Pakistan provokes India, takes over Kartarpur shrine management and disempowers Sikh body
Pakistan and soft diplomacy are highly incompatible. There was little doubt that it was enshrining Kartarpur’s iconic value as the resting place of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, to further its separatist agenda of indoctrinating and radicalising Sikhs and reviving the Khalistani movement all over again. And for all the sweet talk of cultural contiguity and goodwill by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, the corridor linking devotees on both sides of the border was intended to be a conduit of the Pakistan Army and Inter-Service Intelligence to refuel militancy in Punjab and give us another security bother. Hence there was a deliberateness of mixed signals, be it in wooing the Sikh community worldwide through its grandstanding of allowing pilgrim access, politicising it and provoking us at the same time. And now it has unmasked its real intention, by transferring the management of the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara from a Sikh body to a separate trust. Instead of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the shrine’s administrative control has now been entrusted to the Evacuee Trust Property Board. This allows Pakistan direct control over its operations. India has called out Pakistan over its unilateral move for violating the spirit of shared concern over a faith shrine that matters to people on both sides of the border. By disallowing Sikh leaders to have a say, our neighbour is also running roughshod over the rights of a minority community to pursue faith on its terms, something that Khan accuses India of. But Pakistan, which had initially claimed a high moral ground in facilitating a cross-border traffic to the shrine, is now appropriating it wholly, simply because its intent of using it as a hub of Khalistani extremists has not quite materialised to the extent it wanted. And by making an arbitrary announcement days ahead of the first anniversary of the corridor’s inauguration on November 9, Pakistan is sending out a strong message that the days of even posed bonhomie are over. Its angst is understandable considering its failure to globalise the Kashmir issue despite the abrogation of Article 370, its helplessness to stem the West, particularly the US, from gravitating towards India and its inability to convince the Arab world to take a stand against us. Since none of these has materialised and it is strategising its relevance with China and its neo-Islamic ally, Turkey, it doesn’t need to posit itself with diplomatic niceties. In fact, with the takeover move, it is making it abundantly clear that there is no scope for peace overtures and that it is back to daggers drawn.
Guru Nanak is not just a Sikh guru in the sub-continent but embodies a consciousness. As scholars have chronicled his travels across Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, India and Pakistan, he spread what is called a “Nanakpanthi culture.” Its practitioners are syncretic groups of people in the Indus plains who follow Guru Nanak’s teachings irrespective of them being Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. As believers, they broke down barriers of faith and cultures and were undiluted even by the Partition in 1947. So the Kartarpur corridor, connecting Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan and Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in India, in that sense, is a symbolic leap of faith in humanity. And probably the antidote that could have helped reconcile the wounds of Partition and been a precursor to some sort of engagement between the two sides. Yet, Pakistan has always been abrasive on Kartarpur, using pictures of Khalistani separatist leaders Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Maj Gen Shabeg Singh and Amrik Singh Khalsa in its promotional videos on the shrine. The video, which was crafted to highlight the harmony between Sikhs and Muslims, also featured known Indian Sikhs like Navjot Singh Sidhu and former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, in a crude attempt to project Khan as welcoming and liberal. In fact, Pakistan has been hell-bent on denying a sense of comfort to us. First, it had issues with the visa-free passage, then it stopped Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card holders, the implication being that it wanted to address only a section of Sikhs in India. It also restricted the numbers of pilgrims at a time and the days of visit. So the Pakistan Army, without whom Khan wouldn’t have been in the chair, has always seen the shrine as its bargaining chip. Though the Pakistani leadership had for years been cool to the Manmohan Singh Government’s overtures on Kartarpur, the fact is it had been using it as a neo-axis of Sikh separatism since 2003. The gurdwara had been abandoned till then and served as a cattle shed for villagers. Pakistan even allowed rampant encroachment till it realised its political potential. While announcing the Kartarpur project, it appointed several Khalistani separatists on the committee, much to India’s discomfort. Its former Army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg openly advised the military and the Government to use the corridor for Khalistan terror and “create trouble for India.” The Pakistan Army even got pro-Khalistani supporters to challenge the reorganisation of Kashmir. No matter how hard India may try to make Kartarpur a matter of people-to-people concern, the fact is that Pakistan’s initiative on the corridor will never be free of politics. India has to be alert that it doesn’t become a hotbed for Khalistani propaganda and meetings in the name of allowing faith congregations. When Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa stood in Kartarpur, shaking hands with known Khalistani face Gopal Singh Chawla, it was clear he was starting a new front in the proxy war. Question is how aggressively will he push it this time.
