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Harsh V Pant in an article titled “India’s Power Challenge” in Outlook in response to Guha’s earlier article in the same magazine saying that India shouldn’t indulge itself in the so called skulduggery of international power politics makes the point that international relations are anarchic and involve skulduggery in the first place to begin with and India cannot close its eyes to that fact and avoid the situation by chanting the peace and goodwill mantra alone.

He also wonders why Indian politicians who practice the worst form of realpolitik in the domestic arena shy away from power politics when it comes to the international arena.

A fundamental quandary that has long dogged India in the realm of foreign affairs and that has become even more acute with India’s ascent in the international order is what Sunil Khilnani has referred to as India’s lack of an “instinct for power”.

Most recently, this ambivalence was expressed by the Indian minister of commerce in a speech when he said: “this word power often makes me uncomfortable”. Though he was talking about the economic rise of India and the challenges that India continues to face as it continues to strive for sustained economic growth, his discomfort with the notion of India as a rising power was indicative of a larger reality in Indian polity. This ambivalence about the use of power in international relations where any prestige or authority eventually rely upon traditional measures of power, whether military or economic is curious as the Indian political elites have rarely shied away from the maximization of power in the realm of domestic politics, thereby corroding the institutional fabric of liberal democracy in the country. It was Indira Gandhi who long back, while addressing a foreign audience, suggested that India doesn’t believe in power (apparently only when it came to foreign policy it might seem).

Well the reality is actually quite down to earth. This is because most Indian politicians and bureaucrats and so called “intellectuals” included do not understand the outside world the way it is. They are more comfortable politicking in a domestic arena where they can easily recognize themselves with their opponents, rivals, supporters and other assorted cast of characters and even second guess them. On the other hand the rest of the outside world is indeed very foreign to them. They do not understand the ideologies, the fears, the ambitions and the desires that animate those outside India and thus their instinct since the last six decades has been to stick to a formula, that of professing its peaceful intentions and goodwill towards the outside world and hoping that they will leave them alone so that they can continue to indulge all their politicking energies in the domestic arena.

And one cannot blame them since they are the product of a culture that has been very insular and did not seek to know very much about the outside world until very recently. Only in modern times perhaps since the mid-nineteenth century have Indians traveled abroad in significant numbers. Until then it was even a religious taboo to travel abroad and those who did faced social ostracism on their return.Nowadays it is becoming more and more common and the globalization process means that more and more Indians are coming in direct contact with the outside world in some way or form.

And resultantly the current generation is much more aware of the outside world and India’s place in it. So it is largely a matter of a generation gap and once the current generation of politicians and bureaucrats who had their young formative years back in the era when the dinousaurs roamed the earth retire and ride into the sunset over the course of the next decade and the new generation takes over India will begin to engage with world in a significantly more assertive manner.

NEW DELHI: In a strange move, at a time when the government is promoting “Come to India — Walk with the Buddha” to attract foreign tourists to Buddhist circuit in the country, five foreigners have been given Quit India notice to leave the country within seven days “for participating in a religious activity”.

James Petersen, Lex Pelger and David Huang from US, Maryla Cross from UK and Paul Christians Buntz from Norway were given the notices for “violating the visa rules” by Pithoragarh SP Puran Singh Rawat on Friday as they reached Banspatan in Uttarkhand’s border district with the Tibetan marchers who have been walking towards Tibet since March 10.[source- Quit India notice to five foreign marchers]

As is obvious from the above passage these men were detained for participating in a peace march- a political activity. and maybe just maybe even that is a violation of the rules of the tourist visas issued to them. but the haughty idiots that man India’s foreign policy citadels simply cannot be bothered to even refer back to the very rulebook under which they claim to be operating.

