News, and some bad news

2011: Anna Domini

2011-12-27T11:43:10Z

In
1911, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was perfecting his Passive Resistance
movement in South Africa against the apartheid regime, which he later
successively deployed against the British colonial power in India as Satyagraha,
little could he have imagined that 100 years later, an old man wearing his
trademark topi would employ the very
same tactic against the party he forged into an instrument of Indian
independence.

Was
it then, and is it now, merely a case of cometh the hour, cometh the man? Was
the situation ripe, in 1911 and 2011, for the emergence of a symbol of
resistance against an effete government, which both Gandhi and Hazare seized?

In
Gandhi’s case, we have the advantage of hindsight stretching over 100 years. In
Hazare’s it’s but a mere year.

And
what a year it has been!

No
moment in history is a standalone; events are but a cascade, each running into
the other, impelling and influencing the flow. It could hit a plateau and peter
out, or continue its frolic till the very end.

The
events of 2011 were influenced by last year’s misrule, and as the present one
comes to a close there is no sign of the torrent slowing down. Lessons that
ought to have been learnt were ignored, actions that should have been taken
were swept aside, making one wonder at times if there was a government at all
in place. All it had was a prime minister who doesn’t enjoy his party’s
confidence; a party president who has no views on anything; an heir apparent
who doesn’t enjoy the title.

If
that was the United Progressive Alliance, which in 2011 showed little evidence
of being either united or progressive and at times even behaved like a
misalliance, the Opposition’s lot was no better. That the public’s trust and
faith in the government were whittling had been evident for a while. Normally
this should have been manna from heaven for the Opposition, but so badly was it
caught napping that into this vacant space marched Anna Hazare and his merry
men and one woman.

If
you really think about it, Dr Manmohan Singh’s government has done more for
transparency than any other government before it. And if you think about it deeply,
you will also realise that this government has the rare distinction of having
at least one honest person in it.

But
what happens very often is that the forces of change, the forces of
expectations that get unleashed push the bar so high that the very agents of change
are often consumed by it, as Mikhail Gorbachev would testify. This force is the
wind behind the Jasmine Revolution/Arab Spring that is toppling regimes in its
wake.

If
Tunisia to Libya showed that there was no such thing as a
little democracy, it was either all or nothing, India’s own experience in 2011 shows
that even democracy, which warts and all remains the best form of governance in
all of human history, has its shortcomings.

In
many ways, UPA the sequel is different from its first avatar in 2004. When it
went to the people for a re-election on the plank of the aam aadmi and transparency and asked for freedom from the Left’s
tyranny, it had the MGNREGS and the RTI as showpieces to back its claim. The
people believed in its claims, and 2009 came about.

Alas,
since that summer two years ago, there has been little evidence of either the aam aadmi or transparency in the
government’s thought and deed. On the contrary, the RTI has been seen to be a
double-edged sword that can equally be wielded against its creator; and the aam aadmi has been buried in homilies in
the face of a raging inflation. And corruption only completed the tragedy.

That
the people were angry was known, but the government didn’t take it seriously
enough.

That
the people were hungry was also known, but the government couldn’t care less,
or at least that was the attitude shown by its arrogant ministers.

The
results from the West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Bihar
elections should have sounded a warning but it was lost in the babel that is
the UPA. In the first two states the people threw out an entrenched
maladministration, while in the third performance and sincerity were resoundingly
rewarded.

What,
me worry? That must have been the UPA’s motto as it saw its principle
opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, go through its myriad convulsions over
the question of who will be the next prime minister – the party not only behaving
that the UPA’s days were over but also like it had already won an election slated
for 2014.

The
first sign of civil disobedience came in the form of a saffron-clad yoga guru.
As the televangelist yogi’s hunger strike gathered crowds, the government
initially seemed to prefer kid gloves before revealing its iron fist. That it
could get away with the use of brute force in the wee hours against a peaceful
crowd, in which one protestor was even killed, should have emboldened the
administration when Anna Hazare stepped up to the plate.

Hazare,
after all, doesn’t even have a base to speak of even in his home state of Maharashtra (as evidenced by the recent elections to
local bodies, in which his target Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party
came up trumps).

However,
six months later, it is the UPA that is on its knees before an old man who,
like Gandhi, is not a politician.

Will
the Lokpal, that Hazare and his India Against Corruption colleagues like Arvind
Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi have been demanding of the UPA,
change things for the better?

The
jury is out and probably will never return on that one. But one doesn’t need to
be an Einstein to see that creating a new superset of bureaucracy is not the
best way to eliminate corruption by the existing bureaucracy, that there is no
dearth of laws outlawing misdemeanour in India, what has been lacking is the
will to implement them.

The
source of the mass anger against the government, and all politicians, is not over
the presence or absence of a Lokpal, but against a callous government that has
forgotten the people who voted it to power. You can pull out rabbits like FDI
in retail and Food Security Act from the hat, but that still won’t make you a
magician. What this government lacks is magic, which is different from sleight
of hand which has been in abundant evidence.

mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">As Annus Horribilis ends with a whimper, the
tantalising question is: In its 100^th anniversary as the capital of
colonial India, will Delhi become the
graveyard of yet another dynasty?

Dr Singh: What next?

2011-12-08T10:05:38Z

When governments feel the ground shifting under their feet, they resort to diversionary tactics. Dr Manmohan Singh’s government is faced with a groundswell against it – and not all of it is online. In fact, the vituperation against it online – which has forced Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal to advocate curbs on it – is but a reflection of the popular disenchantment with the United Progressive Alliance II.

