The Supreme Court of India, notwithstanding some controversial decisions in the matter of constitutional interpretation, has by far and large contributed to upholding the rights and privileges of the States and individuals.

But with a decision Ajay Kumar Pandey versus State of J&K and Anr. decided by the Constitution Bench on July 19, 2016 there has arisen the apprehension of interfering with the autonomy of J&K, guaranteed under Article 370 of the Constitution of India.

The Constitution Bench has decided that the Supreme Court has the power to transfer a civil or criminal case pending in any Court in the State of Jammu and Kashmir to a Court outside that State and vice versa. It was common case that the provisions of Section 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure and Section 406 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empower the Supreme Court to direct transfer of civil and criminal cases respectively from one State to the other, do not extend to the State of Jammu and Kashmir and cannot, therefore, be invoked to direct any such transfer. It was also common ground that the Jammu and Kashmir Code of Civil Procedure, 1977 and the Jammu and Kashmir Code of Criminal Procedure, 1989 do not contain any provision empowering the Supreme Court to direct transfer of any case from that State to a Court outside the State or viceversa.

It was common ground that the provisions of Article 139-A of the Constitution which empowers the Supreme Court to transfer a case pending before one High Court to itself or to another High Court also has no application to the cases at hand as the Constitution 42nd Amendment Act, 1977, which inserted the said provision, itself has no application to the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Thus while accepting that a litigant has no right to seek transfer of a civil or a criminal case pending in the State of Jammu and Kashmir to a Court outside the State or vice versa., still the Court notwithstanding these formulations went on to answer the question whether independent of all these provisions contained in the Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure there is still a source of power which the Supreme Court can invoke for directing transfer of a case from the State of Jammu and Kashmir or vice versa. The Court has held that it has such a power invoking the principle of “access to justice” being a fundamental right and secondly the powers given under Article 142 of the Constitution. The court relied on the principle of our law that every Citizen has a right of unimpeded access to a court and referred to

Raymondv. Honey 1983 AC 1 (1982 [1] All ER 756)

where Lord Wilberforce described it as a ‘basic right'. But with respect, the attention of the Supreme Court was not brought to the specific observations of Lord Wilberforce and its affirmation in this very case; emphasising the exception that “a citizen's right to unimpeded access can only be taken away by express enactment... and we accept that such rights can as a matter of legal principle be taken away by necessary implication”. Here in the present case the provisions mentioned above specifically negative the right of a litigant to have a case transferred out of J&K, but still the Court has held otherwise.

The Supreme Court then dealt with the question, namely, whether Article 142 of our Constitution empowers the Supreme Court to direct transfer in a situation where neither the Central Code of Civil Procedure or the Central Code of Criminal Procedure empowers such transfer to/from the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Court thereafter concluded that the powers under Article 142 are wide enough to empower the Supreme Court to direct such a transfer in appropriate situations, no matter whether the Central Code of Civil and Criminal Procedures do not extend to the State nor do the J&K State Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure contain any provision that empowers this Court to transfer cases. It is unfortunate that the attention of the Court was not drawn to a seven-judge Bench case A.R. Antulay v. R.S. Nayak 1998 (2) SCC 602 where the Court held: “Thirdly, however wide and plenary the language of the article, the directions given by the court should not be inconsistent with, repugnant to or in violation of the specific provisions of any statute. If the provisions of the1952 Act read with Article 139-A and Section 406-407 of the CrPC do not permit the transfer of the case from a Special Judge to the High Court, that effect cannot be achieved indirectly.”

It is also unfortunate that the attention of the Supreme Court was also not drawn to an earlier five-judge judgment of the Supreme Court (1998) wherein the Court said: “Article 142, even with the width of its amplitude, cannot be used to build a new edifice where none existed earlier, by ignoring express statutory provisions dealing with a subject and thereby to achieve something indirectly which cannot be achieved directly,...........that the Court will take note of the express provisions of any substantive statutory law and regulate the exercise of its power and discretion accordingly. It must be remembered that wider the amplitude of its power under Article 142, the greater is the need of care for this Court to see that the power is used with restraint without pushing back the limits of the Constitution so as to function within the bounds of its own jurisdiction.”

More serious than the concern mentioned above, this judgment has in an indirect manner nullified the mandatory provision of Article 370 of the Constitution. The J&K Legislature has specifically provided that the Court will have no such power to transfer cases from J&K Courts to Courts outside the State. In such a situation to invoke the powers of Article 142 to pass orders contrary to the J&K legislation is a serious breach of Article 370 having grave consequences. I hope the Union of India and State of J & K will seek review of this judgment to avoid serious constitutional and political consequences, so as to assure the people of J&K that there will be no weakening of their autonomy.

The author, a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, was the Chairperson of the Prime Minister's high-level Committee on the Status of Muslims and the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing. A former President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), he is a tireless champion of human rights. He can be contacted at e-mail: rsachar1@vsnl.net/rsachar23 @bol.net.in

EDITORIAL

As we go to press, news has just come that the Supreme Court has scrapped the acquisition of nearly 1000 acres of multi-crop land in West Bengal's Singur for the Tata Motors' Nano car project. Thus the eight-year-long legal battle between the company and the West Bengal Government run by the Trinamul Congress has been brought to an end.

The Apex Court, in its judgment, has directed the State Government to take possession of the land and redistribute it to the original owners, a sizeable number of whom are small and marginal farmers. The land was allotted by the erstwhile CPI-M-led Left Front Government to the Tata Motors for the company's aborted project. The SC declared the “entire acquisition process” as “illegal”.

The development in Singur (which took place in 2006), followed by a similar happening in Nandigram, triggered widespread protests in the State with the TMC chief, Mamata Banerjee, spearheading the agitation; she also sat on a dharna and led a 26-day hunger strike on the issue in December 2006 insisting that the project be scrapped.

