Category: Opinion

Galwan Gaffe Fails To Dent Brand Modi

By Anita Katyal

An-all party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week was essentially aimed at forging a national consensus on the government’s China policy but it instead resulted in a raging controversy which has emboldened the opposition and embarrassed the ruling dispensation.

Already on the warpath, the Congress got fresh ammunition to attack the Prime Minister personally when he told the all-party meeting that there had been no incursion into Indian territory by the Chinese and no Indian post had been captured. 

Modi’s categorical statement expectedly drew a sharp reaction from former Congress president Rahul Gandhi who has been in attack mode ever since 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives in a violent confrontation between the Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley. Accusing the Prime Minister of “surrendering Indian territory to Chinese aggression”, the Nehru-Gandhi scion asked the government to explain that if the land was Chinese, “Why were our soldiers killed and where were they killed?”  Former home minister P.Chidambaram also released a statement punching holes in the Prime Minister’s claim on the Ladakh developments. 

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Unlike other opposition leaders, whose response to the India-China clash has been muted, Rahul Gandhi has upped the ante to put the government, and more specifically the Prime Minister, on the mat, for “sleeping” on the wheel. He began by questioning Modi’s silence on the death of the jawans, went on to charge that the Modi government had been in denial about the Chinese incursions and then asked why the Indian soldiers were unarmed. 

Congress president Sonia Gandhi also did her bit in cornering the government when she unexpectedly asked tough questions about the chronology of the Chinese incursions and a possible intelligence failure at the all-party meeting convened by Modi. 

Sonia Gandhi’s searching queries on what she described as “many crucial aspects of the crisis” were in line with the Congress party’s considered strategy to buttonhole the Modi government for its lax response to the ongoing build-up of Chinese troops along the LAC which led to a violent clash between the two armies in the Galwan Valley. 

Rahul Gandhi’s tweets have elicited a sharp response from the Union ministers Amit Shah and S.Jaishankar and this war of words between the Bharatiya Janata Party and it will only intensify further in the coming days.

Though it is unusual for the Congress to take such a strident position on a matter of national security when all political parties generally put up a united front, the principal opposition party is feeling emboldened to slam the Modi government as it realises that BJP is constrained from waving its usual nationalist flag and resorting to fervid rhetoric in this instance. 

In fact, the Modi government has been extremely restrained in its reaction. Though the Prime Minister has assured the country that the Indian army has the necessary capability to protect its sovereignty and integrity, the overall tenor of his statements has been fairly restrained. But given the growing anger among the people, the government has to be seen to be hitting back at China. So it has decided to cancel major infrastructure contracts awarded to Chinese firms, stop import of Chinese goods and discourage trade ties with China.

ALSO READ: Will Chinese Attacks Attract Global Attention?

This is in sharp contrast to the Indian response to the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed. This had immediately led to a national outcry for revenge as Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad was said to be responsible for the attack. The Modi government had then ordered a pre-emptive strike conducted by the Indian Air Force in which several terrorists were killed. Modi himself had then raised the pitch and taken personal credit for teaching Pakistan a lesson while the BJP rank and file had touted the Balakot airstrike as the latest example of its nationalistic credentials and Modi’s strong leadership. This retaliatory attack and the BJP’s shrill campaign led to a Hindu consolidation in favour of the saffron party and its impact was there for all to see in the result of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

However, China cannot be bracketed with Pakistan. First, China is more powerful than Pakistan both economically and militarily. And second, it does not serve the BJP’s communal agenda to adopt a belligerent stand against China. Consequently, the BJP’s response to the Congress attack has been confined to remind the opposition party about the defeat suffered by India at the hands of China in 1962 when Nehru was Prime Minister. The party also underlines that India is far more self-assured with Modi at the helm and points to the infrastructure development which has taken place along the border in the last six years.

WATCH: ‘I Will Never Stock Or Sell Chinese Products’

Nevertheless, the Congress unrelenting attack has touched a raw nerve and both the Prime Minister’s Office and the ministry of external affairs have tied themselves in knots explaining Modi’s statement that there had been no intrusion by the Chinese. The government and the party are in constant damage control mode.

But for all the explanations his government has to proffer and the embarrassment it is suffering, Modi’s image as a strong, decisive leader remains intact and his popularity undiminished. The Modi brand has survived a floundering economy, a raging pandemic and the worst migrant crisis in recent months. And it is now all set to sail through the standoff with the Chinese.

The Congress is making a valiant attempt to tarnish Modi’s image but it lacks credibility and an articulate leader to convince the public that Modi has failed to live to their expectations. Eventually, Rahul Gandhi’s persistent attack against the Prime Minister could well be reminiscent of his campaign on the purchase of Rafale aircraft when his slogan “chowkidar chor hai” only ended up strengthening Modi.

China Threat: Raise Defence Budget To 3% Of GDP

By Lt Gen Ike Singha

The robust and brave faceoff given to China at Galwan will send a strong message that India is able to stand up to China. However, as in 1962, this engagement with China is a wake-up call too and should herald deeper thinking about the current capabilities of India, its defence spending and the need to restart some projects that were suspended.

China’s incursion may have many reasons, but the fact is that the threat remains real. China’s words of peaceful coexistence cannot be taken at face value. India needs to increase its defence budget from 1.8% GDP to 3%. More importantly, the matter can no longer be left exclusively to the diplomats. This is a Defence Ministry issue now.

Despite the media columns and statements by some politicians, the powerful  challenge given by India to what amounts to almost an ambush, showed courage, determination and the ability to see off China.

The current ongoing Sino-Indian standoff since the last five weeks peaked in the bloody violent action in the Galwan Sector on night 15/16 June 20 at Patrol Point 14 resulting in death of a Commanding Officer and 19 soldiers on Indian side and around 40 soldiers on the Chinese side. The scuffle took place and continued till mid night in around three phases, when the Indian commander approached the Chinese troops around dusk time to exhort them to pull back their troops in conformation to the decisions taken at the Corps Commander level meeting on 06 June 20.

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This may be the tip of the iceberg as far as Chinese strategic goals along the Line of Control (LAC) are concerned. The escalation has also thrown the Peace and Tranquility Agreement of 1993 between China and India to the winds. Chinese soldiers had come physically prepared to up the ante – short of opening fire by small arms.

The June 6 meeting was headed from the Indian side by Lt Gen Harinder Singh, 14 Corps Commander, an outstanding suave officer who has effectively handled sensitive situations in United Nations peacekeeping as a Brigade Commander. The Chinese delegation was headed by Maj Gen Liu Lin. A series of talks at various levels are on, after the violent incident of 15 June resulting in death of around 60 soldiers on both sides. The Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has also spoken to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on 17 June 20. It is in the interest of both China and India to de-escalate the situation and resort to high level peace talks. These fatal casualties have taken place on the LAC after a gap of 45 years.

However, the standoff this time has been different from the previous ones including the Doklam standoff in 2017 in terms of force levels used and the areas addressed. The Chinese in a diversionary action, probably to test the waters, crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in North Sikkim at Naku La on 05 May 20 and Fingers 4 West of Pangong Tso Lake. There were violent actions between the two sides but there were no fatal casualties.

One week later they came into Eastern Ladakh at four carefully selected sectors in Galwan, Hot Springs, Demchok and Fingers Area. India built an axis from Darbuk to Daulat Beg Oldie via Galwan, Gobra Post and Demchok to support the Sub Sector North last year. This axis enables the Indians to cover a distance that was being covered in two days, just in six hours. The axis was very close to the Karokaram Pass and touched the sensitivities of the Chinese as it is part of the BRI and China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). As the road axis passes through the Shyok and Galwan Valleys, the Chinese have crossed the LAC from the North and North East and occupied higher reaches along the axis in order to be able to interdict any movement along the axis. China has also stoked trouble for India by enticing Pakistan and Nepal in their favour.

