US is possibly a horrible advertisement for democracy, American style. Its electoral system is deeply flawed and while the very basic first past the post system in India and many other nations has its issues, the concept of the electoral college, where a candidate can lose the plurality of the nationwide vote by a massive margin and yet win the right to sit in the White House, is one that the rest of the world finds bizarre. At the same time, the enforced duopoly in the US system has led to extremist views gaining more traction within both parties and although the death of centrism is not only an American phenomenon, it is most starkly experienced in the US where, like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the Republicans and Democrats have foiled any potential rival from emerging. For a nation that famously “exports” democracy, American democracy is the worst in any large democratic nation.

From an Indian perspective, Trump and the Republicans have usually been kinder towards us since the times of Ronald Reagan although it was Bill Clinton who started to reset the Indo-US relations at the fag end of his term. The Trump administration’s more hawkish view of China has been more than welcomed by the Narendra Modi Government, which had good chemistry with the Democrat President Barack Obama, too. And given the geo-strategic importance India has vis-a-vis China, its vanguard capabilities and Pakistan’s somewhat fall from grace, the Indo-US partnership will not only continue but is expected to become stronger. With India’s growing concern about China’s imperialistic agenda and territorial greed, especially in the border areas and the Indian Ocean Region, the Trump administration has already assigned India an important role in its framework, especially with the free and open Indo-Pacific region. Our Quad initiative, with the US, Japan and Australia, has been activated with Trump’s pressure. This has further laid the basis for defence and security cooperation. On the other hand, India’s economic dependence on the US has increased. For the fiscal year 2019-20, bilateral trade between the two nations stood at $88.75 billion, making the US India’s top trading partner. However, Biden is known to have expressed a softer stance on trade with China. He even hinted at ending the tariffs that Trump had imposed on Chinese imports. So, if Biden is elected, some of the economic gains that India expects might not come true. However, having a Vice-President, who has an Indian heritage and speaks Sanskrit and Tamil, might appear as a plus point. But the Democratic Party has often fallen prey to the wiles of separatist elements and religious freedoms could be on the agenda. However American pragmatism might mean a more nuanced approach to the relationship with India even in a Biden-Harris victory despite Modi personally investing heavily in Donald Trump, although that was before the Chinese contagion ripped the global economy asunder. By the time you read this, voting might have started in several US States, and by all accounts, there is going to be a whole load of chaos across the nation with different States setting different standards for the election with no federal electoral body. Whatever happens, Indian foreign policy objectives might win but the American people will be reminded that they live in a deeply flawed democratic nation.

The decision of the French President Emmanuel Macron to defend freedom of speech in his country, following the barbaric beheading of a school teacher and some others by radicalised Muslims, has led to violent protests across Islamic nations. The perpetrators of these violent acts in France, it is believed, were seeking to avenge the caricaturing of Prophet Mohammed in a French magazine. So it has become a blasphemy versus free speech issue in a nation that rests on the foundation of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Most of the protesters in the Islamic world are justifying the beheadings and baying for the blood of the French President. The biggest culprit is the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Bin Mohamad, who said that Muslims have the right “to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. This is an open encouragement to bloodshed and must easily be the most outrageous and irresponsible statement made by a person who has held an important public office in a big nation. It is surprising that Twitter has only deleted Mohamad’s tweet and restrained itself from taking more severe action.

While all this is on in the Islamic world, how should citizens of India respond to the developments in France? Several Indian cities have seen angry protests by Muslim citizens against the caricaturing of the Prophet. There is legitimacy for these protests so long as they are peaceful and non-violent and do not cause any disturbance to the normal run of life. That is why the conduct of Farhan Zuberi, a student leader from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), who has justified the beheadings in France and held out an open threat to behead anyone speaking against Islam, deserves to be condemned.

India, given its democratic credentials, has taken the right stand against this kind of violence. The Foreign Ministry condemned the beheading of the school teacher in Paris and said there can be no justification for terrorism “for any reason or under any circumstances”. For once, the Ministry put aside its weakness for prevarication and “strongly deplored” the personal attack on the French President and said it is a violation of the most basic standards of international discourse. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also taken a firm stand. In a tweet, he strongly condemned the terrorist attacks, including the heinous attack in Nice inside a church. “India stands with France in the fight against terrorism”, he tweeted.

This is where all Indians have to draw the line. They cannot behave like the citizens in the Islamic States where everything revolves around religion and the space for public discourse is severely constricted.