Which, if you go back to the heady days of May-June 2009, needn’t have come to this sorry pass. Why did it, is a question the presiding triumvirate in the establishment can best answer; hacks like me can at best read the portents and offer opinions.

If Verdict 2004 was a surprise one, so was Choice 2004. Dr Singh, pulled out of relative obscurity and promoted to the top job in the country not for any stellar administrative quality but solely for his unflinching loyalty to the Family, had every reason to be beholden for the same.

But Verdict 2009 was different. Was the Congress’s and UPA’s improved showing in the hustings solely due to the Family’s charisma, or did the administration provided and policies pursued by the prime minister – no doubt with a nod from his political boss – play a role in the victory?

When you win unexpectedly for the first time, you can be magnanimous in sharing the credit. But a re-election is a different affair; the first could be the result of a negative vote against the existing regime. The second is a clear endorsement and a positive vote. Which is why the Indian voter has been so miserly about voting in the incumbent, because there is so little around him for him to be positive about.

The crisis in the UPA II goes back to its inception, Verdict 2009. And it will end only when this issue – whose victory was it, the party’s or the government’s? — is settled. Tied to this question is the prime ministership of India.

In a democracy there will always be friction between the government and the ruling party and the bosses are expected to paper over the differences, smoothe things out. When Indira Gandhi fashioned her own version of the Congress party from the one that led to India’s freedom, she saw the faultline for what it was: a potential earthquake. Her solution was undemocratic, a mirror image of herself as she had become: retain both the prime ministership and party presidency.

If she who grew up in the lap of the Founding Fathers that lived and breathed democracy could shrink the tradition to personal hagiography, it hasn’t been a difficult transformation for her followers.

Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party is caught in this dilemma. It believes that she who led the party to electoral triumph should also be the prime minister. If not, one of her children.

Sensing disquiet over her ascension to the top job, she has chosen to rule by proxy. But the crisis for the Congress party is that neither does her son Rahul, who has been leading a party revival campaign, show any inclination to replace the incumbent prime minister.

In effect, how this percolates down to the rank and file is that there is a disconnect between the party’s programmes and the government’s, because they are led by two different people.

In effect, how this percolates down to the public is that there is a governance paralysis, manifesting itself in different ways – from inability to control inflation to drift in economy to indecisiveness on policy matters to unwillingness to curb corruption.

Popular disenchantment from all this could still have been kept under check but for humongous corruption which, if not in truth then at least in public perception has left hardly anyone untouched in the Union Cabinet. Corollary flowing from this: Of what use is an honest prime minister who cannot do anything about his corrupt ministers?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not a political animal – which is why he does not fight the Lok Sabha elections.

Unfortunately for him, the prime ministership of India is a political job. Political issues need political solutions, not administrative solutions which are Dr Singh’s KRA.

And, it seems under UPA II, political solutions are not the Congress party bosses’ forte either.

The popular disenchantment against UPA II, which denied it its customary honeymoon period with the voters, could have been better and easily handled but wasn’t. Drowned in their own smugness about winning a re-election, and beguiled by the disarray in its principal opposition the Bharatiya Janata Party, both the Congress party and the government slept, unaware of the ground shifting under their feet.

It’s happened before in this ancient land.

The British didn’t take the challenge of a ‘half-naked fakir’ seriously till it was too late.

The politically astute Indira Gandhi, blinded by maternal love, saw in the Jayaprakash Narayan whirlwind a benign summer breeze.

And Anna Hazare, whose worldview extends to all of a remote village in Maharashtra that not many Indians have even heard of, is poised to do the same to UPA II. Interestingly, none of the three saw/see a political role for themselves.

Faced with a challenge to their existence, one would expect the government and party to act as one. But the disconnect between the two shows no sign of ending.

The government thinks it can deflect the challenge by diversionary tactics. So you have a political hot potato decision like foreign direct investment in retail trade taken when Parliament is in session, a decision which may benefit the government but not the party which stayed put in the barracks during the battle over it.

As the FDI in retail trade showed, the government finds not just the Opposition ranged against it, not just its own party – but also its allies.

Dr Manmohan Singh is thus besieged on all sides.

His biggest misstep has been on FDI in retail. To break the perception that his government was paralysed, he chose an explosive issue – just as he did in his first term with the India-United States nuclear deal. As then, he expected to come out guns blazing in Parliament once again.

Unfortunately for him, the script didn’t play out that way. If he was a Bollywood buff – which he isn’t – he would know that sequels work only in films, not in life – and certainly not in politics.

Retreat 2011 has finally settled the question over Verdict 2011. If there are doubts still lingering in the mind of the prime minister, he should make way for someone more in tune with his party boss.

If not, he should get down to real governance. He can start by having the numerous clowns in his court shut up.

Grouchy dragon, defiant tiger

2011-11-30T13:37:45Z

A comment on a social networking site summed it up neatly: ‘Twenty years ago India was in economic doldrums, and the country’s finance minister made a beeline to Western capitals for prescriptions of recovery. Today, the same man, as prime minister is visiting Western capitals to prescribe measures for them to come out of their economic crisis.’

Even making allowances for hyperbole, the grain of truth in that statement cannot be denied even by India’s obdurate critics. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visits to Bali – to attend the 9^th India-Asean summit and the 6^th East Asia Summit – and Singapore last week were not mere extensions of India’s Look East policy, but a sign, seen often, of India’s assertiveness on the global stage.