Reacting to the verdict, delivered by a two-judge Bench, State CM Mamata Banerjee said: “Despite electoral victories, I had only one job left—to return the land to the farmers of Singur. Now I can die in peace.” She told journalists at the State Secretariat that she salutes the spirit of the farmers of Singur who faced all odds but did not bow down to injustice. In her own words: “This is a landmark victory for me.”

She reaffirmed her policy that agricultural land should not be forcibly acquired from the farmers and pointed out that the LF Government's acquisition of land in Singur by coercion led to a “historical suicide”. She promised to abide by the SC decision and return the land to the farmers of Singur.

Meanwhile the Singur farmers erupted in jubilation on hearing the news of the SC verdict; they smeared green abir on their faces, blew conch shells and burst into spontaneous slogans holding photographs of the CM and shouting: “Mamata Banerjee Zindabad”.

The two judges—Justices V. Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra—agreed to quash the acquisition process and return the land to thousands of farmers and cultivators but for different reasons. It may be recalled that while on September 28, 2011 the Calcutta High Court's single-judge Bench had upheld the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011 following the passage of the Bill on the issue in the West Bengal Assembly on June 14, 2011, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court had on June 22, 2012 struck down the Bills on an appeal by the Tata Motors. However, today (that is, on August 31, 2016) the SC has set aside the Calcutta HC's January 18, 2008 order upholding the Singur land acquisition (after which the farmers and NGOs had moved the SC challenging the HC order).

At the other end the CPI-M's State leadership has struck a note different from its defiant attitude in the past. Its West Bengal unit's Secretary, Surya Kanta Mishra, ruled out any apology for the land acquisition from the side of his party, saying: “This is not an issue of tendering an apology. We have said it clearly that land cannot be acquired against the wishes of the farmers.” This was quite at variance with the tone adopted by the former CM, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, when the Singur land was taken by the government to be handed over to the Tata Motors. (Even posters had then been put up by the ruling CPI-M offering “red salutes” to the Tatas for the Nano plant.)

Mishra also claimed that the land acquisition was done as per the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. He added: “We were never opposed to returning the land. But it should be returned by following the constitutional norms and laws.... Now the question will be how will the land be returned and in what condition?”

Today's judgment of the Apex Court doubtless further reinforces the position of CM Mamata Banerjee in the State. This the Opposition parties have to acknowledge regardless of their approach to the State Government.

While the SC verdict on Singur is highly significant, on the bilateral Indo-US front the Modi Government signing the ‘Logistic Exchange Memorandum of Agreement' (LEMOA) with the US is exceptionally noteworthy. As The Hindu editorially explains, “The agreement, which comes after more than a decade of negotiations, puts an automatic approvals process in place for the two militaries to share each other's bases for various operations.”

While Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has been at pains to explain in Washington that the LEMOA “doesn't have anything to do with the setting up of a base”, the Opposition parties are not convinced. The Congress feels it would cause “serious misgivings, unless explained and justified, among India's traditional partners and time-tested allies, regionally and globally” and has thus called upon South Block to come up with a credible explanation; the CPI-M, on its part, opines that with the signing of the LEMOA “India has acquired the formal status of a military ally of the United States”. Indeed New Delhi's non-aligned character is under the threat of being compromised as a consequence of this accord. At least that is what large sections of our countrymen think. It is for the government to convincingly dispel such thinking.

August 31 S.C.

You had the will to stay

Without food

For sixteen years;

So that our conscience awakens!

Your act of non-violence

In a sea of violence—

Rapes, arrests, wanton deaths

By the army, with impunity,

Touches deep within,

And will stay till infinity.

The salt that Gandhi once made

While walking to Dandi,

Now has by its side,

The iconic image

Of your feeding tube.

You resist violence

By denying yourself taste;

Make haste, O world!

Listen to this voice,

It carries within it—

As you place a sea-shell by the ear

You can distinctly hear,

The roar of the ocean—

The cries of thousands of dispossessed

Suffering people.

The gesture

Is a silent one,

But so potent,

So full of love.

I salute your courage Irom,

for bringing home,

To my generation

—ahimsa.

August 9, 2016 Sagari Chhabra

(On Irom Sharmila breaking her fast after 16 years. She was fed by a feeding tube inserted through her nostril, by the state.)

(Poet, playwright, filmmaker and author, Sagari Chhabra's latest book is In Search of Freedom—Journeys through India and South-East Asia; it has been awarded the National Laadli Media Award)

COMMUNICATION

This has reference to an article that has appeared recently titled “Why Vegetarianism is Anti-national”, written by Professor Kancha Ilaiah in Mainstream (August 27, 2016). He has made a reference to Prof M.S. Swaminathan and the policy of vegetarianism at the MSSR Foundation.

We would like to make it known that MSSRF is a not-for-profit institution engaged in research for food and nutrition security. Our work includes agriculture, livestock and fisheries. We also run a state-of-the art Fish for All Centre at Poompuhar, the dried fish products of which are regularly sold at the Foundation during events. There is no such principle related to consumption of vegetarian food alone as has been suggested by the author in this article, on any religious or caste lines. After serving both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food in the initial years of the institution, it was not found to be cost-effective by caterers to serve hygienic food at the nominal cost it is currently provided at. Staff members are free to consume any food of their choice that they bring. It would have been appropriate if Prof Ilaiah, who has been our guest, would have clarified with us first.

MSSRF remains committed to equitable sustainable development, especially of those who are most at need.

B. Jayashree

E-mail: jayashreeb@mssrf.res.in

Mob: +91 98400 50444 (Head, HMRC,

www.mssrf.orgMSSRF)

Chennai

by Rajaram Panda

Introduction

On his way for the G-20 summit meeting in Hangzhou, China, and East Asia Summit and related Summits at Vientiane, Laos, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his maiden visit to Vietnam to hold wide-ranging talks with the country's top leadership on ways to bolster strategic bilateral ties in key areas like defence, security, counter-terrorism and trade. This marked the first by an Indian Prime Minister to visit Vietnam in 15 years. Modi was the fourth Indian Prime Minister to visit Vietnam in over five decades, and therefore a significant landmark in the burgeoning relationship between the two countries. The last Prime Minister of India to visit Vietnam was the then Premier, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 2001.