The government insists that the five have violated visa rules. “On tourist visa, you cannot take part in a religious activity. If we allow that, you will have people coming here to propagate their religion. It’s only for travelling and sightseeing, etc. So, they have violated the visa rule by participation in the march,” said Ashim Khurana, joint secretary (Foreigners) in the ministry of home affairs. Read the rest…

Shortly after his release from a Pakistani jail after nearly three decades of solitary confinement Kashmir Singh has admitted that he was a spy who was captured on the line of duty. And what did the Indian government do for him all these years when he was kept chained in solitary confinement in a Pakistani jail and most certainly brutally tortured?

Did it try to get him released in a prisoner exchange which is what most foreign countries routinely do?

Did it take care of his family in his absence?

The answers are self evident and reflects very very poorly on the Indian state. If people do not have confidence that they and their family will be well compensated and supported by the government for their services to the nation in case something happens to them on the line of duty then obviously fewer and fewer people will come forward. It is a virtual no brainer. The expected sixth pay commission largesse not withstanding.

Kashmir Singh, who was freed from Pakistani jail after 35 years, on Friday admitted that he was an Indian spy and did his best to serve the country, but deplored that successive governments at the Centre did nothing for his family.

“After my arrest in 1974, the successive governments did nothing for my family. I did the duty assigned to me as a spy, but the government, after my arrest, did not bother to spend a single penny for my family,” a calm and composed looking Singh, who was accompanied by his wife Paramjeet Kaur, said.

“The Central government did not bother to take care of my family following my arrest. The government does only the paper work,” he said.

Asked whether he was sent to Pakistan by the military intelligence and the route he took to go there, Singh said, “Even Pakistan authorities failed to get this information from me. I was paid Rs 400 as salary. As per duty, I went to serve the country,” he said.

Asked what he would like to say for some other people who are working in similar kind of professions, Singh said, “I was a spy and did my duty. About others I will not comment, I am not President of the country to give a reply to such queries”.

Singh, who was lodged in seven different jails in Pakistan, said, “I will not tell the story of my ordeal in Pakistani prisons as it will damage the cases of about 100 other such prisoners languishing in jails there”.

“After my husband’s arrest, the Central government gave no compensation to the family and left me in a lurch,” she said.

He said in Pakistani prisons, he was known by the name ‘Ibrahim’. “I was kept in solitary confinement and remained chained for 17 long years”, he said.

The Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor in an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN to be telecast at 8:30pm IST(GMT + 5.5) tonight has gone on record saying that India can be held equally to blame of intruding into Chinese territory!

“The Chinese have a different perception of the Line Of Actual Control as do we – when they come up to their perception we call it an incursion, likewise they do.”

His shocking statement that India can be equally blamed for intruding into Chinese territory is based on a presumed logic that since the two sides have not agreed on a mutual Line of Actual Control both sides can accuse each other of intruding into their territories.

Infact the Army chief by making such a statement has exposed his ignorance of the history of the India-China border issue and also gives the impression that he is completely ignorant of the proceedings of the nearly 11 rounds of border talks that have been taking place since the last two and a half decades which coincided with much of his Army career.

He doesn’t seem to realise that technically India and China do not share a border. The entire length of the India-China border as it is today is actually the borders of occupied Tibet and Chinese Turkestan both forcibly incorporated into Chinese territory in the years immediately after the Maoists seized power from the nationalists in China in 1949. And the entire historical Chinese claim to these two territories is based on the premise that they were both part of Chinese territory during the Yuan dynasty of Kublai Khan.The so called “Middle Kingdom” hypothesis. The only fly in the ointment is that Kublai Khan was a Mongol vassal for much of his rule and thus it is more correct to say that Mongolia has more historical claim to China, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan rather than China has a claim on Inner Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet.