It was a lack of this trait, combined with its innate lack of self-belief, that led to India’s consignment to the sidelines in the present world order. Today, when the signs are all clear that the world order has worked to the benefit of a few nations and denied the emerging powerhouses their due, and its jettisoning a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’, India clearly doesn’t want to be left behind in the history books yet again.

Even if it means standing up to the dragon on our east – as was evident during Dr Singh’s recent foray into its backyard – never mind that China gave us a bloody nose in 1962 and still sits on thousands of square kilometres of our territory and continues to make minatory noises over Arunachal Pradesh which it claims is disputed.

The standing up was evident not merely from an attendance at the Asean and EAS summits, but that these engagements served to bring to the discussion table a topic that China would rather engage bilaterally with the Asean nations – maritime security. Aka, right of navigation in the South China Sea, which China virtually claims is its private lake.

With a bulk of the trade from the region using this route to reach the western shores of America and beyond, the issue is a livewire one. Especially for India, whose growing economic ties in the region mean accessing the sea route and whose ship, INS Airavat, was subject to a barrage of questions a few months while on the sea.

“China never took us seriously,” says an Indian official who was part of the prime minister’s delegation to Bali and Singapore. “We were boxed in in South Asia, and never considered fit enough to break out of that mold.”

First with the AB Vajpayee government – which initially invited global opprobrium by going nuclear and soon engaged with the world thanks to its growing economic clout – and the succeeding Manmohan Singh one which forged ahead with India’s newfound confidence, the official says there was little China could, and can, do.

So was it mere economics at play here? “Of what use is your economic strength if you are unable to defend it?” counters the official. “China cannot walk in like they did in 1962 because of our (nuclear) capability. We are not a pushover anymore.”

But with the Indian economy grinding to a slow halt, in reflection of global cues, was India better off in its splendid isolation – like Myanmar? Is the economic clout about to disappear like a mirage?

“Yes, our economy is in slowdown mode,” says another official. “But let’s not forget, we will still grow at 7 percent – which, if you look around us, is not bad at all. And isolation is no more an option, it is an increasingly dependent world, as even Myanmar has realised.”

Which, if you look at the country with which India shares its longest border and which is our first touchpoint with Asean, is true. Scheduled as the next chair of Asean – its first international outing under the military junta – Myanmar has also begun its slow march to popular rule, which has left the Indian foreign office in a ‘We said so’ mode.

So despite his advancing age, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh keeps a punishing schedule, clocking admirable airmiles in the process, and engaging with the world as never before, even inviting the criticism ‘prime minister for foreign affairs’.

And despite perceptions to the contrary, the Indian foreign office is at pains to explain that what is at the core of Indian policy is to do what is best for India.

“If we are targetting China why would it be our single largest trading partner in goods (with services included, it is America)?” asks an official who has engaged with China in the past.

What has changed, he says, is that India-China relations, which were uni-dimensional once upon a time, today cover a gamut of issues. “Previously our only engagement with China was over the border,” the official says. “Today, border is just one issue between us.”

Perhaps reflective of the many dimensions of the bilateral relationship, at their bilateral in Bali “which lasted longer than the scheduled 40 minutes,” Dr Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao – the two have met at least four times in the last one year – spoke of there being room for both the Asian giants and the importance of working together.

And, while Asean discussed maritime security much to China’s chagrin, the critical statements coming out of Beijing subsequently warning against ‘outside interference in the region’ were symptomatic of rocky nature of the relationship between India and China.

“We are not a threat to China. Yet,” says an official on the condition of anonymity. “What China is trying to do is to see that we never emerge as one.”

So is India being deliberately provocative by engaging with nations in its sphere of influence? “No, we are not,” says the official. “But then we too don’t like them being in Pakistan, etc, will they because of that?”

In a region where the Indian – Indic, if you will – historic influence is all too clear in the customs and languages, perhaps it is only right that Indian re-establish its presence, a desire that is in sync with the sole superpower America’s unstated aim of containing the Chinese dragon.

As India played out its role in Bali, a role that had been pre-scripted, the concatenation of events hold a portent. President Barack Obama, who has spoken of his warm ties with Dr Singh and who nevertheless did not find the time to meet with the latter – their last engagement was in India a year ago – was the first bilateral meeting that the Indian prime minister held in Bali.

In his opening remarks Dr Singh ‘reported’ to the US president that ‘all the irritants in their ties have been removed’. Just a couple of days before, India had amended its nuclear liability laws to be more in tune with the American nuclear industry’s demands. India’s domestic nuclear liability laws which placed unlimited liability on the suppliers was the single issue that held up not only the operationalisation of the India-US nuclear deal but also had a cascading effect on the entire gamut of ties.

‘We have tabled the new guidelines, it is for the American industry to let us know they meet their expectations,” said sources in the government.

In another sign, Australia – whose Prime Minister Julian Gillard held a pull-aside meeting Dr Singh in Bali – relented from its earlier refusal to supply uranium to India, a move that will still have to be approved by the ruling Conservative Party caucus in December.

And Japan, which had always remained sceptical of a nuclear India and which put its strategic dialog with India on the backburner after the Fukushima disaster in March, agreed to resume the civil nuclear agreement talks with India.

All of which, when read together rather than as isolated developments, would indicate an American nod behind it all.

“We are not in any camp, the days of the world being divided into camps are over,” says an Indian official. “For those with the outdated cold war outlook on the world all this would seem strange, but it is not ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ anymore.”

