From N.C.'s Writings

It is almost platitudinous to say that this nation has reached the crossroads. In a sense, one reaches the crossroads with every new situation. But more than in the ordinary sense, there is no denying the fact that India today has definitely reached the point which demands clear answer to the question: Where do we go from here?

Whatever might have been the immediate motivation behind the imposition of National Emergency, it may safely be stated that the first phase of this extraordinary development is over. This is the phase which has been marked by euphoria, excitement or tension—depending on the angle from which one looks at it. It is in this period that certain reforms have been reiterated as could be seen in the widely publicised Twenty-Point Economic Programme; at the same time, the compulsions of the state of Emergency have brought about certain amount of toning up of the administrative machinery, the examples of which are provided by better time-keeping of the railway and of the postal services, regular attendance in offices and factories, abjuration of work-stoppage in the sphere of production, and a sense of urgency in maintaining the public distribution system, even if its promised expansion is yet to take place.

On the programmatic plane, there is noticeable advance. From mere passing of party-level resolutions promising reforms (and in this respect, too, one can of course claim progress from the Ten Points of 1967 to Twenty Points of 1975), there is all-round exhortation by public leaders at different tiers of relevance, calling upon the flocks under their command to take up the implementation of the declared programme. From resolutions to exhortations marks a perceptible advance in commitment. For, the constant reiteration of even old resolutions—even if they do not necessarily bring about a new situation by themselves—has the merit of making a commitment more irrevocable, and later it becomes more difficult to escape from the hazards of its non-fulfilment not only in terms of credibility before the masses but of the viability of the national economy as well.

In the sphere of party organisation, there is a perceptible awareness among a larger section of Congressmen that the old-style functioning cannot go hand-in-hand with the new responsi-bilities that the programmatic assurances to the masses involve. There is groping for the setting up of the implementation machinery at different levels of mass activity, while, at least or the formal place, the need for joint work with like-minded elements such as the Communists, is more widely felt than before.

While these may be regarded as the noteworthy features of the period since the Emergency, it would be a dangerously compla-cent view of men and things if it is claimed that the very act of imposition of the Emergency has staved off the bid of Reaction to come on top. To say that the tragic denouement in Bangladesh with the ghastly killing of Mujibur Rahman and his family and entourage is the vindication of the Emergency in our country, is rather a naive and simplistic reading of a very complex situation. For one thing, the Mujib regime was run, at least from the beginning of this year, on what may be called the impositionof super-emergency with political parties dissolved, the press folded up except for government organs, and the administration immune from effective and organised mass pressure; in other words, the emergence of one-pillar regime instead of ensuring a centralised and cohesive instrument of social advance, made it possible for the forces of Reaction, both indigenous and foreign, to burrow in and bring down the entire edifice that was expected to take the country forward.

The experience of Bangladesh, no doubt, has its lessons for India. If anything, it demonstrates that the wielding of extraordinary powers, however important and necessary they may be felt by the Authority, does not per se plug all the conduits of Reaction. History is replete with instances—more telling than the happenings in Bangladesh—in which reactionary forces, outlawed by edicts, were found to have made desperate efforts at destabilisation, to the utter surprise of the democratic forces which had looked upon the demonstration of extraordinary powers as a protective shield. In a country as vast as ours, with levels of development so uneven, Reaction takes many and devious forms. To fight such a menace, much more is wanted than administrative ukase.

The surest guarantee against any inroad of reactionary forces is the need to rouse the political consciousness of the masses. This does not mean only the publicising of any programme of reforms or only rousing their expectations that the basket of reforms is to be found round the corner.

It is indeed a stroke of luck that the foodgrains production this year has been high with a very good harvest, though one cannot say the same thing about the qunatum of procutement despite all the talk of a fair deal for the have-not. Even the devastating floods have their plus point in so far as they keep the hydel plant going and thereby help to reduce the acute power shortage. The measures taken against the inflationary process—started long before the Emergency, roughly from the time the government put down the Railway strike last year—are having their salutary impact.

The present climate in the country may seem to be a deterrent against unbridled black-marketing, but the stability of the economy—on which mainly depends the capacity to hold down prices—demands many measures of a basic nature.

The prevailing sense of impatience for drastically amending the Constitution—no doubt, sometimes betraying a lack of well-thought-out understanding of its implications—can be gainfaully harnessed if it is used for rectifying the inadequacies as well as obstacles to orderly advance towards a progressive change in the balance of social forces. But such a change in the balance of forces can hardly be brought about by the mere exercise of the authority of a two-thirds majority in Parliament to pass forward-looking legislation. What is wanted urgently is, first of all, a clear perspective; secondly, the determination not to deviate from it; and thirdly, the forging of mass sanction to effect forcial transformation.

In the matter of perspective, there is no dearth of pronouncements from political leaders about their intention to bring about socialism in this country. Good intentions, however, well-meant and loudly proclaimed, are no abstitute for concrete action. When one talks aboiut strengthening the national economy—which, in our context, is an essential pre-requisite for social change—there must be no denigrating of the public sector, some elements in the close poximity of Indira Gandhi seem to be doing, the proof of which is provided by a recent controversial, though still-born, interview. Personal opinions of individuals yet holding any office of authority, it is true, need not be exaggerated beyond proportion, as one could, in oridnary circumstances, interpret the Prime Minister's presence at a widely-noted dinner at the American Ambassador's residence recently, as only a rather out-of-the-ordinary gesture of goodwill.

Such incidents, taken in isolation may not have raised any speculation, but when these are taken in their totality along with such striking testimonials to the multinationals coupled with pathetically wistful implorings for US aid on the part of the Finance Minister, there can be legitimate ground for misgivings about the emerging perspective that is to shape the foreign economic strategy of the government. Sri Subramaniam's plan for setting up rural banks, with the World Bank funds but without taxing the rural rich, deserves serious note of every patriotic Congressman. Those who think that the popularisation of the Twenty-Point Progra-mme is by itself a guarantee for socio-economic advance, tend to forget that the first party to welcome it within a couple of hours of its announcement, as pragmatically realistic, was the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, then already fortified by the Prime Minister's official assurance against further nationalisation.

It would therefore be wrong to deny that there may be room for confusion about the direction of developments. It is for the government to faithfully project its commit-ments at home into foreign and economic policies abroad. Without this, there is bound to be a lack of perspective and, along with it, the absence of the determination to hold on to a progressive one.

On the question of forging the instrument for social change, the responsibility inevitably lies, to a very large measure, upon the Congress party that is invested with political power. There have so far been in the last two months plenty of paper-work on the structure of the machinery of implementation. But the machi-nery is yet to be set up, while the out-look, the orientation and the style of work of the Congress organisation show little sign of any radical change. The Kulak lobby, about which so much was heard of in the last two years, has not been washed off with the monsoon floods; it is very much there, and if it is not fought, it will break the Congress itself and make a mockery of all talks of agrarian reforms.

From an electioneering party machine with funds available in abundance, the Congress has to change itself into a party of dedicated crusaders with the same spirit of tenacious work and self-sacrifice as it was imbued with in the struggle for independence. If it fails on this score, no amount of joint committees can save the situation.

It is fashionble on the part of many politicians to throw all the blame on the bureaucracy. What they tend to forget is that under the Emergency, when the bureaucracy has, in the natural course, been armed with enormous powers, the urgency of sustained work to set the masses in motion can be ignored only at the peril to political life itself. The drive against Black Money has been left entirely as a police action, while the virtual shelving of the enquiry into the Birla affairs has been forgotten by the Congress MPs. The PM's warning to the officials not to abuse their newly acquired powers can be effective only if there is vigilance on the part of political forces. All these point to the urgency of all democratic forces to unite with the responsive Communists belonging to different parties together with responsible sections of the Socialists in the common task of enforcing the declared national programme.

This is the challenge of the new phase of the complex situation in our country today. Without the churning of unprecedented mass upsurge, there is not only no question of implementing any programme of reforms, but there is the real danger of reactionary forces undermining the present democratic fabric itself. If this nation has to survive, it cannot afford to be in a state of depoliticisation, but has to go in for political activity of unprecedented magnitude.

There can be no resting place at the crossroads: the nation has to go ahead, the point is that it must take the road that leads to the destination which it has set before itself.

(‘Editor's Notebook', Mainstream Annual Number, September 18, 1975)

The killing of dozens of people by terrorists at Dhaka is not an aberration, but the product of a committed mind that has been brainwashed by fanaticism. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is quite right when she says that this is not Islam, yet the Muslims all over must introspect why their co-religionists are striking all over and at regular intervals. Dhaka's Information Minister Hasanul Haq has blamed Pakistan for the attack. This may well be true, but there has to be evidence. Otherwise, the criticism will be considered a part of the inimical attitude by Dhaka towards Islamabad.

First in Paris, then Brussels and now Dhaka, the message is always the same. Non-believers have no space if they do not accept Islam as the one religion nearest to God. True, this mocks at ideologies like secularism and democracy. But if the discipline of Islam is to be accepted, there is no place for dissent. The madrassas all over the world teach the tenets of Islam and make you remember the Koran by heart. But there is little place for science or technology.

India is probably the only country which has compulsorily introduced science in madrassas. But the mullahs and maulvis are not happy with this and wherever they can—in remote parts of the country—they do away with teaching in science. Of course, there are exceptions like former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Pakistan's A.Q. Khan. They represent the brilliant mind behind the finished product they brought before the wider world. But the weapon they are able to keep on the anvil can be lethal and destructive.

I recall when I interviewed the Bihar-born Dr A.Q. Khan he warned me that “if you ever drive us to the wall”, as was the case when East Pakistan seceded, “we will use the Bomb straight away”. In fact, I have heard some people saying in Pakistan that they would use the Bomb first and destroy India. But I argued with Khan that “you might destroy Northern India but that would also be the end of Pakistan. India would still be able to rebuild the country with the resources available in the south.”

It is strange that A.Q. Khan remains a hero in Pakistan, although he has sold the nuclear knowhow at an exorbitant price to countries from North Korea to Iran. It is a frightening scenario, but thanks to Khan, a dirty nuclear Bomb is a possibility anywhere in the Islamic world. Imagine also some terrorists getting hold of the Bomb. They can hold the world to ransom.

What happened at Dhaka was indiscriminate killing at the posh Gulshan restaurant in an exclusive part of the city earmarked for diplomats. Suppose those same terrorists had at their disposal a dirty Bomb? What could have been the consequences? Instead of a few dozen casualties the numbers of those killed would have been in hundreds of thousands and stretching across the border.

This should make the governments in South Asia conscious of the fact that terrorism is not now confined to distant places in Syria and Yemen. ISIS is already present and it claims to have local support. To build a dirty Bomb it is not necessary to hijack finished nuclear weapons. All that is required is access to any civil nuclear facilities, either power reactors like Kanupp in Karachi or research centres at Trombay near Mumbai. There cannot be any foolproof ban on the procurement of key strategic materials needed for the Bomb.

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Countries in South Asia have to come together on this specific issue and devise suitable steps so that this region doesn't become a hunting ground for nuclear adventure. This will also involve a concerted drive against the fundamentalists. For example, persons like Hyderabad-based Owaisi who are trying to win headlines by taking a stand which is palpably wrong but probably acceptable in the eyes of fanatics.

I wish the media wouldn't give him the publicity he is getting because his eyes are fixed on the space he gets in the media. But then it is also understandable that the media cannot ignore the provocative statements he makes. If we look back at the subcontinent's history the seeds of separation were sown by two Lahore-based newspapers, Zimidar representing the Muslims, and Pratap, the Hindus. They incited both communities and made Hindus and Muslims feel they belonged to two separate nations.

I recall that the feeling of being different came to be cultivated at the Law College, Lahore, where l was studying. The common kitchen eventually was divided into Hindu kitchen and Muslim kitchen, just like they started selling Hindu paani and Muslim paani at the railway station. Fortunately, most students were not affected by this. At the Law College dining room Muslim students would get food from their kitchen, Hindu students would in turn get food from their kitchen. But we all sat and ate together.

I feel that even though we did not bother about the separation of the kitchen, yet it gave birth to the idea of division and this ultimately led to partition of the subcontinent. But we never imagined that there would be forced migration of populations. We, who decided to stay in Sialkot city, now part of Pakistan, thought that we would be in a minority, just as Muslims would be in India. But both will be living peacefully. This did not happen because the bureaucracy on both sides was also divided on the basis of religion.

We in Sialkot experienced how the Muslim police connived at the looting and killing of non-Muslims because similar was the case in East Punjab. In the process we killed one million people of each other's communities. Till today there is no accountability and I personally think that non-Muslims in India should offer an apology to the Muslims on the other side, just as they should do the same to us.

This may not make amends for the horrors, but at least it might begin a new chapter of healing. The terrorists who are the product of those terrible times may then be condemned by the people themselves and they would not be able to get the backing they need. Then the happening in Dhaka will be recalled with horror and humiliation.

The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com

by Marcello Musto

On September 28, 1864, St. Martin's Hall, in the heart of London, was packed to overflowing with some two thousand workers. They had come to attend a meeting called by English trade union leaders and a small group of companions from the Continent. This meeting gave birth to the prototype of all the main organisations of the workers' movement: the International Working Men's Association. Quickly, the International aroused passions all over Europe. It made class solidarity a shared ideal and inspired large numbers of women and men to struggle for the most radical of goals: changing the world. Thanks to its activity, workers were able to gain a clearer under-standing of the mechanisms of the capitalist mode of production, to become more aware of their own strength, and to develop new, more advanced forms of struggle for their rights.

When it was founded, the central driving force of the International was British trade unionism, the leaders of which were mainly interested in economic questions. They fought to improve the workers' conditions, but without calling capitalism into question. Hence, they conceived the International primarily as an instrument to prevent the import of manpower from abroad in the event of strikes. Then there were the mutualists, long dominant in France. In keeping with the theories of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, they opposed any working-class involvement in politics, and the strike as a weapon of struggle. The third group in importance were the Communists, opposing the existing system of production and espousing the necessity of political action to overthrow it. At its founding, the ranks of the International also included a number of workers inspired by utopian theories, and exiles having vaguely democratic ideas and cross-class conception who considered the International as an instrument for the issuing of general appeals for the liberation of oppressed peoples.

Securing the cohabitation of all these currents in the International, around a programme so distant from the approaches with which each had started out, was Karl Marx's great political accomplishment. His political talents enabled him to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable. It was Marx who gave a clear purpose to the International, and who achieved a non-exclusio-nary, yet firmly working class-based, political programme that won it mass support beyond sectarianism. The political soul of its General Council was always Marx: he drafted all its main resolutions and prepared almost all its congress reports.

Not Only Marx

Nevertheless, despite the impression created by the Soviet Union's propaganda and by the majority of the ideologically driven scholars who wrote on the International, this organisation was much more than a single individual, even one as brilliant as Marx.

The International was a vast social and political movement for the emancipation of the working classes; not, as it has often been written, the “creation of Marx”. It was made possible first of all by the labour movement's struggles in the 1860s. One of its basic rules—and the fundamental distinction from previous labour organisations—was “that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves”. The orthodox, dogmatic view of Marx's role in the Inter-national, according to which he mechanically applied to the stage of history a political theory already forged in the confines of his study, is totally divorced from the historical reality. Marx was essential to the International, but also the International had a very positive impact on Marx. Being directly involved in workers' struggles, Marx was stimulated to develop and sometimes revise his ideas, to put old certainties up for discussion and ask himself new questions, and, in particular, to sharpen his critique of capitalism by drawing the broad outlines of a communist society.

From late 1866 on, strikes intensified in many countries and formed the core of a new and important wave of mobilisations. The first major struggle to be won with the International's support was the Parisian bronze workers' strike in the winter of 1867. Also successful in their outcomes were the iron workers' strike at Marchienne, in Belgium, the long dispute in the Provençal mineral basin, and the Geneva building workers' strike. The scenario was the same in each of these events: workers in other countries raised funds in support of the strikers and agreed not to accept work that would have turned them into industrial mercenaries; as a result, the bosses were forced to compromise on many of the strikers' demands. These advances were greatly favoured by the diffusion of newspapers that either sympathised with the ideas of the International, or were veritable organs of the General Council. Both categories contributed to the development of class consciousness and the rapid circulation of news concerning the activity of the International.

Across Europe, the Association increased the number of its members and developed an efficient organisational structure. More symbolically significant still, at least for the hopes it initially awakened, was its new mooring on the other side of the Atlantic, where immigrants who had arrived in recent years began to establish the first sections of the International in the United States. However, the organisation suffered from two handicaps at birth that it would never overcome. Despite repeated exhortations from the General Council in London, it was unable either to cut across the nationalist character of its various affiliated groups or to draw in workers born in the “New World”. When the German, French and Czech sections founded the Central Committee of the International for North America, in December 1870, it was unique in the history of the International in having only “foreign-born” members. The most striking aspect of this anomaly was that the International in the United States never disposed of an English-language press organ. At the beginning of the 1870s, the International reached a total of 50 sections with a combined membership of 4000, but this was still only a tiny proportion of the American industrial workforce of more than two million.

Developments across Europe

In Europe, the situation was very different. For all the difficulties bound up with a diversity of nationalities, languages and political cultures, the International managed to achieve unity and coordination across a wide range of organisations and spontaneous struggles. Its greatest merit was to demonstrate the crucial importance of class solidarity and international cooperation.

The most significant moment of the Inter-national coincided with the Paris Commune. In March 1871, after the end of Franco-Prussian War, the workers of Paris rose against the new government of Adolphe Thiers and took power in the city. Henceforth, the International was at the centre of the storm, and gained enormous notoriety. For capitalists and the middle classes, it represented a great threat to the established order, whereas for workers it fuelled hopes for a world without exploitation and injustice. The labour movement had an enormous vitality and that was apparent everywhere. News-papers linked to the International increased in both number and overall sales. The insurrection of Paris fortified the workers' movement, impelling it to adopt more radical positions and to intensify its militancy. Once again, France showed that revolution was possible, clarifying its goal to be building a society different from that of capitalism, but also that, to achieve this, the workers would have to create durable and well-organised forms of political association. The next step to take then, as stated by Marx, was understanding that “the economic move-ment of the working class and its political action are indissolubly united”. That led the International to push for the foundation of a key instrument of the modern workers' movement: the political party (although it should be stressed that the understanding of this was much broader than that adopted by communist organisations after the October Revolution).

When the International dissolved itself in 1872, it was a very different organisation from what it had been at the time of its foundation: reformists no longer constituted the bulk of the organisation and anti-capitalism had become the political line of the whole Association (including new tendencies like the anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin). The wider picture, too, was radically different. The unification of Germany in 1871 confirmed the onset of a new age, with the nation-state the central form of political, legal and territorial identity.

The initial configuration of the International thus became outmoded, just as its original mission came to an end. The task was no longer preparing for and organising Europe-wide support for strikes, nor calling congresses proclaiming the usefulness of trade unions or the need to socialise the land and the means of production. Such themes were now part of the collective heritage of the organisation. After the Paris Commune, the real challenge for the workers' movement became how to organise to end the capitalist mode of production and overthrow the institutions of the bourgeois world.

In later decades, the workers' movement adopted a consistent socialist programme, expanded throughout Europe and then the rest of the world, and built new structures of supranational coordination. Apart from the continuity of names (the Second International of Karl Kautsky, from 1889-1916, the Third International of Lenin, from 1919 to 1943, or the Socialist International of the German Chancellor Willy Brandt, from 1951 till today), the various “Internationals” of socialist politics have referred—although in very different ways—to the legacy of the “First” International. Thus, its revolutionary message proved extraordinarily fertile, producing results over time much greater than those achieved during its existence.