In the biggest democratic exercise conducted during the pandemic, the US isn’t doing a great job upholding it
Everywhere else in the world, where people directly elect a national leader, whether it is France, Mexico or Nigeria, the candidate with the plurality of the vote wins. Which is perfectly reasonable. Sure, there can often be legal challenges to the way an election has been conducted, particularly in nations new to the concept of democracy and in those where religious and ethnic fissures exist. In such cases, political violence can erupt and elections might be far from “free and fair”, whether they are presidential or legislative. But this is hardly expected of a nation that for decades has been the beacon of democracy. If anything, the US, over the past two days, has been a horrible advertisement for the concept of democracy. Let alone the convoluted “electoral college” system that chooses the President, let alone the fact that twice in the last two decades the candidate who won the presidency lost the popular vote, the fact that the President himself is threatening a legal challenge to the polls even before the last votes are counted is frankly ridiculous. The US does have an established postal ballot system which many States have strengthened, thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic. Few other nations conduct such extensive absentee voting but for the US, where close to a quarter million individuals have succumbed to the pandemic, this was a logical step to curb the spread of the disease. Sure, the system can be manipulated but because most American States have their own set of rules for polling, many precautions were taken. However, it appears inevitable that Donald Trump and his team will challenge the legality of the polls, particularly mail-in ballots, and the time it is taking to count them. The matter is almost certain to head up to the US Supreme Court where he has managed to tilt the balance totally in favour of the conservative side. The US Supreme Court did take a major call in the controversial 2000 election when it stopped the vote count in Florida, which turned the election in favour of George W Bush. The consequence that decision had for modern history is known to all of us. It would be vital for the US Supreme Court to remember that any decision it might make on the elections will have a global reaction since the US has an outsize influence on policy. And should the courts intervene in the democratic process at all if there is no clear evidence of wrongdoing? A valid vote should be counted whether it was mailed in or cast at the polling centre.
As the counting continues in the tense presidential race, visuals of mayhem on the streets erode faith in an institution that should have remained sacred. Supporters of both Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden are confronting each other. In response to Trump’s aggressive effort to challenge the vote count and even accusing Biden of trying “to steal the election,” protesters in Minneapolis blocked a freeway while in Portland, hundreds gathered on the waterfront with another group in downtown urging for racial justice. However, things took a violent turn when protesters started smashing shop windows and confronting police officers and National Guard troops. Pro-Trump protesters gathered outside the county recorder’s office in Phoenix and outside a ballot-counting centre in Detroit, demanding that officials “stop the count.” The biggest democratic exercise conducted during the pandemic has turned into a farce.
By the time you read this, you may know more than I do as I write it, but some conclusions about the US presidential election are already certain. First, this has been essentially a re-run of the 2016 presidential poll, when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee four years ago. The final Electoral College tally and therefore the presidency may still be in doubt, but we already know the popular vote as the knife-edge race tilted toward Democrat Joe Biden early on November 5, with wins in Michigan and Wisconsin bringing him close to a majority. President Donald Trump claimed he was being cheated and went to court to try and stop the vote counting. His allegation of a giant “fraud on the American people” is not a reckless statement made in the heat of the moment by a losing candidate. There is no doubt that this chest-beating was a calculated move to discredit a late surge of Democrat votes as postal ballots are counted.
The tragedy is that this “blue shift” syndrome has become a set pattern of the US presidential elections. More so this year after 100 million US citizens voted through the postal ballot or in advance as they tried to dodge the Coronavirus bullet. Trump has been trying for days, in the run-up to the election, to defame postal ballots and to assail the credibility of the US electoral system. Not something that is particularly difficult for him to do considering the fact that he controls the Justice Department, and the Republicans dominate the executive machinery of swing States.
However, as the momentum moved to Biden, the unfazed politician made a televised speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, to say that “when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.” But does Biden not realise that there is no more a guarantee of victory than Hillary Clinton’s three million majority in 2016?
So the Electoral College is as big a problem as ever, and the “great demographic shift” that was going to make a Republican victory impossible is still becalmed somewhere over the horizon. Second, the Republicans will most likely keep their majority in the Senate, in which case they can block any new legislation the Democrats want to pass even if Biden does win the presidency. That includes any attempt to tackle the Electoral College issue, which was a fairly forlorn hope in any case. Not winning the Senate also means the Democrats cannot create new Supreme Court judges, which is their only possible way to roll back the Republican policy of packing that court with conservative appointees (currently a six-three majority). In that case Supreme Court decisions that will probably re-ban abortion and dismantle former President Obama’s healthcare reforms, will be impossible to reverse.