The relationship between India and Vietnam is not recent; it dates back to over 2000 years when Indian traders travelled to Vietnam for commerce, taking along with them Buddhist monks to Vietnamese shores where they soon got assimilated with the local population and contributed to the local economy. The influence of Buddhism also dates back to that period. The Cham community of today and the presence of Hindu temples is a testimony to the historical links that both the countries share. The relation-ship between the two countries witnessed many common historical experiences such as fighting against the colonial rule and standing by each other's sides in times of need. This relationship is therefore time-tested and has become robust over the years. Prime Minister Modi's visit is yet another milestone in this long journey of building a strong partnership between the two countries. In recent times, there have been also other high-level visits, including that of the President, Defence and External Affairs Ministers among others.

A Host of Agreements

A host of issues were discussed and agreements reached. These covered economy, strategy, defence, education and culture. The following were the major highlights: (i) upgrading the India-Vietnam relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which Hanoi only has with Moscow and Beijing; (ii) announcement of a new defence credit line of $ 500 million by India; (iii) signing of a contract for fast offshore patrol vessels by L&T with Vietnam Border Guards under $ 100 million from the defence credit line given; (iv) agreement on cooperation in outer space for peaceful purposes; (v) Navy-to-Navy agreement on White Shipping information sharing; (vi) memorandum of understanding on cyber security; (vii) agreement for India to assist Vietnam participate in UN Peacekeeping; (viii) grant of $ 5 million for a software park; (ix) MoU on cooperation in the IT sector; (x) MoU on setting up Centre for Excellence in Software Development; (xi) postgraduate and doctorate scholarships for Buddhist and Sanskrit studies in India; (xii) protocol on double taxation avoidance agreement; (xiii) MoU for mutual recognition of standards; (xiv) MoU on cooperation in health and medicine; (xv) MoU between the Indian Council for World Affairs and Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences; and (xvi) protocol on celebration of the 45th anniversary of India-Vietnam diplomatic relations.

Besides holding extensive talks with his counterpart, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and President Tran Dai Quang, Modi also met Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and National Assembly Chairperson Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. The talks ranged from defence, security, science and technology, trade and culture and the above-mentioned agreements reached. Modi also paid homage to the revered leader, Ho Chi Minh, whom he described as one of 20th century's tallest leaders, and laid a wreath at the Monument of National Heroes and Martyrs, besides visiting the Quan Su Pagoda.

Ho Chi Minh's role in Vietnam's liberation movement is legendary. This iconic figure travelled to India and built strong bonding with the people of India and found common grounds in the fight for liberation. This is echoed even today. Not only has Vietnam a city named after him, he is also called as “the Vietnamese George Washington”. After his death, his embalmed body, kept in a mausoleum in the capital city of Hanoi, is worshipped by the Vietnamese people and it was therefore apt for Modi to lay a wreath there.

Defence Cooperation

Apart from agreements on bilateral issues, what emerged as of significance was the sharing of common viewpoints on regional issues that the nations of the region are confronting. Issues of regional and multilateral cooperation were in focus. The thrust of the multifaceted relationship between the two countries has remained towards stability, maintenance of peace, economic growth and prosperity, both bilaterally and also beyond. After coming to power, the Modi Government has rechristened India's Look East Policy as Act East Policy to inject new vigour to the country's economic push towards the South-East Asian region. Vietnam is an important pillar in India's initiative to build a partnership encompassing security, strategic, political, counter-terrorism, and defence collabo-ration in addition to economic ties.

The decision to extend a $ 500 million Line of Credit to facilitate deeper defence cooperation with the South-East Asian nation was in line with the decision to raise the bilateral ties to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partner-ship to respond to emerging regional challenges. Modi, therefore, rightly observed that this decision to upgrade the capturties the intent and path of their future cooperation as it would now provide a new direction, momentum and substance to the relationship. Modi's “extensive and very productive” talks with his Vietnamese counterpart therefore encompassed the full range of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. The common efforts are aimed to contribute to stability, security and prosperity in the region. In particular, the decision to construct offshore patrol boats signalled a step to give concrete shape to defence engagement between the two countries. As two major countries in this region, both India and Vietnam feel it necessary to further their ties on regional and international issues of common concern, which was why a host of agreements were inked to serve this long-term objective.

There is more to India's offer of half-a-billion dollars defence credit than just a part of bilateral defence cooperation. As Vietnam seeks arms boost, India's credit line provides a lift to Vietnam at a time when it is pursuing a military deterrent as discord festers in the South China Sea. Both India and Vietnam share borders with China and also enjoy large trade volumes. At the same time, both are locked in territorial disputes with China—India in the Himalayas and Vietnam in the South China Sea with no sign of early resolution. Both India and Vietnam are modernising their defences to be prepared for any crisis situation. India's defence industry is now open to friendly countries for joint production of equipment and is also promoting sale of its supersonic BrahMos missiles to Vietnam and four other countries. In late 2014 India had made a loan of $ 100 million available to Vietnam for four yet-to-be-built patrol vessels. This time Modi made no mention of the patrol vessels, nor the possible sale of BrahMos missiles. He also did not elaborate on what Vietnam would use the $ 500 million credit for, except saying that “mutual defence cooperation” would “contribute to stability, securities and prosperity in this region”.

Economic Collaboration

In the economic domain, it was agreed to tap into the growing economic opportunities in the region. Both countries see enhancing bilateral commercial engagement would complement their strategic objective and therefore both agreed to expand trade and business opportu-nities. Bilateral trade currently stands at $ 7.83 billion and both sides are committed to achieve a target of $ 15 billion by 2020. With this in view, new sectors and thrust areas were identified to give impetus for enhanced investment.