A large number of reasons can be attributed to the ongoing standoff. There are voices of dissent within China pointing at the manner in which the COVID- 19 was handled by President Xi Jinping. Some writers even stuck their neck out to suggest that he takes the responsibility of mass scale deaths and steps down. It is felt that the recent intrusions in Ladakh and Sikkim were undertaken to divert the attention and galvanise the domestic public opinion against India.

Another reason speculated is that since US has asked WHO to carry out an honest investigation on the origin of Corona virus and India has just taken up the leadership of WHO for the next two years, China wanted to pressurise India to play ball and not go too Thoroughly into the issue to blame China for the spread of COVI-19.

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Abrogation of Article 370 and converting Ladakh into a Union territory by the Indian Government has also been objected by the Chinese as they feel New Delhi will now control this contested region directly.

Where does the violent action of 15/16 June lead to the already building tension in the sub-continent? India has political, diplomatic, economic and military options which can be grouped into the long and short term options. It is accepted fact that Indian Army has stood its ground and has challenged and checked the ongoing incursions from the Chinese side.

The protocols and methods of patrolling and domination of the LAC are very unconventional and un-military like. The Peace and Tranquility Agreement of 1993 states that neither sides will fire, cause explosions or bio-degrade the area along the LAC. The deployment of regular troops will remain in deeper territories of each but patrols can be sent from both sides to dominate their side of the LAC. There are varying perceptions of the LAC on both sides and at times the difference may be upto ten to fifteen kilometres. Whereas these protocols were sufficient to diffuse the situation in the past; use of caveman like sharp tools as weapons, to cause fatal casualties, has been resorted to for the first time.

First at the diplomatic and military levels, the rules of engagement need to be refined. Two nuclear powered professional armies cannot continue to use cave man tactics to enforce their will on each other. During peacetime, border management is the responsibility of ITBP under the Ministry of Home (MHA) and the regular troops only do periodic patrolling at the LAC. During hot war, the Army formations are tasked to move to the forward defences and the operations are controlled by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The peace talks are generally steered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This complex and multi ministry control needs to go; and operations must be controlled by MOD. The MOD needs to be in control of the situation now.

The short term Military options include staying put at the forward positions and creating habitat, infrastructure and logistic bases for the forward troops prior to setting in of winters.

Importantly the raising of the Mountain Strike Corps that was to be completed in eight years, but was put on the back burner by the present Govt, must be completed within two financial years.

WATCH: ‘I Will Never Stock Or Sell Chinese Products’

The Armed Forces need to deploy drones, long range radars and aerial reconnaissance to dominate the LAC. We cannot patrol a threat simply with binoculars

For the long term measures, Defence Budget needs to be enhance from 1.8 percent of the GDP to 3.0 percent for the next two five year plans. As in 1962, India needs to wake up to the threat. It is real and could escalate over the years as China tries to assert its power.

Procurements as per the Joint Long Term Perspective Plan for all three services needs to be stepped up for capacity building. While indigenous production should be encouraged, Transfer Of Technology (TOT) must be included in all big ticket acquisitions of aircrafts, ships, guns and anti-aircraft systems.

The infantry has been neglected for a long time as the infantry acquisitions are not considered big ticket procurements. It is high time to equip the ground soldier with a lighter and more effective weapon system and equipment.

Resource integration must be ensured in utilisation of all intelligence resources of the country as was practised during the Surgical Strikes after Uri incident and at Balakot after the Pulwama incident.

Diplomatically, we need to steer international opinion against China as the aggressor. The Quad including US,Japan, Australia and India, must carryout greater number of Joint Exercise and enhance interoperability of their armed forces. Armed forces of Taiwan and South Korea should also be included in these exercise to isolate China regionally and internationally.

India needs to revisit it’s No First Use (NFU) Nuclear Policy and make it clear like its adversaries that it retains the right of first use of tactical nuclear weapons on the lines of its adversaries and we must stabilise our Triad capability of delivering these weapons by air, sea and land.

Our successful missile technology should be further enhanced for over 95 percent accuracy at long ranges. The bottom line is that any emerging economy can only prosper when its defence forces are strong and they have adequate dissuasive and deterrent capabilities to check mate its adversaries.

India must take a leaf from China’s book to enhance its comprehensive national power in a peaceful manner without any fanfare. China kept on growing peacefully for nearly forty years before taking an aggressive posture in the South China Sea, Indian Ocean and land borders with India and Bhutan two years back. Hopefully, China has learnt from the stiff resistance given at Galwan and understood that India is no push over and is a regional power to coexist with rather than mess with.

Delhi Shows How NOT To Manage A Pandemic

By Amit Sengupta

Unlock 1.0 in Delhi, with the opening of borders, has led to huge mobility and activity, even while the markets have reopened and people are trying to recapture their outdoor lives after weeks of depressing quarantine in lockdown. The renewed presence of people outside on the streets and partial commercial activity have seen a simultaneous rise in Covid-19 cases across the National Capital. With 50,000 plus cases, and around 2,000 deaths, deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has given a stern warning that by June-end there might be 1,00,000 cases in Delhi alone, and by the end of July perhaps as many as 5,00,000 cases. This is a grim and dire prediction signifying that post-lockdown the virus has spread across the spectrum, and so drastically, while the official health and hospital system seem to be cracking under the burden.

The news that the Delhi health minister has been infected and is critically ill is bad news, and one wishes him a speedy recovery. Earlier several doctors and health workers in leading hospitals like AIIMS had fallen ill, even while the stark lack of PPEs and gas masks, including ventilators and oxygen, had only made the situation more tragic and tense. Nurses have been resigning en masse from both private and government hospitals and the acute lack of beds, for those patients who have tested positive, has been all apparent.

There have been reports of people running from pillar to post to get themselves tested since the doctors and the hospitals refuse to admit patients, and the usual bureaucratic structures in government hospitals have not helped. Indeed, besides education and the successful experiment of ‘mohalla clinics’, the Delhi government was much appreciated for its stellar work in the health sector, while they made all kinds of tests and treatment totally free for the citizens of Delhi.

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This presumably strong edifice seems to have cracked under the pressure of the pandemic, with both the state and the Centre having caught off-guard and the health structures under great stress. Indeed, the prestigious hospitals in Delhi under the central government and the Union health minister too are under severe stress, even as they handle the pressure from patients from other states with crumbling or weak health infrastructures, as in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

What has been really disturbing is the manner in which some private hospitals and health care institutions in Delhi have chosen to behave. They are reportedly charging huge sums, often in lakhs, from patients, thereby shutting the door to those patients who don’t have deep pockets, and parasiting on those who just don’t have any option in a desperate situation with government hospitals denying them admission, treatment or testing facilities. There was a case of an elderly asthmatic patient who was shunted from one hospital to another, both private and government, to the extent that the man died on the streets outside one hospital, with his family begging to the doctors who simply refused treatment.  

Besides, what about those patients who are suffering from other ailments — cancer, tuberculosis, heart diseases, etc? With OPDS practically shut, private clinics dysfunctional, and doctors refusing to come home, where do they go for treatment or a check-up?

Why can’t private hospitals in Delhi be put in line with a government order asking them to admit and treat all critical patients, come what may, and not charge a penny extra, as Mamata Banerjee has ordered in Bengal, and as was the norm in Kerala? What stops the central government to issue a directive to all private hospitals not to fleece patients and treat all them without exploitation and with dignity in a national crisis?