Finally, the culture war that already obsesses and disfigures the US will continue. Indeed, it will intensify if Trump loses the election and continues to deny it and claim fraud. Losing the presidency is virtually an existential question for him, since without it he would be exposed to an avalanche of legal charges. There has been some speculation that an amnesty would encourage him to accept his electoral defeat and leave the White House quietly, and that would be a good idea if it could actually work. Unfortunately, even a victorious Biden could only offer Trump an amnesty for federal charges, and some of Trump’s worst legal problems are at the State level.
So Trump must hang on to the leadership of the Republican Party and mount as many legal challenges as possible for his own survival. Back in his real-estate days, his first reflex was to tie his opponents up in court battles, even if the courts were ultimately likely to decide against him. At the very least that was a way of buying more time, and now there’s also the slim chance that some key lower-court decision might be appealed all the way up to his friends on the Supreme Court. The battle in the courts will be long and exhausting, and there’s not going to be any “closure” or “healing” in the US in the aftermath of the election.
At the time of writing this column, it looks like Joe Biden will win and become the 46th President of the US but his victory will be as unconvincing in the eyes of foreigners as it is to many of his fellow Americans. A conclusion that has been growing elsewhere about the US since 2016 has only been strengthened by this election: America is not to be trusted. Are they to be trusted as partners and/or allies? For example, within few inches of victory, Biden immediately announced that if he wins, the US will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement (which the US officially quit on November 4), but it is actually a treaty and he’ll never get ratified by the Senate. Obama got around this once by pretending it wasn’t really a treaty, but it’s hard to get away with that trick twice. The same goes for the US’ existing alliances and trade deals. They may be safe under a Biden presidency but other countries would be unwise to count on them for the long term. The partners and allies will have to start looking for insurance elsewhere, because it is now clear that Trump was not a fluke. The “other America” is permanently just one roll of the electoral dice away from regaining power, and it is both ugly and unreliable.
(Gwynne Dyer’s new book is ‘Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy and Work.’)
Judging from media reports, India has a BIG problem with rape. No other country seems to come even close. All over the globe “another rape in India” is reported ever so often. On my last visit to Germany, I jolted when on 27. December 2013 the most popular TV news ended with “another gang rape in India”. It was one of only five topics of the 15 minutes broadcast.
Even my sister wondered how a gang rape in India made it to the main news in Germany. That same day in a conservative estimate, over a thousand rapes would have been committed all over the world. In the USA some 200, in South Africa some 170. In the western cities, the statistics show a high percentage, much higher than in India. Many of those rapes would have been gang rapes. In many cases, the girl or woman would have been killed. Behind each of those statistical figures are painful, heartrending stories. If we knew what is happening at this very moment on this earth – how much pain humans inflict on other humans and on animals – we could not bear it. With so much crime happening everywhere, why is India being singled out and shamed with “another gang rape”, when it actually has only a fraction of the crimes other countries have in relative numbers? In absolute numbers of course it would be no surprise if India with her huge population of four times the size of the United States were number one apart from China. Even then it is not number one. USA is.
The deluge of rape reports on India started with the shameful gang rape of a young woman, Jyoti, in a bus in Delhi on December 16th, 2012. Jyoti died. The six culprits were convicted. One committed either suicide (official version) or was killed by prison inmates. Four got death sentence. The sixth was a minor, six months short of his 18th birthday. He got away with 3 years in a reprimand home. As he allegedly was the most brutal of all and responsible for the death of Jyoti, efforts are on to try him as an adult.
This gang rape received unprecedented publicity. It reached national and local news all over the globe. It reached even a friend in Slovenia, who is usually oblivious of what is happening. Why was it broadcasted all over with such intensity? Was it because Indians protested in a big way and demanded harsh punishment? Those protests should have actually gone in favour of India, as they made clear that Indians consider rape as completely against their culture. But the opposite happened:
Ever since that December 2012, news on India have centered almost exclusively on “another rape” and even on the “rape culture of India”. One year later, the tragic story of Jyoti was again splashed over half a page in a local Nuremberg newspaper, and in its year-end- review, the Spiegel magazine did not feature anything about India, not even the Uttarakhand disaster with over 7000 dead, but – a group of victims of sexual abuse learning martial arts in Lucknow, ready to take on anyone who molests women. Obviously, it was im-plied that such molesters are lurking at every corner.