A Dispersed Heritage

The International was the locus of some of the most famous debates of the labour movement, such as that on Communism or Anarchy. The congresses of the International were also where, for the first time, a major transnational organisation came to decisions about crucial issues, which had been discussed before its foundation, that subsequently became strategic points in the political programmes of socialist movements across the world. Among these are: the indispensable function of trade unions; the socialisation of land and means of production; the importance of participating in elections, and doing this through independent parties of the working class; and the conception of war as an inevitable product of the capitalist system.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything that had to do with socialism was wrongly associated with the Soviet Union and, therefore, hastily dismissed. Everywhere, the moderate Left embraced completely the agenda of neoliberalism and treated Marx as a skeleton of the past to be hidden in the closet. At the same time, what was left of the radical Left abandoned references to the dense theory of the classical labour movement and opted for “instant book thinkers” who did not provide much more than empty slogans that were, after a few years, quickly forgotten. In different ways, both social-democrats and neo-”Marxists” contributed to the general trend which held that socialism belonged to eternal oblivion.

With the most recent crisis of capitalism—that has sharpened even more than before the division between social classes—the political legacy of the organisation founded in London in 1864 has regained relevance, making its lessons today more timely than ever. The literature dealing with alternatives to capita-lism, which all but dried up after 1989, is showing signs of revival in many countries; and after 2014 there have been, all over the world, dozens of conferences and publications of articles, books and special issues of journals commemorating the 150th anniversary of the International.

At a time when socialist ideas have finally been liberated from the chains of Soviet ideology, a more faithful account of their genesis may well have important implications for future studies on the history of the labour movement, and for the contemporary struggle of the working classes.

Marcello Musto is an Assistant Professor of Sociological Theory at York University (Toronto). One of his latest books is entitled Workers Unite! The International 150 Years Later (Bloomsbury, 2014)

Rita Kanaujia, a widowed domestic help who lives in a slum in Chembur, Mumbai, desires to have her son admitted to the Junior Kindergarten class at Lokmanya Tilak High School in Tilak Nagar. Two of her daughters are already studying in Classes III and IV here. The school wanted her to make a payment of Rs 19,500, which she was incapable of after the death of her husband due to cancer in 2014. She moved the court. Due to the court's intervention the school gave a concession but still insisted on a payment of Rs 10,500. Rita agreed to make the payment in instalments to which the school didn't agree. Justices V.M. Kanade and M.S. Sonak asked the school not to deny the child education just because of the inability of the mother to pay the entire sum in one go. Justice Kanade even offered to pay the child's fees.

In 2011 the District Collector of Erode in Tamilnadu, A. Anandhakumar, got his daughter, A. Gopika, admitted to a Tamil medium panchayat union school in Kumuilankuttai giving instructions to the headmistress that his daughter would eat the midday meal served at school along with other students and should not be given any preferential treatment. The school toilet started getting cleaned twice and extra care was taken to keep the premises clean. Most importantly, the teachers became punctual. This shows what transformation can take place if children of senior government officials start attending government schools.

While I was on a fast from June 6 to 15, 2016 at Gandhi Statue, Hazratganj, Lucknow deman-ding implementation of the Allahabad High Court order that children of everybody receiving a government salary must attend government schools, Ramesh, who pulls a rickshaw in Lucknow and hails from Village Nakki Madhia in Mishrikh area of adjacent Sitapur District, used to come regularly to express his solidarity. He also sat at the fast site on some days for several hours. He recently wrote a note saying that people should consider who is more important for them—a Chief Minister who merely eats with the poor but doesn't agree to send his children to the same school where the children of poor study or a person who goes hungry so that children of poor and rich could study together? This is the best compliment I've got related to my recent movement. Ramesh has become a campaigner for the cause. He has now hung a placard from his rickshaw and distributes pamphlets demanding common school system.

Ramesh is also informing his fellow villagers about the provision of Right to Education Act, 2009 which offers admission to children belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker sections in any nearby school of their choice up to 25 per cent strength at the entry level and subsequently free education from Classes I to VIII. Two of my neighbours, one on either side, have also used this Act to submit applications on behalf of their domestic help.

Sixtyone-year-old Rajni Saxena is a resident of A-895 Indira Nagar in Lucknow. Her domestic help, Nagma, has been with her for the last 20 years. Nagma was so interested in education that with Rajni Saxena's help she slowly picked up even reading English. After getting married to Raju and the birth of her first child she was worried about getting Mohammed Imran some decent education. The husband was least interested. Imran was admitted to Dabble Academy where his monthly fee is Rs 1250. Considering that Nagma's monthly income is mere Rs 4000, one can imagine how she must have been struggling to make both ends meet. Rajni Saxena decided to use the RTE Act so that Imran could get education in the same school free of cost upto Class VIII. She guided Nagma to submit her applications for getting her income and caste certificates made from the District Magistrate's office. With the receipt issued, after Nagma was made to run four times, Rajni Saxena went and personally submitted Imran's application to Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) of Lucknow, Praveen Mani Tripathi, on June 23, 2016. Gurukul Academy, St. Dominic, City Montessori School and Dabble Academy have been given as possible preferences where Imran would like to study.

Yasmin Mahmud lives in A-885, Indira Nagar. Her 27-year-old domestic help for the last few years, Jamrul Nisha, from Baddupur in adjoining Barabanki District is separated from husband after her first child, Zulekha Bano, was born. Zulekha is now seven years old and Jamrul is worried about her education. Sixtysix-year-old Yasmin Mahmud, who recently lost her husband, a retired Indian Railways officer, decided to take the initiative and get Zulekha admitted to some school in the neighbourhood under the RTE Act. She asked her daughter-in-law, Tasneem Mahmud, an Image and Transformation consultant and trainer of soft skills, to go with Jamrul and get her forms submitted for getting the income and residence certificates made. Zulekha's form was also submitted with the BSA on the same day, June 23. The preferences of schools mentioned on Zulekha's form include Springdale, City Montessori School, City International and Gurukul Academy.

When the BSA takes a decision, hopefully in favour of children, they will study in the best of schools in their neighbourhood.

These are inspiring examples of several happenings from different parts of the country. It is a narration of the change the country is going through in its thinking towards education. While on one hand the poor have become conscious of the importance of education for their children, the elite have, at last, accepted the fact that children of the poor deserve the same education that their children avail of. It is heartening to note how some ordinary housewives have started taking a proactive stand in getting children of their domestic help admitted into good schools so that the children of these labourers could break the vicious cycle of poverty and do something more worthwhile with their lives. It also appears that the Judiciary has an important role if the Legislature or the Executive will drag its feet on the issue of implementation of the Common School System.

Noted social activist and Magsaysay awardee Dr Sandeep Pandey was recently sacked this year from the IIT-BHU where he was a Visiting Professor on the charge of being a “Naxalite” engaging in “anti-national” activities. He was elected along with Prof Keshav Jadhav the Vice-President of the Socialist Party (India) at its founding conference at Hyderabad on May 28-29, 2011.

by S.G. Vombatkere

Neoliberalism is free-market fundamentalism. The central dogma of neoliberalism is economic growth, achieved by:

• increasing competition through deregulation (watering-down of social, welfare, health, labour and environmental laws), and opening domestic markets to foreign competition; and

• severely limiting the role of the state by privatisation of state assets and liberalisation of economic policies, simultaneously increasing corporate influence and involvement in gover-nance.

This agenda of economic growth has become the focus of economic thinking and is institu-tionalised in countries across the globe with impetus imparted by the economic clout of the IMF, WB, WTO. The reason that this was accepted by countries across the globe is that it admirably suited the elite-politician-corporate nexus which governs all countries, including democracies.

Neoliberalism is personal (corporations are legal persons) profit-at-any-cost from capital-intensive economic growth, reckoned using economic parameters like GDP growth and per capita consumption. This model of economic development promotes debt, global trade and consumerism, subordinating or negating democracy, equity, social justice and freedom. Indeed, Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, speaking at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002), said: “Let us face an uncomfortable truth. The model of development that we are accustomed to has been fruitful for a few and flawed for many. A path to prosperity that ravages the environment and leaves a majority of humankind behind in squalor will soon prove to be a dead-end road for everyone.”

But the IMF-WB continues to advocate neoliberal economics, which is “maximum market freedom and minimum state intervention”. In effect, the government “maintains the interests of the ultra-rich”, who control the government to confine itself “to creating and defending markets, protecting private property and defending the realm”. Thus the government's functions are gradually taken over by private enterprise “which is prompted by the profit motive to supply essential services” with the aim of achieving “corporate freedom from democracy”. [Ref. 1]

India's New Economic Policy

Over the decades the IMF-WB, as the world's foremost lending agencies and purveyors of knowledge, have heavily influenced Third World governments. Beginning in the 1970s, the WB's global training and outreach programmes targeted opinion-makers and decision-makers like Central and State legislators, bureaucrats, technical specialists, journalists, teachers and civil society leaders. They were trained in WB Institutes and partner institutions, including reputed Western universities, in subjects related to economic development. [Ref. 2]

The WB thus trained influential persons to generate debt and manage it through the IMF-recommended structural adjustment, because “debt is an efficient tool [which] ensures access to other people's raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms”. [Ref. 3]

Democratic processes were bypassed and governments influenced at various levels, and public opinion moulded towards a radical change in beliefs and perceptions about the nature of public goods and the balance between government responsibility and private-sector opportunity. All this constituted coercive introduction of neoliberal policies.

India's New Economic Policy, formulated by Dr Manmohan Singh as the Union Finance Minister in 1991, was specifically about the IMF-WB-orches-trated economic reforms including structural adjustment effected by a slew of measures like currency devaluation, liberalising the economy, removing subsidies, privatising public assets, relaxing environmental and labour laws, and deregulating and lowering standards to encourage foreign investment. The NEP-1991 was effectively furthered by the thousands of WB-trained opinion-, decision- and policy-makers in govern-ments and educational institutions. The NEP-1991 was pursued with dedication by successive Indian governments over nearly three decades under PMs P.V. Narasimha Rao, A.B. Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. Currently, PM Narendra Modi's government is aggressively accelerating the same economic policy and widening the economic gap, with unpredictable social consequences.

Opposition to Neoliberalism

The effects of neoliberal policies, led by the IMF-WB-GATT, were debt crises, severe environmental degradation and crashing Third World economies. More specifically, it caused reduced public spending on health and education, currency collapse, growing unemployment, rising food and fuel prices, and falling wages. Spontaneous worldwide people's campaigns opposed the displacement of popu-lations due to mega-projects and consequent environmental degradation. In India, hundreds of large, medium and small dams in the Narmada river valley, constructed with WB loans, were questioned by the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Besides these grassroots movements on all continents, intellectuals also consistently critiqued the neoliberal policies but these critiques were rarely, if ever, given half-decent coverage in the corporate-owned main-stream media. Chile was an extreme case, where opponents of neoliberalism were liquidated in their thousands. [Ref. 1]

Neoliberalism in India

Successive Indian governments over nearly two decades under PMs Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and now Modi, have moved towards a closer political relationship with the USA under successive Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. Politics between and within countries is increasingly driven by economic considerations, and the cutting edge of the strategic India-US relationship, declared as civilian nuclear and defence cooperation, is finally based upon congruence of economic policy.

This policy remains firmly founded upon economic reforms advocated and subtly enforced by the IMF-WB-GATT trinity, as built into India's NEP-1991. It also led to India joining the WTO in 1995 without discussion in Parliament. Thus, India's economic policy position is currently dictated by the IMF-WB-WTO combine, which is largely under the USA's control.

Corporate control of government functions in the USA has for long been blatantly obvious. In India, beginning with the introduction of the NEP-1991, the effects of neoliberal policies have become starkly obvious in the last decade. Neoliberal economics has enlarged the economic gap between growing numbers of Indian dollar-billionaires and the less-than-Rs 20-per-day vast majority.

Neoliberalism is Alive and Well

In India, neoliberalism has grown strong roots, and Big Money has entered governance, beginning with influencing the election process itself and into all democratic processes, to influence the executive, legislative and even the judicial functions of the state.

The Radia tapes scandal and the ongoing Essar/Ambani tapes episode, which alleges corporate collusion with the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to bypass constitutional processes, are very scary, to say the least. Since it spans a period of about 15 years, including PMOs beginning with PM A.B. Vajpayee's period, it is evident that regardless of the party in power, corporates influence governments in their own interest, and the public or national interest in governance remain a poor second.

Umpteen evidences of neoliberal policies can be provided, but three examples are quoted here.

One, Budget. In the Budget 2015-16, Rs 5.49 lakh crores was written off as “revenue foregone” by the government against corporate income tax, excise duty and customs duty. If that is what the present NDA-2 Government did, in the period 2005-06 to 2014-15 of UPA rule, the total revenue foregone was Rs 42 lakh crores, of which customs duty revenue foregone on gold, diamonds and jewellery alone was Rs 4.38 lakh crores. At the same time, merely Rs 34,700 crores was allocated for the MGNREGA, and many poor people, who had managed to get the guaranteed employment, have not been paid their miserable wages for months.

Two, Finance. Vijay Mallya was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 with the support of the Congress and JD(S), and for a second term in 2010 with the BJP's backing. His debts are estimated to exceed Rs 4000 crores with the public sector banks, which have kindly assisted him by “restructuring” his loans, providing fresh loans of public money to pay the interest on earlier loans on which he had defaulted. And he is among the smallest of several corporate captains who are defaulters, together forming the bulk of the growing NPAs of the public sector banks. This is evidence of the politician-corporate nexus across political parties. However, the same public sector banks frequently announce auction-sale of properties of persons who have defaulted on loans of one or two lakhs.

Three, Transportation. On June 16, 2016, as part of economic reforms, the NDA-2 Government approved the National Civil Aviation Policy to increase air connectivity, make it easy for new airlines to operate abroad, permit European and SAARC country airlines to function in India, and plan new airports. It also made air travel cheaper in India. When air travel is the least fuel-efficient transportation mode, and even “cheap” air travel is possible only for those who are already well-off, investment in this sector clearly favours the wealthy. Cheaper and more fuel-efficient transpor-tation modes to serve the majority receive less investment and attention. In the railways, heavy investment is planned for high-fare bullet trains, when ordinary trains for ordinary people remain wholly inadequate. In UPA times (2013), the government announced that bulk diesel consumers like railways and state transport corporations would have to purchase diesel at market-determined rates, while diesel purchased at fuel outlets (for private car owners) would continue to receive subsidy, displaying the tilt away from greater public good while keeping the wealthy happy.

Over at least the past two decades, there are literally hundreds of ongoing people's movements all over India, protesting against one or other proposed, ongoing or completed infrastructure project, or against State and Central governments' policies and laws which actively violate, deny or dilute people's constitutional rights and freedoms in favour of corporate interests. The foregoing examples are barely representative.

It is noteworthy that Dr Manmohan Singh was a WB employee before he became the Union Finance Minister and later the Prime Minister for two full terms. Also, when he first assumed office as the PM, he immediately nominated Montek Ahluwalia, who joined him from the IMF as his Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. The present RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan, was the Chief Economist in the IMF. This is adequate demonstration how the neoliberal agenda has been very effectively imposed on India.

However, even though neoliberalism is alive and well in India and apparently in the rest of the world too, clouds appear to be gathering on the horizon.

From the Temple of Neoliberalism

An internal study group of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently reported that their decades-long advocacy and practice of neoliberal economics have serious failings. The Report is titled “Neoliberalism Oversold?”, with the boldfaced sentence: “Instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality, thereby jeopardising durable expansion.” [Ref.4 ]

The Report recognises that a major effect of neoliberal economics has been to heighten economic inequality between and within nations. As Benjamin Dangl wryly puts it, “They were only about 40 years late.” [Ref. 5]

While the Report claims benefits of the neoliberal ideology (“there is much to cheer in the neoliberal agenda”), it admits that it has not delivered on the following aspects:

• benefits in terms of growth are difficult to establish, the costs of increased inequality are prominent, and

• increased inequality hurts the sustainability of growth.

Forbes' article by Tim Worstall [Ref. 6] decries the arguments of failure of neoliberalism by quoting Financial Times: “.... the article is more a reflection of the vigorous debates under way inside the IMF than an official take-down of the free market policies the fund has long advocated.”

One observes that the holy grail of hitherto unassailable Hayek-Friedman economic growth has been questioned from within the temple of neoliberalism itself. Even if one admires the atmosphere of “vigorous debate” within the IMF and the courage of the analysts of “Neoliberalism Oversold?”, one cannot help surmising that questioning what was unquestionable for 40-plus years is a step towards “take-down of [IMF's] free market policies”, especially in the light of 40-years-long well-argued criticism, and intellectual and grassroots objections to free-market policies.

It is curious that Worstall's supportive article, dated May 28, 2016, predates the IMF's “Neolibera-lism Oversold?” which is dated June 1, 2016. Notwithstanding that the IMF has admitted to certain failings of neoliberalism and not to its failure, the failings that it has admitted to are so central to the success of neoliberalism that it is tantamount to admission of failure.

Benefits and Costs

The free market has long been touted as the best means to create growth and lift people out of poverty. Accordingly, the benefits claimed in the Report are:

• global trade has rescued millions from abject poverty, and

• privatisation of state-owned enterprises has

in many instances

emphasis supplied led to more efficient provision of services and lowered the fiscal burden on governments.

The claimed benefit of rescuing millions from abject poverty is disputable because governments have long been manipulating statistics to show decreasing levels of poverty so as to provide an attractive investment climate which will improve economic growth. The second claimed benefit is qualified by the phrase “in many instances”, which implies that in many other instances, privatisation was not successful if not actually harmful. Also if, as admitted, “benefits in terms of growth are difficult to establish”, how can “efficient provision of services ... “ by privatisation of state-owned assets be claimed except for specific instances?

A telling sentence in the Report speaks of uncertain benefits and certain costs: “Although growth benefits are uncertain, costs in terms of increased economic volatility and crisis frequency seem more evident.” And as Benjamin Dangl puts it, “Instead of delivering growth, the report explains that neoliberal policies of austerity and lowered regulation for capital movement have in fact increased inequality and this inequality might itself undercut growth.” [Ref. 5]

Further, in a masterly understatement, the Report says: “... the benefits of

some

policies that are an important part of the neoliberal agenda appear to have been

somewhat

overplayed.”emphasis supplied It also goes on to say, “... there is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both the level and the durability of growth”, even while the economic gap between the one per cent haves and the 99 per cent have-nots widens, and social tensions mount.

The Report states in the very first paragraph, that the phrase “neoliberal agenda [is] a label used more by the critics than the architects of the policies”. That the authors of the Report use the phrase repeatedly throughout the text indicates that the thrust of the Report is admission of the failings of the neoliberal agenda. Perhaps they claim its benefits (“there is much to cheer in the neoliberal agenda”) to maintain their credibility within the IMF and ensure the not unfavourable internal review of the Report. However, the fact that the Report has seen the light of the day does credit to both the authors and IMF.

Is the Neoliberal Ideology Unravelling?

The present commentary is written in the hope that governments, economists, teachers and proponents of the neoliberal free-market economy, and the politician-corporate nexus, which drives the neoliberal agenda, will begin to understand that the growth-at-any-cost ideology cannot be sustained from the points of view of democracy, social justice, economic inequality, environment (as a source of material resources and a sink for wastes), ecology and climate change. They also need to understand that continuing in the current direction is self-defeating.

Ben Geier opines: “Neoliberalism ... is not going to be overtaken by another ideology overnight. But the IMF paper signals that the system is starting to tear apart at the seams.” [Ref. 7]

There are undoubtedly many who may pray that neoliberalism will drop dead tomorrow. They are sure to be disappointed, because it will not. Not even in the next year. Neoliberalism is a system fathered by its high priest, Milton Friedman, based upon an economic paradigm which was created by the input of enormous energies, and which grew and matured over decades. It resulted in huge benefit to very few and enormous harm to the vast majority of humans, with irreversible damage to the environment and all other living species.