The wily Chinese get around this by peddling the fiction that Kublai Khan became a “Chinese emperor” after the death of Mongke Khan and his subsequent defeating of his younger brother Arik Boke who had succeeded Mongke as Khan of the Mongol empire. That is absolute nonsense because after defeating Arik Boke, Kublai Khan had declared himself as the Khan of the Mongol empire the only problem was that the rest of the Golden family refused to recognise him as such. On the other hand Kublai Khan like a lot of other pragmatic conquerors in history also adopted some local Chinese titles and symbols to make himself more acceptable to the Chinese masses and cement his rule over the part of the empire directly under him [1] and by the time the Yuan dynasty was overthrown a century later by the indigenous Ming dynasty Tibet and Chinese turkestan did not form a part of their realm.

In short while the Chinese refuse to recognise the McMohan line terming it as a product of British imperialism their entire claim on Chinese Turkestan and Tibet which brings them to that Border line in the first place is itself a product of their past allegiance to Mongol imperialism which they cleverly disguise as the “Middle Kingdom” for consumption by gullibles!

Gen Kapoor has also conveniently sidestepped the fact that the Line of Actual Control remains undefined because the Chinese side inspite of nearly two decades of border talks have refused to exchange maps of the Western and eastern sectors with India while India’s own claim line is crystal clear for all including the Chinese side to see. It is therefore the responsibility of the Chinese side as a claimant to submit maps clarifying their own stand on where they think the Border in their opinion must run. India as a status quo power which has since the last 100 years adhered to the McMohan line cannot be held “equally responsible” in anyway for incidents on the border.

Gen Kapoor has clearly overstepped his brief in this case and this is not the first time, recently he held forth on the sixth pay commission on foreign soil disregarding all established norms that domestic politics stops at the water’s edge.The Government should either rein him in or relieve him of his responsibilities immediately if he continues to undermine the Indian position with his hollow moral grandstanding and continuous whining.That seems to be a long shot considering that the rest of the current government is no better in this regard.

It is also sad that Karan Thapar who has a reputation of being a “tough” interviewer who wouldn’t let even a bat escape on a dark moonless night gave a free pass to Gen Kapoor and did not challenge him with the fact that it was China which was being the obstacle in clearly demarcating the Line of Actual Control and India’s position in that regard is clear that it adheres to the McMohan line. Thapar would surely have pounced on any bureaucrat or politician if he had said such a thing. That he didn’t in the case of Gen Kapoor proves Pragmatic’s position that the Indian media and the public are in awe of the institution of the Armed forces and do not want to question them too closely for fear of offending them. This has to change. The Armed Forces like the rest of the state establishment should be held as much accountable to the Nation’s interest like anyone else.

Source: 1. Genghis Khan and the making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.

Once again as if to remind us that all is not hunky dory with the great Indian diaspora. The Ethnic Indian community in Malaysia, took to the streets to protest against their continued institutionalized persecution by the ethnic Malay dominated Malaysian government. The Malaysian government since the 1970s has followed a kind of apartheid policy against their non-Malay citizens called the “Bumiputra” policy by which they seek to give first preference in most of the jobs, government contracts, college seats etc… to the ethnic Malays.

This has led to the marginalisation of the nearly two million people of Indian descent whose forefathers were taken there as indentured labourers by the British. According to this source if a certain Malaysian Indian tycoon Ananda Krishnan is taken out of the equation the entire ethnic Indian community in Malaysia has less than 0.2% of the national income! Alarming stats indeed and desperate people do desperate things.One of them is an attempt by an Malaysian Indian lawyer to draw attention to the plight of his people by suing the British government in a British court for a huge sum of money.

The Indian government’s response as usual has been woeful. At the very center of this policy rigor mortis is the Indian Foreign policy designed by “geniuses” like Nehru and his ignorant lackeys like K.N. Panikker and the custodian of this crown family jewel today is what goes by the moniker, the MEA, perhaps the only foreign ministry in the world which has a whole country at its disposal to further its own Utopian, dyed in the wool agenda as opposed to all other countries which have a foreign ministry at their disposal to further their national interests.