Indian investments in Vietnam currently stand at about $ 1.1 billion and this is expected to be significantly enhanced when the large infrastructure project—Tata Power's Long Phu-II 1320 MW thermal power project with an estimated cost of $ 2.2 billion—is completed. Similarly, India is ready to welcome investment from Vietnam by creating an attractive and investor-friendly climate. In particular, India would be happy to invite Vietnamese entre-preneurs to invest in its North-East, a focus area in India's Act East Policy. This is because India is committed to increase connectivity between its North-East and ASEAN and for this purpose has already allotted a $ 1 billion Line of Credit for India-ASEAN physical and digital connectivity.

Besides seeking facilitation of ongoing Indian projectsand investments in Vietnam, Modi invited Vietnamese companies to take advantage of the various schemes and flagship programmes of the Indian Government. Modi told his Vietnamese counterpart: “As Vietnam seeks to empower and enrich its people, modernise its agriculture; encourage entrepreneurship and innovation; strengthen its science and technology base; create new institutional capacities for faster economic development; and take steps to build a modern nation, India and its 1.25 billion people stand ready to be Vietnam's partner and a friend in this journey.” The framework agreement on space cooperation would allow Vietnam to join hands with the Indian Space Research Organisation to meet its national development objectives.

India is also planning an early establishment and opening of an Indian Cultural Centre in Hanoi. Being cultural partners, the agreement also included archaeological support to Vietnam with the Archaeological Survey of India starting the conservation and restoration work of the Cham monuments at My Son in Vietnam. Seen from a larger perspective, the ASEAN, as a regional grouping known for demonstration of solidarity and unity, is important to India in terms of historical links, geographical proximity, cultural ties and strategic space that both share. India views the ASEAN as central to its Act East Policy and Vietnam as the ASEAN Coordinator for India could play a catalytic role in strengthening India-ASEAN partnership across all areas. It was therefore agreed to keep the ongoing momentum in the relationship.

South China Sea Issue

The South China Sea is a major flashpoint in the Asian region. The sea bed is believed to contain precious oil and gas and many Asian nations make claims to their exclusive economic zones to control such resources, whereas China claims it in its entirety and threatens the use of force to assert its territorial and maritime claims. This has created a situation of unease in the region. In the wake of Chinese assertiveness in staking claims, the smaller claimant nations are seeking to bolster their defence preparedness as well as solicit support from nations friendly to their cause. India-Vietnam defence cooperation needs to be viewed from this perspective.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) think-tank, which tracks the arms trade over five-year periods, there has been an almost 700 per cent surge in Vietnam's defence procurements as of 2015. Vietnam's quiet military build-up, designed as a deterrent, is aimed to secure its 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone in the wake of China's assertive claims in the South China Sea. Therefore, Vietnam is in the market for fighter jets and more advanced missile systems, in addition to its six kilo-class submarines it has bought from Russia. The 12 agreements signed during Modi's visit covering cyber security, ship-building, UN peace-keeping operations and naval information-sharing are in tune with Vietnam's aim to boost its defence capability and India-Vietnam defence cooperation needs to be seen from this perspective.

The significance of scheduling Modi's visits to the three Asian countries cannot be missed as Vietnam was the first destination before he reached China because of differences of similar kinds that both India and Vietnam have with China. Besides differences on territorial issues, both India and Vietnam are concerned over China's disrespect to the rules-based international order that is contributing to rising tensions in the region.

India has taken a principled stance on the South China Sea issue and its eastern outreach in the wake of the July 12 declaration of the Permanent Court of Arbitration challenging China's territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea region. This needs to be understood in perspective. It was therefore not difficult to discern the growing strategic conver-gence between the two sides as defence procure-ment was a major component of the slew of agreements signed. Naval cooperation too has been progressing smoothly between the two countries.

Vietnam's Response to India's Position on the SCS

The response in Vietnam to India's outreach was on expected lines. Vietnam lauded India's principled position on the disputed South China Sea and sought India's participation in the oil and gas sectors. Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong expressed Vietnam's desire to intensify coordination in the regional and inter-national fora and reiterated that India always stood as a friend with Vietnam throughout history and that it was rare to find such a relationship which has lasted 2000 years.

The strategic significance of the South China Sea in terms of the large volume of trade flow through this critical sea route cannot be under-stated. This busy waterway is also of critical importance to India as 50 per cent of its trade passes through this Sea. China is involved in a raging dispute with Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei over ownership of the territory in the South China Sea. The world tribunal's ruling on July 12 rejected China's claims of having any historical basis. Though it looked a victory for the Philippines, it made China toughen its stance saying that the tribunal had no power to adjudicate. China's aggressive stance was further reinforced by the knowledge that the tribunal does not have the authority to enforce its ruling.

India is on the same page as its Asian partner countries on this subject. It supports freedom of navigation and overflight, and unimpeded commerce, based on the principles of international law, as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). India strongly believes that states should resolve disputes through peaceful means without threat or use of force and exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that could complicate or escalate disputes affecting peace and stability.

China's Reaction

China's reaction was not so kind to India's outreach to Vietnam. The Chinese media observed that Modi's Vietnam visit was aimed at putting pressure on China and to raise their “bargaining chips”. The state-run Global Times commented that when negative emotions towards China among the Vietnamese people have been rising because of festering tensions over the South China Sea, India by siding with Vietnam and upgrading the strategic partnership is trying to upscale the bargaining position to “pile pressure on Beijing”.

The paper further commented that “New Delhi and Hanoi both wish to raise their bargaining position while having interactions with China, but neither of them wants direct confrontations with Beijing”. It further said such a possibility cannot be totally excluded, but it will not play a vital role either. It was critical of India by observing that India is always cautious in dealing with China for fear of escalation and allowing the US to be used indirectly in the latter's efforts to rebalance the Asia-Pacific strategy without the US openly admitting it. What the report meant was that there seems to be a hidden strategy between India and the US to deal with China with Vietnam being a cog in this larger wheel. It dismissed the view that if the US and Japan with their strong support could not succeed in piling pressure on Beijing, it would be unrealistic for Vietnam to garner India's support to deal with its differences with Beijing. China views that the growing India-Vietnam bonhomie and strategic bonding would have only limited influence on China.