The publication of the Report “Neoliberalism Oversold?”, from the very temple of neolibera-lism, may be the writing on the wall indicating the terminal decline of neoliberalism. It gives hope to those who believe that democracy, social equity and justice, and freedom are vital for a sustainable future. When and how it will finally collapse is in the womb of time, but that is a small consolation for the many millions who have died, suffered and continue to suffer the irreversible ill-effects of inequality due to neoliberalism.

For their part, the 99 per cent clearly understand that freedom will never be presented on a platter by the one per cent power structure, for no system will be tamely surrendered by those who profit from it. The 99 per cent will certainly renew efforts to grasp freedom with both hands and claim it for their own. But what the 99 per cent will do with that freedom, and what sort of economic system will emerge from the turbulent transition is also in the womb of time.

References

1. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine; The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2007.

2. Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalisation, Yale University Press, 2005.

3. Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990.

4. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani and Davide Furceri, “Neoliberalism Oversold?”, Report of IMF Finance and Development, June 2016, Volume 53, Number 2, pp. 38-41.

5. Benjamin Dangl, “After Empowering the 1% and Impoverishing Millions, IMF Admits Neoliberalism a Failure”, <http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06...> ; Counterpunch, June 1, 2016.

6. Tim Worstall, “The IMF Has Not Rejected Neoliberalism Nor Austerity: Rather, They've Examined Them”, May 28, 2016. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...>

7. Ben Geier, “Even the IMF Now Admits Neoliberalism Has Failed”, http://fortune.com/2016/06/03/imf-neolibera lism-failing/

Major General S.G. Vombatkere, VSM, retired in 1996 as the Additional DG Discipline and Vigilance in Army HQ AG's Branch. He is a member of the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). With over 480 published papers in national and international journals and seminars, his current area of interest is strategic and development-related issues.

by l.k. sharma

Britain is Britain and the Continent is Continent. Proven again by Britain's decision to leave the European Union. It is more than the Channel that divides the two plots of land.

The flood of immigrants and loss of sovereignty were important considerations for those who voted to “Leave”. Their decision was made easier by the residual hereditary antipathy, cultural differences and differing geopolitical conside-rations.

Britain and the European Union had entered a marriage of convenience notwithstanding the historical antipathy at the popular level and mutual suspicions at the official level. A hidden reality surfaced when the referendum result was announced.

In the geo-political sphere, Britain goes all the way with the USA, exulting in its special relationship. France and Germany tend to sound a discordant note. It became quite evident in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq or in the reactions to the illegal killing of Osama bin Laden. It is currently evident in policies towards Russia.

As strategic partners led by America, their approach to war and peace while confronting a perceived common enemy differed often. Britain led by Tony Blair was most enthusiastic about waging war against Saddam Hussein. Other EU member-nations were not.

Now that the Chilcot Commission has castigated Tony Blair for dragging Britain into an illegal Iraq, one recalls that in Europe, Blair stood as the most trigger-happy leader. The opinion polls and debates in the run-up to the invasion highlighted the differences between Britain and other EU nations.

Incidentally, the disastrous outcome of the invasion on Iraq made Blair's participation in the pro-EU campaign during the referendum counter-productive. Commentators say that the Chilcot Report will further increase the people's distrust of the political establishment. This was one factor that influenced the voters who wanted Britain to exit from the EU.

Prime Minister Tony Blair advocated with messianic zeal the case for war. Blair gave the impression that it was not George Bush who was pushing him but that he considered it Britain's moral duty to fight Saddam Hussein!

That was not what some other European leaders said in those days. The French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, powerfully argued in the UN the case against the war. He mesmerised the audience with a scintillating speech and got the loudest applause in that session.

The French Foreign Minister's logic or the then French President's warning against invading Iraq only led to the vilification of France in the British media. Some in Britain, like most in the US, gleefully called the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys. The British have the self-image of being brave warriors while they see the French as wimps and appeasers.

France and Germany were together in opposing the war. The German response disappointed US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld so much that he made an insulting remark against that European nation.

Once the Chilcot report was released, the French media promptly recalled the warning given by Jacques Chirac who had opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. The then French President had warned a week before the invasion in 2003 that war would only bring death and misery and occupation of Iraq would be a nightmare.

Blair may have been encouraged by the opinion polls indicating that he was leading a brave and exceptional nation for ever ready to demonstrate its fighting prowess. Only 41 per cent of those polled in Briton opposed any military action against Iraq. In Spain, 74 per cent opposed the war. In France, 60 per cent said “No”. And in Germany, 50 per cent opposed a war.

In the Gallup poll, the second question was: if military action goes ahead against Iraq, should your country support this action? In the UK 44 per cent said yes and only 41 per cent said no. In Spain 73 per cent said no. In Germany 71 per cent said no. In France 61 per cent said no to supporting military action against Iraq.

This specific issue of the Iraq war apart, there is a long history of Britain being suspicious and fearful of France and Germany. In recent times, British leaders have been anxious about Germany dominating the EU. Margaret Thatcher had opposed the German reunification for the same reason.

The British leaders gain political mileage by taking a strong stand against the EU. Every British Prime Minister promises to be tough while negotiating with the EU. Margaret Thatcher's political stock shot up when in 1984, she got “our money back” from the European Community by forcing France and Germany to reverse an unfair budget deal and grant Britain a huge rebate.

Euroscepticism is the dominating political philosophy of a distinct and powerful section of the Conservative Party. Every Tory Prime Minister has to keep an eye on the Eurosceptics. John Major was so irked by them that he called three of his anti-Europe Cabinet colleagues “bastards”. One of them later pointed out with pride that the bastards like him had kept Britain out of the Euro currency (cherishing the Pound Sterling)!

It was primarily to silence the Eurosceptics in his party that Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the referendum on EU and led the campaign against leaving the EU. He was confident of winning it and of Britain continuing in the European Union.

At the popular level mutual hostility between Britain and another EU member-nation can be witnessed on the football field, in the headlines of the British tabloids and in private conversations among the elderly Britons.

British nationalism, at an earlier stage, strengthened itself by pitting Britain against France in the cultural field. The nationalists fuelled resentment against the French culture and language that had gripped the imagination of Britain's higher classes in Britain. Of course, the history of wars made it easier to exacerbate the anti-French feelings.

Believe it or not, garlic divides Britain from France. The French revere it as the centre of their culinary culture. The British hate it, though its consumption has gone up. In Britain, one also comes across the term, garlic-eating surrender monkeys. The garlic-eating French used to be ridiculed in Britain where one detects a trace of envy of the French culture and cuisine and of its intellectuals.

The antipathy that had infected British society in the earlier centuries is best illustrated by the hanging of a monkey in Hartlepool during the Napoleonic wars. The monkey was recovered from a French ship that was wrecked on the coast of Hartlepool. It was found dressed in a French uniform. The folklore celebrates the hanging in songs!

Religious differences contributed to this hereditary antipathy as the anti-Catholic sentiments became very strong in Britain in the 16th century. Then the French Revolution was hardly appreciated in a monarchy where class mattered, as it still does. The revolutions are enacted by ill-educated peasants and urban poor.

The plan to connect Britain with France through a Channel Tunnel used to conjure up the fear that it would demolish the defensible island-status of their nation. The tunnel plan was seen as a conspiracy to infect Britain with a dreaded disease. When the tunnel provided the first land link between Britain and the Continent, half the British population was convinced that rabies would arrive from France! The British Government installed anti-rabbi electric fences. The anti-rabbi measures were announced in the House of Lords some three years before the Channel Tunnel became operational in 1994.

Of course, the government could do nothing to allay the fears of immigration, terrorism and outright invasion through a tunnel. British Minister Alan Clark feared the “Channel Tunnel would lead to job losses and the risk of foreign invasion”. He was merely retelling the very old stories that Napoleon's army or Hitler's storm-troopers would launch a sneaky attack through a tunnel!

The wars between Britain and France or the cultural conflict that continued much longer are part of history dead and gone but when nationalistic passions run high, the older generations of Britons tend to remember it all. This history does not haunt the educated young Britons who love to go to France, and who depend on the EU funding for high education and research.

The EU bureaucracy in Brussels always came in for constant criticism and ridicule in the British media. The Brussels functionaries were lampooned in the tabloids and on one occasion, a tabloid abused a top official of the EU in a screaming front-page headline.

Such factors and conflicting as well as common economic interests will influence the British negotiations for leaving the EU. The minefield of complex trade and tariff arrangements lies ahead. The next Prime Minister will have to show to Britons that he is getting concessions without giving any.

The European leaders face a tough choice. If they are generous to Britain that has rebelled and left their club, it will encourage some other member-nations to think of quitting. If they are too tough and teach Britain a lesson, they may also be affected by the pain that an economic disruption will cause.

Thus Britain and EU, who had come together after endless delays, face the divorce proceedings that will be quite prolonged.

The author is a senior journalist and writer who worked in India and abroad (notably Britain) in several major newspapers. Now retired, he is a free- lancer. He was in the British capital at the time of the referendum on whether or not the UK should remain in the EU, and wrote an article on the issue; it was carried in Mainstream (July 2, 2016).

EDITORIAL

Once again the judiciary has come to the rescue of the democratic forces.

As was aptly mentioned in The Times of India today, the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court yesterday ordered reinstatement of the Nabam Tuki-led Congress Government in Arunachal Pradesh pulling the rug from under the Kalikho Pul Government—it was a unanimous decision of the Bench that “dealt a heavy bow to the Centre, which is still smarting from the setback it suffered barely two months ago when the SC struck down Central rule in Uttarakhand, clearing the way for the Harish Rawat-led Congress Govern-ment to return”.

The latest SC judgement doubtless amounts to a severe indictment of the Arunachal Pradesh Governor, J.P. Rajkhowa, for his unwarranted steps devoid of any constitutional backing.

The SC verdict, which upholds democratic principles and values in both letter and spirit, is definitely a setback to the BJP's nefarious designs at least in the North-East for the present. There were strong fears that after Arunachal the ruling party at the Centre would play the same game and destabilise the State governments of Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram. Hopefully the SC verdict would help stall all such attempts.

Meanwhile the events in the Kashmir Valley have caused serious concern among all democrats including informed observers. Following the encounter killing of the young Kashmiri militant, Burhan Wani, the insurgency has taken a new turn. With three more killed in fresh violence and firing in different areas the death toll has risen till this point in time to 36 and is bound to rise further. Reports also disclose that there are till date 20 patients who have suffered pellet injuries in the eye. As Happymon Jacob, Associate Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament Studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, observed in a perceptive article in The Hindu,

The writing on the wall has been clear to those who cared to read it: that Kashmir would soon bounce back to the days of home-grown insurgency, with religious radicalisation acting as a force multiplier this time. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in New Delhi, in its impatient race for power in Srinagar, did not care to read the signs, and when told, it didn't care to listen.

When he was enjoying his stay in Africa recently, the PM remained totally unconcerned about the Kashmir situation. (What a contrast with US President Barack Obama who cut short his visit to Europe on learning of the developments in Dallas!) However, on his return to New Delhi, Modi did issue a statement calling upon the security forces to desist from the disproportionate use of force. But one wonders if it was a case of too little too late.

Unless immediate measures are taken to tackle the fast-deteriorating situation, it would be most difficult to bring the Valley back to normalcy. For that to happen military means must give way to political dialogue. Are the authorities in charge listening?

July 14 S.C.

by Jajati K. Pattnaik and R. P. Pradhan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Tehran marks a new geopolitical beginning in the Persian Gulf region putting Chabahar in the grand chess board of India's strategic calculus in the emerging Asian geo-spatial architecture. On the other hand, when a strong Asian century and Asian identity is visibly in the making, China, responding to the growing Indo-American cosiness and ‘Asia Pivot',1 cautioned India of not falling into the Western trap. In the context of growing strategic and economic complexity in the Asia-Pacific and the South China regional and maritime space, India has kept her American partnership vibrant while opening a multi-format political and economic engagement taking shape with China itself—a format of cooperation and conflict at the same time. India-China cooperation is a wish-list. However, China's String of Pearls2 culminating at Gwadar port and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) signalled real-time challenge to India's strategic interests in the region. While the Indian media and South Block in Delhi are quite jubilant with India's strategic victory in Iran, Islamabad and Beijing have reasons to be red-faced over the Indo-Iranian strategic Chabahar port deal, considered as a counter anchor to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

India's Maritime Goodwill Curve

India philosophically positions herself towards a Maritime Commons orientation and strategises for independent foreign policy of goodwill without any overt confrontation with the Chinese. However, Washington's Asia rebalancing and larger maritime strategic positioning of other stakeholders leaves India with little option than to look for reliable strategic collaborations that can stand the push-pull at times of eventuality. The Chabahar port deal therefore, like Port development in Bangladesh, is more strategic than mere access collaboration.

While China is poised to strategise the String of Pearls over eighteen port facilities stretching from the Chongjin port in North Korea to the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and Luanda port in Angola, two very prominent developments in the regional maritime space in the last few months have been very disappointing from the standpoint of Beijing's interests. In February, Bangladesh scrapped the China-proposed deep sea port, Payra, and India seems to have wide options.3 Meanwhile, Japan is also expected to develop another deep sea port—Matarbari—in Cox's Bazar for Bangladesh. In May this year, India successfully and strategically dislodged China from its critical ambition in the Persian Gulf. Just about 72 km away from Gwadar port, India signed the strategic Chabahar port agreement with Iran which analysts describe as India's calibrated stroke against China's expanding regional network. Net implication: India possibly plucked away a few pearls leaving the Chinese string scrambled and shattered. In the process, India is carefully but creatively crafting a strategically reliable Maritime Goodwill Curve in the region which is likely to be complimented with Japanese capital and Washington's Asia Pivot equations. China's ‘Nine Dashes'4 against all her maritime boundary countries are also smaller but sources of strategic relevance to the Indian Maritime Goodwill Curve.

Chabahar: Geopolitical Anchor

India and Iran are inevitable to each other in the larger geo-strategic paradigm of Asian connecti-vity. India's geographical setting is perceived in the broader canvas of the Indian Ocean and its strategic depth in the west spreads up to the eastern coast of Africa through the Strait of Hormuz, and in the east it extends up to the South China Sea including the Strait of Malacca, and in the south it expands up to the Antarctic.5 Conversely, Iran‘s geostrategic location can add to India's benefits in securing its national interest, and Indo-Iranian partner-ship accords primacy to materialise their objectives in this extended strategic orbit.

During Prime Minister Modi's visit, India and Iran signed a dozen agreements like a contract to develop the strategic Chabahar port; a pact to set up an aluminum plant; and one on laying a railway line for India's connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Moreover, India, Iran and Afghanistan also signed a tripartite agreement on Chabahar port for a land-cum-sea corridor for the transit of goods to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries circumventing Pakistan.

It is pertinent to mention here that Afgha-nistan is the land-connect to Central, South and West Asia and it could be a major transit point for trade and energy between India and Iran. Further, the 217-kilometre Zaranj-Delaram highway, built by India in 2009, is linked to the ‘Garland highway' of Afghanistan connecting Zaranaj with Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz.6 Thus, Indian and Iranian goods from the Chabahar port across the land corridor of Iran would traverse Zaranj and other cities of Afghanistan through these highways. On the other hand, goods from Afghanistan would disembark at the Chabahar port through the land corridor of Iran.7 So, India and Iran using the land route of Afghanistan can transport their goods to the Central Asian countries. As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, “Chabahar port can serve as a point of connectivity between different countries, especially India and Afghanistan. It can also play a pivotal role in Iran-India cooperation on various industries including aluminum, steel, and petrochemicals.”8 Rouhani added: “To develop Chabahar port and the railway in the region, we can benefit from the investments made by other Asian and European countries as well as their technology.”9

Source: http://www.railnews.co.in/india-iran-plan-to-build-rail-link-to-connect-chabahar-port-faces-hurdles

Chabahar: Gateway to INSTC

Chabahar is the gateway to the International North-South Transport (INSTC) Corridor project which, in terms of time and space, affords better opportunities to India to have access with Europe and Russia. The corridor links India and Iran with Europe and Russia involving a four-fold transportation process. These are: (a) in the first stage, there would be trans-shipment of goods from the ports in India to the ports of Bandarabbas and Chabahar in Iran; (b) in the second stage, there would be transit of goods by the Iranian Railways to the ports of Bandar Anjali and Bandar Amirabad on the shores of the Caspian Sea; (c) in the third stage, there would be passage of goods through the Caspian Sea to the port of Astrakhan in Russia; and (d) in the fourth stage, there would be transit of goods through road and railways in Russia across Eastern Europe to Central and Western Europe.10

An optimistic introspection of the project indicates that it would fetch gains for the parties engaged in it. One major advantage of the North-South corridor is that it covers 6245 kilometres, whereas the present maritime transport route across the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea is 16,129 kilometres.11

Undoubtedly, the North-South Corridor would reduce the cost of transportation by thirty per cent and transit period by forty per cent.12 Further, if this is connected with the ongoing South-East Asian Transport Corridor, it would provide an outlet to both India and Iran for better economic integration with other regional economic groupings such as the European Union (EU) and Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). However, the realisation of the project hinges upon the political will as well as interest of the international investors and transport bidders to undertake such a mega- project. As Nitin Gadkari, the Union Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister, said in Tehran, ‘The inking of commercial contract to build and run the strategic port of Chabahar will help India gain a foothold in Iran and win access to Afghanistan, Russia and Europe, thus circumventing Pakistan.” He further added: “The distance between Kandla and the Chabahar port is less than the distance between New Delhi and Mumbai, and so what this agreement does is to enable us quick movement of goods first to Iran and then onwards to Afghanistan and Russia through a new rail and road link.”13

Chabahar: Corridor of Gas Pipeline

Chabahar is highly significant from India's geo-economic perspective and it could be a potential corridor of the Indo-Iran gas pipeline project. Iran has the second biggest natural gas reserves in the world with proven natural gas reserves of 1187 Tcf. Out of this; more than 60 per cent of Iran's natural gas reserves are situated in the offshore fields.14 With the lifting of sanctions, India is poised for deeper energy collaboration with Iran to meet its growing energy needs and is geared up to import around 400,000 barrels per day in 2016-2017.15 New Delhi is exploring several possible options for the extraction of gas from Iran.

There are two possible routes: one is an overland gas pipeline and the other is an offshore gas pipeline. It is pertinent to mention here that the overland gas pipeline (Iran-Pakistan-India) called the IPI is now a past episode, almost left abandoned. The idea of the IPI gas pipeline, termed as the ‘peace pipeline', was broached in 1993. The proposed gas pipeline, covering around 2275 kilometres, would have started from the South Pars gasfield of Iran in the Persian Gulf and after passing through the Khuzdar city of Pakistan, one of its branches would have reached Karachi and the other India by Multan.16 But Pakistan's obstinate approach largely marred the prospects of the IPI.

Moreover, India had also genuine concerns over the safety and security of the gas pipeline given the nature of the recent spate of terrorism in Pakistan. In this circumstance, the only alternative lies in having an Iran-India offshore gas pipeline. It is being viewed that the underwater gas pipeline, if it starts from the Chabahar port in Iran, would cover around 684 miles across the bed of the Arabian Sea to deliver gas at the Gujarat coast.17 In this context, Chabahar would prove immensely useful to meet India's growing energy needs bridging the gap in the demand-supply mechanism between India and Iran.