India does have a problem with rape. Other countries also have this problem. Yet the exclusive focus by the world media on “rapes in India’ is not justified and raises suspicion of an agenda behind it. Articles appeared now, often written by Indians with Hindu names, that Indian (read Hindu) culture is to be blamed for the rapes, because it does not consider women as ‘autonomous entities’, which probably means that they can’t do what they want. The Washington Post proclaimed that sexual violence was endemic in India. The Reuters Trust Law group named India one of the worst countries in the world for women. A Harvard committee crafted strategies for ‘adolescent education’ to change the Indian mindset about gender. It was getting a bit much. Don’t westerners look at their own record – past and present – and compare it with that of India? Are they not ashamed?
Anyone who cares to find out will easily discover that rape is not in the culture of India, and women have a good, even respected position compared to other cultures or countries. This position may not be in tune with the view of feminists, but are feminists the measure of all things? Do those feminists believe that village women in India want to be like them? In my view, those feminists look pitiable in the eyes of those often very strong village women who see Sita as their ideal. The main anguish of those women is poverty, not gender roles.
To blame Hindu culture is preposterous to say the least. In fact, if Hindu culture would have prevailed and Christianity and Islam had never appeared on the scene, the world would be a better place. Christians and Muslims have traditionally used rape as a tool of war. For them, the ‘other’ was never worthy of any consideration and could be brutally raped and killed never mind if they were civilians. The Geneva Convention’s purpose is to stop this barbaric behaviour. Hindus never needed a Geneva Convention. They also fought wars, but they did not brutalize women or the civilian population.
The campaign to paint India blacker than it is sadly has worked. It is now a ‘fact’ for most foreigners (and for the convinced Indians) that Indian women have to live terrible lives, more terrible than anywhere else. No disagreeing possible. Everyone will shout you down with plenty of horrific examples. Yes, there are plenty of horrific examples and one needs to find out the reasons and find remedies. But individual criminals do not define a country, even less, if other countries have more of them. So why is India beaten with “another gang rape” again and again? Is the purpose to spoil the image of India? And if so, why?
In recent times, Indians have clearly made a mark. There is tremendous talent in the country. It is acknowledged that Indians have brains. This expresses itself in a new found confidence. ‘West-ern values’ are more likely to be scrutinized now and the ancient Hindu tradition is seeing a renaissance. The ‘established opinion’ that Christianity and Islam are any time better than Hinduism is being challenged. Modern western values are also more likely to be scrutinized and the west does not like it. The established opinions have power and this power seems to be used to malign India in a most unfair manner.
Rape is a delicate subject and who-ever tries to place it into perspective is likely to get slaps from all sides, not least from the women’s groups. Not many will dare to state, that India has a problem, but not a bigger one than other countries, and does not need interference from the west in handling it. In fact, India has a great advantage. The family system is generally still strong especially among the masses who have escaped English education. Celibacy before marriage is still valued and not ridiculed. Romantic love is still seen for what it is – a temporary emotion and not a solid basis for a lifelong companionship. Compromise among family members and even sacrifice are not yet condemned as restricting individual freedom. Sita is still an ideal for most Hindu women. Bhakti, love for God, can still be expressed.
The fact that these values are still strong is not appreciated by western opinion makers. Those values are considered out of sync with the Zeitgeist. They pose a challenge to the western lifestyle which is being pushed into India. ‘Modern, western values’ mean for example (I learned this from an article in a German magazine) to live in rainbow or patchwork families, Those families will either have homos as ‘parents’ or children from different partners as the parents would have had several live-in relationships earlier. It is sup-posed to be a great learning experience for everyone. A book will soon be out in Germany that examines whether homo marriages make better ’parents’ than the traditional man–woman combination. It is overlooked, that homo ‘parents’ can’t produce children together.
But then, who needs children in the west?
Traditional Indian society is clearly out of sync with this modern lifestyle and to portray it in a poor light, “another rape” makes headlines every other day. Care is taken that only rapes committed by men with Hindu names reach the limelight and are discussed on TV. India has some 200 million Muslims and some 50 million Christians and they also commit rapes and very cruel ones, as well. For example, the minor in the rape case of Jyothi is a Muslim. This news, however, did not make it to the mainstream media. There seems to be communalism in regard to broadcasting crimes, and maybe even in registering them. This makes sense, if the objective is to demean Hindu culture and thereby propel it to reform and open up. It is expected to leave those old-fashioned family values behind, to have condom vending machines in colleges, to consider free sex as normal. What better start than to talk of rape? It prepares the ground for allowing westerners to prepare the syllabus for ‘adolescent education’. And once the youth is convinced, the ‘backward’ Hindu society will be a thing of the past.