Concluding Observations

Going by the historical narrative that comple-ments the current priorities of India's engage-ment strategy, India values Vietnam as an old friend and a member of the ASEAN grouping and a very important pillar in its Act East Policy. Being the ASEAN Coordinator for India for 2015-18, both are committed to strengthen their bilateral relationship within the India-ASEAN and Mekong-Ganga Cooperation framework. The year 2017 would mark a significant milestone as India and Vietnam would celebrate the 45th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations and 10 years of strategic partnership betweem them. Both have plans to organise various events throughout the year to commemo-rate the events.

With the elevation of the existing strategic partnership to a “comprehensive” level, the security and defence relationships would assume greater depth and intensity. This institutionali-sation may look recent in the journey of relationships; however, in reality India-Vietnam relationship is not recent but spans two millennia of contacts between the two civilisations. The influence of Buddhism and the remnants of the Hindu Cham civilisation stand testimony to the long-tested relationship, which has acquired robustness in recent times. Modi's latest visit further contributes to this narrative. There can be no difference of opinion that, as former Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong described, India-Vietnam relationship was “as pure as a cloudless sky”.

Dr Rajaram Panda is currently ICCR India Chair Visiting Professor, the School of Economics and Business Administration, Reitaku University, Japan. He can be contacted at e-mail: rajaram.panda@ gmail.com

Many friends ask me why am I quiet on the issue of Mother Teresa and her canonisation. Well, I have been travelling and not really following much of the news. However, I have my position which I clarified several times in the past too. I have lots of respect for Christopher Hitchens and his absolutely phenomenal analysis. The Mother was a religious woman with a kind heart. Her main aim was to ‘serve' the God which she found in serving the people. A secular critique of Christianity cannot be seen as an ‘endorsement' of absolutely hateful propaganda of the Sangh Parivar or Hindu fanatics. There is a much bigger battle that secularists, humanists are fighting against the dominance of the church as well as political Islam unlike in India where they have failed to fight a decisive war against political Hindutva as most of the secularists too have their caste privileges to defend. Hence, a critique of the Mother cannot be seen as the same as the Sangh or Hindutva's devotees might do.

It is not just Hitchens but also Tariq Ali who made his ‘famous' film ‘Hell's angel' and ‘exposed' the realities of the charities of missionaries. However, the problem with these criticisms was that they were actually coming from those scholars who were fighting for their individual rights in the West against the dominance of the church as their day-to-day affair. Given the situation in India, the Mother's work cannot be put aside as merely charity. We know, the Indian state has failed to protect the poorest of the poor. It has failed them to give life. As a society, we have hidden apartheid where people suffer because of the basis of their birth. People don't have time to listen or read to your dry jargons and philosophies unless they are ‘loved'. Millions of people in our societies suffer in humiliation and isolation without any love. We are a loveless society, a loveless country. The Mother actually taught us to love and care.

So, we may discuss bigger things in ‘theory' and argue sitting in our comfortable homes but we cannot discount the things which she did. Whether you call it hell's angel or not, it was she who did not ask you your caste, religion or gender or who you were loving. We do not know what were the conditions inside their charities but we hope it is the duty of not just the institutions but also the government to ensure that things are going according to law in these places.

I know the Mother's only aim was to bring people into ‘God's world'. Now, if the communists, humanists, socialists have no time to share the pains and agonies of the people (I do not want to listen to their political theories or conspiracy theories) but their services on the ground to uplift millions of others where the state has failed, it is natural for the people to go away. In a society which is so discriminatory, you need multiple energies and sources to empower people. It cannot be like my way or the highway. It can't be a Cuban revolution or the Russian one. It will need a revolution against the caste system, breaking those practices of apartheid which we actually were unable to break. Many a time these can be broken more by love and affection than theorisation.

I know Mother Teresa did not have the courage to support the Mandal Commission recommen-dations. She was here in Delhi at the Gandhi Samadhi in the 1990s when the caste Hindus decided to oppose the Mandal report and young students were committing suicide. I know the Mother was not fond of speaking for the Christian Dalits and the discrimination they faced. But why do you expect the Mother to reply to your political question? She was a simple God-fearing woman who was serving mankind, according to her convictions; her approach might be wrong but you cannot really say that there was a conspiracy in doing so. What conspiracy could it be? If there is a conspiracy, why are the Shankaracharyas, the Babas, Gurus not able to touch the people? In a society which believes in segregation, the Mother taught us the importance of touching one and all. She hugged all and gave her love. It was motherly love, may be wrapped in her Christian beliefs but who stops others from doing so?

The problem is not about the Mother's action but the failures of those who critique her on such basis. Surely, she was not a humanist as her world revolved around “God's Kingdom” and hence she would do things which she considered Godly. It is our problem that we expect humanist answers from religious leaders. People blame charities for disarming people but in a society which is so much corrupted culturally and socially, you need these charities to make people feel that they too have a right to life; it is these kind words that save numerous people, offering example to all. Outright rejection will only help more RSS and other religious segments to reach the people. The secularists will debate while the religious Right will use these charities to strengthen their outreach as well as poisonous agenda.

However, I will defend Hitchens' critique of the Mother's work as only secularists have the capacity to do so. Secondly, the canonisation proves that the Vatican still believes that only ‘Miracle' people can be declared ‘saint'. I wish they had given Sainthood to the ‘Holy Mother' for her work among the poor and not her miracles. If the Mother is a ‘Saint' just because she could perform some ‘miracles', then it is the biggest tragedy; but then religion needs to survive on that basis.