Conclusion

In the larger geopolitical context, the Chabahar port deal is no doubt a strategic victory for India. However, Chabahar for India is only a small segment of the larger strategic configu-ration. Similar to the Chinese String of Pearls, India does have a lager vision of port and maritime collaborations in as many as twenty-four locations. However, India does not match with China in terms of real time investment like US $ 40 billion Silk Route Fund or the huge and multi-format investments/assistance in the ASEAN region. What goes in favour of India, however, is that a strategic alternative to China is slowly but visibly taking shape in the region and New Delhi for all practical purposes is not alone.

List of Agreements /MoUs signed during the visit of the Prime Minister to Iran

(May 23, 2016)

MoU Description

(I) India-Iran Cultural The objective is to

Exchange Programme extend the CEP for the period 2016-2019 covering the areas of culture and art; radio,
TV, mass media and cinema; and relevant general and financial terms.

(II) MoU between The MoU seeks to

the Ministry of create a Joint

External Affairs (MEA) Secretary/Director

of India and the General policy

Ministry of Foreign dialogue as well as

MoU Description

Affairs (MoFA) of Iran on Policy Dialogue encouraging new institutional mechanisms between between Governments and Interaction between think tanks on both sides. There is also a Think Tanks. provision for a conference on contemporary issues of regional and global significance.

(III) MoU between Foreign Service Institute, This MoU is intended to enhance cooperation MEA and the School of International between the two parties for training of diplomats Relations, Iran's MoFA and exchange of eminent speakers.

(IV) Implementation Protocol (IP) between The IP fleshes out the specific cooperation

Department of Science and Technology, Ministry between the two sides pursuant to the 2003 of S&T and Iran's Ministry of Science, MoU and covers areas like exchange of Research and Technology on Cooperation in experiences, seminars, conferences etc. the Fields of Science and Technology

(V) MoU between Indian Council for Cultural The MoU provides for institutional mechanisms

Relations and Islamic Culture and Relations for cooperation between ICCR and ICRO and lays Organisations of the IR Iran down the modalities for the cooperation.

(VI) Bilateral contract on Chabahar port for The contract envisages development and operation port development and operations between for 10 years of two terminals and five berths IPGPL [India Ports Global Private Limited] with cargo handling [multipurpose and general] and Arya Banader of Iran capacities.

(VII) MoU between EXIM Bank and Iran's Ports This MoU is intended for the purpose of credit and Maritime Organisation [PMO] on current of USD 150 million for Chabahar port.

specific terms for the Chabahar Port project

(VIII) Confirmation Statement between This confirms the availability of credit up EXIM Bank and Central Bank of Iran to INR 3000 Crore for the import of steel rails and implementation of Chabahar port.

(IX) MoU between ECGC [Export Credit The MoU seeks to establish a framework of Guarantee Corporation] Limited of India and cooperation between ECGC and EGFI in

the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) supporting and encouraging foreign trade and foreign investment between India and Iran and, where appropriate, the supply of goods and services from their respective countries as part of a project to a third country.

(X) MoU between National Aluminium The objective is for the two parties to jointly

Company Limited (NALCO) and the Iranian explore the possibility of manufacturing Mines and Mining Industries Development aluminium metal by setting up of a smelter and Renovation Organisation (IMIDRO) on joint venture basis in Iran and/or entering into tolling arrangements with smelters in Iran or any other form of business collaboration including sale of alumina etc.

(XI) MoU between IRCON and Construction, The MoU will enable IRCON to provide requisite

Development of Transport and Infrastructure services for the construction of Chabahar-Zahedan Company (CDTIC) of Iran railway line which forms part of transit and transportation corridor in trilateral agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan. Services to be provided by IRCON include all superstructure work and financing the project (around USD 1.6 billion).

(XII) MoU for cooperation between the The aim is for facilitation of exchange of information

National Archives of India and the National and knowledge in the field of archival matters Library and Archives Organisation of the through exchange of manuals, guidelines, rules, Islamic Republic of Iran publications and other special literature on archival topics.

Source: Media Centre, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, May 23, 2016.

http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/26841/List+of+AgreementsMOUs+signed+during +the+visit+of+Prime+Minister+

EndNotes

1. Asia pivot is the major foreign policy initiative of the Obama Administration in strategically rebalancing the American interests from Europe and West Asia towards East Asia. Atlantic Foreign Policy watcher Matt Schiavenza citing Justin Logan of the Cato Institute wrote: “Obama is a firm believer in the pivot: he even prefers the term to the more neutral ‘re-balancing' introduced as a softer touch by his administration”. He further observed: “Nevertheless, the ‘pivot to Asia' isn't just whimsy — for all the trite sloganeering around the ‘Asian Century', the continent will play an increasing role in American foreign policy going forward. So no—the pivot isn't reversible, even as the rest of the world continues to matter, too.” See, Matt Schiavenza, “What Exactly Does it Mean That the US is Pivoting to Asia?” April 15, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/what-exactly-does-it-mean-that-the-us-is-pivoting-to-asia/274936/accessed on May 30, 2016.

2. The term String of Pearls was originated by the Booz Alllen Consultants in a 2003 Report to the Pentagon illustrating Chinese commercial and naval grip in the Indian Ocean to create ‘nodes of influence in the region'. See, Iskander Rehman, “China's String of Pearls and India's Enduring Tactical Advantage”, June 8, 2010, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChinasStringofPearlsandInd iasEnduringTactical Advantage_irehman_080610 accessed on May 30, 2016. It was also interpreted as a Chinese geopolitical strategy to control the critical sea lines of comm-unication from the Strait of Malacca lying between Peninsular Malaysia and the Sumatra of Indonesia in the East to the Strait of Hormuz between the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf and the Strait of Mandeb between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa.

3. “Bangladesh Scraps China-Proposed Deep Sea Port: India Offers Help to Develop Another”, Zee News, February 8, 2016, http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/bangladesh-scraps-china-proposed-deep-sea-port-india-offers-help-to-develop-another_1853296.html accessed on May 22, 2016.

4. Nine Dashes is an imaginary U-shaped line within a 1.4 million square mile area around the South China Sea where China claims sovereignty leading to territorial dispute between China and other littoral states of the region. The Philippines has taken the dispute to the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague. Washington strongly refutes the Chinese claim and a series of legal and historical evidences are traded for claim verification. In this context, Jeffrey A. Bader brought to the fore the American interests in the South China Sea. These are: ‘to ensure freedom of navigation'; ‘to prevent use of force or coercion to resolve claims either to territory or to maritime rights'; ‘to advocate for respect for international norms and law for resolving all such issues'; ‘to ensure that all countries, including the US, have the right to exploit the mineral and fish resources outside of legitimate Exclusive Economic Zones'; and ‘to prevent a US ally, the Philippines, from being bullied or subject to use of force. to ensure that the rights of all countries, not merely large ones, are respected'. See, Jeffrey A. Bader, “The U.S. and China's Nine-Dash Line: Ending the Ambiguity”, Brookings Opinion, February 6, 2014., http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/02/06-us-china-nine-dash-line-bader accessed on May 30, 2016.

5. C. Christine Fair, “Indo-Iranian Ties Thicker than Oil”, The Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. II, No. 1, March 2007, http://meria.idc.acil/journal/2007/issue1/jv11noa9.htmlaccessed on February 19, 2016.

6. Sudha Ramachandran, “India Takes a Slow Road, Asia Times, January 27, 2007, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/1A27D04.htmlaccessed on January 15, 2016. For details refer, Pattnaik Jajati K., “India-Iran Bilateral Relations in the Contemporary Period” in Anwar Alam (ed.), India and Iran: An assessment of Contemporary Relations, New Delhi: New Century Publications, 2011, p.116.

7. Ibid.

8. “Iran, India, Afghanistan Pen Trilateral Transit Pact”, Tehran Times, May 23, 2016, http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/402750/Iran-India-Afghanistan-pen-trilateral-transit-pact accessed on May 23, 2016.

9. Ibid.

10. Sudha Ramachandran, “India, Iran, Russia Map out Trade Route”, Asia Times, June 29, 2002, http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DF29f02.htmlaccessed on May 24, 2016.

11. Ibid.

12. “North-South Corridor, A Special opportunity for Iran's Activation in International Trade”, Iran International Magazine, No. 26, November 2003, http://www.iraninternationalmagazine.com/issue_26text/north-south.htm accessed on October 19, 2010.

13. “India commits Huge Investment in Chabahar”, The Hindu, May 23, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/narendra-modis-iran-visit-nitin-gadkari-says-india-to-invest-rs-1-lakh-crore-in-chabahar/article8636035.ece accessed on May 23, 2016.

14. “The World's Biggest Natural Gas Reserves”, November 12, 2013, http://www.hydrocarbons-techno logy.com/features/feature-the-worlds-biggest-natural-gas-reserves/ accessed on May 24, 2016.

15. Suchetana Ray, “How the Strategic Chabahar Port May Bolster India-Iran Ties”, Hindustan Times, May 24, 2016. http://www.hindustantimes.com/business/chabahar-to-deepen-india-iran-ties/story-opiqryig70sUfzqm0wssEN.htmlaccessed on May 24, 2016.

16. Ariel Cohen, Lisa Curtis and Owen Graham, “The Proposed Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline: An Unacceptable Risk to Regional Security, The Heritage Foundation, May 30, 2008, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/05/the-proposed-iran-pakistan-india-gas-pipeline-anunacceptable-risk-to-regional-security accessed on September 1, 2010.

17. “Under Water Gas Pipeline with India on Track”, http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100526043759/Underwateraccessed on October 19, 2010.

Dr Jajati K. Pattnaik, who specialises in Gulf Politics, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Indira Gandhi Government College, Tezu, Arunachal Pradesh (affiliated to the Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar). Dr R.P. Pradhan, who specialises in International Trade, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani (K.K. Birla Goa Campus), Goa.

by Debatra Kumar Dey

Bhagat Singh earned immortality in our national annals primarily because he realised that he did not know enough and never got tired of studying more himself plus learning more from others, with whom he and his party differed but without whom he realised the common cause could not be realised. That added confidence to his courage and he became the nation's martyr-hero.

P.C. Joshi (1969) 1

History leaves ample space for posterity to find alternative and new ways of interpretation. As such, 1907 is not a distinguished year in the context of the freedom struggle when India was yet to be exposed to Left politics. But in that year two personalities, namely, Bhagat Singh and Puran Chand Joshi (henceforth PCJ), were born in undivided India in Lyallpur Banga, now in Pakistan, and Almora of United Province respectively. Though their destinies were different in many respects, yet their relevance in the current perspective cannot be ruled out.

Being born and brought up in a family connected with the freedom struggle, Bhagat Singh put himself apart from others who participated in the long struggle against the Raj in many ways. While Amartya Sen had to gather support for his ‘disbelief' from Wrik Veda in his boyhood days,2 Bhagat Singh had written “Why I am an Atheist” at least two decades ago, before his martyrdom (1931). In 1928, at the age of twentyone, Bhagat Singh was imprisoned due to sedition charges in the Punjab province along with his two colleagues. Not far away, PCJ was also imprisoned along with his twentyseven colleagues for the Meerut Conspiracy Case in United Province in 1929. One of the fellow prisoners of PCJ had assessed Nehru as ‘a timid reformist' as well as a person ‘who promises all the blessings of socialism without a revolutionary struggle' in spite of Nehru being a member of the Defence Committee formed by the Congress to extend help to the prisoners.3 At the international level, at the same time (1928) M.N. Roy's colonial thesis was accepted at the Sixth Cnogress of the Communist International followed by withdrawal of the Communists from the freedom struggle in India. However, the Congress under the Presidentship of Motilal Nehru was clearly divided on the issue of ‘dominion status' on the one hand or ‘complete independence' on the other. Gandhiji was in favour of the first one. It would not be irrelevant here to mention that in 1908, Tagore in a letter to Abala Bose put his position in words like ‘Patriotism cannot be our final shelter; my refuge is humanity'. (Sen 2006) In 1917, Tagore expressed his critical view on ‘nationalism' calling it a ‘great menace'.4 In his novel Ghare Baire, Nikhil, who is keen on social reforms, including women's emancipation, but not that interested in nationalism, has the view: ‘I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.” (Sen, ibid.) After the death of Tagore, however, Gandhiji described him as ‘an ardent nationalist'. Against this backdrop, the slogans ‘Inquilab Zindabad' and ‘Down with Imperialism' uttered by Bhagat Singh suggests that “He was no ordinary revolutionary who simply had a passion to die or kill for the cause of freedom. His vision was to establish a classless society and his short life was dedicated to the pursuit of this ideal.”5 In his own words, “Let me announce with all the strength at my command that I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps, in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through those methods.” According to Jinnah, “Such an individual can neither be an ordinary human being nor an accused of a crucial murder.”

After eightyfive years of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, similar slogans are being echoed in the campus of JNU and the same sedition charges have been brought back. In his presidential address at a Students' Conference in October 1929 at Lahore, Bhagat Singh asserted: “If we are to bring about a revolution of ideas we have first to hold up before us an ideal which will galvanise our whole life. That ideal is freedom.” Or “azadi”. He continued: “But freedom is a word which has varied connotations and, even in our country, the conception of freedom has undergone a process of evolution. By freedom, I mean all-round freedom, that is, freedom for the individual as well as for society; freedom for the rich as well as for the poor; freedom for men as well as for women; freedom for all individuals and for all classes. This freedom implies not only emancipation from political bondage but also equal distribution of wealth, abolition of caste barriers and social iniquities and destruction of communalism and religious intolerance. This is an ideal which may appear utopian... but this ideal alone can appease the hunger in the soul.”6

Bhagat Singh held the view that the government always has a notion that people are in the habit of raising issues and it is the sedition law which balances the act. He justified his actions because “it needs an explosion to make the deaf hear”—the one-liner first used by a revolutionary in the French Parliament to focus attention on the poverty of the people.7 He visualised India among ‘millions upon millions of human beings in slums and huts' and critiqued ‘nationalism, anarchism, non-violence, terrorism, religion, theism and communalism relentlessly'.8 Bhagat Singh had a clear view on casteism. To quote,

“It is often said that untouchables do not keep themselves clean. The reason for this is simple — they are poor. Solve their poverty. The poor from the high caste too do not live any cleaner. ... Councils and Assemblies need to push for freedom of untouchables to use schools-colleges, wells and roads. But in a legislative where a lot of fuss is created over issues like religion and bill against child-marriage, how can they muster courage to enrol untouchables among themselves? That's why we believe that untouchables must have their own elected representatives. They must demand greater rights for themselves.”9

One can easily understand what nationalism means for this hero. He even criticised Lala Lajpat Rai for joining hands with the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha. The present scenario echoes the voice of Bhagat Singh as if he has re-entered the national discourse once more.

The movement in JNU is unique in the sense that the questions of class (vukhmari se azadi) and caste (manubad se azadi) are intertwined while Rohith Vamula and Kanhaiya Kumar seem to appear as the two sides of the same coin. This indicates that ‘there is a unity among students, between the Left and Ambedkarite students',10 something which rarely happens in the normal course of student politics. Referring to “Students' Unity”, PCJ in 1938 advised the Left students to make effort for building bridges between ‘advanced' and ‘backward' students for cementing their unity.11

It is time to recall PCJ also against this backdrop because “It is an irony of history that P.C. Joshi, the architect of united front politics in pre-independence India, is a much-maligned, almost forgotten, figure in today's Left circles, although it is precisely his idea of forging unity with the secular, nationalist forces under the slogan ‘Left-democratic unity' that is the key issue which now engages the Left.”12 It is worth mentioning here that PCJ was the first Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) at the age of twentyeight in 1935 and continued up to 1948 before his removal from the post followed by his expulsion from the Party which passed through many turbulence under British rule but was able to spread its wings through its 90,000 members during his tenure. Bipan Chandra (2007) in his assessment on PCJ put the following feelings:

“Joshi did not accept the notion that in colonial countries nationalism was a bourgeois concept and that this concept clashed with internationalism. Instead he put forth the notion of multiple loyalities to the Party, people and India. He did not see any clash among these three loyalities either. Consequently, Joshi was quite proud of all that was progressive and forward looking in India's national culture and civilisation as also in India's great historical achievements which he saw as the achievements of the Indian people.” Sudipta Kaviraj (2014) described him as “an unusual nationalist who could simultaneously feel the great attraction of communist internationalism, an unusual communist who recognised the power of nationalist aspirations, and an unusual Indian who felt an intense patriotism for the material and social life of his beloved mountains.” Under his leadership, the policy of United Front was implemented with vigour. In 1939 he wrote in the National Front that ‘the greatest class struggle today is our national struggle'. (Mukherjee, 2014)

Moreover, PCJ warned the Indian people that the communal forces posed the most important threat to Indian democracy and development. (Chandra, 2007a) He was removed from the National Council of the CPI owing to his criticism against the alliance of the CPI with the Jan Sangh in the coalition Ministries after the 1967 elections. Before that in the Fourth Congress of the CPI in his alternative proposal he called “for the united mass organisations to intervene to mould the Second Five Year Plan in their own and in the country's true interests. It stressed the need for building a United National Democratic Front as a powerful mass movement to fuse together the masses both within the Congress and outside through struggles against the remnants of imperialism and feudalism and against the reactionary policies of the Right wing.”13 Kaviraj (ibid.) holds the view that “If Indian Communists followed a strategy of the united front, it is likely they would have achieved much better results in democratic politics as well. They would not have, by their bitter mutual struggle, made a gift of the major oppositional position to the forces of Hindu communalism.” However, under present conditions, he continues, “they are the major critics of neo-liberal policies, and oppose deepening inequalities accompanying capitalist growth after liberalisation. Historically, in effect, most groups with a communist persuasion have gravitated to a politics of commonsense and a pursuit of popular causes—like Joshi.”

In reassessing PCJ, Sumanta Banerjee (2014) has articulated that “Today, looking back ...., we feel that the political structure of a loose federation that PCJ envisaged for a post-independent India perhaps held the promise of a better coexistence of pluralities in the Indian subcontinent, which is today driven by violent religious conflicts, and regional, ethnic and linguistic fratricide”. He concluded that despite his failures, “P.C. Joshi will be remembered as an Indian political leader who conceptualised the movement against imperialism and for social revolution as a political-cultural movement-intertwining attempts at changing both the political consciousness of the masses and their socio-cultural ethos”.

Though in their lifetime they did not meet each other but Bhagat Singh and P.C. Joshi both became fellow travellers in the current context of our national life. Their contributions for the cause of the toiling masses have to be recognised and respected. 

References

Ali, Tariq (1975):The New Left Review, September-October.

Banerjee, Sumanta (2014): ‘Reassessing Puran Chand Joshi' in People's ‘Warrior': Words and Worldsof P.C. Joshi, edited by Gargi Chakravartty, Tulika Books, New Delhi.

Bipan Chandra (2007): ‘P.C. Joshi: A Political Journey', Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 1, December 25.

Bipan Chandra (2007a) in the Foreword to the bookP.C. Joshi: A Biography by Gargi Chakravartty, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2007.

Deshpande, Anirudh (2016): ‘Recalling Bhagat Singh', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 51, Issue No. 13, March 26.

Habib, I. (2007): ‘Remembering a Radical', India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp: 124-131.

Kaviraj, Sudipta (2014): ‘Remembering P.C. Joshi' in People's ‘Warrior': Words and Worldsof P.C. Joshi Edited by Gargi Chakravartty, Tulika Books, New Delhi.

Lal, Chaman (2007): ‘Revolutionary Lagacy of Bhagat Singh', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 42, Issue No. 37, September 15.

Mukherjee, Mridula (2014): ‘P.C. Joshi and Foundation of the Indian Peasant Movement' in People's ‘Warrior': Words and Worldsof P.C. Joshi Edited by Gargi Chakravartty, Tulika Books, New Delhi.