This prospect would be a horror for the Indian masses from all religions. Hindu society is indeed rigid in certain aspects and has much scope to improve, but its values are still highly preferable to western, modern ‘values’. One just needs to look at western societies to realise that the modern lifestyle is a failed model. It has already regrettable fallout: many youngsters are without direction because of too much freedom. They long for clear rules and turn to fundamentalist, evangelical churches. Hindu Dharma would be the better option. But they are not likely to get to know about it in an unbiased manner.
Nobody is to be blamed except the short-sightedness of the majority as well as its lack of will to unite and find a solution
French President Emmanuel Macron must have had the best intentions in mind when he proposed to pass a legislation to defend the secular values of the country. The Christians see the proposed law as a welcome anti-separatist drive which is long overdue. As the President has said, “Secularism is the cement of a united France.” Many others would agree with him. The Americans are proud of the wall of separation that their Constitution has built between religion and the State. But hardly any Muslim can see eye to eye with this view.
The reason is that Islam does not approve of religion being separate from the State or, for that matter, distinguish between any aspect of life and religion. Prophet Muhammad was also the ruler of Hejaz (Mecca and Medina area). He was simultaneously a trader, soldier and a family man. So were his representatives or Caliphs; the last of whom was at once the head of Sunni Islam and the Sultan of Turkey. There was and is no gulf between the spiritual and the material. Islam is a comprehensive prescription of life and does not permit any compartmentalisation. This is unlike the Bible, which expounded early in the Old Testament that give unto Caesar what is his and keep for God what is his.
The Reformation, which was led by Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16th century, was possible only because it was consistent with what was ordained in the Christian holy book. No Pope, then or later, stood in its path with any degree of determination. In fact, the first separation in Christianity took place early in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine moved from Rome and encouraged the formation of the Orthodox Eastern Church, based in now what is Istanbul. His mother Helena had the Church built at Nazareth in dedication to Roman Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Hagia Sophia was built by the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian in 537, which has recently been reconverted into a mosque by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
The Eastern Church does not accept the belief in the Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. It confines its theology to the first two whereas the Roman Catholics have full faith in the Trinity. In other words, the two Churches, the Roman and the Eastern differed on a canonical principle. Islam, on the other hand, has not permitted any difference of belief on a canonical basis. The Sunnis and the Shias split on the question of who should be allowed to be the Caliph. The latter felt that he should belong to the bloodline of Prophet Muhammad whereas the former believed that he could be anyone from the Quraish tribe. The Shias fell because Imam Hussayn, the grandson of the Prophet, was denied his rightful succession to his father Hazrat Ali, who was a nephew of Muhammad.
What is being emphasised here is that there is a gulf between Islam and Christianity, which Muslims are unable to bridge with secularism. A wall is being built between religion and the State. India has had a similar experience. In order to avoid Partition in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi went to the extent of inviting Mohammed Ali Jinnah to be the Prime Minister of an undivided India with full discretion. But even that failed to bring about a reconciliation. This was notwithstanding the Muslims having lived in India since the early 13th century. Until the British began to capture power in India since 1757, Muslims ruled the greater parts of the sub-continent as sultans, nawabs or badshahs. Muslims do not enjoy democracy and secularism as these contradict the Quran, which does not prescribe anything like the Biblical recommendation of God and Caesar being given their separate roles on earth.
Sharia or the Islamic law originates from the Quran and is, therefore, indispensable to Muslims. How can a truly secular country have two different laws being followed by different communities? In India, we have the extraordinary situation of polygamy or even bigamy being prohibited since 1955. Yet the Muslim men can have up to four spouses. Our Constitution, in its Preamble, calls India secular but that is a different matter.
Islamic theology recommends that Muslims should ideally reside in a Darul Islam or land of Islam. India or rather the Mughal empire was a Darul Islam until the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1857-58). When the Queen of England took over from the East India Company, it became Darul Harb or land of conflict. The Muslim endeavour should be to reconvert it back into Darul Islam; if that is not possible, Muslims should undertake hijrat or migration to a country which is a Darul Islam. In 1920, as a result of a feared failure of the Khilafat movement, half a million Indian Muslims set off for Afghanistan. While some 20,000 odd remained there, the rest were deported by the Kabul Government.