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Besides, overworked doctors and nurses and health staff, have had their professional lives stretched to the ultimate limits, even while they risk their lives as frontline workers to fight the epidemic. Besides asking people to beat ‘thalis’ etc in praise, the central government does not seem have had any intention to give them benefits or incentives to boost their morale in such difficult work conditions. Most doctors and health staff thereby have been left to their own fate.

Besides, the central government seems to have turned a blind eye to the massive crisis since January this year, and this transparent indifference and insensitivity only continued with the tragic migration of lakhs of workers, their wives and children, starving, thirsty, emaciated and totally helpless. Thereby, no one really knows what the state of affairs of the tens of thousands of workers is who have reached their homes in small towns and villages. These places so brazenly lack even the most basic health structures, with even the primary health or community centres absent, and the district hospitals in dire straits. This seems to be a pattern in the Hindi heartland, especially in UP and Bihar. More so, around 25 lakh workers are reportedly now in transit or quarantine.

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The good news is that the Delhi government has promised another 15,000 beds by June 30. Recently, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the Radhasoami Satsang Beas in South Delhi’s Chhatarpur. The Delhi government is creating a makeshift Covid-19 health care facility with 10,000 beds in a vast open area, which will be centrally air-conditioned and fully equipped. Besides, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has urged the central government to provide 2,000 health care officials from the army and security services, including doctors and nurses; they should be allowed to work in this huge, temporary hospital.

“This 10,000-bed facility should be ready for admission of Covid-19 patients by the first week of July. It will primarily cater to patients with mild or no symptoms who cannot be assigned home quarantine for some reason and may need medical intervention. It will be our biggest, dedicated Covid health centre,” Kejriwal said.

This is indeed a positive move in a context that till now India has had been lucky not to face a situation as rampant in the USA, or as in Brazil. With indications and fear that the virus will peak in the days to come, and with the lockdown decisively lifted, including on train and air travel, it will be a tight-rope walk for both citizens and the governments. And Delhi being the capital will have to really pull up all its resources, talent, commitment and infrastructure, so that people do not suffer and the pandemic can be controlled.

Will Chinese Attacks Attract International Attention?

By Dr. Krishnendra Meena

Tensions between India and China at the Line of Actual Control have reached a height not seen for 43 years.  Both have been engaged in a military standoff at multiple locations, for over a month now at India’s northern border with a sudden escalation in the Galwan Valley region on 16th June 2020 resulting in death of some 20 Indian soldiers.

The situation has reached this level as a result of Chinese incursions across the Line of Actual (LAC), which is how the border is known pending resolution of boundary and territorial disputes between the two countries. The situation also is a result of a complicated and mistrustful relationship as they have not been able to agree on the definition and delimitation of the boundary over the last 60 years or so.

The demarcation of the boundary on the ground and its administration are subsequent stages in the boundary making process. Chinese incursions into India’s territory or into territory which India deems extremely strategic to control have become more frequent over the last decade or so. The Chinese military activity has been mounted at a time when in India the CoVID19 virus infections are reaching peak numbers.

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Such incursions leading to military constructions and installations are reminiscent of similar Chinese tactics of gradual expansion of the Exclusive Economic Zone and territorial annexation in the South China Sea (SCS). The international community has responded to the Chinese maneuvers in SCS with statements of support for the affected parties. United States (US), the foremost military power in the world and present in the region since WW II has responded with increased reconnaissance and military cooperation to deter the Chinese.

In regard to Chinese attitude and belligerence over land boundaries, however, there have hardly been any voices of concern being raised by the international community. Donald Trump’s offer to PM Modi to mediate between the two sides should only be construed as only an offer of mediation, not anything more. This offer, however, does impact the geopolitical dynamics in the South Asian neighbourhood and larger Southern Asia, where China has important economic stakes and leverage.

At the same time, Trump’s offer will have zero effect on the current negotiations on the LAC between India and China. India has responded to the US President’s call with maturity and poise and signaled with intent to Beijing that the matter should be resolved bilaterally. Perhaps, this is one more of many hints to China that India is willing and able to withstand an aggressive China where its sovereign territoriality is threatened.

Such actions are consistent with India’s refusal to be a part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India did not join the BRI because of its apprehensions over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passing through the disputed territory of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Aksai Chin where Indian and Chinese forces face each other in the current standoff has a boundary with PoK.

Further, the revocation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and subsequent reorganization of the state into two Union Territories has not gone down well with either Pakistan or China. The LAC forms a boundary between India and China in Ladakh, so the Chinese protested in August 2019, citing that India has unilaterally altered the status quo in an area which is disputed.

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Last week, the Chinese embassy in Pakistan issued a statement indicating that Chinese actions at the LAC are related to both the repeal of Article 370 as well as the creation of transport infrastructure by India and they impact the ground situation at the LAC. New Delhi’s response on revocation of Article 370 has been very categorical, that India can carry out any activity on Indian soil and does not expect its neighbours to meddle in its internal matters.

The international response, or approach to such Chinese ingress remains to be seen as the frequency of incursions into Indian territory increases and China gradually starts to claim thin slivers of territory which are otherwise disputed. Realistically any statements in support of the Indian standpoint, from the international community, however, will be determined by the simple fact of Chinese economic and financial clout in the international system.

But there is another reason on why the international community may be reluctant to throw its weight in the issue. The international community has been vocal about the issues in SCS because the disputing parties have approached the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and have referred to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea III. In the case of territorial disputes India has consistently maintained the principle of bilateral negotiations and hence cannot expect overt support and help.

Direct support to Indian stance could have been expected from its smaller South Asian neighbours, but they too seem to have been weighed down by the impact of Chinese investments, trade and the generous lines of credit. Nepal has gone one step further as it has included hitherto disputed territory with India on its western expanse in its official map, through legislation in parliament. It is argued in policy circles, that this has been done with Chinese collusion.

Given all this therefore, it is not for the first time that the much touted ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy of PM Modi looks under strain. India, however, should persevere to deepen ties with its immediate neighbours and make most of the recent dip in Chinese reputation on account of the origin of CoVID19 and its aftermath. This can be achieved by astute diplomacy and apprising the international community of the Chinese belligerence in the region.

No doubt the experts at South Block will be engaging all their skills and intellect to  outmanoeuvre China and reclaim its premier status in the South Asian region as well as fend off Chinese adventures.

Covid Is A Crisis But Also An Opportunity For Indian Media

By Sanjoy Narayan

A huge fall-out of the COVID pandemic has been the impact on Indian mainstream media. With overall economic activity declining, one of the first factors to have affected the media is the sharp drop in advertising, the revenue from which is the mainstay of Indian media outlets, particularly print. The fall in advertising revenue has been so huge that leading Indian media brands have resorted to many drastic measures to reduce their costs. Print publications, already reeling from slowing advertising revenues, have been the worst hit. In several newsrooms across the country, this has meant retrenchments and salary cuts, and, in many cases, both.

How bad is the situation? WARC, a London-based market intelligence agency, estimates that global advertising spend could fall by 8.1% ($49.6 billion) to $563 billion this year because of big cuts in investment across product and services categories. According to WARC’s projections, which are based on analysis of data from 96 countries, traditional media—cinema, outdoor advertising, newspapers, magazines, radio and TV–will be hit the hardest. In North America, which accounts for nearly 40% of global adspend, advertising revenues are estimated to decline by 3.7% ($8.5%). In Asia-Pacific, it is set to fall by 7.7% ($14.4 billion); in Europe, the forecast says the drop will be 12.2% ($18.1 billion).