For the moment, it can be said that the violent outbursts of the AMU student leader are an aberration. It is not the rule. All those who value democracy speak a different language. That is why the statement of one hundred Indian personalities, who “unequivocally and unconditionally” condemned the recent killings in France by fanatics in the name of faith, is important. The signatories to this statement, who included actor Naseeruddin Shah, former Indian Police Service Officer, Julio Ribeiro and lyricist Hussain Haidri, said: “We are deeply disturbed by the convoluted logic of some self-appointed guardians of Indian Muslims in rationalising cold-blooded murder and deplore the outrageous remarks of some heads of state.” The signatories attacked whataboutery and condemned attempts to rationalise crimes by comparing them with other similar crimes. They said this was irrational and absurd. “No god, gods, goddesses, prophets or saints may be invoked to justify the killing and/or terrorising of fellow human beings.” 

India is the world’s largest, secular, liberal, democratic republic and all of us who care for the free air we breathe must unite against individuals who defend such brutality. 

As citizens of the most democratic and diverse nation in the world, our future lies in the preservation of the core values in our Constitution and our democratic way of life. Secular, liberal democracies cannot survive, let alone flourish, if any section of the population offers justification for violence in order to assert the correctness of its stand. This applies to all Indian citizens and, in the present context, especially to citizens who are adherents of Islam. No citizen of India can take lessons from Islamic nations which have no respect for plurality and equality. We are different. In fact, we are unique, and we must assert our uniqueness and the exalted status that our Constitution has given us.

Co-existence within a plural society demands a high degree of tolerance. Our Constitution makers recognised this and it is here that our constitutional arrangement is slightly different from that of France. Our “freedom of expression” is subject to “reasonable restrictions.” We cannot use it to disturb, among other things, “public order, decency, morality” or resort to “defamation or incitement to an offence.” This is further reinforced by provisions in the Indian Penal Code, such as Section 153 A, 295 and 295 A, which prohibit any activity which promotes enmity between different groups or amounts to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or the religious beliefs”. Therefore, we are distinct and we should completely stay clear of the violence that is being promoted by the Islamic nations against France.

As the campaign for a separate Muslim nation started building up in the 1940s, Dr BR Ambedkar, after much deliberation, came to the conclusion that the creation of Pakistan was inevitable. In his book, Thoughts on Pakistan, he said, “The allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his, but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim Ubi Bene Ibi Patria is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.” Dr Ambedkar said this 75 years ago and in a certain context — when Muslims in India said that they constituted a separate nation — and established Pakistan. About 35 million Muslims stayed back in India after Pakistan was born because they believed that life in a liberal, democratic environment was far better than in an Islamic State. In these Muslim families, the third generation is growing up with the protection and safeguards offered by India’s Constitution.

These citizens, like all others belonging to other faiths, who have grown up under this secular, democratic umbrella, can see that Pakistan is a failed State that is weighed down by its own failures and has cross-border terrorism as a single-point national agenda. The issues that prompted the creation of Pakistan are no longer relevant. That being the case, they need to prove Dr Ambedkar wrong. The times have changed and peaceful co-existence offers all of us the best chance. As Indians, we all need to stand by France and all other democracies and wage a united war against terrorism and against all those who are opposed to secular, democratic values.

(The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies. Views expressed are personal)

The race for the White House could mean another four years of President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Or it could bring Joe Biden, who has raised the possibility of the US returning to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

In the upper levels of Iran’s Islamic Republic, overseen by 81-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, anti-Americanism is as deeply entrenched as at any time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with Presidents from both parties seen as equally repugnant.

“America has a deep-rooted enmity against the Iranian nation and whether Trump is elected or Biden, it will not have any impact on the US main policy to strike the Iranian nation,” Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in September, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

However noticeably, Khamenei himself hasn’t commented on the election, even as public interest has soared. State-run radio rebroadcast a BBC Farsi-language service simulcast of the presidential debates live — even as Iran continues to target journalists for the British broadcaster.

That interest allegedly includes Iran’s security apparatus as well. US officials accuse the Islamic Republic of sending emails to voters seeking to intimidate them into voting for Trump. It may have been an attempt to link the President to apparent election interference in order to sow chaos, like Russia’s interference in America’s 2016 election. Tehran denies being involved.

The Iranian public is paying attention. The state-owned polling centre ISPA said this month that 55 per cent of people believe the outcome of the election will affect Iran “a lot.” Over half expected Trump would win, while a fifth said Biden. ISPA said it surveyed over 1,600 people by telephone, and did not provide a margin of error.

Trump’s re-election would mean the extension of his pressure campaign, including sanctions on Khamenei and other senior officials. Some of the sanctions are largely symbolic — Khamenei has only once travelled to America and doesn’t hold any US bank accounts — but others have devastated the economy and sent the local currency into freefall. As a hedge, Iranians have poured money into foreign currency, real estate, precious metals and the stock market — which hit a record high in August.

Trump on the campaign trail has hit on that and his decision to launch a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in January — a move that led Tehran to launch a retaliatory ballistic missile strike, wounding dozens of American troops.