In the final analysis, I would say the Mother's actions are well acknowledged and not her ‘philosophy or ídeology'. Her greatness lies in her work and not in her miracles but with her canonisation the Vatican has proved that it will never learn the lessons, it will only prove that Christianity has less philosophical contents inside it and more ‘miracles'. Perhaps, the church knows that ‘philosophy' does not help in the growth of a religion but miracles can multiply its faithfuls and hence in the coming years we will see the growth of multiple miracle-mongers everywhere across religions which will expose them further. The only thing is that secularists, humanists and all those who talk of enlightenment and reasoning and whose philosophy of life revolves around the well-being of human beings have to spread their outreach and share the loves and pains of the people. If religion could be used as a ‘therapy' for the ‘hopeless', why not humanism?

If Karl Marx was the theoretician of the capitalist era, Lenin was one of the imperialist era. They both occupy the same height in the annals of human thought, because they both cover a whole era of human history.

V.I. Lenin, that great theoretician of the present era, wrote his epoch-making work, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, exactly a hundred years ago. Marx had in his days encompassed the whole era of capitalism and its transition to socialism. Lenin raised the bar of analysis higher and drew attention to the transformation of capitalism into imperialism, which alienated not only the mass of workers and peasants but also the mass of non-financial productive producers/capitalists themselves, particularly the small and medium producers and capitalists.

The theory of ‘imperialism' still is a guide in its general essentials, though much has since changed in the world. It no doubt needs updating, yet it continues to be the main reference-point.

Lenin drew heavily upon the political scientist and famous economist, John A. Hobson, who first used the term ‘imperialism' in the sense of a level of economic mode of production. That was in 1902 when his famous work, Imperialism: A Study, was published in England. He said that imperialism was an economic, political and cultural practice among the advanced capitalist countries, which had excess of capital.

In 1910 was published another seminal research titled, The Finance Capital, by the Austrian Marxist Rudolf Hilferding. He showed that capital was displaying tendencies of concentration, and the capitals in industry, circulation and banking were merging together, leading to the emergence of a new form of capital, which he termed ‘finance capital'. It was shown that finance capital tended to exist independent of production.

Engels' Insight on Trends of Monopolisation

The first decade of the 20th century proved crucial to the development of European and world capitalism. It also, consequently, proved crucial to the strategy and tactics of the international working class movement. By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, capitalism displayed trends of monopo-lisation and ‘imperialism'. Production and capital were getting concentrated and centralised, leading to the emergence of monopoly capital, a new level of concentration. These two features were already noted in the 1890s by the great dialectician, Frederick Engels, who showed that the monopolies were spreading the world over and dividing markets. The arms race and armament production were increasing as never before.

Engels noted that world capitalism of Europe was getting divided into groups, with a tendency to forcibly pull each other down. There already took place minor and major skirmishes between various emerging powers. The conflict between France and Germany on Alsace-Lorraine and Ruhr were becoming serious, even ominous. England was expanding its domination in Europe and outside in the backward colonial countries. Russia was becoming a big imperialist power. For the first time after the Crimean War of the mid-1850s, such tension was being built up in Europe. This time it was not simple capitalism; it was the emerging imperialism that was the cause of it. Imperialism was strangulating simple competitive capitalism.

Engels even forecast that the future war would be a ‘world war' of unprecedented proportions with unheard of magnitude of human destruction. He even predicted that ‘millions of people' would be killed in the future world war, if it took place. Engels' scientific prediction came more than true.

Let us note that Engels died in 1895; so his prediction was at least two decades old!

Discovery of ‘Imperialism' by Lenin

Lenin was in exile at the beginning of the 20th century, travelling to various countries, including England. He was in Switzerland in the midst of the World War I (WWI). He made use of his time visiting libraries to study the contemporary problems. It was in Zurich that he wrote his famous work, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism. He mentions the fact that he wrote the pamphlet in Zurich in 1916 in difficult conditions. There was a serious dearth of material, particularly of Russian literature. He spent his time studying primarily the changes taking place in the capitalist mode of production. He consulted libraries in many countries. He also spent time organising the social democrats of Russia outside the country, as also debating in the Second International.

As such, he had a great opportunity to interact, directly and indirectly, with various leaders including Plekhanov, Kautsky, Ahrent, Hilferding, Martov and a host of others. Karl Kautsky was the natural inheritor of the traditions of Engels, despite his serious shortcomings. Lenin had occasion to criticise Kautsky's theory of ‘ultra-imperialism'. Austro-Marxism was busy deve-loping its own view of imperialism. Lenin also later criticised the views of Rosa Luxemburg on imperialism.

The last decade of 19th and the first two decades of the 20th century saw the trans-formation of capitalism into imperialism along with its growing stratification. The Russo-Japanese war had taken place in 1904-05. The famous Balkan wars took place later. Several other wars broke out at various points in Europe. At the same time, wars in Africa, China, Afghanistan and elsewhere broke out. Capital was getting concentrated as never before. Simultaneously capital was flying out of production into finance and speculation. These were some of the symptoms of emerging finance capital and imperialism.

Features of Imperialism

Lenin, on the basis of his extensive studies, enumerates five basic features of imperialism: concentration and centralisation of production and capital leading to the emergence of monopolies; merger of industrial and banking capitals: emergence of finance capital; export of capital; economic division of the world; territorial division of the world.

A handful of growingly big capitalists concentrate production and capital in their hands, at the cost of other producers and the workers. Concentration produces displacement at the other pole: the small and medium producers face increasing competition from the monopolists, known as monopoly competition. It is not so easy for them to sustain either in production or in the market.

Thus monopolisation destroys or puts hurdles in the path of the growth of small entre-preneurship. It certainly exploits the workers and peasants even more. Merger of banking and industrial capital creates a new and powerful stage of capital, that is, finance capital. Small-scale industry and capital in itself is not finance capital. This confusion should be avoided. Financial monopoly at this stage tends to prevent the transfer of capital to industry, particularly to smaller scales of production: it ‘tends' to, does not do it wholly.

These tendencies create increasing numbers of layers of capitalist owners within the capitalist class. Lenin has analysed the process in detail in his various works.