The root of the present trouble in France may be in the failure of President Erdogan to help Turkey join the European Union. Had he succeeded, Turkish people could have moved to wherever they chose, and the dream of Eurabia could have been achieved. On the rebound, Erdogan turned towards dreaming about a Caliphate. Until 1924, the Sultan of Turkey was the Caliph of all Sunni Muslims. Mustafa Kemal Pasha abolished the institution and exiled him. Nevertheless, Erdogan, evidently, is unable to take his eyes off Europe and has encouraged a significant number of available men of any nationality to infiltrate France to kill and terrorise Christian Frenchmen. Little wonder then that President Macron has ordered several hundred imams to leave France.
The killer of the schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was an illegal immigrant and the recent killers at Nice were also similar infiltrators. Legalised Muslim settlers in France would be opposed to the killing as a pathway to Eurabia. They would prefer the quiet strategy of big families and encouraging more immigration from say, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The French welfare rules are such that a family of five or six children can sustain a middle-class life without anyone having to work. The Government introduced such liberal rules in order to encourage larger White families but they are being constructively used by the settlers who live in Benelux or the thousands of apartments in tall buildings around cities.
This tale of France is not a new one. India went through a somewhat similar experience which resulted in the birth of Pakistan. Nobody is to be blamed except the short-sightedness of the majority as well as its lack of will to unite in order to find a solution.
(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author. Views expressed are personal)
The writer is a former diplomat Wang Yi’s visit came at a time when tensions have been rising in China’s relations with all its maritime neighbors, ranging from Japan and South Korea to Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia. Like in the case of its land boundary with India, China is laying claim to huge areas in its maritime boundaries with these neighbours— claims which have no legal basis in terms of the UN Conventions on the Laws of the Seas. India has expressed concern in recent years about Beijing reinforcing its unwarranted claims on the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, with issue of stapled visas for residents of the state visiting China. China also opposes international funding for development projects in J&K. At the same time, China warmly and officially welcomes high functionaries from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan.
Members of China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army have, in recent years, been involved in large numbers, in building roads and tunnels in Gilgit/Baltistan region of PoK. The construction work is said to be for a transportation corridor linking China to the Arabian Sea at the Port of Gwadar in Balochistan. But, tunnels across high mountain slopes are also ideal locations for nuclear weapons silos. One hopes New Delhi is keeping this in mind. China’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and missile programme and its supply of potent conventional weapons pose the most serious security threat to India.
China has continuously stressed the need for others to respect its ‘One China Policy’ and eschew any action that lends political legitimacy to the government in Taiwan. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj delivered a pointed message, about our annoyance at China’s policies on Arunachal and J&K, by observing that India hoped China, in turn, will adopt a “One India” policy in its dealings. While one can understand some caution about not provoking China on its political concerns on Taiwan, New Delhi has been unnecessarily overly cautious in dealing with Taiwan, which signed an ‘Economic Cooperation and Friendship Agreement’ with China in 2010. This has led to many ASEAN countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia looking at exploring the possibility of concluding a free trade deal with Taiwan. Countries like Vietnam and Indonesia have extensive investment and industrial ties with Taiwan.
Development of electronic and high-tech industries is being accorded the highest priority by the NDA government. Such industries are crucial to dilute the unhealthy dependence we now have on China for imports in strategic sectors like communications and defence. Taiwan is a major producer of such products. It is crucial to take steps to promote investment and industrial cooperation with Taiwan in such sectors. While ASEAN countries have visits by ministers from Taiwan dealing with economic issues, an over-cautious establishment in New Delhi has avoided such ministerial-level exchanges despite India having an official Trade Mission in Taiwan. Given the PM’s emphasis on economic diplomacy, one hopes such counter-productive caution will soon end.
Every four years, the world looks at the US and wonders why its Presidential election system is so convoluted
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.
The management of Kanha National Park needs to evolve ways to adapt to climatic vagaries and prepare a plan for long-term sustainability
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)
It is the Gorkha connect and magic that General MM Naravane’s visit to Nepal will nurture and preserve besides creating an ambience for normalising ties
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)
The choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is one that will determine the rest of the 21st century
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.
As Indians, we need to stand by France and wage a united war against terrorism while upholding our secular and democratic values
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)
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