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Interestingly, while in most markets the adspends are trending negatively, in India, according to WARC’s data, adspends will still grow in 2020, not by a lot but a little. In 2019, advertising revenues in India grew by 5%; WARC estimates that in 2020, it could grow by 0.7% to a total of $9.4 billion. This is significant in a global scenario where nearly every large market is set to shrink.

It could be too early to assess the full impact of the ongoing pandemic. For one, it is still raging. And in India, particularly in dense urban hotspots, despite a lockdown imposed in late March, infections have been spreading. And the resurgence of a second phase of outbreaks cannot be ruled out. Yet, there could be a glimmer of hope in the Indian media landscape. Where other comparable markets are shrinking, adspends in India are still set to grow.

India’s print media publications have been hit severely and the quick response to that has been the recent bouts of layoffs, wage cuts and, in many cases, measures to cut costs by reducing the size (or pages) of publications. The fact is that print media in India was already in dire straits: advertising from some of the biggest sectors such as education, real estate and financial services had begun shrinking long before the COVID pandemic began. Partly it was because of sluggish activity in these sectors but also because many advertisers moved online, which can be more cost-effective for them.

Indian publications, including the biggest media groups in the country have been grappling with the challenge they face from online media for more than a decade now. Every publication has an online presence but few have been able to work out business models that could work. Paywalls and subscription-led models have largely not been successful because it is a very small proportion of readers who are willing to pay significant amounts to read publications online. And, although online advertising is growing, the revenues are still nowhere near the levels that could cover the costs of maintaining large newsrooms.

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Newsrooms at many Indian publications are huge in terms of the number of journalists employed. These are fixed costs that are high and require revenues commensurate with those. Indian newspapers have cover prices that are low. For instance, the price of a newspaper hardly covers the cost being delivered to a reader’s door and is a piffling amount compared to the cost of producing and printing it. This has been the principal bane of Indian print media. As a result, it is difficult to charge readers to read online when they are used to getting news/content at dirt cheap prices.

Interestingly, however, the ongoing crisis could be the wake-up call that Indian media, particularly print publications, direly need. Even if the salary and job cuts may be knee-jerk reactions that smack of short-termism—after all, the economy is likely to bounce back after a while and sectors such as healthcare, well-being, and e-commerce could be new advertising sources—the current crisis is probably an opportune time for Indian media to re-strategise.

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It is a time for media owners to introspect and find new ways of providing content. Specialised online multi-media publications that target specific interest groups is one avenue that could be explored. There could be many ways to do that. A few to ponder: reducing the size of bloated newsrooms and replacing them with smaller ones with professionals equipped with higher area expertise; hyper-local online publications that address smaller areas within cities or suburbs; more investments in multimedia content production capabilities; and collaborations between media brands.

Therefore, for Indian media this COVID-induced downcycle could be the source of opportunities. Opportunities to spot new sectors and trends that could emerge out of the changes in social behaviour; opportunities to use online platforms, including social media more effectively; and, of course, opportunities to take a close and hard look at junking the past and thinking of new ways to conduct the business of content generation and distribution.

Ertuğrul – Solace In Fictional Glory

By Mahendra Ved

How far and deep into the past can a people go, be it history or mythology popularly perceived as history, to rejuvenate their present that is in turmoil and one that portends a bleak immediate future? Answer to this complex question may be found in the heady mix of piety and populism dished out with political support to people locked-in by Coronavirus pandemic.

After the Indian experience of Ramayan and Mahabharat television serials, it is time to see Pakistanis glued to their television sets watching an epic-size Turkish series about 13th century Muslim renaissance. Begun in the holy Ramazan month, it continues to win audiences. 

Dubbed Muslim Game of Throne, Dirilis (meaning Resurrection): Ertugrul has established viewership records with 240 million people watching it on YouTube alone. Said to be the new avatar of a 2002 film on the same subject that was an entry at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in 2002, this 2014 series is a milestone in Turkey’s entertainment world. After five successful seasons, Director Mehmet Bozdag is planning a sequel.

Its main protagonist is Osman I who rallied squabbling tribes of Oghuz Turks, won territories and paved the way for his son to establish the Ottoman Empire. It stretched to parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa and remains an enduring phase of Muslim political, military and cultural supremacy.

The end of this empire, the Caliphate, a century back post-First World War has not impacted its lure. A modern secular state that Kamal Ataturk then created stands rejected by the new political leadership and Turkey continues to reclaim its past glory.

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The Turkish prowess, past and present, attracts Muslims in general, but especially in Pakistan as it explores an identity away from a hostile India. In that quest, it is wary of a Shia Iran and an iffy Afghanistan, although Ghazanvi, Ghori and Abdali are used to remind what remains of India of the past conquests.  

“At its heart, what Ertugrul represents in this scenario is a battle for the soul of the Islamic narrative and for Pakistan’s own self-image,” Imran Khan, a Doha-based journalist writes for Al Jazeera.

He queries: “Does the country have a unique Muslim identity forged via Muslim India, or is it part of the wider history of the Muslim world?”  He concludes: “The answer to that is what informs its current self-image.”

But it is not so easy and simple. Pakistan’s largest benefactor – spiritually (being the home to Islam’s highest shrines), in terms of political influence and even financially – is Saudi Arabia. Born in the aftermath of the end of the Caliphate, it has no reason to take a secondary position to Turkey in Pakistan.

Ahmer Naqvi, a freelance cultural writer, sees Ertugrul as part of a wider agenda. “There is definitely an element of the Pakistani state pushing a certain idea of Islamic history, that focuses on conquest and expansionism and that has a long history of being used as propaganda,” he writes.

“This push has come at the expense of even acknowledging the history of what is now settled Pakistan. So, you would know about Muslim general Salahuddin but not about Chanakya, who lived in settled (present day) Pakistan, so yes, there is valid concern that the state is pushing a wider history and not its own,” Naqvi says.

Naqvi’s viewpoint is debatable, but there is no escaping Prime Minister Imran Khan’s push for Ertugrul. He watches it regularly and has even promoted it in an interview for its “Islamic values”. He thinks they are in contrast to the ‘vulgarity’ that Hollywood and Bollywood dish out to the entertainment-starved Pakistanis.  

With such popularity, political flutter is but natural. Parallels are being drawn in domestic arena. Supporters of the prime minister see in him qualities of Ertugrul – the larger-than life saviour/conquorer. Not to be left behind, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League sees such virtues in Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the imprisoned daughter and political heir of Pakistan’s three-time premier. The young and handsome Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, it seems, is yet to make the grade.         

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The Pakistani lure of a relatively more prosperous Turkey is immense. Former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, posted there as a soldier, used to be a great Turkey fan. But his being seen with his pet dog in the initial phase of his rule caused anger. Dog is a no-no for Pakistan’s Muslims.

This is only one of the reservations Pakistanis nurse about Turkish entertainment fare, going by reports of how Ertugrul is being received. The more serious one, perhaps, is the way women consorts of mighty Turkish characters live in real lives. Many viewers explore the social media for ‘more’.  The veil-less Instagram images of these actors put them off. They have taken to criticising and even counselling the female players, particularly the lead character, Esra Bilgic, on how they should dress and behave in public. It should be befitting a Muslim woman, they insist.