Since finance capital can garner profits from other capitals through using money transfers, speculation becomes a crucial method to make more money. With the passage of time, finance capital flies out of production into speculation. It becomes a powerful force with the help of the state and stock exchange and prevents the growth of productive capacities. Non-monopoly production suffers heavily.

That is why and how finance capital becomes a hurdle in the path of development of the productive forces.

Lenin also characterised imperialism as moribund and parasitic. It has to be remembered that he wrote the work in the conditions of WWI, when unprecedented destruction of human life and material took place. About a crore (ten million) of people died in the War, and this was unparalleled till then. Most modern weapons to kill humans were developed. Productive forces were being destroyed on an unprecedented scale. Engels was proved correct.

Imperialism and Lenin's theory of ‘Democratic Revolution'

Lenin related his theory of new and higher stage of capitalism (imperialism) with changes in the forms and methods of revolution. Revolution would now take place in the weakest link of imperialist chain. Imperialism was preventing the growth of capitalist relations and of democracy itself, as Lenin showed in his analysis. Therefore, it was leaving the tasks of the bourgeois revolution unfinished. It was also exploiting and throwing out or finishing the non-monopoly sections of capitalism.

Imperialism was further causing rapid stratification within the capitalist class. It created non-monopoly and non- and anti-imperialist sections/strata among the bourgiosie. This fact is generally ignored by the political thinkers. With the emergence of centralised monopolies and imperialists, other sections of the capitalist class are alienated and exploited by imperialism. Imperialism prevents the growth of capitalism, at least of freely developing capitalism.

Therefore, these sections along with workers and peasants, as also the middle class intelligentsia and petty bourgeoisie, constituted a vast spectrum to fulfil the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution in the imperialist era. Its colonial variety was particularly discussed in the 1920 Congress of the Comintern. Lenin emphasised the importance of united democratic revolutions in the colonial and other countries in his controversies with M.N. Roy and others, who adopted a sectarian approach.

Lenin, while working out features of imperialism, also dwelt upon the need for the democratic revolution in his famous work Two Tactics of Social Democracy. It is a scientific work still helping to understand the contemporary processes.

Lenin's theory on bourgeois democratic revolution continues to be valid today, though it has changed in many essentials. The theory forms the basis of the present-day strategy and of programmes of the Communist Parties, including in India. Lenin's concept flows directly from his analyses of imperialism, and charts out the tasks before the people in such a situation.

‘Fascism' of Extreme Rightwing Sections of Imperialism

General Secretary of the Communist Inter-national Georgy Dimitrov in 1935 characterised fascism as the extreme form of dictatorial rule of the most extreme Rightwing sections of finance and imperialist capital. Developing Lenin's theses, Dimitrov noted further differen-tiation within the world capitalist class. Fascism strove to destroy the working class movement, and along with it, the bourgeois democratic rights and democratic constitutional system. Thus, an all-out democratic unity of all the anti-fascist and democratic forces was the objective necessity of the situation.

Dimitrov's theses of the broadest possible anti-fascist united front were a creative development of Lenin's theory on the democratic revolution and democratic unity. Lenin had criticised the leaders of the Italian working class, including the Communists, for under-estimating the grave dangers to democracy from the fascists. Let it be noted that during Lenin's lifetime, fascism was only in its incipient form. Leaders were not yet clear about its true nature.

The Contemporary Imperialism

Much has changed since Lenin's time. Not all of the formulations of Lenin on imperialism are applicable today, particularly when there is an explosion of new productive forces and means of information.

For one thing, some of the points in Lenin seem to be overstated, which is natural in the conditions of world war. Productive forces keep developing today as never before. It cannot be said as generalisation that capitalism and imperialism are moribund and parasitic.

Besides, many new features have emerged in the contemporary world economy. The contra-diction and conflict between finance and industrial capitals have proceeded apace. It has led to a situation where, though there is no dearth of wealth, in fact there is a surplus of it, there is at the same time a serious dearth of capital. This is particularly the situation in the US. This is a serious and peculiar contradiction of modern advanced capitalism today. This way it is preventing its own development. The smaller scales of production and the developing countries are suffering in particular.

The serious obstacles for capitalisation of wealth emerge from a domination of finance capital over the Western economies. Financial monopolies, as opposed to industrial ones, are sucking the life-source out of the economy. Finance capital more and more shows a strong tendency to fly out of production and into speculation, share markets, forward and virtual trade and prime and sub-prime markets. This creates a crisis of productive investment.

Today, there is a debate in the West on whether there is a surplus of investment or its dearth. The financial system is variously named, such as, ‘money manager capitalism', ‘parasitic', ‘unproductive' etc. capitalist system. Clearly, things are moving towards a serious crisis of investment as such.

Another major feature is the introduction of the electronics revolution into the capitalist production and finance markets. It has caused the crises to appear and spread very quickly over the whole global market.

Thus today's imperialism is not able to adjust itself to the fast-changing and developing productive forces. This creates an anti-imperialist situation, in economy and politics as well as in ideology.

The situation creates new and far wider conditions for a new kind of broadbased democratic transformation of society with the help of the democratic institutions.

The new task is to restore the productive capacities of the society by curbing its financial tendencies.

We have entered a new era of democratic revolutions, backed by mass movements and mass democratic structures.

The author is a Marxist ideologue.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) marks 30 years of people's resistance to dam-projects in the Narmada valley. An icon of non-violent grassroots protest against destructive development, the NBA's peaceful efforts for equity and justice in the face of deliberate and severe provocation, make it a shining example of Gandhian ideals in an era of extreme corruption in morals and ethics.

Resisting Rape of an Ancient Valley

In the early 1980s, people of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the Narmada valley were shocked when the government began to construct 3000 small, 135 medium and 30 major dams and canals on the 1312-km long Narmada river, cradle of 5000 years of continuous civilisation and culture. Including two mega-dams—Narmada Sagar and Sardar Sarovar—it was supposed to irrigate two million hectares, feed 20 million people, provide drinking water for 30 million, employ one million and generate electric power for agriculture and industry.