Thus it is, that India seems comfortable supping with

China

even while disagreeing on the menu, and picking and choosing the ingredients from the American kitchen, in its effort to host a grand banquet. In an emerging world that has trade as the fulcrum and not ideological shibboleths, India, with an economist prime minister, seems a cinch for the long haul.

India looks east, but with a firm eye on South Asia

2011-11-22T09:12:24Z

India can take heart that its Look East policy, after an initial period of fits and starts, has gone well, with membership to important multi-regional forums and the world respecting it for the way it has come out of its shell, but that does not mean it has taken its eyes off the immediate neighbourhood whose developments pack the punch to derail its hard-earned progress. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned from Bali and Singapore, where he demonstrated that the lumbering elephant also packs nimble steps, senior government sources in New Delhi expanded on what is happening around India’s backyard.

Pakistan: Memo of misunderstanding

Joined at the hip siblings India and Pakistan continue to share an uneven relationship despite all the attempts at normalisation of ties between them. While India will go ahead with the process while keeping in mind the history, three developments to our western border are important, said top government sources in New Delhi.

One, the incident of the missive that was sent to Mansoor Ijaz in London, expressing the fear that a coup against Zardari was in the offing, to be handed over to Adm Mike Mullen through an intermediary. The unsigned memo had promised to replace Pakistan’s security apparatus with favourable people for the US’s help. A stung Pakistan Army deputed an ISI official to confront Ijaz, “none other than the director-general of ISI,” said the sources, “which makes the whole incident very interesting.” Ijaz not only confirmed the memo he had outed in a newspaper column but also said that Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani had approved it and said that it had Zardari’s approval. Haqqani promptly resigned as ambassador.

Two, the army has so far not found the “last link” to Zardari in the incident, the sources said, but that doesn’t mean things are hunky-dory.

Imran Khan pads up

Three, given the above backdrop, over the last few weeks cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is being steadily built up, said the sources.

But times have changed, and a military coup is no more a viable option today and runs its own risks. “It makes so much more sense to put your own man in the job.”

Unlike his cricketing glory days, Imran Khan has so far not been able to translate the mass adulation for him into political support but over the last few weeks he seems to have caught a tail wind.

“The old Musharraf hands are backing him,” believe top sources in the Indian government, as are Shah Mahmood Qureshi and many Pakistan Muslim League members. But the risk here is for the democratic structure. “You can’t sideline the two main parties in the country, that could lead to a fresh set of troubles,” they warned.

For India that would mean another round of instability in a nation that is trying to come to terms with itself. “But is instability new? We will continue as before, we will talk to the government of the day, we will do business wherever we can, but the real test is the outcome,” the sources said. “There has been so much inconsistency from them, but we have been consistent in dealing with them.”

The fact of the matter is, they said, India has been worried about what will come out of Pakistan for a long time. “They are stuck in their own complications, and we are dealing with an impossible neighbour. They have thrown everything they have at us, and we have dealt with all of that.”

But the problem, the sources said, is that one is not dealing with just one Pakistan but many Pakistans. “The closest they came to being one Pakistan was under Musharraf. Look at where they are and where we are. For a long time we were being boxed into South Asia and Kashmir was an issue that was raised at world forums to beat us with. Today do you see Kashmir being raised anywhere?”

Net verdict: We are sorry for what they are going through, but they will have to handle this themselves.

Alert in Afghanistan

Pakistan, commentators often point out, has made a fine art of running with the hounds and hunting with the hares in the context of its involvement in the war on terror while doing little to shut down the safe havens on its territory for extremist elements. Periodically mouthing platitudes about cracking down on terror groups, it has kept up the pretence very well.

But what Indian government sources find worrying is that of late, even this lip service has dried up. “We detect a hardening of stance on their part vis a vis Afghanistan, which is not a good thing. It could be a result of their internal conditions, we don’t know, but we are watching the developments.”

Treating Afghanistan as its backyard, Pakistan has often accused India, which has an array of assistance projects in the former, of meddling in its affairs and involving itself in Pakistan to counter its influence in the region. While what the future holds is unclear, the government says they are prepared to deal with it.

The Tiger is dead, long live the Tiger

More than two years after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was decimated by the Sri Lankan army and its leader V Prabhakaran eliminated, the Indian government has said there have been intelligence reports of the outfit trying to regroup.

“We have been receiving scattered reports of the LTTE trying to regroup, and obviously Sri Lanka is worried over them.”

The fact is, while the LTTE may have been neutralised, its network of sympathisers and financiers remains intact, especially among the Tamil expatriate community.

“The remnants of all this support are still around, there are a lot of sympathisers, but so far they are too scattered to pose a live threat,” said the government sources in New Delhi. “They are too busy fighting each other now.”

While Sri Lanka has won the military encounter, it is yet to win the hearts of the island’s Tamil population. And unless it does this, there will always be a fear of the LTTE exploiting the dissatisfaction among the people.

Iran is where the nuclear dome is

More than with any other country, it is with Iran that India has demonstrated the most delicate footwork. It may have voted with the majority on the IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear plans, but it refuses to go along with the West in condemning Iran as evidenced by its abstention on the UN General Assembly vote “deploring” the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al Jubeir.

“Who are we to judge?” said the sources, adding, “Nothing has really changed for us. We have always said that there should not be a new nuclear power in a region fraught with tension and we maintain that position. At the same time, we also believe Iran has a right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy. We voted for the IAEA resolution, but we believe that yelling at them, like the West is doing, won’t help matters.”