So we have the sorry spectacle of Indian diplomats and ministers hugging dictators and mass murderers across the world in the name of third world solidarity, crying over the cause of the far away Palestinians and black south Africans, losing sleep over the legal problems of assorted terrorists, giving clean chits to neighbourhood thugs, and so on and so forth while the welfare and well being of the Indian citizens living and working abroad and that of the People of Indian Origin which should be one of the top items in their list of priorities is neglected.

Even a Saudi blogger calling himself the Muttawa had highlighted this issue in his blog and specifically chastised the Indian embassy by name for its uncaring attitude towards the concerns of its own citizens. B. Raman in his recent book “The kaoboys of R&AW” has enumerated how Nero and his diplomatic cronies refusal to intervene inspite of the repeated requests of Indian migrants in places like UK and Canada during the 50s and 60s led to increasing embitterment on their part leading to disastrous consequences later on.

Not very surprising again. Considering that when the supposedly secular Indian state which is composed of people of so many different religions, ethnicities, languages etc… neglects to perform its duty of protecting the interests of its citizens and diaspora abroad, and these people are continued to be illtreated by their own host governments the next logical step for these desperate people, is to huddle together and organise themselves along sectarian lines and experience shows that is exactly what they have done. Whether it is the Sikhs, the Srilankan tamils before and now the Malaysian Indians, who have organised themselves as the Hindu Righs Action Forum and are also not neglecting to mention that they are mostly of tamil origin.

And if the Indian state continues its benign neglect then this issue is just going to morph into a Tamil and Hindu issue. With those who feel strongly about Hindu or Tamil issues recognizing themselves strongly with the woes of their Hindu and Tamil brethren across the Bay of Bengal(CNN-IBN please take note it is NOT across the Malacca straits, that would be Indonesia ).

And how long it is before more and more people both within India and abroad begin to connect the dots and start realising that the Indian state simply doesn’t protect their interests the way it should, and start looking towards their own narrow sectarian groups for support when in distress? how would that affect the feeling of Indianness among them? Not very positively for sure.And we all know the end result when the Foreign agencies start fishing in all these troubled waters. Hope we have learnt some lessons from the example of the Khalistani movement.

It is therefore absolutely necessary for the Indian state to take an active role in protecting the interests of both its citizens and diaspora abroad. It simply isn’t enough to merely hold annual “Pravasi Bharatiya” diwas to celebrate the successes of Indians abroad. It is also incumbent on the Indian state to help them in times of need. This is very much in the national interest of such a diverse country, The people of the country should have the confidence that wherever in the world they are their own country will come to their aid in whatever possible way in their hour of need.The same confidence should be instilled among the People of Indian Origin abroad that though they might not be technically Indian citizens and citizens of their own respective countries, India will definitely give them the necessary moral and diplomatic support and take up their case in the appropriate international fora during their hour of need. Every other civilized country in the world does this and so should this one.

Once again the Judicial system in India has proved that when it comes to punishing the Rich and the powerful their famed blindfold does come off for a little while.

While the sessions court sentenced the owners of the Cinema hall and some civic officials to a mere two years and even readily set them free on bail they sentenced a mere gatekeeper, the lowest person in the chain and hence not in a position to hire the best lawyers to defend him to seven years rigorous imprisonment and promptly sent him to prison.

Now in what way is a mere Gatekeeper more culpable than the owner of the building who built the hall flouting all norms, bribed civic officials to look the other way, maintained the building in a poor shape and finally hired him, a thoroughly incompetent gatekeeper, and others, the managers and supervisors to run the whole place?

The buck in this case clearly stops at the very top. And the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy are clearly right in expressing their dismay at the verdict and seeking to approach the High court.

The poor quality of the infrastructure and public facilities and the woeful safety record in the country is a direct result of the people in charge the builders, the civic officials etc… not being held to accountable for their actions and unless the justice system starts taking stringent action against the powers that be such tragedies will continue to happen on a regular basis.