Mukherjee, Rudrangshu (2014): Nehru and Bose: Two Parallel Lives, Penguin Books Limited.

Patnaik, Prabhat (2016): The Telegraph, April 28, Calcutta.

Sen, Amartya (2006): Argumentative Indian, Penguin Books, pp: 108.

Sen, Amartya (2015): The Country of First Boys, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

Footnotes

1. Mainstream, April 5, 1969.

2. The Country of First Boys.

3. Nehru and Bose: Two Parallel Lives.

4. http://tagoreweb.in/Render/ShowContent.aspx?ct=Essays&bi= 72EE92F5-BE50-40D7-8E6E-0F7410664DA3&ti= 72EE92F5-BE50-4A47-2E6E-0F7410664DA3 accessed on 2.5.16.

5. Habib, 2007.

6. http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/bhagat-singh-anniversary-sedition-nationalism/#sthash.dlmnPw2A.dpuf; Published: March 23, 2016.

7. Lal. (2007).

8. Deshpande (2016).

9. http://thewire.in/2016/03/21/bhagat-singhs-nationalism-was-very-different-from-that-of-the-bjp-25465, 21.3.2016.

10. Patnaik (2016).

11. National Front, March 13, 1938.

12. Mainstream, Vol. LIII, No 23, May 30, 2015.

13. Ali (1975).

The author is an Assistant Professor in Economics, Srikrishna College, Bagula, Nadia (West Bengal).

by Dibalok Sen

The forthcoming BRICS summit in Goa and the bilateral Indo-Russian high-level meeting in New Delhi will provide a major opportunity to India to balance its foreign policy course and restore its non-aligned approach to global problems that had suffered erosion due to the present Government of India‘s inclination to align with the US Administration.

Washington's proposal to New Delhi to join its campaign to contain Beijing can drag India into the vortex of an unncessary escalation of tensions with China and imperil the much-anticipated investments from China. Despite the well-known problems and frictions in our relations with China, it is not in our interest to exacerbate these for dubious dividends by joining the US-sponsored alliance and being called a “natural Pacific country” (the last description of this state is a typical American absurdity).

India's historic strategic partnership with Russia should not be compromised by the unilateral, time-serving and shortsighted drift towards the US' international agenda. It is worth mentioning that while cooperation in nuclear energy, transfer of defence technologies and supplies of oil and gas are still being discussed with the US (and with no sign of any positive outcome expected in the foreseeable future), our joint collaboration with Russia in all the aforementioned spheres is proceeding full steam and should be further developed in our long-term national interest. Besides, Moscow's complete support to us in all international issues of interest and concern for us cannot be overestimated. This is a token of the success of Indian diplomacy in safeguarding our interests worldwide.

Indian investment in development of the Chabahar port as a part of the much-needed South-North trade corridor can be successful only if New Delhi signs a trade agreement with the European Economic Union sponsored and crafted by Moscow offering considerable protection and opportunities to Indian businesses and thereby promoting the country's economic development. This is another reason why our relations with Russia must be reinforced.

However, our latest steps in the international field have the potential to frustrate Moscow and push Russia into developing closer ties with China at the expense of our vital national interests.

Moreover, India's leadership in the developing world and the Non-Aligned Movement must be reclaimed and consolidated because that is the only way to move towards evolving a really independent foreign policy so as to make India one of the poles in the multipolar world that is emerging in defiance of unipolar proclivities.

Several important figures from different walks of life have departed from our midst in the recent past. While remembering them we offer our sincere homage to their abiding memory.



One of Pakistan's best known Sufi musicians, Amjad Sabri, 45, was shot dead by unknown assailants in Karachi on June 23, 2016. Sabri was travelling by car from his home in the city's eastern Korangi area to a television studio when a motorcycle pulled up alongside the vehicle and the attackers opened fire; Sabri was hit by five bullets and declared dead at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he was taken. Sabri's brother, Saleem Sabri, also in the same car, was wounded and is learnt to have been in a critical condition, according to hospital sources.

Sabri was a qawwal, or a singer of qawwali, a form of music associated with Sufism, a mystical sect of Islam viewed as heretical by hardline groups such as the Taliban. Son of another legendary qawwali singer, Ghulam Farid Sabri, he was known as the “rockstar of qawwali” due to his modern style rendition; he was a fixture in Pakistan's national television and regularly performed on a morning show during Ramzan.

In an editorial on June 24, titled “Delhi of a singer”, The Hindu described Amjad Sabri as the “latest victim of the Taliban's war on plurality” and obsrved:

“The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has claimed responsibility for Sabri's murder..., has said the group considers his music blasphemous. The reason lies in the Taliban's own ideological moorings. Qawwali is a part of the Sufi tradition that binds not only Muslims across South Asia, but people of other faiths too. It is indeed the most vibrant itieration of the subcontinent's syncretism. The TTP, steeped in an extremist, fundamentalist approach to religion and society, has long made known its displeasure against both music and the Sufis. Being part of the well-known Sabri family tradition, Amjad clearly was a target. His murder is also in line with the new tactical use of violence by the TTP. Of late the group has turned its focus from large-scale attacks in public places to targeted killings...

“Unlike major attacks in public places, targeted killings are unlikely to attract a massive security crackdown on militants. The TTP may have learnt this lesson after the 2014 Peshwar school massacre, which forced the Pakistani security establishment to turn against the militants.”

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On June 28, 2016 Naga leader Isak Chisi Swu, 87, who led one of the most powerful insur-gencies in our country's North-East for almost three decades, passed away at a Delhi hospital due to multiorgan failure. A founder member of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), which signed a framework agreement with the Centre on August 3, 2015 to find a permanent solution to the vexed Naga issue, Swu had floated the idea of an agreement with New Delhi on the same lines in March last year, according to R.N. Ravi, who is the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chief as well as interlocutor from the Indian side for the Naga peace talks; he further disclosed that Swu gave the final shape to the framework agreement in June 2015.

Swu, belonging to the Sumi tribe, hailed from the Zunheboto district of Nagaland; his body was taken to his native place for the last rites.

Swu, alongwith Thuingaleng Muivah (the NSCN-IM's General Secretary), formed the group in 1980 opposing the Shillong Accord signed by the then Naga National Council (NNC) with the Central Government for bringing peace to Nagaland. [Earlier it was called the NSCN but after its co-founder S.S. Khaplang left the group to found a separate organisation it became NSCN-IM.] Over the years the NSCN-IM was accused of resorting to killings, extortion and other subversive activities. As a matter of fact its persistent demand for separation from the country resulted in a military clampdown on the group.

Though the negotiations, which began in 1987, are still continuing and the contents of the framework agreement have not been as yet made public, Swu's departure from the scene has opened new uncertainties for the future. However, there is a feeling that Swu's exit would not derail the negotiation process as he was not, due to his protracted illness, part of the process in the real sense, the actual “political and strategic brain of the NSCN-IM leadership is Muivah” while “Swu was a benign moral guide and figurehead”, as noted by Pradip Phanjoubam, the editor of Imphal Free Press, who has authored the book The Northeast Question: Conflicts and Frontiers. Yet as PM Narendra Modi pointed out at the time of signing the framework agreement at his residence at New Delhi's 7 Race Course Road on August 3 last year, “Just as his (Swu's) contribution to this agreement has been huge, his guidance will remain crucial in the times ahead.”

The big question now is: who will be the new Chairman of the outfit and the new President of the Government of the People's Republic of Nagaland, the two positions that Swu held? It is indeed a difficult question to answer. In his tribute to Swu in The Statesman of July 4, 2016, Oken Jeet Sandham, the editor of the North-East Press Agency, opined: “The exercise of finding a new Chairman will be tough but whoever is selected, one thing is certain—there will be no one like Swu.”

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One of the pioneers of modern Indian art K.G. Subramanyan, 92, passed away in Vadodara (where he was recovering from a surgery) on June 29. He was known to the art lovers, who held him in great esteem, as ‘Mani-da'; he taught at Vadodara's M.S. University besides his alma-mater, the Visva-Bharati University.

Born in Kerala, Subramanyan was studying economics in Presidency College, Madras when the call of the freedom movement led many young people to plunge into the struggle for independence. He too was no exception and was naturally imprisoned for his activities on this score. On his release he joined the Kala Bhavan at Santiniketan and studied under such stalwarts in the field of art as Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij. With Benode Behari he shared a deep bond. And, as Shailaja Tripathi notes in The Hindu,

“In fact he got interested in murals because of him (Benode Behari) in his last year in college when Mukherjee allowed him to work with him on a mural in Hindi Bhavan in Santiniketan. He later went to the Slade School of Art in London.

“The recipient of Padma Vibhushan straddled different mediums and excelled in each one of them—painting, murals, sculpture, illustrations and even toys. He was an art historian too with an incredible body of writing on Indian art to his credit.”

She further writes:

“He was a storyteller extraordinaire, enchanted with mythology. But these stories got a new lease of life on his reverse painting on acrylic sheets, oil paintings, sketches and drawings. The age-old tales were placed in today's context and then reinterpreted and retold, Any ordinary scheme from our daily life could trigger a thought in his mind and translate into fierce goddesses, demons, monkey god Hanuman, snake...”

And noted sculptor Himmat Shah recalls:

“I was a student at the M.S. University at Vadodara when I heard the good news that K.G. Subramanyan, the great artist and academician, joining our institute as a Professor of Painting... It was his friend Sankho Chaudhury, himself an exceptionally gifted sculptor, who had to do all the persuasion to make him come all the way from London to join the institute's Faculty of Fine Arts.

“An affable personality, he was liked by everyone because of his deep knowledge and good nature. We affectionately referred to him as Mani Sir, who was known for teaching students the scientific way. He had an economics background but that did not come in the way while talking about the world of art, explaining new and old concepts in a straightforward manner. He was an expert when it came to explaining things theoretically.

“Influenced by the Gandhian philosophy while doing his bit during the freedom struggle, Mani Sir would come to the university dressed nattily in khadi, kurta and pyjama. That image is still etched in my mind of this guru, whose teachings need to be made compulsory for the benefit of students of fine arts in all institutions across the country.”

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Of all those who passed away in recent times, Romesh Chandra was the most well known as a political personality in the national and international arena having played a key role in the Indian and global peace and solidarity movement.

A former President of the World Peace Council, Romesh Chandra, 97, breathed his last in Mumbai in the afternoon of July 4, 2016. He is survived by his daughter, Shobha, and son, Feroze. According to his last wish, his body was handed over to the J.J. Hospital in the city. Perin Chandra (née Bharucha), whom Romesh had matried in Lahore in the 1940s, had passed away in Mumbai on January 7, 2015, precisely eighteen months before Romesh's departure; her body too was donated to the hospital as per her last wish.

Born on March 30, 1919 in Lyallpur, now in Pakistan, he studied in the University of Lahore and Cambridge University. From 1934 to 1941 he was the Chairman of the Students' Union at Lahore University.

As the CPI's Central Secretariat informed, Romesh Chandra “became a member of the Communist Party of India in 1939, of the Central Committee of the CPI in 1952, of the National Council of the CPI in 1958; from 1963 to 1967 he was a member of the Central Secretariat of the CPI”.

Romesh Chandra—like many others of the Lahore students' group in the 1940s, for example, Litto Ghosh (who married Ajoy Ghosh, the last General Secretary of the united CPI), Perin Chandra, Satish Loomba, Primla Loomba—remained in the CPI during its historic split in 1964 and put up a steadfast struggle against the party division which, however, could not be averted. It was during this period, at a time most crucial for the party and the Indian communist movement, that he edited the CPI's central organ, New Age.

He served as the General Secretary of the All India Peace Council from 1952 to 1963. Subsequently the All India Peace Council was turned into the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation (AIPSO).

He joined the World Peace Council in 1963 and in 1966 became the WPC's General Secretary and a member of its Presidium. In 1977 he was elected the WPC President.

The CPI Central Secretariat underlined:

“During the Assembly of the WPC in Athens in 2000, Romesh Chandra contributed decisively towards the preservation of the anti-imperialist character of the WPC and got elected as its President of Honour.

“Romesh Chandra was awarded the F. Joliot-Curie Gold Peace Medal in 1964. He received the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace among Nations in 1968, and he was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples by the USSR in 1975.

“He addressed the United Nations' General Assembly as the World Peace Council leader for the highest number of times as an Indian.”

One recalls how R.K. Hegde, the then General Secretary of the ruling Janata Party in the 1970s, had paid rich compliments to Romesh Chandra after attending one of the World Peace Congresses, saying that as an Indian he felt legitimately proud of what a fellow Indian had achieved on the world stage. Hegde subsequently became the Chief Minister of Karnataka.

An accomplished orator, he was fluent in both English and French. Those who have listened to his speeches have always come back enthralled and inspired.

A memorial meeting was held at the CPI headquarters in Ajoy Bhavan to pay homage to Romesh Chandra's memory. Those who spoke included S. Sudhakar Reddy, the CPI General Secretary, and his CPI-M counterpart, Sitaram Yechury. [Congress leader Anand Sharma was also invited to participate in the meeting but could not do so due to his heavy preoccupations jut before the monsoon session of Parliament.] Besides, diplomatic representatives of Vietnam, PLO, South Africa spoke and read out messages sent from their respective governments and organisations.

Condolence messages have also come from the World Peace Council, former Vice-President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, President of the Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation Vu Xuan Hong, President of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations Uong Chu Luu, Vice-President of the Vietnam National Assembly, President of the Vietnam Peace Committee and President of the Vietnam Committee for Asia-Africa-Latin America Pham Van Chuong. These apart, AIPSO and Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) have also condoled Romesh Chandra's death.

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Abbas Kiarostami, 76, often hailed as Iran's greatest film-maker, died on July 4 in Paris. According to Iran's official news agency, he was taken to the French capital for treatment for cancer after undergoing surgery in Iran.

Kiarostami was loosely associated with the Iranian New Wave Cinema of the late 1960s. He first made films about childhood problems for the Centre for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults where he had established a film-making division. William Grimes wrote in The New York Times:

“He often worked in semi-documentary style, and used non-professional actors, from whom he coaxed extraordinary performances...

“He remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution and largely managed to work around the artistic obstacles thrown up by the new government.

“He began attracting notice outside Iran with the feature film Where Is the Friend's House? (1987) about a conscientous schoolboy determined to return a friend's notebook to keep him from being expelled. Told from its young hero's point of view, it placed the boy's small story in the social context of rural Iran, with sweeping shots of the landscape.

“This was the first instalment in the three films called the Koker trilogy, set in the village of that name in northern Iran, rocked by a devastating earthquake that struck in 1990.

“Kiarostami made two films dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy, Aod Life Goes on (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994), that marked the director as a maker of talent in world cinema, whose profoundly rooted realism and compassion drew comparisons to Vittorio De Sica and the Indian director Satyajit Ray.”

His 1997 film Taste of Cherry, with its acute presentation of moral issues and personal crisis, was reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman. It made a profound impression on critics and thus won him the Palma D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

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On July 8, 2016 Abdul Sattar Edhi, 88, better known as the “Mother Teresa of Pakistan”, passed away in Karachi; he was suffering from severe kidney problems.

Edhi, also known as the ‘servant of humanity' ran the world's largest private ambulance network. He came from a trading family of Gujarat and had no training in social work. Then how did he become such a reputed social worker? That happened soon after partition. “I listened to my heart and felt compelled to do something about the sight of the bodies floating in Karachi harbour.” he told The Hindu in 2010. In those months after the new country was born with the vivisection of British India, Edhi would often spot anonymous bodies bobbing in the waters of the Arabian Sea.

According to Edhi himself, “I would jump into the sea, retrieve the dead. Drape them in clean clothes and provide them a decent burial.” Apart from the Edhi Foundation in Karachi, he also ran the Edhi Graveyard Services, perhaps the only one of its kind that ensures dignified burial of the dead in Pakistan's major cities.

As The Hindu report observed,

“Edhi was a multitasking genius. The vast network of Edhi's orphanages spread across Pakistan has a tradition of keeping a crib outside. ‘Often in the morning we find that a child has been left in our crib. We immediately adopt the child and do not go around looking for the parents. We give him or her a new name and a new life,' he had said. Not all children in Edhi's care are infants. Some are like the differently abled Indian girl Geeta who was brought to the orphanage in Lahore by the police. Geeta was returned to India earlier this year.

“Edhi's style of functioning bore signs of his dedication. The cramped ground floor office had a few sofas where he would sit receiving visitors from morning till night. Next to him on a table, piles of old bound volumes contained names and addresses of all the contributors who supported the work of the Edhi Foundation since he began in 1951 with the Memon Volunteer Corps, which became the Abdul Sattar Trust in 1974.”

Edhi welcomed donations from the public but declined government funds. His ambulance service always reached first to help the injured in ethnic riots of Karachi or assist victims of floods in Sindh or Taliban attacks in Peshawar. Incidentally, he braved threats from the Taliban as the Islamic fundamentalists branded him an infidel since he loved people of all faiths. Nevetheless, Edhi worked fearlessly without bodyguards.

Now his wife Bilquis takes over all the Edhi orphanages. Renowned Pakistani author Tehmina Durrani has written his biography.

On his death Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif announced a state funeral and a day of national mourning in honour of Edhi. Hundreds of trained volunteers are ready to carry forward the tradition of his humanitarian work that is expected to survive the vicissitudes of time.

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We also mourn the demise of Shiv Kumar Mishra, 76, who recently passed away in his native Ghaziabad in UP. Born in 1940, he did his Masters in political science. During his student days he came under the influence of two Communist leaders of the area—Manzur Ahmad, the Secretary of the Meerut District Committee of the undivided Communist Party, and K.N. Singh. They introduced him to Marxism and he remained a Marxist till the end.

He began his journey in the communist movement by working in the students' front. Subsequently he worked in building the communist movement in the whole of UP along with Manzur Ahmed and K.N. Singh.

He contributed in building the workers' organisation in the Motinagar sugar factory and was associated with the workers' struggles there for a considerable length of time.

He cherished his acquaintance with P. Sundarayya, A.K. Gopalan and E.M.S. Namboodiripad. He also held discussions with T. Nagi Reddy and introduced the Hindi version of Nagi Reddy's India Mortgaged in Delhi in 2011.

He edited the weekly Mukti Yudh that came out from Ghaziabad for 11 years. Later he edited Janyug in the eighties. He was detained on June 23, 1975 under MISA and suffered imprisonment for 19 months.

In his last years he worked in Secular Democracy brought out by D.R. Goyal, the erstwhile editor of Mainstream. Though associated with the Naxalite movement at one stage he was totally opposed to Charu Mazumdar's ‘annihilation' programme and wrote many articles exposing its hollowness.

by Pradeep Nair

This article attempts to envision the vivifi-cation of the health sector with the substructure of technological, digital and mobile revolution in the country. The health care sector is the primary service provider and welfare set-up which also contributes largely to the Indian economy in terms of revenue and employment generation. The growing outreach of the digital technology and mobile phones would change the face and scope of the health services and its delivery. It would not only fasten up the access and excellence in medical facilities but would also change the perception of and about health. This would boost up the community health practices, preventive health care and breaking up of epidemic diseases. The article simulta-neously underlines the need to check the overt commercialisation of health and health services which may confine health for wealth instead of inclusive health and medical practices and services.