Pakistani feminist writer Aimun Faisal says: “If you are a Pakistani man, here’s why this Turkish woman has you simultaneously exasperated and enchanted.” She writes: “Ever spurred on by their commitment to religiosity and piety, Muslim men from Pakistan who had looked up a Turkish actress on a photo and video sharing platform, felt it their spiritual duty to educate her, or advice her, or berate her – depending on their self-confidence – on the ethics of being a pious Muslim woman.”

Faisal sees this as an act born out of misogyny. To the Pakistanis, a Turkish woman, almost-Westernized, “is desirable, but not achievable” unlike their brown-skinned compatriot who can be dumped-down into domestic social/moral milieu, but then, she becomes less ‘desirable’.

Truth be told, such conflicts have also bedevilled Indian audiences – at least they did in the past. Many were angry with Anita Guha, last century’s actor who usually played mythological characters and was Sita in Sampoorna Ramayan (1961) because she dressed and drank like any Bollywood socialite. Saira Bano and Sharmila Tagore, wives to famous, liberal Muslims, continued to act in films long after marriage, to the chagrin of their traditional audiences/admirers. They would volunteer to “protect the honour” of the bhabhi (sister-in-law) by destroying film posters depicting them fashionably clad.

Sadly, that body-shaming is now becoming rampant on the social media, also some mainstream one, as the conservatives who seek to dictate dress code for women get stronger.

Come to think of it, is it the return of “Victorian values” in the 21st century? Then, blame the British! Faisal approvingly quotes a study by Frantz Fanon and Partha Chatterjee about how “the encounter of men of colour with colonialism impacted gender ties in the colony.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

A Defiance That Refuses To Die

By Jasdev Singh Rai

It is 36 years since the ill-fated Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi ordered India’s Army to attack one of the holiest and iconic places in South Asia, Sri Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple). The attack exposed more about 1984 India, its Army, its lack of self-confidence, its intellectual bankruptcy and the hollow nationalism of Congress party than the Sikhs. It was a junctural moment as the Indian colonialist worldview and institutions came face to face with the still unfinished simmering indigenous Swaraj movements that had brought the mighty British Empire down.

The Nehruvian vision of post-colonial ‘westernised’ India began to crumble on the day of the attack as it took on the institution (Golden Temple) that had given impetus to the decolonisation movement in British India in 1920s. The colonial ideological rot that had infected every sphere of Indian institutional, academic and literary life was to unravel.

There were bigger than life personalities. Leading the post-colonial State was Mrs Indira Gandhi, daughter of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawharlal Nehru and a formidable lady who brought in the Emergency in 1976 to secure her power, overthrew the Pakistan Army from Bangladesh and outwitted all her opponents in the Congress. Her last act was to order an attack on Sri Darbar Sahib on 1st June 1984. She paid for it with her life on 30th October 1984.

Leading the challenge to the westernised Indian State was Baba Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a charismatic personality and steeped in the knowledge of traditional Indian discourses and driven by Sikh aspirations. He died in the attack in June 1984.

Few if any of Indian analysts saw the attack and subsequent civil unrest in Punjab in historical terms. The narrative propagated by the State was echoed without critique by the intellectuals. The State’s story was that a religious fanatic based secessionist movement pursuing its aim through terrorism was threatening the ‘unity’ of mother India. Critique, if any, was around human rights rather than the conflict of ideas, expectations and visions in post-colonial India.

The Indian intellectual was fed and bred on the idea of the perfect country and civilisation to be the secular, liberal and socialist entity in the image of the post-enlightenment European States and political culture. In this worldview, other cultures had to embark on this trajectory to progress from their primitive pasts.

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In this ‘future’, there was little of 5,000 years of Indian civilisation, its philosophies or its worldviews in the foundations. India had to be Europeanised whole sale, root and branch. India set itself to become a ‘modern developed country’ both industrially and intellectually, whatever that meant.

What remained of native India was cultural idiosyncrasies such as language, dance and religious rituals. The public sphere post-1947 was the triumph of western concepts as if 5,000 years of intellectual thought in India had only saree and curry to offer.

On 1 June 1984, this colonial ingrained India attacked the India that had survived thousands of years, tens of invasions and Empires and several attempts at changing its core pluralist civilisation. What the Mughals and the British could not achieve, the Congress Party had set its mind to accomplish. It was determined to destroy the past, the fabric of South Asian civilisation and transform it. The mission for India is revealed in Nehru’s book, Discovery of India, and it is writ large in the Constitution of India.

The Constitution, drafted from German, Irish, American and British sources, to this day puts its belief in secularism, despite thousands of years of history of pluralism or Bahuda. The modern Indian State obediently carried on the colonial strategy of marginalising indigenous Indian philosophical and political thought into the bracket of personal religion, thus making their thoughts irrelevant to the political public space. The inevitable tension between an alien political theory without hinterland in Indian thought and indigenous ideologies, first came to fore violently in 1984 at the doors of Sri Darbar Sahib.

It was the willingness of the Army to attack its own people and institutions that bewildered Sikhs around the world and many India observers. At least one to-be Chief of Army refused to indulge in Mrs Gandhi’s fantasy. In 1983, Lt General Srinivas Kumar Sinha advised gravely against it. He was bypassed and General AS Vaidya obliged becoming Chief, only later to pay with his life.

Lt Gen Srinivas Sinha advised Indira Gandhi against Operation Blue Star but he was snubbed.

An Army is a trained killing machine, fed on the idea of hostile invader enemies. The Indian Army was established by the British to treat the Indian as the enemy in order to protect the British from Indians driven by ideas of usurping the Crown in India. Post 1947, little was done to re-educate the Army to see itself as a force to defend Indians from invasions alone. It has been a pliable instrument to use in the hands of Indian political masters.

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Even the Chinese Army refused to attack its own people in Tiananmen Square episode. Currently, the US army has indicated its unwillingness to carry President Donald Trump’s orders to crackdown on domestic protests. Armies don’t solve political issues, they just kill. That’s what happened in 1984. Perhaps the Indian Army has changed now and become truly nationalist protecting borders rather than acting as the Praetorian Guard for an ineffectual governing elite.

In 1984, the political class and the bureaucracy was also on a rollercoaster colonial train with no brakes. It was simply new management running a defunct system that had been rejected by the Sikh uprising in Punjab and Gandhi’s Swaraj movement. Incredibly, like the evil character in a horror movie, it survived intact after 1947. The political class and bureaucracy had loads of instruction sheets left by colonial masters augmented by Oxbridge educations on running a colonial Governance but had no access to a repair manual when things went wrong.

Consequently, the system threw the same set of tools at every problem including the challenge from Bhindranwale. This was a cocktail of detention laws, police excesses, Central rule and then emergency powers bringing in the Army. The solution was run on automatic memory from colonial days when the British saw Indians as the enemy. No originality or creative political solutions have emerged in a post-colonial state badly in need of major institutional and constitutional change by engagement with people after the violence of colonialism. 

In this state of an alien governance system run by an indigenous elite, a leader from one of the natural community of the many communities in India was seen as a primitive village preacher turned terrorist challenging the ‘post-colonial enlightenment vision’. Bhindranwale was called a feisty preacher turned delusional politician until February 1984 in almost all of the Indian Press and by Indian Congress politicians.

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As his appeal and his hold on the people of Punjab, particularly the Sikhs, grew and grew, a shaken Indira Gandhi decided to label him a terrorist in February 1984. No new action or legal charges had taken place to justify that label, nor was there a warrant for his arrest. But it was a story that the scribes obliged as did some of the western liberal media to prepare the grounds for an attack on Sri Darbar Sahib. No Indian editor asked, where is the warrant of arrest?