I had reservations about this deal from the beginning and had expressed it often on this blog and other fora. I favoured that this deal be kept on hold till some kinks in it were ironed out and that we don’t rush into it without properly thinking it through. But that is a tall order to ask in India especially with the current ruling clique. And it is political expediency of the worst kind rather than concerns regarding national interest which has led to the stalling of this treaty.

Can’t go through with the deal right now: Manmohan Singh to Bush

The prime minister explained to Bush that certain difficulties have arisen with respect to the operationalisation of the agreement.

This statement by the prime minister almost officially puts the deal on the backburner, which has become a bitter bone of contention between India ’s United Progressive Alliance government and its ally, the Left. Just before setting off for a state-visit to Nigeria and South Africa, the prime minister had hinted at such a development by mentioning at a summit, “If the nuclear deal does not come through, it won’t be the end of the life.”

The riots that followed a Radio Jockey’s comment about recently crowned Indian Idol Prashant Tamang has lessons for everyone involved.

First it is time(it is 60 years since independence for heavens sake) that we Indians from all over the country start addressing each other by their own respective names and stop using slang to describe each other. that means no more talk of madrasis, bhayyas, chinkies, banias etc… full stop to that.period.

Second, learn to take it easy. going on a rampage because someone said something that you do not like is so futile in this day and age. It is a globalised world with 6 billion people around and not everyone is your fan.

Third, The Indian state should seriously start pursuing and convicting Rioters/vandals/lynch mobs etc… At this point the impression has become widespread that the long arm of the law will not catch up if the crime is committed during public disturbances such as Riots, strikes and hartals etc…That impression should be changed forthwith and the authorities should start by throwing as many rioters as one can identify by means of eyewitness accounts, camera recordings etc… behind the bars for good. That should put the fear of the Gods in the sub-continental mobs for all time to come.

Tarun Vijay’s recent alarming report on the problems in the North-East of the country is nothing new. There have been many, many such columns on a regular basis and even a high quality documentary by a TV channel about the problem. And they go along the same line- “The North-East is burning but the nabobs in Delhi couldn’t care less, All the money that is earmarked to go to the north-east for developmental purposes is diverted into the pockets of the corrupt netas, babus, contractors and assorted middlemen etc…”

And the Big one- “Bangladeshi illegal immigration is going on unchecked but the politicians are standing in the way of tackling this problem because of their perverted vote bank politics etc…”

But is it enough to just stop at blaming the government of the day? Or is it a much more deep rooted problem? Even the supposedly patriotic NDA govt which was in power for six years didn’t do anything much better than the current corrupt and anti-national dispensation.

Infact during the NDA rule the BDR even got away with the brutal murders of the BSF jawans in cold blood!

So what is it that keeps India from responding appropriately to the Bangladeshi problem? A peep into the thinking of the Indian establishment with regard to Bangladesh can be had in B.Raman’s recent book “The Kaoboys of R&AW” where the author laments about the Bangladesh issue thus.

“Bangladesh which brought glory to the R&AW in 1971, became an embarrassing millstone around its neck. It watched helplessly as there was one surprise after another and as Bangladesh once again became the hub of anti-Indian activities directed against India’s North-East.The spread of insurgency to Tripura and Assam in the 1980s from sanctuaries in Bangladesh and the seeming Indian helplessness in dealing with it strengthened India’s image as a soft state”.

“In India one doesn’t often realize the constraints imposed on Indian policy making in Bangladesh, the like of which one does not face in Pakistan. Bangladesh still has a large number of Hindus and has substantial pockets of friendly feelings for India. Any unwise and hasty use of the big stick against Bangladesh could have negative consequences for the Hindus and the pro-India sections of its population.The resulting Indian reluctance to use the big stick is exploited by the anti-Indian elements in the local administration and political class to further step up their anti-India activities. We have not yet found a way of breaking out of this vicious circle.”

It is said that for the Americans Iranian history doesn’t go before 1979. A similar mental block seems to afflict Indians in the case of Bangladesh who cannot see that country without the prism of 1971 not one year before not one year after.