At the same time, India believes that Iran should be more open about its plans. “They must clarify to the international community what they are doing, the legitimate concerns should be addressed through the IAEA” and not any other form.

“In that sense, nothing has really changed for us.”

Myanmar: But we said so

As Myanmar gets ready to take over as head of an international forum (Asean) for the first time, there are other things happening that have justified India’s engagement in the face of criticism with the military junta in an effort to goad it towards the democratic process, said Indian government sources, crowing, “But we said so!”

US Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is scheduled to visit the country — which shares a border longer than Pakistan with India and which is our first geographical touchpoint to Asean — next month, dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will stand for Parliament, the monks have emerged as a big force, and Myanmar’s speaker is visiting India in December in a bid to better understand the democratic process, said the sources.

“They are slowly changing their sytem, but it will have to be within their comfort zone,” they said, and we can’t hurry them along. “Remember, they have 56 ethnicities in the country, and they don’t want to do anything to upset their internal systems.”

The message from India to Myanmar as it slowly emerges from the cocoon of international isolation is: We will help however we can.

Bangladesh: Teesta waters for all

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have put a spoke in India’s growing relationship with Bangladesh when she scuttled the Teesta water-sharing treaty that was to be signed during Prime Minister Singh’s recent visit to that country, but things are moving forward.

Since then Banerjee has told the visiting Bangladesh finance minister Dipu Moni that she wants to conclude the treaty, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may visit Kolkata to deliver the Calcutta University’s convocation address.

“Mamata’s concerns are genuine, she doesn’t want to sacrifice North Bengal’s interests while at the same wanting to help Bangladesh, and things are being worked out on how best everyone can be satisfied with the treaty,” said the sources.

And once that happens, the last remaining kink in ties between the two neighbours will have been ironed out.

China: Dragon’s embrace

A government official recalled how even 10 years ago China was contemptuous of India, its lack of development, its noisy democracy. Today, he says, China has realised that India has come out of its shell and, while problems remain, it is the not the same country anymore. “A lot of it stemmed from 1962, when we just rolled over to die when they came in.”

What made the difference, he believes, was the nuclear capability India acquired in 1998. “You can disagree with AB Vajpayeeji’s politics or party, but you can’t deny him the credit for making the world sit up and take notice of India with this one single act,” he says.

Said another official: “Even 10 years ago we were boxed into the South Asia paradigm, and Chin was happy that was our pond. And then, combined with the nuclear weapons, our economy boomed, and there was nothing China could do but accept our new status grudgingly.”

“Of course China is not happy with our Look East policy, but then are we happy with its involvement in PoK? In Pakistan? It is all around us but we have learnt to live with it, and China too will come around to living with us,” the sources said. “But if you ask us, are we deliberately provoking China? Then the answer is No. But we also refuse to be tied down to South Asia, as one of the world’s biggest economies we are natural players on the global stage.”

Gone, in fact, is the traditional pussyfooting of India over thorny issues. So maritime security, an euphemism really for right of passage in South China Sea, which China considers its lake, was brought up in multilateral forum in Bali despite China’s preference for dealing with the issue on a bilateral basis.

“You may find it contradictory, but remember today China is our second biggest trading partner, so economics helps keep the momentum between us. The border issue is there but the talks are progressing well, though there is no timeframe to its conclusion. A few years ago our engagement with China was only over the border, today our ties are multi-dimensional, so in that sense both the countries have learnt to compartmentalise things.”

And as India acquires confidence in an increasingly inter-dependent world, compartmentalising relationships is something it has learnt to tweak to its advantage.

Dr Singh flies back into Delhi

2011-11-22T09:08:25Z

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh returned to New Delhi on Sunday night after concluding his three-day, two-nation tour to Bali and Singapore where he attended important Asian groupings and held important bilateral meetings.

By all accounts it was a successful overseas visit, not merely for the fact that he managed to articulate India’s standpoint across fora or offered prescriptions for global ills, but more for the fact that Dr Singh managed to walk the diplomatic tightrope between diverse suitors even while keeping a firm eye on where his interests lay.

If the 9th India-Asean and the 6th East Asia summits signalled a ganging up against China — at least in popular perception, if not in reality — where maritime security, an euphemism for navigation through South China Sea, was up for discussion despite Beijing’s chagrin, Dr Singh also held his own at the bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, which according to official extended well below the scheduled time. “They get along very well,” said a source who was in on the discussions.

And, if he managed to keep China in good humour, Dr Singh also tried to put the spluttering India-United States tie back on the rails with his long-in-coming bilateral with US President Barack Obama. As the prime minister ‘reported’ to Obama, the irritants in the ties between them were being sorted out: the nuclear liability bill was being tweaked, and India voted against Iran on the IAEA report over its nuclearisation plans.

If diplomacy was the art of walking the tightrope with a blindfold, then this visit showed that Dr Singh has evolved into a lithe trapeze artist, swinging from end to end without once losing his grip.

Highly-placed government officials in New Delhi, concurred. “We calculate what is in our best interests and act accordingly,” they said. “We follow who/what is in our interests, and we work with whoever for it. After all, we are in a situation where there are many powers, and the world has moved on from a position of ‘if you are not with us you are against us’ kind of mindset.”

“If you are used to a bipolar world you may find this unsettling, but we are the only ones practising this, everyone does it. It is taking into account global realities.”

Pointing out that in his opening remarks at their bilateral on Friday in Bali, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said that whenever the two nations worked together they were able to articulate global concerns better, the sources said not only did the meeting between them last longer than scheduled, they also had a frank discussion on all issues of concern to them.