The story of Bhindrawale as an illiterate village preacher threatening India’s rapid advance towards becoming a mirror image of a Germany or United States was also promoted by Indians around the world. These were Indians desperately aping their white role models caricatured brilliantly in the 1990s British sitcom ‘Goodness Gracious Me’. The irony was that Mrs Gandhi herself was only a Matric pass. The difference was one could speak English and the other could not, the only criterion by which a literate Indian from an illiterate Indian was judged by post colonial Indians.

Bhindranwale was a brilliant orator who could command the attention and awe of the Punjabi masses, especially the Sikhs. He was head of the DamDami Taksal, an influential Sikh seminary. Brought up in the best traditions of Sikh chivalry and fearless courage when faced with great odds, he had gained a huge following. Like Mahatma Gandhi, he knew how to articulate the hopes and expectations of the masses. In Punjab they did not want to become Brown Sahibs as fading copies of the white sahibs who had left, but to remain part of the Dharmic tradition of Sikhi and to find expression within the system of governance denied to indigenous political ideologies. This has never been analysed by Indian academics whose work often at best resembles polished journalism rather than exploration of deeper currents of history and ideas. Journalists and writers have concentrated on the personality and actions rather than the clash of visions and hopes in a narrative set for them by western academics.

Bhindranwale, like many Sikhs, was disturbed by the recurrent political campaigns in Punjab around economic and political autonomy to restore Sikh values in the regional system. This had been going on since 1947 and rearticulated in the 1971, then the 1976 Anandpur Sahib resolution. He felt the Akalis were either too weak or had been using the Anandpur Sahib resolution as an opportunist political manifesto to harvest the Sikh vote in Punjab without wanting to resolve it.

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution was based on a 1929 Lahore Agreement between Sikh leaders and Congress. Having witnessed the successful Gurdwara campaign in Punjab, Congress sought to get Sikhs on board for its struggle. The agreement was that Punjab would be autonomous in a Federal India and Sikhs would have a veto on drafting of Constitutional articles that concerned them. the resolution was passed every year by Congress until 1947.

In 1931, Gandhi had advised Sikhs that if his party ever betrayed the 1929 agreement, Sikhs were morally justified to take up arms against the State. This agreement was reneged by Congress in 1949.

Bhindranwale decided to take control of the unsuccessful rallies around Anandpur Sahib Resolution. Astutely he first used Congress to rise to prominence, then distanced himself from it and took it head on having found his base among Sikhs and other Punjabis.

The campaign under Bhindranwale’s leadership was met by State excesses such as extrajudicial executions, illegal detentions, torture of detainees and mass shootings into rallies. The Punjab is one state in India where such measures have always backfired from Mughals, the British to modern India. And it did. The result was a cycle of State and counter State violence that culminated in the attack on Sri Darbar Sahib. That precipitated a new chapter of violence and deep political chasm.

When asked about Khalistan, Bhindranwale said he wasn’t campaigning for one but if the Indian State offered it, he wouldn’t say no this time. This was making a reference to an alleged offer by Lord Mountbatten’s secretary offering a separate State to Sikhs around 1947 but Sikhs apparently didn’t take it seriously.

However, Bhindrawale did say that an attack on Sri Darbar Sahib would lay the foundations for a Khalistan. Thirty six years later, these words continue to fuel political aspirations in the world of Sikhs. The attack marked a substantive turn in Indian history.

In a provocative interview by BBC Asian programme in July 1984, I said that secular India does not need to worry too much about Sikhs. The real movement that will destroy it now is resurrection of Hindu fundamentalist nationalism because metaphorically the State has taken on the Church. Its effects will be far ranging. Neither he nor Indian academics understood the conceptual frameworks on which this statement was made. About 20 years later, the BJP was in power. Rest is history.

For many Sikhs the idea of Khalistan, a land where Sikhs can establish a system of governance formed from Sikh political theory, continues. In the flow of history, significantly, on 6th June 1984, the adulterated vision of a secular westernised India started dying at the gates of Sri Darbar Sahib and a new history began.

In that fated year, the death of two powerful personalities marked a crossover of Indian history. One, Bhindranwale, whose death started the resurgence of quest for a state based on thousands of years of indigenous concepts of Dharam. The other, Mrs Gandhi, died five months later whose death signified the end of the colonial project in the Indian subcontinent.

Make America ‘Breathe’ Again

By Amit Sengupta

White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this — which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never — the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.
– James Baldwin in Newyorker, November, 1962

Between Minneapolis police officer and his three colleagues who backed him, Derrick Chavuin, and Afro-American citizen George Floyd, it took just about 8 minutes and 46 seconds, to resurrect the jackboot of White supremacy and Ku Klux Klan racism yet again, in full public view, as a public spectacle for the whole world to see.

Pinned down by his knee on the ground for the alleged crime of using a $20 counterfeit currency note (like another White man who was let out easily and predictably), the knee is yet again becoming a bad faith/good faith metaphor in the United States of America, certainly not the ‘greatest nation’ in the world, as it routinely claims. Indeed, the cops in Miami, one knee bent, have proved the visual and symbolic value of this gesture – followed by protestors hugging them warmly, some with tears in their eyes.

Remember the infamous ‘Wounded Knee Massacre’, and all the other massacres of  the indigenous native tribes of the Americas by the ‘White migrants, immigrants and outsiders’ to capture their land, bodies, natural resources, and brutally ravage their souls, civilizations, memories, folk traditions and history? The massacre on December 29, 1890 and later, of more than 300 Lakota Indians by the US Army in the Wounded Knee Creek somewhere in the southwest South Dakota has been movingly recorded in that heart-breaking book: Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

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Indeed, not only Black Lives Matter, the lives of the original inhabitants of these vast lands, killed by small pox, starvation, brute atrocities and genocides, too matters, though most of the last remaining native tribes, malnourished, ghettoised and degraded, have been pushed into invisible  forests and no-man’s land as third class citizens, outside the gaze of the so-called ‘greatest nation’.

George Floyd kept saying something which too has become a bad faith metaphor for the whole American society, White and Black, immigrants, Latinos, dissenters, intellectuals, journalists, homemakers, professional and students. Like that famous painting called ‘Scream’ by Edvard Munch, his last words reflect the suffocating reality of oppression which the largely marginanlised Afro-American communities, among other oppressed groups, face in affluent America.

“I can’t breathe,” he said. “Please help.” As he was pinned down, finally, calling out for his mother in his last moments. Murdered on the street by a White cop for no rhyme or reason, as is mostly the case with Black people in scores of similar situations all across the White supremacist landscape of this advanced capitalist democracy.

In recent times, this sinister and open legacy of murder has continued unabated, especially under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Some weeks earlier, Ahmoud Arbery was killed by White vigilantes in a suburb in Georgia; the video footage showed he was peacefully jogging. On March 13, an African-American woman, Breonna Taylor, was killed by the cops. Later, it transpired that they had botched it up again – they were searching an alleged suspect at a wrong address.

Indeed, the homeless streets of New York, perhaps one of the most democratic and expensive cities in the world, are a testimony of the destiny of the Black population in America. Even in the bitter, freezing cold, with temperatures falling below minus 40, they are out on the windy streets, in the night and during the day, poorly clothed, looking for the idea of fake warmth from the heating system’s steam which comes out from the streets and gutters. Capitalism in America is cold and cold-blooded – even a beggar has to get a coffee from a Starbucks café!

The prison system is yet another example, including those run by private parties, including the highly exploitative prisons, as reports say. Till about 2017, majority of the prisoners were either Blacks or Latinos/Hispanics, and the quantum of punishment they get is often disproportionate to the crime committed by them, it is reported.