Healthcare and the Indian Economy

The healthcare sector is the third largest contributor to the Indian economy in terms of potential to generate revenue and employment. The Indian healthcare sector encompasses hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and supplies, medical insurance and diagnostics. Among the primary subsectors of the healthcare sector, hospitals and pharmaceuticals account for the largest revenue, contributing as much as 71 per cent and 13 per cent of the total revenue annually. The sector is expected to grow to US $ 158.2 billion in 2017 from US $ 81.2 in 2014-15. The per capita healthcare expenditure has increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3 per cent from US $ 43.1 billion in 2008 to US $ 88.7 in 2015. Further, the growth of mobile and wireless communication-based healthcare is expected to reach US $ 0.6 billion for India in 2017. India shipped 26.5 mn smartphones in Q2 2015 which is up by 44 per cent from 18.4 million units for the same period last year. Thus, the mobility based health industry is brimming with new health applications, devices and services.

The Indian healthcare industry has grown considerably in recent years, contributing around $ 30 billion, which amounts to five per cent of the GDP and is all set to cross $ 280 billion by 2020. In terms of percentage of GDP, India spends less on healthcare services than many of the developing economies of the world. Even though the government earmarked approximately $ 55 billion for healthcare under the 12th Five Year Plan, the investment is not adequate to meet the target of universal healthcare. At current growth rates, the health infrastructure will be unable to keep pace with the increasing demand of better healthcare for all. India will end up with a total bed density of around 1.7 to 1.9 per 1000 people against the global average of 2.9, and the WHO guidelines of 3.5 in coming years. The health service providers density will also be remain only 1.7 per 1000 by 2022.

Indian Healthcare: Some blatant facts

India ranks 112th on the World Health Organi-sation's (WHO) ranking of the world's health system. The doctor-to-patient ratio for rural India, as per the Health Ministry statistics, stands at 1:30,000, much below than the WHO's recommended 1:1000. The overall healthcare spending (public and private) accounts mere four per cent of India's GDP, far below than the average of 9.5 per cent across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Even in this, the private healthcare sector accounts for more than 70 per cent of this spend; while the public healthcares spend is only 1.4 per cent. In term of the total health expenditure per capita, India spends about one per cent of its GDP on public health, compared to three per cent of China and 8.3 per cent of the United States. In 2015, the Union Budget has allocated 33,150 crore INR for the healthcare sector and has raised the health insurance premium from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 and from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 for senior citizens. The allocation is much less than the other BRIC nations.

With the rising middle class population, the average real household disposable income will be double from 2010 to 2020 leading to an increased expenditure on healthcare. It is estimated that by the end of 2020 the country will require an additional 1.8 million new beds to fulfil the targeted two beds per thousand people. The emerging challenges will be the infrastructural requirement for primary and community health centres, nursing homes, clinics, hospitals; and the skill gap—shortage of doctors and trained para-medical staff. The solution is the deployment of wireless mobile communication technologies and its linkages to rural areas to bridge the gap between the increasing healthcare demands and the services need to provide.

Mobility in Healthcare

Today, mobility is one of the most promising Innovations and is expected to transform the way healthcare services reach the patient. India has witnessed significant activity in the mobile health space with the launch of several different services; however, the majority of initiatives are focused on spreading prevention and awareness messages. Entrepreneurship in mobility for health has now entered in Indian market as lot of ICT-enabled health solution providers like Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation, Vodafone Foundation, GSM Association, PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and Health 3.0 have already made their presence in India.

Mobile technologies include mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and smart-phones like blackberry, palm pilot, iPhone, enterprise digital assistants (EDA), and handheld and ultra-portable computers such as tablet PC, iPad and smartbooks. These devices have a range of functions and applications like photos and video (MMS), telephone and World Wide Web access and software application support. Technological advances and improved computer processing power mean that single mobile devices such as smart phones and iPads are increasingly capable of high level performance in many of these functions. The features of mobile technologies that may make them particularly appropriate for improving health-care service delivery processes relate to their popularity, mobility, and technological capa-bilities. The popularity of mobile technologies has led to high and increasing ownership of mobile technologies, which means interventions can be delivered to large numbers of people. The mobility of mobile technologies means that many people carry their mobile phones with them wherever they go. This allows the temporal synchronisation of the intervention delivery and allows intervention to claim people's attention when it is required. For example, healthcare consumers can be sent appointment reminders that arrive the day before or morning of their appointment. Real-time (synchronous) communication also allows interventions to be accessed or delivered within the relevant context, i.e. the intervention can be delivered and accessed at any time and wherever it is needed. For example, at the time healthcare service providers see a patient; they can access management support system providing information and protocols for management decisions to whoever requires them. This is relevant for providing clinical management support in settings where there is no senior or specialist health care provider support or where there is no such support at night or at weekends. As mobile technologies can be transported wherever one goes, interventions are convenient and easy to access.

The rapid advancements in mobile communi-cation technology is providing enormous benefits to all the stakeholders in a health care system by helping them to track the genuineness of medicines, enhancing patient-care provider communications for updates regarding diagnosis and treatment, and to monitor the improve-ments in the treatment through real time data. The information which was distinct at one time and is placed at different places—hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pathologies are now possible to store at one place accessible by the patients and the service providers 24x7 from anywhere at any platform—web, mobile, desktop, iPad, tablet. All this happens because of the wireless mobile technology and the shift taking place in the mindset and behaviour of the patients, healthcare providers, pharmacists, para-medical staff, and the technology vendors. Due to this the impact on the quality of health care is now clearly visible to a large extent.

To take this development further, the requirement is to collaborate across the healthcare industry to integrate technology systems, applications and workflows. This will unleash the power of health mobility to facilitate safe and secure exchange of accurate and timely information and will further increase the efficiency of healthcare service providers. It will also help to improve quality in healthcare system. When the authentication of medication is possible electronically before the patient leaves the care centres, the benefits will go far beyond improved patient care. Electronic information of critical healthcare available and accessible on finger tips means saving of time wasted on wired phone, fax machine, physical travel thus assuring that the patients will get immediate and right treatment quickly after the problem is diagnosed.

References

Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (Society for Consumer Research, Germany) Report 2015 on Smartphone Prices.

India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) Report 2015.

Industry Report, Healthcare: India, The Economist Intelligence Unit, July 2014.

International Data Corporation (IDC) Report on Mobile Subscribers, June 2015.

PwC Report—Touching Lives through Mobile Health: Assessment of the Global Market Opportunity, 2015.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Report, 2015.

Pradeep Nair, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor and Dean, School of Journalism, Mass Communication and New Media, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala.

by Ram Puniyani

The current times are very disturbing as so many innocent lives are being lost and social resources being destroyed due to the dastardly phenomenon of terror. To cap it all, this phenomenon has been linked to religion in the popular perception. Just during the last two weeks (July 2016) we witnessed with horror the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse club in Orlando, US. This deadly incident had two interpretations, one: that it is an act of Jihadi terror and two: it was prompted by a man gripped by homophobia. One of the commentators pointed out, “It turns out that he may have been motivated by both homophobia and Islamic radicalism...Terrorism or homophobia? The answer is yes. Both.”

In another incident 119 people were killed in Baghdad blast by the Islamic State. In Bangladesh on a July 1, 28 people were killed. Those who lost their lives were identified as foreigners. There are some reports that the terrorists belonged to Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen and were not affiliated with the Islamic State. One commentator points out that ISIS and the Al Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our subcontinent aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. But the malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

What connects these diverse destructive phenomena? At the surface it seems these are the manifestations of Islamic terrorism, as the phrase has become popular since 2001 after the 9/11 tragedy. If we go slightly deeper we can discern some clear strands of very different underlying pathologies operating in each of these. The one in Orlando has a lot to do with the prevalent gun culture in the US. and this has woken up the law-makers to the prevalent norms of possession of the gun. While this may be most horrific of such cases, similar ones at lesser intensity have been occurring in the US off and unrelated to the Islamic terrorism so to say. In case of Baghdad, mostly it is one related to the Islamic State.

As far as the case of Bangladesh terror is concerned, this seems to be a continuation of the terrorism which has roots in the fundamentalist streaks in Bangladesh politics. Such terror acts have been stalking Bangladesh since quite some time, manifested in the murders of progressive-secular liberal bloggers and Hindus. This has indigenous origin to which the present regime had turned a blind eye and violence came to the fore in this dastardly way due to the failure of the state and society to curb the rising funda-mentalist trends in politics. Currently in many countries of South Asia militancy has origins in fundamentalism-communalism as seen promi-nently in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India among others.

In Pakistan the fundamentalist doctrine was given the official status during Zia-Ul-Haq's regime. To get the cover for his dictatorial ambitions he resorted to alliance with feudal forces and Mullahs and brought in the doctrines of Maulana Maududi (Deoband Islam). This is what is referred to as Islamisation of Pakistan. The focus of this was to push back the civic social norms around the Sharia as interpreted by Maududi; the focus was to bring in feudal conservative values, suppression of women and civil liberties. In India politics in the name of religion manifested more in the form of communalism, communal violence, where the religious minorities have been the victim. The extreme form of this ideology manifested in organisations upholding the Hindutva ideology which has been alleged to be responsible for the acts of terror in Malegaon, Makka Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and Samjhauta Express. The communal-fundamentalist ideology is an attempt to restore pre-modern, feudal values of birth-based hierarchy of caste/class and gender in the garb of Sharia law or glorious traditions of the past, presented as religion.

Terrorism related to the Al Qaeda-Islamic State variety has its roots in the politics of oil control in which the policies of the United States has played a major role. It is the policy of the US which funded the Madrassas based in Pakistan and brought in Maulana Wahab's version of Islam. Here the major focus is killing the infidel (kafir) as a part of jihad. In this variety the central focus is on violence against those differing with these dominant groups. It had a reason; as they wanted to fight communism, Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and so the killing of the infidel. If we see the case of Pakistan one can see the Islamisation of Pakistan during Zia's regime getting a continuum through the Al-Qaeda variety taking over later, and the Al-Qaeda in turn laid the ideological foundations of the Islamic State. Hillary Clinton clarified the US role very succinctly. There is adequate reference to show that the US has been supporting the terrorist groups in more ways than one.

So two strands of terrorist actions are creating havoc in contemporary times. One has the motive of restoring the pre-modern values as seen in the case of Pakistan (inspired by Maulana Maududi), Bangladesh (similar variety), India (Hindutva) and in Myanmar and Sri Lanka as well. The latter have used a particular interpre-tation of Buddhism. The other has its support system derived from the global politics of oil control. The tragedy is that both these varieties draw their foundation and legitimacy in the name of religion, particularly Islam. Religion has many streams, like Islam has Sufi as well as Wahabi tendencies and Hinduism has Bhakti and Brahmanism. The US picked up the Wahabi version for political goals in West Asia, Zia had picked up Maududi for strengthening dictatorship, Hindu Nationalism-Hindutva has picked up Neo-Brahmanism for its own political agenda. Various streams of religion do prevail as such but become dominant only when propped up by political forces which can use that cover to enhance their political goals. Recognising this may be a major step in combating terrorism, and make it clear that it is the political agenda masquerading as religion.

The author, a retired Professor at the IIT-Bombay, is currently associated with the Centre for the Study of Secularism and Society, Mumbai.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did on Sunday (July 17) what no major Western leader from the NATO member-countries cared to do when he telephoned his Turkish counterpart, Recep Erdogan, to convey his sympathy, goodwill and best wishes for the latter's success in restoring constitutional order and stability as soon as possible after the attempted coup Friday night (July 15). (Kremlin website)

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, instead made an overnight air dash to Brussels to have a breakfast meeting on Monday (July 18) with the EU Foreign Ministers to discuss a unified stance on the crisis in Turkey. The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, was in an angry mood ahead of the breakfast, saying “questions” have arisen as to whether Turkey is any longer a “viable” ally. He voiced “suspicions” over Turkey's intentions and insisted that European backing for Erdogan against the coup was not a “blank cheque” for him to suppress his opponents.

The US has expressed displeasure regarding the Turkish allegations of an American hand in the failed coup. Indeed, Turkish allegation has no precedent in NATO's 67-year old history—of one member plotting regime change in another member-country through violent means. Clearly, the US and Turkey are on a collision course over the extradition of the Islamist preacher, Fetullah Gulen, living in exile in Pennsylvania whom the Turkish Government has named as the key plotter behind the coup. Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, has warned that Ankara will regard the US as an “enemy” if it harboured Gulen. The dramatic developments expose the cracks appearing in the Western alliance system. (See the commentary in the Russian news agency Sputnik entitled ‘NATO R.I.P (1949-2016): Will Turkey-US Rift Over Gulen Destroy Alliance?')

Interestingly, the senior Turkish Army officials detained so far include the following:

Commander of the Incirlik air base (and 10 of his subordinates) where NATO forces are located and 90 per cent of the US' tactical nuclear weapons in Europe are stored;

Army Commander in charge of the border with Syria and Iraq;

Corps Commander who commands the NATO contingency force based in Istanbul; and,

Former military attaches in Israel and Kuwait.

Most certainly, the needle of suspicion points toward the Americans having had some knowledge of the coup beforehand. Two F-16 aircraft and two ‘tankers' to provide mid-air refuelling for them and used in the coup attempt actually took off from Incirlik.

Of course, Ankara has been wary of the US and France establishing military bases in northern Syria with the support of local Kurdish tribes, which it suspected would be a stepping stone leading to the creation of a ‘Kurdistan'. (The advisor on foreign affairs to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Akbar Velayati, who is an influential figure in Tehran, alleged on Sunday (July 17) that the US is attempting to create a Kurdistan state carved out of neighbouring countries with Kurdish population, which will be a “second Israel” in the Middle East to serve Washington's regional interests.)

Today, the famous Saudi whistleblower, known as ‘Mujtahid', has come out with a sensational disclosure that the UAE played a role in the coup and had kept Saudi Arabia in the loop. Also, the deposed ruler of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani (who is a close friend of Erdogan), has alleged that the US, another Western country (presumably France) had staged the coup and that Saudi Arabia was involved in it. Meanwhile, word has leaked to the media that in a closed-door briefing to the Iranian parliament on Sunday (July 17), Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif hinted at Saudi and Qatari involvement in the coup.

Putin's phone call to Erdogan suggests the possibility that Russian and Turkish intelligence are keeping in touch. The two leaders have agreed to meet shortly.

The timing of the coup attempt—following the failure of the US push to establish a NATO presence in the Black Sea and in the wake of the Russian-Turkish rapprochement—becomes significant. Equally, the signs of shift in Turkey's interventionist policies in Syria would have unnerved the US and its regional allies.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have a great deal to lose if Turkey establishes ties with Syria, which is on the cards. Thus, stopping Erdogan on his tracks has become an urgent imperative for these countries. The spectre of the Syrian Government regaining control over the country's territory haunts Israel, which has been hoping that a weakened and fragmented Syria would work to its advantage to permanently annex the occupied territories in the Golan Heights. Again, Turkey's abandonment of the ‘regime change' agenda in Syria means a geopolitical victory for Iran. On the contrary, a triumphant and battle-hardened Hezbollah next door means that its vast superiority in conventional military strength will be rendered even more irrelevant in countering the resistance movement. Significantly, Israel is keeping a stony silence.

Will the US and its regional allies simply throw in the towel or will bide their time to make a renewed bid to depose Erdogan? That is the big question. Erdogan's popularity is soaring sky-high today within Turkey. He can be trusted to complete the ‘vetting' process to purge the Gulenists ensconced in the state apparatus and the armed forces. The meeting of the High Military Council due in August to decide on the retirement, promotions and transfers of the military top brass gives Erdogan the free hand to remove the Gulenists.

Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

by Purusottam Bhattacharya

Turkey has been a nation in turmoil. It is beset with one crisis after another ever since the beginning of the civil war in Syria—with which it shares a border—in March 2011. It has been grappling with the fallout of the Syrian civil war, primarily the influx of millions of Syrian refugees fleeing the wanton brutality at home as also their usage of Turkey as a gateway to Europe, its recent involvement in Syria as a part of the Western (mainly American) strategy to counter the terrorist onslaughts of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East and Europe—especially in Turkey itself—and finally the failed coup attempt by a section of the Turkish armed forces on July 15, 2016. The country is yet to recover from the shock of the failed coup attempt which had almost toppled the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In order to place the present travails of the Turkish nation in a proper perspective it is necessary to take a brief look into its recent past. The Republic of Turkey, in its present form, was established on October 29, 1923. The destiny of modern Turkey was shaped by Mustafa Kemal, an officer in the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. It was Mustafa Kemal who rejuvenated the Turkish people by providing leadership of the highest calibre in the darkest hour of the nation. In his quest for nation-building Mustafa Kemal was convinced that in order to find its feet in the modern era, Turkey needed to make a clean break with her long and chequered past history. The solution of Turkey's problems lay in a process of Westernisation which involved the integration of Turkey, on the basis of equality, in the modern Western world. Therefore, notwithstanding the fact that the larger part of the country was located in Asia, Kemalist Turkey chose to look West rather than East in its quest for a new identity. When the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed during the Cold War, Turkey was dragooned into the alliance by the United States and Britain on the pretext of providing security to Ankara against the so-called designs of its giant neighbour in the north, the Soviet Union. After the European Economic Community (EEC) was formed in 1958, Turkey became an associate member of the organisation and under the Ankara Agreement of 1963 Turkey was slated to become a full member by 1995. However, this has remained a pipe dream and the country is still far away from full membership due to various reasons which we need not go into here. (Purusottam Bhattacharya: 2008: 390)

Another notable feature that was initiated by Mustafa Kemal (known in Turkey as ‘Ataturk'—the father of the Turkish people) was the secularisation and modernisation of the Turkish republic. The Grand National Assembly passed a bill on March 3, 1924 making Turkey a secular republic. Consequently a series of measures were introduced which ended state support to religious institutions; a new civil code was adopted, based on the Swiss Civil Law with suitable modifications; a penal code, based on the Italian model; and a new commercial code, based on those of several countries. The system of pardah (veil) for women and the fez cap for men was abolished; the Arabic alphabet was replaced by the Latin alphabet.

An interesting point to note here is the fact that the Turkish Army has intervened in the political process of the country since its inception at least four times— in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997, twice directly (1960 and 1980) by replacing the elected governments and in others (1971 and 1997) by bringing down civil governments by means of ultimatum and pressure tactics. (Mujib Alam: 2008: 403) Mustafa Kemal, himself a military man, wanted a depoliticised and politically neutral army in the newly created republic. Therefore the Army was put in a secondary position in the political system and its functions were limited to implementation of defence policies only. (Mujib Alam: 2008: 410) However, the process of secularisation had taken deep roots within the Turkish Army which came to look upon itself as a repository of the secular Turkish state. This was first manifest in May 1960 when, sensing that as a result of political upheavals (the oppressive policies of the then government and its increasing emphasis on religion undermining the strict Kemalist principles), the Army felt that the basic principles of secularism were in danger and it intervened to overthrow the then government in power. (Mujib Alam: 2008: 411)

The Constitution of the Republic, originally promulgated in 1924, underwent a significant modification. In the new dispensation special emphasis was given on the protection of secularism and the secularist legacy of the Kemalist state besides guaranteeing a wide range of civil rights and freedoms and the introduction of a pluralist democracy.

In September 1980 the Army intervened in Turkish politics once again following large scale political and economic chaos, the ineffectiveness of the police force in dealing with sectarian violence and the sudden resurgence of Islamic militancy. A new Constitution was drafted and approved in a popular referendum in November 1982. The new Constitution considerably increased the powers of the President and introduced some repressive measures targeted against Left-wing groups and certain basic trade union rights. However, in spite of the three military interventions in Turkish politics since 1960, the electoral process, on the whole, remained trans-parent and credible. Not only were elections held at regular intervals but they also resulted in change of governments and the transfer of power smoothly. People's participation in the electoral process has also been at a high level.