To cheers, Trump has described the general, Qassem Soleimani, as “the world’s No. 1 terrorist,” likely due to his being blamed for the improvised explosive devices that maimed US troops in Iraq and for supporting Syria’s President Bashar Assad. Many Iranians revered Solemani for fighting against the Islamic State group and in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and millions flooded the streets for his funeral processions. “The first call I get when we win will be from the head of Iran, let’s make a deal. Their economy is crashing,” Trump told a campaign rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Monday. “They will call and I want them to do well, but they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Biden has left open the possibility of returning to the nuclear deal, in which Tehran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The other signatories — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have remained committed to the agreement and allowed a UN arms embargo to expire as part of the deal, despite a White House push to keep it in place.

After Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and restored crippling sanctions, Iran began publicly abandoning the agreement’s limits on enrichment. It now has at least 2,105 kilograms (2.32 tons) of low-enriched uranium, according to a September report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Experts typically say 1,050 kilograms (1.15 tons) of low-enriched uranium is enough material to be re-enriched for one nuclear weapon.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful and still allows IAEA inspectors to monitor its atomic sites. But experts say the “breakout time” needed for Iran to build one nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so has dropped from one year under the deal to as little as three months.

Iran in the past also has threatened to abandon a nuclear nonproliferation treaty or expel international inspectors. It recently began construction at an underground nuclear site, likely building a new centrifuge assembly plant after a reported sabotage attack there earlier this year.

“‘America First’ has made America alone,” Biden said at a televised ABC town hall this month, playing on a longtime Trump slogan. “You have Iran closer to having enough nuclear material to build a bomb.”

What a return to the deal means, however, is in question. Biden’s campaign website says he would use “hard-nosed diplomacy and support from our allies to strengthen and extend it.” One criticism of the accord was its narrow focus on the nuclear programme, despite concerns by the U.S., Israel and its Gulf Arab allies over Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its presence in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

Iran maintains that its ballistic missile programme is vital for deterring potential attacks and non-negotiable. It is also unlikely to cease its military activities in Syria and Iraq, where it spent considerable blood and treasure in the war against the Islamic State group.

But ensuring the survival of the Islamic Republic, particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic, may require the same flexibility that saw Iran agree to negotiations with the US in the first place. Iran will hold a presidential election in June, but any decision to re-engage with Washington would have to be made by the supreme leader.

“Khamenei’s revolutionary path actually leads to America — that is, by seeking a stable, safe, and meticulously measured relationship with the United States, he believes he can guarantee the survival of both the regime and its revolutionary content and orientation,” wrote Mehdi Khalaji, a Qom-trained Shia theologian who is an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Tehran’s objective is therefore a scandalous paradox: Deal with America to remain anti-American.”

Pakistan is in the throes of turmoil right now. However, despite all the rallies and hue and cry created by the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), it is unlikely to be of much consequence. For the uninitiated, the PDM was formed in September by the leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Fazal-ur-Rehman, but constitutes 11 parties, representing nearly the entire political spectrum of Pakistan. Significantly, the PDM has brought together the two mainstream but rival parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) led by the exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but currently headed by his daughter Maryam.

No doubt Pakistan is facing a severe economic crisis because of which people are suffering. Prices of essential commodities like food and medicines have gone through the roof and there is mounting unemployment. However, despite these, the people of Pakistan are unlikely to give much support to the PDM as it is an unholy alliance of corrupt leaders. While Nawaz Sharif was mentioned in the Panama Papers, his daughter Maryam has been accused of having four huge flats in England by Prime Minister Imran Khan. Then there is Bilawal whose mother Benazir allegedly took huge amounts of money abroad and Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, the Rasputin of Pakistan and a rank opportunist, to name a few. These politicians have no real love for the people of Pakistan but are a disgruntled, motley lot having nothing in common. In fact earlier, for years they had been at each other’s throats but now they have united because they are out of power and not enjoying the loaves of office.

As anticipated, Nawaz Sharif’s attack from London in his online speech in the PDM rally in Gujranwala against General Bajwa and some other top military brass — probably thinking that this would divide the Pakistani Generals and provoke some to stage a coup against the Army chief — did not have any effect. An army, by its very nature, is different from a mob. It is a highly-disciplined organisation, with a hierarchy and chain of command. Each person on a lower rank unquestioningly carries out the orders of his superior. The army chief is at the top of this hierarchy and the corps commanders, even if they sometimes disagree with him, will ultimately carry out his orders. They know that breach of this discipline destroys an army, and therefore themselves. So there will be no coup in the Pakistan Army, whatever Nawaz Sharif may think. The Pakistan Army officers are fiercely protective of their Generals, both serving and retired, and will not tolerate their humiliation, because they know if this happens one day they, too, may meet a similar fate. In fact, it is probably because Nawaz Sharif started hounding General Musharraf that the Pakistan Army turned on him.