According to a report by the Pew Research Centre, Blacks have long outnumbered Whites in American prisons. However, there has been a decline in the number of Black prisoners, according to new data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

The report declares: “At the end of 2017, federal and state prisons in the United States held about 475,900 inmates who were Black and 436,500 who were White – a difference of 39,400, according to BJS. Ten years earlier, there were 592,900 Black and 499,800 White prisoners – a difference of 93,100. (This analysis counts only inmates sentenced to more than a year.) The decline in the Black-White gap between 2007 and 2017 was driven by a 20 per cent decrease in the number of Black inmates, which outpaced a 13 per cent decrease in the number of White inmates… The gap between White and Hispanic imprisonment also narrowed between 2007 and 2017, but not because of a decrease in Hispanic prisoners. Instead, the number of White prisoners fell while the number of Hispanic inmates increased slightly. At the end of 2017, there were 100,000 more White inmates than Hispanic inmates (436,500 vs. 336,500), down from an inmate difference of 169,400 in 2007 (499,800 White inmates vs. 330,400 Hispanic inmates).”

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Trump decisively botched up the pandemic aftermath, in initial and total denial. Consequently, more than 100,000 Americans have died, a large number in New York, something perhaps which never happened even while putting the death toll together in the civil war, the first and second World War. Anyway, since it is geographically so distant in the map, America has had the illustrious history of inflicting death and destruction across the continent, but remains aloof and safe, facing no consequences for its actions, unlike, for instance, what Europe faced, and Soviet Russia, during the war against fascism.

Indeed, the thousands killed in the middle-east due to American policies and ‘blood for oil’, remains a fact of bitter realism. While Germany under Angela Merkel can give shelter to one million refugees from the Middle East, much of America can only suffer vicarious guilt and detached anxiety.

Even the pandemic seems to have killed more Blacks than Whites; in the manner that the poorest workers and migrants in India have suffered the most after a botched up lockdown announced by the Indian prime minister. Even a pandemic is prejudiced when translated in different geographical and social circumstances. Indeed, the unemployment figures among African American in a routine scenario is 25 per cent – almost three times the national average. In recent times, post pandemic, reports point out that of those arrested, 68 per cent are Black and 24 per cent are Latinos.

Among the White supremacists, like those who backed apartheid in South Africa for decades, the summering longing in the political unconscious is for a ‘back-to-slavery’ syndrome. ‘Make America Great Again’, the Trump slogan, in many ways reflected that – Make the Whites Call the Shots. They call the shots anyway.  Loosely translated, it means give more power to the powerful.

Every gesture and word of the militarist and narcissist US president, including holding the Bible outside  an Episcopal Church in Washington DC, after using rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful protesters, and ‘kettling’ them, is reflective of this perverse ‘White American Nostalgia’. Not surprisingly, the bishop of the church, and other Church authorities, have expressed outrage and anger at his gesture amidst police violence, and has strongly condemned it.

The silver lining in this American explosion is that both Blacks and Whites, along with other communities, across the class and social spectrum, have collectively taken racism by the horn. It is reflected not only by the Miami cops, or the Houston police chief telling Trump to “Shut up”.

It is mostly reflected by the great gesture of the White protestors, including women, who line up as peaceful vanguard, in front, protecting the Blacks, telling the armed cops, “Come, get us first, will you?”

Migrant Crisis Will Haunt Modi Govt 2.0

By Anita Katyal

The first anniversary of second term of the Modi Government will be characterised forever with images of poor migrant workers left struggling as if refugees walking aimlessly in a war zone, even reminiscent of pictures from the Partition. There are comparisons with Trump as self-adulation now deflated by events gives way to venting false anger against the states trying to cope with the Centre’s poor handling of the Corona Pandemic.

The unending exodus of penniless migrant workers triggered by the corona lockdown has cast a long dark shadow over the Modi government as it completed one year of its second term in office on May 30. This should have been a grandstanding of glorious achievements attained against apparent great odds with self-congratulatory speeches. It has turned into a media exposure of its shortcomings.

Though Modi and his ministers marked the occasion by flooding major newspapers with lengthy columns detailing the government’s key decisions over the past year, they could not get away from recurring reports and images of lakhs of stranded migrant workers struggling and trekking thousands of kilometres with little or no food and money to reach the safety of their homes. Their little children in tow or being carried. It is an image of a country still in the underdeveloped stratus of economies. But India is the fifth largest economy in the world!

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The Modi government has reason to be perturbed by these reports as they reflect poorly on its handling of this humanitarian crisis.  It is obvious that the Centre failed to anticipate the rush of migrants when the Prime Minister declared the first nationwide lockdown on March 24 at four hours’ notice. It was a failure of foresight. Worse, the Government remained in denial about the plight of the migrants for nearly two months after the lockdown was first imposed. 

Why four-hour notice? Not even the world’s most advanced countries would have had the courage to attempt such an ambitious clear out of the streets. In India, where millions sleep in the streets and hundreds of millions live in dire poverty living from day to day on available labour, away from family and home, this was a decision of astounding daring and unexplainable rationality.

For days those who had grown to gain some confidence in the government’s handling of the pandemic suddenly wondered where is the planning, when they saw pictures of poor straddling to nowhere land. Surely the Modi Sarkar must have commandeered the great network of national and public transport at no costs barred to take migrants to safer places with safe physical distancing. Nothing.

This transpired to be another notebandhi type decision without any planning, without any infrastructure in place and with little regard to the poorest. They suffered the most then and they suffered most in this apparent show of strongman Modi. But the strong are not meant to hurt the weakest.

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With the government’s image now taking a severe beating, a defensive BJP has played the Trump card and countered charges against it by turning the spotlight on the poor management of the COVID-19 pandemic in opposition-ruled states. The saffron party is at pains to point out that it was actually the state governments that had failed to pass on the money and other benefits announced by “Modiji” to the rightful beneficiaries. So many echoes of America where Trump has blamed the states for the hundred thousand deaths. Trump can also blame China, but Modi cannot blame Pakistan this time.

At the same time, it is running a campaign to publicise the Modi government’ efforts to shore up the economy and focus on the specific relief measures initiated by it to provide succour to migrants, farmers and daily wagers.     

As part of this plan, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed a series of press conferences to unveil the details of the Rs.20 lakh crore economic package which had been announced earlier by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation. 

This was followed by a string of interviews by Sitharaman to media houses in which she explained the benefits of the stimulus package and responded to critics about its shortcomings. 

Though the government’s package could have been announced at a single press conference, Sitharaman instead chose to phase it out over five days, a PR exercise in itself.

It is obvious as anything. The Prime Minister’s first announcement about the package and the finance minister’s follow-up explanatory media briefings were essentially an exercise in “headline management”, an attempt by the government to divert attention from the heart-breaking media reports about the migrant workers.  

And yet the migrant story refused to go away. 

The Modi government’s initial assessment that the situation would soon settle down came to a naught as there has been no stopping of this exodus and no end to the misery of those forced to make their way home on their own.

Television news channels, newspapers and even international media have been replete with reports about the plight of stranded migrant workers. And how they are cycling, walking on highways, tramping through fields and hitching rides in trucks and tempos in their desperation to get home. Many dying as well from accidents, exhaustion and illness. More than hundred migrants have lost their lives in accidents while undertaking this perilous journey.  

Managing the fall-out of the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the underbelly of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Over the six years it has been in power, the saffron party has finessed the art of messaging and acquired an expertise in setting the political agenda. Events have taken over now. Neither twitter nor an adulating press can hide the scars of a badly planned response to the pandemic. Ordering shutdown was much easier than planning for one.