“Prime ministers don’t negotiate, they only discuss issues and leave the negotiations to the others,” the sources said.

In fact, more than the stapled Chinese visas for the people of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, which the sources said have stopped for a few months, what is important is their position on Kashmir where, since the mid-1990s they have kept out of it as a bilateral issue.

“In fact, if you want to see how much the world has moved on look no further than Kashmir,” another official said. “There was a time when it was the only issue being discussed on global fora vis-a-vis India. Today is anyone even mentioning it? India’s position has been accepted.”

If India’s liability clause for foreign suppliers of nuclear plants and its stand on Iran’s nuclear issue were irritants with the US, both the issues were sought to be nixed last week. India’s tabled new regulations on the liability of suppliers for discussion, and voted against Iran on the IAEA report on its nuclear plans.

While on the nuclear law the sources said they were yet to hear from the suppliers lobby on the amended clauses, even while not ruling out politicisation of the issue, on Iran, it was clear that merely because it had voted against Iran India won’t plumb wholesale for a hard line as the West would like.

Our position has always been there there should not be any further nuclearisation of the region, but that doesn’t mean we don’t support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy. “We are very clear that yelling at them won’t work. At the same time, they must clarify to the international community what they are doing, legitimate concerns should be addressed through the IAEA, in that sense nothing has changed for us.”

But even this little movement, it seems, has thawed the US’s position. For in a quick pull-aside on the sidelines of the East Asia summit, Australian Prime Minister Julian Gillard apprised Dr Singh of the steps being taken by her government to secure her Labour party’s okay for selling uranium to India, a turnaround from Canberra’s earlier stated position.

This change, sources said, could only have come about on the US’s insistence.

“All this shows that the world is changing, it is not a static entity anymore, we are successfully dealing with the US, Russia and China and others to secure what is the best for India,” the sources said.

Dr Singh returned ahead of Parliament’s winter session beginning Tuesday, where there is no dearth of issues bedevilling his government. Will he and his managers show the same ingenuity in dealing with domestic issues as they have done overseas? Let’s wait and watch.

Nehru’s bust unveiled in Singapore

2011-11-22T09:06:56Z

As a 1000-strong Indian community applauded, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on a rain-filled Sunday evening unveiled a bust of and marker on India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Singapore’s Asian Civilisation Museum.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Singh said, “In honouring Nehru you honoured India and all the values India stands for. Secularism, democracy, freedom and the rule of law This bust and marker will stand as yet another symbol of close relations between India and Singapore.”

The marker is fifth in the series of the National Heritage Board’s Friends to our Shores series which commemorates eminent personalities from overseas who had a connection to Singapore.

Speaking on the occasion, Singapore’s emeritus senior minister Goh Chok Tong said, “This commemorative marker and bust are symbols of the long standing friendship between Singapore and India that Nehru helped foster with his visits.”

Other than honouring his achievements, the marker also details Nehru’s three visits to Singapore between 1937 and 1950.

Nehru’s bust wax created by eminent sculptor and painter Biman Bihari Das and commissioned by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

The other four persons so honoured by the NHB are Joseph Conrad, Ho Chi Minh, Dr Jose Rizal, and Deng Xiaoping

PM seeks greater connect with nations in China’s backyard

2011-11-22T09:03:24Z

Unmindful of China’s displeasure over India’s involvement with nations in its backyard, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday announced a proposal to link South East Asian nations through a highway, presumably over the sea.

Greater physical connectivity between India and Asean remains our strategic objective, Dr Singh told the 9th India-Asean summit in Bali. “There are several proposals under consideration with regard to land and sea connectivity. These include the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway, its extension to Laos and Cambodia, and the development of a new highway also linking Vietnam.”

In this regard, he said, “We also have a study on a Mekong-India Economic Corridor conducted by the Economic Research Institute for Asean and East Asia which proposes the linking of corridors in the peninsular, and possibly the north east, regions of India with the East Asian region.”

The connectivity will not just take the physical highway, but also e-route. India has already offered to assist in the master plan on Asean information and connectivity technology and in particular on the establishment of an e-network in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam for tele-medicine and tele-education.

Highlighting other areas of cooperation Asean, Dr Singh said India’s department of space has revised its proposal for a five-year project for establishing a tracking and reception station and data processing facility for Asean nations and btraining of their personnel.

Welcoming India’s growing cooperation with Asean nations on security issues, and its association with Asean-led forums, Dr Singh said these moves have focused on maritime security, counter-terrorism, training, exercises and disaster management.

Pointing out that India’s trade with Asean has increased by 30 per cent in 2010-11 and has crossed the 50 billion US dollar mark., Dr Singh said such a rate of growth should make it possible achieve the trade target of 70 billion US dollar by 2012 and sought the early conclusion of a commercially meaningful services and investment agreement by March 2012.

Ties with US, China: All is well, says government

2011-11-22T09:01:29Z

Ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s bilateral meeting with United States President Barack Obama on November 18 in Bali on the sidelines of the India-Asean summit (lasting one hour, according to the official itinerary handed over to the accompanying Indian media), highly placed sources in the government sought to rebut the impression that the two democracies had lost their way in the labyrinth of domestic preoccupations.

Addressing the media in New Delhi, the sources emphasised that the India-US relations were in “good shape”. “We are doing well, the situation is evolving, if you look at it we are doing many more things together than before, in West Asia, North Africa etc. We are consulted on a range of issues,” the sources said.