The essence of a State is its military and bureaucratic establishment. In Pakistan, the army is the real power, though it prefers to shield and screen itself behind the veneer of a civil Government, as that gives it power without responsibility. Imran Khan is clever enough to realise this, and as long as he keeps the army happy (which he is doing with great alacrity) he is safe. To think that a mob can fight and disperse an army, even if a hundred times smaller in number, is unrealistic and silly. It reminds one of Vendemiaire in Paris in October 1795, when 4,000 troops under Brigadier General Napoleon Bonaparte dispersed a mob numerically 10 times larger by “a whiff of grapeshot.” So all the PDM’s horses and all the PDM’s men cannot have any effect on the Pakistan ruling establishment, however many rallies they may hold. However, there is one factor which can have an effect, and it is this which needs to be considered.

Earlier, Pakistan was pro-US and was closely tied to it, economically and militarily. But now it has also become close to China, which has emerged as the second superpower in the world. China has closer proximity to Pakistan and has hugely invested in it. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor has forged a strong link between the two countries. The Chinese are taking away huge amounts of raw materials from Balochistan. Gwadar Port has been given on a 40-year lease to China and Pakistani markets are full of cheap Chinese goods. So Pakistan, which earlier had only one master, now has two. It is well-known that the hostility between these two, the US and China, is steadily increasing, and this is bound to have an effect on the ruling Pakistani establishment, which may well be torn apart, one part siding with the US and the other with China.

Mere discontent among the Pakistani people, over rising prices, unemployment and so on, by itself is unlikely to cause an overthrow of the rulers. But if coupled with, and supported by one of the two masters mentioned above (which may feel threatened by the other’s ascendancy), this may well happen in the long run, caused by a fissure in Pakistan’s ruling establishment. Interesting times are ahead in our neighbouring nation.

(The writer is former Judge of the Supreme Court of India)

The depiction of Prophet Mohammad has been a controversial issue in France for long as any kind of visual depiction related to him is forbidden in Islam. It is what prompted a terror attack in 2015 on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which printed his cartoons in the name of free speech. But given the 36 attacks carried out by a fringe minority of Muslims on French soil since 2012, the latest beheading of a Parisian teacher, who had used cartoons again in a civics class about freedom of expression, and the killing of a woman at Notre-Dame church in Nice, there is a raging debate now over the extent to which secularism can be stretched and not conflict with religiosity. Particularly in times where the clash of civilisations has never seemed sharper. Some liberals, who have been arguing that while the cartoon may have been in poor taste but was not illicit, are now wondering whether freedom of speech and values had been stretched too far. And whether the French should be careful about comments and expressions, which can be deemed as racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic, particularly when applied to a minority. However, the majority detest this pandering as compromising the nation’s foundational principles. Besides, France has had an uneasy relationship with settlers and migrants, one that has led to what it is now labelling as “Islamo-fascism.” In fact, in deeply divided times across the world, the freedom of speech and liberty of ideas are being increasingly challenged by what the fringe sees as offensive to their sensibilities. But the French continue to defend the art of satire over the art of accommodating the religious beliefs of others. In fact, just after Charlie Hebdo magazine published its cartoons of the Prophet, the then President, Jacques Chirac, had sounded a note of caution, saying, “Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided.” But no French politician since then has sounded a voice of reason with current President Emmanuel Macron going to the extent of saying that Catholics are “under threat.” That’s because post the scale of violence, the right to satire is being seen as emblematic of France’s status and ethos as a secular Republic that counters religious bias. And the fatwas are being seen as an attack on the French way of life, more hurtful than the pain of a religious sect or group. 

In 1905, France adopted the laicite or secularism. This means the State can neither support nor stigmatise any religion. However, things changed after its traumatic defeat in Algeria with the State targetting the visibility of Islam on its turf. France became the first and only European country to ban the hijab in public schools in 2004. Few years down the line, it banned the wearing of niqab or face covering. Things have taken such a turn now that even human rights and civil society groups are collecting data on the rise of Islamophobia, something that a 1978 French law forbids. Macron’s infamous statement, “Fear will change sides”, and his claim that Islam as a religion is in crisis have not gone down well with several Middle Eastern countries that are boycotting French products. His idea of reforming Islam has been interpreted as provocative rather than well-meaning. Several activists argue the Government should instead invest more effort in addressing the marginalisation of French Muslims, often with ancestry in Africa and the Middle East, in the suburban ghettos of the country. They feel alienated and they suffer from high levels of unemployment and poor social housing. Rather than working on the root cause of the problem, the hardening of positions can only widen the existing faultlines and social rift. It might then just become impossible to defend who is tolerant or not.