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But the corona crisis proved to be a rare occasion when the BJP and the Modi government’s strenuous efforts failed to change the narrative in its favour. Realising that the government’s image was continuing to suffer, the Modi government decided to operate Shramik special trains to transport migrant workers to their villages. 

Coming nearly two months after the first lockdown was declared, the operation of special trains is a proverbial case of too little, too late. The inept handling of the travel arrangements only added to the government’s woes. Its decision to bill the migrant workers for their fare home provided fresh ammunition to the government’s critics to mount a fresh attack against it.

As if it did not have enough on its plate, the ensuing war of words between the BJP and opposition made matters worse for the Modi government. Cooperative federalism was forgotten and politics was soon at play in the middle of the greatest threat in modern times.

Unable to cope with the rush of travellers on the special trains, Railway minister Piyush Goyal attempted to turn the tables and blame the chief ministers of opposition-ruled states for not giving their consent to receive the Shramik special trains. 

West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee was the main target here as the BJP is expanding its footprint in this Eastern state and with assembly elections due next year, the saffron party did not want to pass over this opportunity to show her in poor light. It had earlier buttonholed the Mamata Banerjee government for not following the COVID-19 guidelines and has periodically fielded West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankar to needle the chief minister. 

And then there was the unedifying spectacle of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath engaging in a war of words with Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over ferrying migrants from UP to their native villages. The Congress leader wrote to the chief minister, seeking his permission to transport them in the 1,000 buses which had been especially commandeered by the party. 

The Yogi government first said no, then yes and then demanded necessary documentation of the vehicles. This back-and-forth continued for some time and finally ended with the Congress sending back the buses parked for the stranded migrants at the state borders, accusing the Yogi government of indulging in petty politicking.

There is no denying that the migrant crisis has tarred the Modi government’s image. And yet there is little doubt that it will eventually emerge unscathed from this mess thanks to a lacklustre and divided opposition. Unless the opposition comes from a coalition of state parties.

But, for the moment, the government is merely in damage control mode.

India-China Standoff Will Linger On

By Seema Guha

Is an assertive China considering a strategic shift in its equation with India? Is it ramming home claims on areas in Ladakh and following up on its protest after Ladakh became a Union territory last year? Is that what the current India-China stand-off is all about? Many experts believe that this time with incursions into Indian territory in several places in the western and eastern frontier China is sending out a message. What has surprised policy makers is Chinese intrusions into the Galwan area, where the boundary is clearly marked. This is a clear departure from the past. Indian and Chinese soldiers are in an eyeball to eyeball face-off in Pangong Tso, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie points.

Western experts including strategic analyst Ashley Tellis is not ruling out the possibility of a short armed conflict. President Donald Trump, has also waded in to say he is ready to mediate. As in the case of India-Pakistan and Kashmir, India has politely turned it down, not wishing to draw US into this conundrum.

Senior Pentagon official, Alice Wells also took the opportunity to lambast China. She dubbed China’s actions as provocative and disturbing. While many hardliners were thrilled with her remarks, the government wisely kept quiet. India is well aware that the Trump administration, with the presidential polls in mind is ready to point fingers at China, but Delhi would at the moment much rather tackle its issue with Beijing without interference from other nations. In short the Modi government does not wish to provoke China, while standing firm on its national interest.

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Western analysts point to China’s growing self confidence and its belief that Beijing is now militarily, economically and politically strong enough to challenge not just its Asian neighbours but the US as well. Westerner see the current stand-off as a part of China’s overall aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, its determination to keep Taiwan away from the observed status in the World Health Assembly, or Beijing’s strong armed tactics in Hong Kong, all fall into a pattern. China’s “wolf warriors’’ are a manifestation of President Xi Jinping’s resurgent China.

Border tension between the two Asian giants are nothing new.Depsang in 2013, Chumur in 2014, and Doklam in 2017 were serious transgressions. Despite all this both India and China are proud of the fact that not a single shot has been fired along the LAC and peace broken perhaps just by fisticuffs between PLA and Indian soldiers.

 Incursions into each other’s territories happen. Mostly at the onset of summer where patrolling by both armies intensify. India usually downplays the intrusions and says it is because the Line of Actual Control, has not yet been clearly demarcated. Yet all experts agree that this time it is different. Mainly because the incursions had happened at five places almost simultaneously. Almost five thousand PLA soldiers are said to have crossed inside Indian territory and possibly preparing to stay on through the summer. The Galwan area is a new inflection point. Here the border markings have not been contested by either side. So China possibly wants to claim this area too.

The Galwan river flows from Aksai Chin to Xinjian province of China before entering Ladakh. Retired army officials say that the idea may be to make it difficult for the Indians to service its attachments deployed close to the Karakorum pass. At the same time clashes are frequent because India is building roads and airstrips on the border areas. So areas not earlier patrolled is now easier to access and so encounters between the PLA and Indian patrols more frequent.

However the public mood in India is much anti-China. The covid 19 pandemic has led to much criticism against China worldwide, and India is no exception. Many BJP supporters want a tougher line on China, more so as they believe that China is under pressure from the Trump administration. But in the government guided by the MEA is much more circumspect.

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Most Indian analysts rule out a military confrontation. They say both countries are pragmatic and will not risk an armed conflict. In case of escalation, India is prepared to stand its ground. Though China is way ahead of India in military capability, in the recent years Indian defence procurements have steadily risen, and today it is better equipped to face the Peoples Liberation Army. The current stand-off is arm flexing by China but will be diffused. India has infinite patience and like China has dug in its heels. No one is blinking yet. But efforts are on to sort to diffuse the situation.

At a MEA briefing on Thursday India made the point that the Indian army was following all procedures laid out in India-China bilateral protocols on border management. Several rounds of talks between commanders have so far not been able to resolve the issue. India is unlikely to budge till the PLA troops withdraw from territory inside Ladakh and status quo ante is maintained.

Is China upping the ante at a time when India is at its most vulnerable? Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team is struggling with the pandemic as the curve refuses to flatten despite a strict earlier lockdown. The economy already spluttering before the pandemic, is now in the doldrums. The economic forecast remains bleak, as with many other countries, including China. But this has more to do with China’s stand on Ladakh.

The intrusions into Ladakh synchronises with China’s claim over the whole of the Aksai Chin. China captured part of Aksai Chin after the 1962 border war, while a large portion of territory was ceded to China by Pakistan, while fixing the international border between the two.

India too has begun talking of akand bharat, which includes the entire POK, China has kept up its claims on parts of Ladakh. Home minister Amit Shah said in Parliament that India was determined to get back all of the land ceded to China by Pakistan in Aksai Chin. Foreign minister Jai Shankar claimed POK as Indian territory and looked forward to its unification.

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Last August, when the Narendra Modi government decided to scrap Kashmir’s special status, bifurcate Ladakh and make it a union territory with administrative control with Delhi, China objected. In fact, two days after Article 370 was abolished, China’s foreign office spokesman said the new UT of Ladakh had incorporated territory which came under China’s administrative jurisdiction. The spokesman said it was a challenge to Chinese sovereignty.

The current stand-off in Ladakh is possibly China’s way to claim areas in Ladakh as its own. India has also been talking of Gilgit-Baltistan as its own territory. POK is part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, and a part of Xi Jinping’s ambitious belt and road project, which India has stayed away from. India protests when roads and bridges and airstrips are built in the area.

The current crisis is likely to linger on for months. But unlikely to become another border war. China is merely flexing its muscles and India continues to hold its ground.