The situation in Turkey began to take a dramatic turn with the rise of political Islam from the early 1990s following the victory of the Welfare Party (WP) or the Refah Party (RP) led by Necmettin Erbakan in the 1994 local elections and the subsequent national elections in 1995. The Refah Party had a radical political discourse which was seen as a development of great concern not only within the Army but also among the intellectuals of the Turkish society at large. Refah's victory in the 1995 general elections and its subsequent accession to power was viewed as a genuine threat to republican values and civil peace. The MGK—an entity set up by the 1961 Constitution through which the military could keep an eye on the civil administration during the following decades—issued a memorandum on February 28, 1997 asking the Erbakan Government to take some steps which would have contained the further rise of political Islam. Realising that the implementation of these steps would negatively affect the RP's core electoral base which was essentially Islamic in nature, Erbakan resigned from power. The subsequent governments, together with the MGK, kept on containing the rise and spread of political Islam; however, a new situation arose after the European Union's decision in 1999 to accept Turkey as a candidate country and Turkey's declaration of its intent to comply with the acqui communnaire (EU laws) leading to a tremendous transformation in civil-military relations in the country. The EU asked for substantial reforms in Turkey's political system which entailed, among others, curbing the powers of the military. Thereafter a consensus emerged among the civilian and military circles for a minimal role of the military which began to accept its subordination to the civilian government. “The reasons for this change might be explained with reference to concrete developments like the normalisation of internal security conditions, consolidation of political stability and the impact of increased dialogue with the major global actors and international organisations.” (Mujib Alam: 2008: 413) In November 2002 the Islamist-based Justice and Welfare Party (AK) won a landslide victory though it promised to stick to the secular principles of the Constitution. Thereafter the AKP Government developed harmonious relations with the military even for sensitive issues like the UN-backed settlement plan on the Cyprus issue, the US-led war on Iraq etc. “This can be seen as a significant change in the institutional outlook of the TAF (military) in the sense that unlike its previous role it started to remain neutral in the civilian affairs accepting the subordination to the civilian government.” (Mujib Alam: 2008: 414) Increased prospects for EU membership, along with the above-mentioned developments, helped successive governments in Turkey to introduce some measures of reform to ensure democratic control over the armed forces.

Since 2002 the AKP led by Erdogan has tightened its control over the government and the country. However, its rule has not gone unchallenged altogether. Erdogan, who has a political Islamist background (he has rejected modern Turkey's secular heritage), has increasingly resorted to repressive measures, especially against those who have challenged his authority. He started his career in the government as the Prime Minister but became the first directly elected President in August 2014. A strong, dominant, charismatic personality in Turkish politics for over a decade-and-a-half, Erdogan is considerably responsible for turning Turkey into a regional hotbed in recent years. Apart from taking an extremely hard line against the Kurdish PKK (the outfit which is fighting for a separate Kurdistan in Turkey's South-East), Erdogan involved Turkey, mostly at the behest of the United States, in the Syrian civil war by openly backing the Islamist opposition of Syrian President Basher-el-Assad. There was of course provocation for Turkey as millions of Syrian refugees have been streaming into the country as many of them try to make their way into Europe to escape the nightmare at home and in search of a better life. The EU struck a deal with Turkey in late 2015 which promised to restrict the flow of migrants to Europe through its territory in exchange for euro 3 billion and an acceleration in talks for Turkey's entry into the EU.

Following the emergence of the ISIS, Turkey has become a target of the Islamic radicals. Scores of attacks on major Turkish cities, especially Istanbul and Ankara, have left hundreds dead and thousands injured in the past few years. The PKK has also mounted a terrorist offensive leaving many dead and injured. Ankara has also got into a spat with Russia, its second largest trading partner, after Turkish forces shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border late in 2015 inviting economic sanctions from Moscow. The Turkish tourist industry (a major source of earning for its economy) is reeling from the impact of the recent terrorist attacks, especially on Istanbul.

Turkey has a special position because of its geo-strategic location as a bridge between Europe and Asia, since it is a leading member of the NATO and as President Erdogan and his AK Party are taking an increasingly keen interest in the Sunni-led governments in the region. Some commentators see a major departure from the Kemalist legacy on the part of Turkey in recent years. The West sees Turkey as a part of the solution to the troubles plaguing the region. The EU is banking upon Turkey to stem the tide of refugees into Europe. However, Turkey itself is now in deep trouble as already discussed above. The attempted coup by sections of the armed forces (who issued a statement announcing the takeover which said that democratic and secular rule of law had been eroded by the current government) can be seen as a desperate bid to save Turkey from the turmoil and chaos into which it has descended in the last few months. However, the irony is that the failed coup might further strengthen President Erdogan whose mass support was clearly demonstrated in the spontaneous show of solidarity with him from a cross-section of the Turkish people during and in the aftermath of the coup attempt. It is clear from these developments that the armed forces are no longer the arbiter of Turkey's destiny and however flawed, its democracy has struck deep roots and will be the backbone of the Turkish nation for the foreseeable future.

References

1. F. Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey, London, 1993.

2. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Oxford University Press, 1968.

3. E.J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History, London/New York, 1993.

4. Mujib Alam, “The Recent Democratic Reforms in Turkey: Implications for the Military's Role in Politics and Society”, in Rajendra M. Abhyankar (ed.), West Asia and the Region: Defining India's Role, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2008.

5. Purusottam Bhattacharya, “In Pursuit of a European Identity: Turkey and the European Union” in Rajendra M. Abhyankar (ed.), West Asia and the Region: Defining India's Role, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2008.

6. Aswini K. Mahapatra, “Turkey's Democracy as a Model for the Arab World” in Rajendra M. Abhyankar (ed.), West Asia and the Region: Defining India's Role, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2008.

Dr Purusottam Bhattacharya, a retired Professor of International Relations, is the erstwhile Director, School of International Relations and Strategic Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata and currently a Visiting Professor of Political Science, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

From N.C.'s Writings

Autumn has set in—the chinar in its gorgeous robe. But it is an autumn of bitter sorrow for the hapless people of Kashmir. The Valley which was known as the paradise on earth has been turned into a trough of hatred, of blood and tears.

On Friday last week the portals of Hazratbal were barred as the Indian Army had laid siege of the mosque complex in pursuit of the militants. To protest against this siege of the holy of holies for every Kashmiri Muslim, the common folk in the small town of Bijbehara took out a demons-tration which was angry in its mood but indulged in no acts of violence. But the defiance of the curfew by the marchers enraged the BSF which went berserk and mowed down to death more than 50 and wounded another hundred or more.

These were no armed secessionists, but unarmed citizens. The authorities promptly barred mediapersons from getting into the town—some were beaten up and their cameras seized—but one intrepid among them, who could manage to sneak in, has reported that the dead were young boys, including a Hindu boy. The searing poignancy of this act of barbarism was brought out by his reporting that “not even a single family has remained unaffected by Friday's violence” and when the bodies arrived after post-mortem, “the wails of womenfolk reached a crescendo” as these were lowered into graves.

This way, mourning turns into anger and unwillingly, the security forces instead of quelling the secessionists seem to unwittingly help to swell the ranks of the adherents, supporters and fellow-travellers of the secession-ists in the Kashmir Valley. A thousand cordons along the border shall not help to avert the catastrophe as the mounting anger against the armed might of India antagonises the people of the Kashmir Valley.

Six months ago, a very senior office-holder under the government with wide experience of administration was explaining to the present writer that while Nagaland in the sixties had lapsed into insurgency, he would not say the same thing about Kashmir as, according to him, the people in the villages were not offering active support to the militants. After the siege of Hazratbal and its fall-out with such a bloody shooting spree at Bijbehara, are not the security forces helping to breed a state of insurgency?

The government has announced a grant of one lakh rupees for the family of the slain and has instituted a magisterial enquiry into the shooting. Do the government high-ups feel that such rituals would mollify the people at Bijbehara and the Kashmir Valley? What a world of make-believe are our authorities living in! Even in normal conditions, a police firing in any part of the country raises the demand for judicial enquiry. And here after the massacre—a massacre indeed!—at Bijbehara there would only be a magisterial enquiry! The BSF version was that a mob attack on the police station led to the shooting, but the SHO himself denied any such mob attack. Kashmir's Divisional Commi-ssioner visiting the town next day observed: “There was no witness to confirm firing on the BSF at Bijbehara.” And with all this, the government is fighting shy of commissioning a judicial enquiry into the gory incident.

No, this is not a matter for quibbling over enquiries, magisterial or judicial. Bijbehara has thrown up a challenge to the conscience of the entire nation. It has brought out that in the name of fighting out secessionist militants, those responsible for the governance of this great country are themselves hitting at the very foundations of our democratic republic. Such acts of folly, leading to insensate violence on the part of those entrusted to govern, do not evoke respect and consent but provoke revulsion and angry insubordination. A republic does not last by enforced submission of its people at gun-point. It has just the reverse effect.

Against this ghastly brutality perpetrated at Bijbehara, it's time for our political leaders to hang down their heads in shame and remorse. For they share, in diverse measure, the guilt for letting things drift into this shocking state of affairs that security forces should be so dehumanised as to run amuck committing such a crime. And is Bijbehara a solitary case of security forces transgressing into barbarity by the strength of the gun? All these four years, the government told the public that the militants provoked violence and the security forces had to bear the burnt of it. So much so that our government resorted to an ingenious argument that sought to put the security forces on a par with the aggrieved citizens in the matter of many violations of human rights in Kashmir. It's time that the true state of affairs in Kashmir were brought out in the sun and let the nation judge for itself whether the Republic is reinforced or undermined with the way our government is dealing with the people of Kashmir.

Every democrat in this great democracy of ours has to stand by the people in Bijbehara at this moment of sorrow and despair. And our leaders from Kashmir, where are they, what are they doing? Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who became the Home Minister of India, is a native son of Bijbehara. Its lane and by-lanes, its street-corners and maidans have witnessed Mufti Sahib growing up in the politics of Kashmir. He could not possibly be sleeping in peace, tormented as he must be—at least, should be—by the trauma of his fellow-citizens at Bijbehara. Why don't you go there, Mufti Sahib, at this hour of agony and bring strength to their spirits? And if you stand by them, you will add strength to your own arms and help this Republic of ours. This is the way the sinew of a nation's morale is built, which no amount of politicking from a distance will do.

In our midst, in virtual exile of political isolation, there is Syed Mir Qasim, whose maturity and experience the Prime Minister could have harnessed with profit if he so desired. Isn't it time for Qasim Sahib to go on his own to his native soil, facing all the hazards thereby? When people are in a state of emotional shock, they look upto their leaders to come and stand by them. Such a moment has come for all our Kashmir leaders. If they miss to respond in these testing times, they will become castaways of history. Forgetting petty squabbles and irritations, if they all join hands and put their heads together, there must come a way out of the tragic impasse into which this picturesque corner of our great subcontinent has been forced into. More than at any time in the past, the people of Kashmir today cry for the healing touch and that alone can bring back peace and harmony. And if we succeed in the Valley, it will bring back amity with our neighbour, Pakistan.

Guns on either side do not solve crises. What's needed today is the courage to call for peace—the courage that made Gandhi into the Mahatma.

(Mainstream, October 30, 1993)

by Iftikhar Gilani

Even though the Army has downplayed its prized killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, questions arise as to whether it signals a departure from the age-old counter-insurgency doctrine.

Barring ‘Operation Bluestar' in 1984, India's counter-insurgency doctrine, modelled on the pattern of the British doctrine, did not entail hunting the top leadership, fearing emergence of splinter groups, difficult to control later. In contrast, the American way of tackling counter-insurgency involves targeting the top leadership for quick results.

Right from the North-East to Jammu and Kashmir, India has relied on choking funds, arms supplies and hitting middle-rung leaders and close confidants to soften the top leadership, thereby forcing them into negotiations. While Hizb chief Syed Salahuddin is based in PoK for more than two decades, his top operational commanders in Kashmir Valley, Master Ahsan Dar and Abdul Majeed Dar, were deliberately allowed to escape security nets many times, sources said.

While Ahsan Dar was arrested later, the other, instrumental in the July 2000 ceasefire, was killed by militants. Sources also recall JKLF supremo Yasin Malik's case. He was allowed to don a political mantle since the aim of the counter-insurgency doctrine is to create an atmosphere conducive to political solution, unlike in war, where a top commander is always a prized target.

The 76-page doctrine, compiled by the Shimla-based Army Training Command, explains that the policy of velvet glove helps alienate terrorists from the public. “The doctrine's emphasis on people-friendly operations is its most important aspect,” says Lt-General (retd) VG Patankar, who headed the Srinagar-based 15 Corps.

The Army's counter-insurgency doctrine unveiled in 2006 had classified sub-conventional warfare into four categories: low-intensity conflict, proxy war, insurgency, and irregular war.

What is happening in Jammu and Kashmir is described as a combination of proxy war and insurgency, supported by external elements and and a section of local population. The doctrine affirms that while force may help contain insurgency, political and economic measures are required to resolve counter-insurgency situations.

Former civil servant and old Kashmir hand, Wajahat Habibullah, while appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic initiatives, believes that the political ingredient, involving track-II channels with ground elements, is missing since this government has taken over. Radha Kumar, who engaged with separatists in the aftermath of the 2010 summer agitation, says that dialogue process should be resumed so that there is a “possibility of reaching a peace agreement”.

Intelligence sources here said that they had tracked Burhan, sometime on July 2, when he was observing the Shab-e-Qadar festival, somewhere near his home in Tral.

Security forces, fearing retaliation from the general public, decided to postpone the operation—till he moves to some less-populated area. He and his two associates were lured to Bumdoora village in Kokernag on July 8, where he was to have reportedly received a cache of arms.

“We knew about the house of Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, where Burhan and his team were staying,” a senior officer said. The meticulously planned operation started around 4.30 pm and was over by 7 pm. Asked why he was not given a chance to surrender, the officer said Burhan's associates lobbed grenades at the forces and one security personnel, Shamsuddin, received a bullet injury. Sources said Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was posted about the operation.

(Courtesy: DNA, Mumbai)

We write this in anguish at another alarming spiral of violence in Kashmir, when a discredited old playbook has yet again been deployed to wreak havoc with civilian life.

Kashmir's escalating violence follows a familiar pattern: a killing, a funeral where rage is vented through slogans and stones, and volleys of lethal gunfire in response. In 2010, this cycle rolled on repeatedly through four months, claiming over 110 lives, mostly of Kashmiri youth, including a number who were too young to know.

Nothing has been learnt from that year of catastrophe. The trigger for the current surge of unrest in Kashmir was the killing on July 8 of Burhan Wani, a militant of the Hizbul Mujahedin. The circumstances of Wani's killing are yet to be fully explained. It is nonetheless ironic that it occurred on the very day the Indian Supreme Court issued a far-reaching judgment in the context of fake encounters in the State of Manipur, emphasising the illegality of the use of excessive and retaliatory force by the Army, security forces and police. These strictures apply even in disturbed areas under AFSPA. Kashmir is an arena where the Supreme Court's observations that the rule of law would apply “even when dealing with the enemy”, and that indeed, whatever the challenges, “the country's commitment to the rule of law remains steadfast”, are breached on a daily basis.

Available accounts of Burhan Wani's life in militancy indicate that he was as a 16-year old, embittered and radicalised during the 2010 turmoil by the casual humiliations heaped on ordinary Kashmiris by the mass deployments of security personnel. He witnessed repeated violent incursions into his home and the harassment of near relations in what are called “crackdowns”, in terminology that has entered the youth argot of the Valley. The death of his brother in a police encounter, when he had nothing to do with the militancy, is believed to have further hardened his resolve.

Burhan Wani's life story should be cautionary warning that the heavy-handed, militaristic Indian approach to Kashmir, has only led to a quarter century of siege and growing alienation.

Wani's funeral on July 9 in the southern Kashmir town of Tral witnessed a gathering of several tens of thousands. As protests broke out in this and other locations, security forces responded with maximum force. The death toll of thirty in a matter of three days, tells its own grim story.

Excessive and indiscriminate lethal force continues to be used for purposes of law enforce-ment. This is in brazen contempt of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which do not allow for departure even in exceptional circum-stances such as internal political instability or public emergency. Pellet guns, introduced in 2010 for crowd control, purportedly on the ground that it injures and does not kill, have caused permanent injuries and irreversible loss of eyesight to at least 92 young men.

The upsurge of civil unrest comes after a long sequence of intelligence reports that flagged rising discontent at the new political arrange-ments in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP's arrival in the portals of power and its determined pursuit of a majoritarian agenda, have much to do with this.

Curiously, the intelligence warnings have focused on widening access to the internet and social media as a disruptive influence. This diagnosis, which focuses on the symptoms rather than underlying realities, has fed directly into the shutdown of internet services in Kashmir, the thirteenth such closure in three years.

Certain recent observations of the Supreme Court, though made in reference to Manipur, bear repetition as general principles. Mass deployment of the Army and security forces in aid of civil authorities always is predicated on the premise that “normalcy would be restored within a reasonable period”. If normalcy is not restored for a “prolonged or indeterminate period”, it would be firm evidence of the “failure” of the civil administration or of the armed forces, or both. Whatever the case, an unending state of unrest could not “be a fig leaf for prolonged, permanent or indefinite deployment of the armed forces as it would mock at our democratic process”.

The time is long past, if ever there was one, when a solution to the Kashmir problem could be achieved through force. Continuing recourse to this option and the prolonged and bloody stalemate that has ensued, have fuelled a mood of anger and despair in Kashmir. But with firmer iterations of the military option from the highest political leadership, a dark mood has taken hold in the rest of the country, a doubling down on the current strategy and a tendency to brush off every manifestation of failure with hateful and intemperate rhetoric directed at the people of Kashmir.

We recall the statesmanship shown by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2003, when he went to Srinagar during a particularly dark time, held out a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan and said that the dialogue on Kashmir would be held within the paradigm of humanity (insaaniyat ke daayre mein). It is particularly unfortunate that no Union Minister has visited Kashmir in this crisis and that the State leadership and elected legislators are reportedly too insecure to venture out among the people.

We call for urgent steps from the Central and State governments to prevent civilians being killed and injured, and immediate steps towards demilitarisation of the Valley and an inclusive political initiative. This has to go along with an urgent review of AFSPA, leading to its repeal alongside the entire constellation of special security laws that reward atrocities on civilians and encourage impunity. We urge all political parties to pressure the government to open a political dialogue in good faith with all relevant parties to ensure that the bleeding wounds of Kashmir are staunched.