On the nuclear deal between the two nations, which has been vexed by the question of supplier liability, it was for the US to say if the new proposals limiting the period of liability to five years was ok or not. “There is a reality you have to accept, and that is that you cannot say Indian laws won’t apply,” the sources said.

The talks between the two sides will cover bilateral relations as well as the situation in the region, apart from economics. While maritime security will be discussed, it won’t be the centrepiece of the talks.

Perhaps so, but that maritime security is an issue of concern in the region, especially in the face of Chinese intent to call the shots in the region it considers its backyard, is evident from the fact that it will also be discussed at the East Asia Summit on Saturday, with several proposals being lined up before the EAS.

From India’s viewpoint, the issue is, who owns South China Sea, the sources said, and that all nations including China have accepted the law of the sea. While China prefers to deal with the issue on a bilateral basis with countries in the region, the latter prefer to deal with it as a group. India’s own standpoint, while welcoming discussions on the subject, is that right of passage is important.

Ahead of the meeting between Dr Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday, the sources also categorised the relationship between the two Asian giants as “complex, with elements of cooperation and competition” between them. You can take slices of it and analyse them separately and conclude that intrusions are high etc, but if you look at the big picture over the last 10 years, it is clear that both sides have improved capabilities, the sources said.

Terming the two nations as “mirror images” of each other, the sources said what mattered was the balance between the two sides. “Over 10 years the Chinese presence has increased, but so has ours.”

The other aspect of the complex relationship between the two sides was the phenomenal trade between them. With China emerging as India’s single largest trading partner in goods (the US is the largest if services were also included), and given the growth in the two nations, “a whole clutch of economic issues have arisen”.

The third aspect to the India-China relationship was that while in the past it was a one-issue one, the border, today the two sides have enormous political interaction, and are ready to discuss maritime security, in fact everything. That is because, the sources said, we are both looking for the same thing, to be allowed to grow uninterruptedly.

Border intrusions from the Chinese side was less, the sources said, but at the same time the capability was higher. Refusing to put too big a spin on Chinese troops crossing over to plant the flag on the Indian side etc (”it’s ok, we do the same thing too”), the sources said the ties between the two sides was hardest to manage and predict because the pace of change was so fast.

Naturally, then, the Special Representative level talks between the two sides on the border issues has not been “loaded with a timeframe”, with the laborious process of fixing a framework being underway.

“The real issue is that China needs your market and you need their market,” the sources said, and the trick is to do it in such a manner that your industries are not affected.

On the arming of Maoists issue, the sources said while it was true that Chinese-made arms were found on them, China was not arming them. “What is disturbing is that weapons are all over the place, and the biggest manufacturer of cheap weapons is China.”

Dr Singh heads to Bali with an eye on the future

2011-11-22T08:59:12Z

India and China may not be the antagonists everyone says they are, fighting for the same piece of pie, but nor are they the best of friends.

Unlike, say, the United States and India which have discovered each other after a long period of standoffishness.

Yet, look at the facts.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama last met more than a year ago, when the latter had come calling on India in November 2010. And it was not like their paths did not cross — it did, and a few times at that, including a same-frame photo op at the recent Cannes G20 summit. Yet the two leaders, whose mentor-mentee relationship has been widely written about, did not find the time to meet.

Compare this with Dr Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao. The two leaders who, between the two of them preside over the destinies of nearly one-third of humanity, met last October in Hanoi, then met again in December in New Delhi, which was followed up with a meeting in China in summer this year.

Naturally, when Dr Singh meets both Obama and Wen in separate bilaterals in Bali on Friday, all eyes will be on the atmospherics between the leaders. Having rediscovered each other, have India and the US grown rapidly tired of each other, the oft-touted similarities palling in the face of frisson with China?

Maybe not, but the fact is that the three nations are engaged in some amazing footwork that will make the Mohammed Ali-Joe Frazier bouts look like an evening in the park. For the first time since the existing world order was drawn up following two bloody conflicts, unfairly according to most nations, Asia is the theatre where the world’s future is being scripted.

The question is, will it be in Mandarin or in English?

The APEC summit in Hawaii, the Indian Ocean Rim conference, G20, and the imminent ASEAN talks and other alphabetical regional conclaves are nothing but shadow-boxing between the sole superpower and the sole aspirant. India is not a contender; but victory is more assured if India is in your corner.

And India, given its long years of isolation when it chose to plow a lonely furrow rather than join either of the ideological blocs, knows that any deviation from the straight and narrow path may result in immediate economic bonus but also mean a vassal status in the long term. Which explains its impulse to hedge its bets.

Which was why, at his pre-departure briefing on Wednesday, secretary (east) in the ministry of external affairs Sanjay Singh dwelt almost entirely on the economic framework between India and the region. On any other issue, he said the media would be briefed about it if it came about.

For unlike the first two world wars, the third one that has been underway for a while now is not being fought with arms and ammunition. Trade is the weapon here and it’s all about economics, not geography.

But like the previous two conflicts, allies will make all the difference to the outcome. So nations are engaged in an elaborate fire dance that is being choreographed with the passion and skill of a Bolshoi Ballet performance.

If China looks like a spoiler it’s only because it is the challenger to the world order that like India it too had little role in creating but is being asked to maintain it — a task neither Asian nations are keen on discharging. But unlike India which has a history of going about it in a meek manner — who knows, we may be different if our rupee was strong too — China sees no need for an overkill of niceties.