We Indians seem to have collectively forgotten what pre-1971 Bangladesh was. We seem to have forgotten that before the events of 1971 today’s Bangladesh was East Pakistan and it chose to secede from its mother country and join Pakistan willingly with even a referendum to boot and also it did more than its share to make the Pakistani dream come true. Have we forgotten that some of the worst riots, massacres and cases of mass ethnic cleansing designed to make Pakistan a reality happened in the East? What about the Calcutta direct action day? Noakhali? etc… The slaughter in the East was just as worse as that in the West which gets much of the attention in the chronicles of the partition.

1971 therefore was just an internal problem between the two wings of Pakistan where we merely intervened to safeguard our own interests. As simple as that. But instead of seeing that reality in the right perspective the Indian side naively expected that East Pakistan will be replaced by a grateful and friendly Bangladesh. The disappointment and bewilderment that it did not happen is palpable in the above quoted paragraph written by one of the long time insiders of the Indian establishment.

Even the remote possibility that Bangladesh will somehow buck its own chosen destiny and evolve into a friendly state went bust in 1975 with the overthrow and execution of its founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Since then Bangladesh has steadily reverted to the path that it had chosen for itself when it became East Pakistan in 1947 but had been temporarily forced to pause by the events of 1971.

The Bangladesh of today is therefore the heir of the East Pakistan of 1947 and not the Bangladesh we helped found in 1971. Hope we start admitting that to ourselves before we can begin to deal with the challenges posed by this rogue state in sheep’s clothing.

For the Indian side that is! thanks to an appointed Prime Minister who though himself having never won even a single election in his whole political career refuses to acknowledge the right of parliament, the legitimate representative of the people of the world’s largest democracy to discuss the deal and vote on it.

One of India’s top strategic affairs analyst Mr Brahma Chellaney in a three part article on the legal pitfalls of the Nuclear deal and another on the false promises of nuclear energy destroys entirely the Manmohan Singh government’s case to push ahead with the deal in its current “signed and sealed” form. He speaks of divergent interests of the two “parties” involved in the deal which explains why the deal is not turning out as many Indians who are supportive of closer strategic relations with the US hoped it would and says that-

“While India sees it as a path to closer engagement with the US, the deal for Washington is anchored in non-proliferation”.

And he lists in detail point by point about how the American side under pressure from the non-proliferation lobby has steadfastly focussed on that goal and how the Indian negotiating side has faltered in its duty to safeguard India’s supreme national interests and actually conceded that the US domestic law(drafted under considerable influence of the NPA lobby) will reign supreme in this arrangement. which in practice will mean that the US will feel free to pull out anytime it feels like or use it to arm twist India into a corner.

The point is this, there is a huge non-proliferation lobby in the US and the way the US system is designed, they just like the pro-Indian side get to lobby and include their own points into the deal. and considering that India and the US were at logger heads for much of the past six decades there is a huge mass of entrenched cold war warriors who are as instinctively opposed to the growing Indo-US strategic relationship as much as the Communists are in India and would do anything to hijack it.

In this scenario what Mr Chellaney suggests is quite sensible and worth considering while dealing with the US at this time.

“The best course for India at this point would be to put the deal on hold while continuing to build a stronger relationship with the US in other areas.”

This will give enough time to the ageing cold war warriors on both sides to go underground and thereafter it will be much safer say perhaps a decade from now to get into such sensitive deals because the Indo-US strategic relationship is too important to be held hostage to such irritants.

There is too much at stake here and if the US anytime in the future comes to be seen as having “cheated” India i.e., if it reneges or goes back on its “commitments” nothing will ever redeem its good name again in India and the growing strategic relationship between India and US which is giving sleepless nights to the tyrants and enemies of freedom across the world will grind to a standstill and that would be a great tragedy. It is of outmost importance therefore for both sides to carefully nurture this growing relationship rather than score self-goals against each other.