Abdulhafiz Lakhani, Editor, Gujarat Siyasat, Ahmedabad; Abha Bhaiya, Founder And Director, Jagori Rural; Ali Javed, PWA; Amar Kanwar; Ambarish Rai, National Convenor, RTE Forum; Amir Rizvi, Communication Designer, Mumbai; Amitadyuti Kumar, Working President, Association For Protection Of Democratic Rights (APDR); Anamika Priyadarshini, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Council For Social Development; Angana Chatterji; Anita Ghai, Professor in Ambedkar University Delhi; Anjali Monteiro, Professor, TISS, Mumbai; Anjuman Ara Begum, Human Rights Activist, Guwahati, Assam; Annie Namala, Social Activist; Anuradha Chenoy, Professor, JNU; Anuradha Kapoor, Social Activist; Apoorvanand, Professor, Delhi University; Aruna Roy, MKSS, President, NFIW; Arundhati Dhuru, NAPM; Asad Ashraf, Journalist; Ashish Kothari, Pune; Ayesha Kidwai, Professor, JNU; Azima, Social Activist, Gujarat; Babloo Loitongbam; Biraj Patnaik; B.R.P. Bhaskar; Chaman Lal, Retired Professor, JNU; Chayanika Shah; Clifton D' Rozario, Manthan Law, Bengaluru; Dhruva Narayan, Managing Editor, Samajik; Dinesh Mohan; Dr Aftab Alam, DU, Academic; Dr S. Anandhi; Dr Sandeep Pandey; Dr Umakant, Independent Scholar, New Delhi; Dr Walter Fernandes, Senior Fellow, North Eastern Social Research Centre; Dunu Roy, Engineer; Fr Cedric Prakash, Human Rights Activist; Gautam Chaudhuri; Gautam Mody, General Secretary, New Trade Union Initiative; Harsh Kapoor; Hasina Khan; Henri Tiphagne, HRDA, India; Indira Jaising; James Dabhi, Social Activist, Gujarat; Jashodhara Dasgupta, Social Activist, New Delhi; Javed Malick; Jaya Menon, Archaeologist; Jayati Ghosh, Professor, JNU; Johanna Lokhande, Independent; K.M. Shrimali, Former Professor, Delhi University; K.P. Jayasankar, Professor, TISS, Mumbai; Kamal Chenoy, Professor, JNU; Kamayani Bali Mahabal, Feminist and Human Rights Activist; Karthik Bittu, University of Hyderabad; Karuna Dietrich Wielenga, Researcher, Chennai; Kavita Panjabi, Professor, Jadavpur University; Ketaki Chowkhani, Ph.D Student, TISS, Mumbai; Kumar Sundaram, CNDP; Madhuresh, NAPM; Madhusree Dutta, Filmmaker, Mumbai; Maitreyi Krishnan, Manthan Law, Bengaluru; Malini Subramaniam; Manisha Sethi, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi; Mannika Chopra, Managing Editor, Social Change; Manoranjan Mohanty, Retired Professor, University of Delhi; Mansi Sharma, Delhi; Mazin Khan, Pharos Media and Publishing; Meena Gopal, Professor, TISS; Mihira Sood, Lawyer; Mohan Rao; Mohd Azam, Entrepreneur, Hyderabad; Monisha Behal; Muniza Khan, Researcher Cum Activist, Gandhian Institute of Studies; Nagmani Rao, Pune; Nandini Rao, Women's Rights Activist, New Delhi; Nandini Sundar, Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics; Navaid Hamid, President, All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat; Neelanjana Mukhia, Feminist Activist; Neeraj Malik; Nivedita Menon; Ovais Sultan Khan, Anhad; Preetha Nair, Journalist, IANS; Prof Rooprekha Verma, Lucknow; Rahul Roy; Rajni Arora, Social Activist; Ravi Nair, South Asia Human Rights Documen-tation Centre; Roop Rekha Verma (Saajhi Duniya); Rudolf C. Heredia, Indian Social Institute; Saba Dewan; Shabnam Hashmi, Social Activist, Anhad; Shashank Kela, Writer, Chennai; Shehla Rashid Shora, JNU; Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Artist, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi; Sudhir Pattnaik; Sujata Patel, President, Indian Sociological Society (2016-17); Sukhirat Anand, Publisher, Punjab; Sukumar Muralidharan, Journalist; Suranjan Sinha, Sociologist; Tapan Bose, Documentary Filmmaker; Teesta Setalvad; Thomas Palliithanam; Uma Chakravarti; Vahida Nainar; Vani Subramanian, Saheli; Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Social Activist; Vineet Tiwari, Writer, PWA; Virginia Saldanha; Vrinda Grover, Lawyer; Zoya Hasan, Professor Emeritus, JNU. (July 12, 2016)

MUSINGS

War-drumming in Tanzania. War-like situation in the Kashmir Valley. Troops together with security forces not taking on an enemy country but unleashing terror on agitators and mourners participating in the burial procession of Hizbul Mujahedin commander Burhan Wani.

A situation that could have been handled with some level of maturity has gone out of control. No restraint even as reports poured in of heavy casualties—at least 31 killed and a minimum of 1300 grievously injured. Shocking reports of firing by the security forces; not to disperse the crowds but to kill, to blind, to rupture! Pellets hitting eyes, head and the chest of the young protestors—many of them teenaged children and young women. Several reports more than suggest that the CRPF and police assaulted the patients and attendants even inside the hospitals and ambulances. To quote from a report, “Out of 55 patients who were admitted in the SMHS hospital, 16 have bullet injuries, two have injuries due to torture by soldiers and 37 people were injured due to pellets. From the 37 persons injured due to pellets, 19 have severe eye injuries, which according to doctors may result in permanent visual impairment. About five patients have bullet or pellet injuries on their back side, which clearly means that despite trying to flee away they were attacked by the armed forces. From the available records, it appears that 40 out of these 55 patients have above waistline injuries. Around 18 patients out of 55 admitted yesterday at SMHS Hospital are below the age of 18 years... Several patients with injuries did not want to get admitted in the hospital as the Police and CRPF have arrested some patients from the hospital.”

Yet, even at this juncture the Home Minister of the country says that additional troops are to be sent to the Valley. Are we fighting a war with our own citizens? Can we crush rebellions by military might? Do we want a stretch of land—the Kashmir Valley—sans the Kashmiri people? Do we want to kill the hapless unarmed civilians or start the crucial dialoguing process? Do we want to know the ‘why' to this increasing anger and alienation of the young Kashmiris? Why do we insist on aggravating this anger and alienation... increasing every single day since 2010—the year that saw at least 110 young Kashmiris killed by security forces? Do the political rulers in Srinagar and New Delhi realise the human disasters that AFSPA is heaping? Who is answerable for the fake encounters, unmarked graves, illegal detentions, hundreds of the missing Kashmiris? Who is responsible for the brutal killings of the young unarmed Kashmiris?

I had been reporting from the Valley right from 1990, when the full-fledged rebellion had taken off. Controlled it was, but could not be crushed. It still isn't. Patterns unchanged. Kashmiri men and women and children shrieking all too blatantly. Standing up against the atrocities unleashed by the State. An ongoing relay of disgust at the State-unleashed terror.

There‘s been ongoing anger in the Valley by the virtual ‘siege' they sit in. Under the soldier's glare and grip. Incidentally, an earlier report of a European Union parliamentarians team which visited the Valley in 2004 puts the ratio to—“With approximately one soldier to every 10 civilians in J&K the huge military presence is never far away.” Today the situation could be termed far more complex.

People of the Valley are angry by the virtual ‘siege' they sit in. Its safety and dignity they yearn for. And not the rounds of humiliation heaped on them. As a well-known personality of the Valley told me, “One is made to feel unnerved and humiliated even the way your vehicle is checked and re-checked !”

Anger, Aleination Ongoing

There have been reports of the worsening conditions, leaving long-lasting imprints on young psyches. Kashmiri children play ‘war games'—where they imitate Army interrogation tactics, punch in the stomach and kick and twist limbs... I have myself seen children playing in the graveyards dotted in the various localities of Srinagar city.

There had been Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-conducted surveys which had come up with dismal pointers to the emotional disturbances directly or indirectly connected to the every day violence experienced by the ordinary civilian in the Valley.

In fact, Kashmir's leading psychiatrist, Dr Mushtaq Margoob, had been categorical that the prevailing turbulence was affecting a large section of the Valley's population. In an interview given earlier to me Dr Margoob had detailed:

“A whole new generation of the Kashmiris is growing up in this atmosphere of great uncer-tainty-cum-insecurity and stress. Undoubtedly I am worried about this generation. This region is witnessing a continuous mass trauma situation for more than two decades now. The amount of emotional distress, caused by the perpetual state of uncertainty, insecurity and moment-to-moment living, in Kashmir remains anything but hard to imagine. That prevailing violent conditions have led to a high level of suffering among the masses and also resulted in a phenomenal increase in mental disorders. More than 58 per cent of the adult population has experienced or witnessed traumatic life-events. The disabling disorder PTSD is currently prevalent in more than seven per cent of the population, so is depression in more than 19 per cent of people. The women and children are the worst affected. Children of 5-12 years living in some orphanages have higher than 40 per cent PTSD, 25 per cent depression and more than 12 per cent conversion disorder. Kashmir has today become the world's worst medicinal opium preparation-abused place with more than 3.8 per cent of the population abusing such substances mostly to induce sleep or get some momentary relief from the continuing agonising psychological pain and sufferings... Psychological impact of horrifying life-events resulting from any catastrophe, be it a natural calamity or a human-caused disaster, not only overwhelms the individual's psychological and biological coping mechanisms but also leads to drastic changes in the perceptions of the whole socio-cultural systems which may never be the same again. It also leads to a change in previous and emerging social processes as well as shared behaviours of the whole community.”

Dr Margoob had also stressed that news of deaths of the teenaged and killings in fake encounters was bruising young psyches. “In a man-made disaster situation in any part of the world, harm deliberately caused by others can lead to shifts in societal conventions and processes including an increased sense of rage and entitlement to revenge when mourning loss, or reversal of feelings of helplessness and humiliation. Under such circumstances even the fully grown-up adult's brain automatically shifts operations from highly evolved reality-based action processes to instinctual/emotion-based reactions of fight or flight course of action. Since the young brain is yet to fully develop psychological mechanisms, children/adolescents are much more vulnerable to emotional actions and reactions. When they assume that they are getting pushed against the wall they get dominated by their emotions and stop caring for the consequences. In the ensuing collective identity and formation of cohesive clusters, the youngsters identify with the group rather than with their individual identities and can accordingly get heavily involved in activities that essentially had been nonexistent in the society earlier. This is how the young have been and continue to be affected in Kashmir...Today's generation of the young Kashmiris living in the Valley reflect the above referred psychological processes in more ways than one. The recent developments of defying law and order could also be a manifestation of the ever increasing indescribable levels of frustration and anger among this ‘trauma generation' who have hardly seen a minute of complete peace or tranquillity in their lives, from birth to the present stage of adolescence or young adulthood.”

Another of those Realities

On February 14 (2016) when the young celebrate Valentine's Day, there was this news report of journalist Farzana Syed published in the Kashmir Times: ”More than two dozen suicide attempts have been reported from different parts of the Valley in the months of January and February of 2016... shockingly the majority of suicide cases involve youth, especially young women. A study carried out by Dr Arshad Hussain revealed three to four cases of suicides were reported to the SMHS Hospital almost every single day. This study revealed that analytic suicide rates in the Valley could be as high as 13 per 1,00,000, which is almost the suicide rate in the rest of India.”

Reach out to the Young

This generation of Kashmiris has grown up in the midst of curfews and crackdowns. They have survived in an atmosphere riddled with insecurity together with apprehensions of the aftermath. Coupled with this, stands out the fact that employment avenues are shrinking.

Recreational facilities or events are rare, rarely for the youth surviving in the Valley. Even when that hyped Zubin Mehta-conducted concert was organised by the German Embassy at Srinagar's Shalimar Gardens, the young Kashmiri enthusiasts were kept far away. Sarkari men and women together with the political who's who were flown in to hear those musical strains, leaving one to wonder rather aloud—that the concert could as well been hosted in Goa or in Germany! Why host in a city when the locals couldn't get to come anywhere near the venue? Why put the city under another round of security strain? In fact, each time a VVIP lands in Srinagar the youth are the worst affected—checked and rechecked along the highway and along the roads and streets of Srinagar in the most humiliating way.

Nah, Not Stone-pelting ...Rather, Anger-pelting!

In the autumn of 2015 I'd met in Srinagar a 30-year-old post-graduate (I'm purposely not writing his name because I don't want him to be hounded and harassed by the security forces). As I sat interviewing him he told me he spent his childhood in Srinagar's downtown and that he still carried “imprints of hartals and closures. And when I was in class sixth, the cops beat me... it left me affected for days, for years... things have been worsening all these years, peaking in 2010 when our children were gunned down on our roads in front of our eyes by the security forces! What more agony can one go through!”

‘What about stone-pelting?'

“Nothing but venting out one's anger.”

‘Anger at what? Isn't the situation said to be improving with the PDP in power?'

“Improving! What improving! Like all previous years even this year days prior to 15 August our children were arrested and detained... my own school-going cousin was picked up and locked up in the Zainakadal Police Station, on the plea that he was involved in stone-pelting! It took the cops one full week to release him after they checked the CCTV footage. Imagine a young boy in the police lock- up for a week! It takes the cops a week to check the CCTV footage! You can't imagine the fear with which we live each single day... No change at all, no change on ground!”

In fact, he'd narrated another of those painful experiences which just about relays the prevailing biases against the Kashmiris: “Three of us—three Muslim Kashmiris—were invited by a Mumbai-based Hindu friend to Mumbai and he insisted we stay at his place. So from the airport we went to his Dongri-situated home. But we couldn't stay there beyond a couple of hours. His parents told him to shift us to a nearby hotel as the neighbours were showing uneasiness at ‘bearded Kashmiri-looking men in the building'. Our friend was apologetic and he took us to a hotel and we managed to stay there... I'm not sure whether we would have got a hotel room on our own. In fact, a few years back when I was working in New Delhi, I had to go to Delhi's Mahipalpur-situated police station and fill up some forms and only then could I get a room on rent... I left my Delhi job for I wanted to be here with my people... be part of their daily struggles. I'm proud to be a Kashmiri and, yes, I have grown a beard for I want to show my Muslim identity. This, when in the 1990s beards were pulled off... tortures took place on the bearded! Even today those tortures on us continue every single day.”

Kashmiris in the Valley narrate horrifying details of police brutality, as one of them summed it up: “Here in the Kashmir Valley all Kashmiris have been humiliated by the security forces, and one in eight has been severely tortured.”

In fact, available accounts of Burhan Wani's life in militancy indicate that he was deeply affected by the disturbing happenings of 2010. He was then 16 years old and couldn't come to terms with the killings of Kashmiri youngsters (many of them school kids), repeated violent incursions into his home and the harassment of near relations and also the death of his brother in a police encounter, when he had nothing to do with the militancy.

A Political Crisis It Is

Today there are hundreds and thousands of Kashmiri families whose anger has to be addressed. Alienation is growing by the day, more so now, as reports of the wounded are coming up—firings have left many of the survivors in a hopelessly ruptured condition, with damaged eyes and limbs. Alive but not really.

Mind you, this anger is not confined to one locale of the Kashmir Valley and nor to any particular class or segment. It's widespread. Angry and outraged are the Kashmiris. It is crucial to start a dialogue with the Kashmiris. Do not bypass the local leadership. The Hurriyat does represent the people of Kashmir. Even at this juncture when a situation of such gravity prevails, the elected political representatives seem nowhere in sight, on the contrary they are sending appeals to the Hurriyat leaders to restore calm and help in bringing about some level of normalcy.

A political dialogue with the Kashmiris ought to be started at the earliest. It's a political crisis which no amount of brute force and military might can crush.

Instead of sending more force to the Valley, it will be far more prudent if medical teams are rushed there. Medical specialists to reach out to the dying and grievously injured.

DOCUMENT

Letter to CPI-M Leadership From Irfan Habib and Sayera Habib

The following is the text of the letter written by eminent historian Professor Irfan Habib and his wife Sayera Habib to the CPI-M Polit-Bureau and Central Committee on June 26, 2016. Both have been members of the CPI-M for more than 60 years.

The statement issued by the Central Committee after its deliberations on June 18-20, 2016 deals item-wise with various issues without going into what are the essential features of the present situation in the country and thus fails to offer a tactical line appropriate to that situation.

The CC statement, while criticising the BJP Government, omits to underline the fact that this government at the Centre is not just another parliamentary government of a bourgeois party, but represents a regime which openly acclaims the semi-fascist ideology of the RSS, is unconditionally committed to meeting all the demands of the top elements of the corporate sector, Indian and foreign, and is continuously undermining, in the most naked fashion (through saffronising education, raising new communal issues, etc.) the secular basis of our nation. It is trying to seize power in State after State either through unconstitutional intervention (Arunachal, failed attempt in Uttarakhand); or, as in the case of Assam, by invoking extremes of chauvinism and communalism. In other words, the major task today of all democratic forces, including the CPI-M, should be to offer firm united resistance to the BJP's offensive and its attempt to seize total power.

The primary object of our Party should, therefore, surely be to isolate the BJP as far as possible, and form a broad united front with all other democratic forces so as to foil the BJP's plan of gaining control over the States still outside its orbit, and finally, to secure its defeat at the parliamentary elections due in 2019.

Unfortunately, our Party's official tactical line is the reverse of it. In Bihar in 2015 we only united with the CPI-ML, besides the CPI, and rejected any understanding with the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance. The result was that in the elections the Party failed to get a single seat, while the BJP was defeated in a popular wave against it, from which we had simply opted out. We welcomed the outcome, but the CC never squarely faced the fact that our entire tactical line was dangerously mistaken, and could have fatally divided the anti-BJP vote.

In West Bengal, had we failed to work out an accommodation with the Congress, our defeat would have been much severer under the Trinamul's onslaught, our Party and its members would have suffered still greater attacks, and we would have made the BJP the main Opposition party. Our fault was surely that we did not work out in time a common programme with the Congress to present before the people of West Bengal a real alternative to the Trinamul regime.

Tamilnadu is another example where our policy of a front only with “Left” and obscure parties has landed us in a situation where we have had nothing to show for our effort. Would it not have been better to have had adjustments with the DMK-Congress alliance? The CC's failure to draw any lesson from our experience in Tamilnadu, where the official 'tactical line' has been religiously followed, is, again, unfortunate.

In Assam too we followed the official tactical line, rejected the Congress' open invitation for electoral adjustments, and thus contributed our small bit to split the anti-BJP vote. The CC's statement that the Party asked voters “to oust the Congress from power” in Assam is rather disquieting, since it should have been foreseen that the result would be to bring the BJP to power there, as the Left by itself was in no position to even win a single seat, let alone offer an alternative to the Congress.

In Kerala the victory of the Left and Democratic Front, led by our Party, is the lone bright star for us in the recent elections. But the CC's equation of “the BJP and Congress” as our principal opponents in Kerala is unfortunate. We must be ready to build a movement against the RSS in Kerala, which could include other non-communal politicians and supporters as well. We must surely not allow legitimate electoral considerations in Kerala to bar cooperation with the UDF components and others in the struggle against the BJP and the RSS.

The Central Committee and the Polit-Bureau should consider seriously the issue of the tactical line and not just invoke the technicality of the decisions taken at the last Party Congress for following a policy which has neither reason nor experience to justify it. Lohia-like “anti-Congressism” will not serve us very much. Indeed, there has arisen in this country already, as we saw in Bihar, a revulsion against the BJP's aims and actions among many democratic elements and secular parties. We have to decide whether we can stand aside from joining this movement, just because of the inclusion within it of the Congress party, which is still the principal Opposition party at the national level. Incidentally, it cannot be anyone's position that the Party should refrain from opposing the Congress on issues on which we differ or accept alliance with it everywhere whatever its terms.

What has been said above should not be taken to mean that building our Party and its mass organisations is not an important task as well. But mere calls for Party-building “through class and mass struggles” in Tamilnadu and Assam and presumably elsewhere (CC's statement) are not enough. Ideological education and organi-sational effort are necessary, but these too would be really successful when our Party has a tactical line which can appeal to the largest possible sections of our people. A sectarian approach towards other secular mainstream parties is not going to win us much ground among ordinary people.

Indeed, we must also realise that the Party cannot be built up in a position of isolation. Even building a trade union requires not only the support of factory workers concerned, but also sympathy of people outside. The Party would invite sympathisers to its cause once they know it has some immediate means of bringing relief to people; and this only the perspective of a broad united front can provide. Experience throughout the world has shown that building a united front is essential to genuine growth of the Party. After all, the Communist Party in India grew most when it regarded itself as a militant detachment of the National Movement in the late 1930s and 1940s: Surely, we must learn from the Dutt-Bradley theses, which the Party has always acclaimed.

We hope that as Party members for more than 60 years our views would receive due consideration from the PB and CC.

June 26, 2016 Irfan Habib

Aligarh Sayera I. Habib