To that extent at least, it is a game of containment that the US is playing, using its longstanding allies and new ones like India but also playing on the inherent fears of the dragon’s hegemony among many nations.

India’s position is peculiar: as the mother civilisation in the region, history may be on its side but neither geography and economics is. Yet, it finds itself at the global high table, where lots are being drawn on the future.

The Association of South East Asian Nations and East Asia summits later this week, which will see the attendance of India, the US, China and Russia, is one more exercise in a long train of carving out the world. Unlike the previous two exercises in 1914 and 1939, this one maybe bloodless. But it sure won’t be painless.

Ra.One: So who is the paithikkara now?

2011-10-27T10:47:32Z

On paper the idea must have seemed unbeatable. A gamer creates a kickass game to thrill his son, the evil one breaks out of the game and pursues the son, the father steps in to save the son, and the day.
There are many planes on which the idea must have been appealed to Shah Rukh Khan, the dethroned King Khan of Bollywood (Shocked? But it’s true: Aamir Khan has taken over the classes and the collections, while Salman Khan has walked away with the masses).
At the height of Amar Singh’s lackies gheraoing his mansion Mannat in Mumbai with the family inside, SRK had said he will do anything to protect his children. I presume when Anubhav Sinha approached him with the script, the part about G.One protecting his son must have leapt out at the actor.
Everyone knows, thanks his media saturation skills, that SRK is an owl who stays awake at night. So does the film’s G.One. Notch another one for Anubhav Sinha.
Again, thanks his media saturation skills everyone knows that SRK is a gamer, a geek in Bollywood clothes. So is the (thankfully) short-lived caricature of a hero Shekhar Subramaniam or whatever. Notch yet another one for the director.
In his 40s SRK seems to have entered a maturer, mellower phase in his life. I don’t know him, have never met him, my only interaction with him being the once I spoke to him on the phone for an interview for Rediff.com. Thus I base my claim on his last few films – Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Billu, My Name Is Khan and now Ra.One, where the focus is on the goodness of the self. Like other stars SRK too wants to leave a legacy, but this time for his children, one where the goodness of heart triumphs. It is what his parents left for him and, I suspect, beyond all the wealth he will leave behind this is the legacy he wants his children to treasure the most.
This is a message from our legends as well, so (again I presume) when Anubhav Sinha made his pitch SRK must have felt, what better time to release the film than Diwali, which in the Hindi-speaking parts of the country is celebrated with Raavan’s downfall and elsewhere in India with other legends of good winning over evil.
With the basics in place, the challenge would have been to translate the grand vision on to celluloid, after which SRK’s money and marketing skills would take over.
Other givens in place like script etc, three elements need to be in sync for a successful film. The director’s vision, the lead actor’s vision, and the producer’s vision. The last is commercial, return on investment, while the first two are creative, and it is essential that the director’s vision mesh with the actor’s, or at least subsume it.
Ra.One’s fault number one, as I see it, was that the director and the lead actor had different visions. The director’s vision was to tell his story, and SRK’s was to get his ‘message’ across. Somewhere somehow they did not sync with each other. So at the end of the film, SRK’s message comes across, but the story flops in the telling.
Ra.One’s fault number two was that there was no emotional connect with the audience. A superhero is out to save the world, the established order which has you and me, members of the audience, in it and we need to feel the urgency of being saved. The unsuperhero G.One’s goal, on the other hand, is merely to save his family from an equally inept villain. Who cares!
Ra.One’s fault number three was the poor FX. If this tackiness is the level of FX India’s biggest movie budget can buy, then I suggest Bollywood return to more modest but effective story-telling. The last Hindi superhero film, Kkkrish, must have been made on a fraction of Ra.One’s budget but boasted better FX and worked just fine – and not merely because Hrithink Roshan is a better looking actor.
Ra.One’s fault number four was that the hero is very un-hero. Oh, G.One has the usual charm that SRK brings to his characters, plus the dimples, but you need to fight out there, not flee all the time. A superhero with no real super skills apart from whirling like a ceiling fan etc? And to think that SRK turned down Shankar’s Robot to make this film!
Plus, if I may make a suggestion, can SRK please bring back his original dance director Farah Khan? I don’t know what went wrong between them, but she ‘knew’ SRK and the dance steps reflected that. Here G.One does the hip steps that seem so alien to the SRK we know and love on screen.
Ra.One’s fault number five was that it insults audience intelligence too much. All films do, but within limits. Here there seems to be no end to it. Just one instance: Kareena returns to India (why, we don’t know since her husband is a British citizen) to her old house where her neighbours know them well, but no one seems to know that her husband is dead or notice that the man with her is not the same guy. Makes me pray as a film-goer that the promise of the last scene, where G.One is shown to return (this time as the evil one, something tells me), doesn’t happen.
So what is my takeaway from this most expensive abomination to hit our screens? That even SRK can fail; that while sex continues to sell, SRK doesn’t.
Finally, my reaction as a Tamilian to the first Tamil character essayed by SRK: funny and irreverent so typical of the man, but there’s a inbuilt danger in caricatures. Which is that the caricature stays on in the mind, not the character. Which happens with Ra.One, which is also its biggest fault.
And as PS, let me rub it in as a Tamilian. Rivals may diss Sachin Tendulkar to score points during their book release, but at the end of the day his batting record is there for everyone to see. Similarly, you can caricature Tamils no end, but at the end of the day Rajnikanth’s Endhiran collections are there for all to see.
Paithikkara!