The government was silent that the projects would inundate 37,000 ha of forest and agricultural land, affecting the lives and livelihoods of lakhs of forest-dwelling and farming adivasis and other rural families, and submerge ancient temples and towns, culturally and environmentally affecting not only the people of the Narmada valley but also the rest of India. The social costs of human displacement and loss of wildlife and forest were not a part of the crude (and perhaps manipulated) cost-benefit calculations. But perhaps social ill-effects were neglected because the project-affected families (PAFs) were predominantly adivasi and rural, and they really did not matter even decades after independence.

The State and Central governments were keen to obtain loans from the World Bank (WB) for large projects, and push them through, regardless of even basic considerations of feasibility. For example, the economic feasibility of dam-projects is primarily based on correct estimation of the total annual flow. Narmada's total annual flow, as estimated by the Bradford Morse Committee [more below], was 17 per cent less than the project-design flow, indicating that the designed benefits could not be achieved and the cost-benefit calculations were wrong or falsified. These projects promised unsubstantiated benefits of irrigation or electric power to one section of people, at the cost of the land and livelihood of another section of people, while the immediate financial benefits went to the construction industry, administrator-engineer-politician nexus and of course lending financial institutions.

As the PAFs began to realise the impact of the 3000-plus projects, they began to question its bases. Assisted by social workers and activists, the social, financial and technical bases of the projects, and the viability of the whole scheme and of individual projects were questioned. The separate organisations coalesced into the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in 1985 under the leadership of Medha Patkar, supported notably by Baba Amte and B.D. Sharma, and later, Ramaswamy Iyer, S.C. Behar, L.C. Jain, Kuldip Nayar and Swami Agnivesh among others.

In 1985, the WB funded $ 450 million of the $ 6 billion (1970 estimate) project. But because of the NBA's cogent critique of the socio-economic-technical-environmental assumptions and effects of the projects, and the march and non-violent demonstration by the PAFs to Ferkuwa on the MP-Gujarat border in December 1990, the WB reviewed its involvement in the projects. It formed an Independent Review Committee in 1991, under Bradford Morse, a respected former UNDP Administrator. The State and Central governments provided full cooperation to the Committee, possibly expecting it to provide support to counter the growing resistance offered by the NBA. But the Morse Report (1992) was critical of the government and of the projects in general [Note 1] and caused the WB to withdraw its financial involvement in 1993, damaging the credibility of the governments' plans.

The governments refused to re-assess the projects as recommended by the Morse Report. Gujarat, the principal beneficiary of the projects, raised funds by issuing Sardar Sarovar Bonds in 1993, to fill the $ 450 million financial gap. [Note 2] But, coupled with people's movements in Brazil (the Amazon Highway), Thailand (mining, dams and forestry) and Indonesia (forced displacement of two million people), the NBA's well-argued resistance drew the attention of the international community.

Embarrassed by the worldwide outcry against the WB-funded “development” projects, the USA summoned WB officials before its Congress to explain their lending policy. Following this, in an implicit admission of destruction and injustice, the WB noted that sustained economic growth was not possible without sustainable environment and just treatment of people, and even made the borrower-nations' preparation of National Environmental Action Plans conditional to providing development loans. [Note 3]

World Commission on Dams

Apart from the NBA's organised resistance against large dams primarily for social justice, and its critique of large dams and their adverse economic-environmental effects, there were escalating controversies on large dams else-where. This prompted the creation of a World Commission on Dams (WCD) in May 1998, with Medha Patkar as a member—truly a landmark victory for the NBA.

The WCD was financed by the WB and ADB; governments of Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK and USA; corporates ABB, Voith Siemens, Manitoba Hydro, Atlas Copco, Tractabel, Enron and Harza Engineering; and civil society organisations like World Wildlife Fund. This new model of funding, by 54 public, private and civil society organisations, relied on extensive public consultation through a forum of 68 members from 36 countries representing a cross-section of interests, views and institutions. The WCD was to review the development effectiveness of large dams to develop internationally acceptable criteria, guidelines and standards for the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of large dams. Thus, the WCD Report was the product of an independent, international, multi-stakeholder body, including two corporate CEOs as members, genuinely reflecting the interests of diverse groups. The WCD's the Final Report (titled “Dams and Development—A New Framework for Decision-making”) was released in November 2000 by Nelson Mandela. It incorporated five core values for decision-making concerning large dams, namely: Equity, Efficiency, Participatory Decision-making, Sustainability and Accoun-tability.

Facing Odds

The Government of India did not accept the WCD's unexceptionable core value recommendations, and construction of large dams continued not only in the Narmada valley but all over India, with people in their thousands joining the ranks of the PAFs.

Continuing its resistance to large dams, the NBA also moved to reconstruct the lives of the PAFs to ensure their resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R), and moved courts of law against the State and Central governments' malgovernance and their ignoring, circumventing or violating orders of High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. The NBA also questioned the governments' model of development and right of eminent domain.

The NBA's policy remains peaceful resistance to injustice and oppression (sangharsh) along with social reconstruction (navnirman). People's movements from all over India have taken heart from the NBA's successes, and increasingly question the governments' power of eminent domain over land. However, corporate-owned print and electronic mainstream media give little coverage to such movements and struggles, but are quick to dub resistance to infrastructure projects (including dams) as “anti-development”.

Several agencies are available to the PAFs concerning their rights, demands and grievances: the Narmada Control Authority (NCA); the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA); the Local, High and Supreme Courts; Grievance Redressal Authorities (GRAs); State governments of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat; and the Central Government. These have mostly failed to deliver justice due to collusion amongst themselves.

The NBA has also shown that governments acquiring land in adivasi areas without prior, informed consent of the gram sabhas is a violation of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act. But it has had little effect because of the corrupt politician-bureaucratic nexus.

When the Supreme Court ordered equivalent land-for-land rehabilitation to the PAFs, the governments stated in court that there was no land available for the purpose, even while they create “land banks” for industrial use and give agricultural land for Special Economic Zones (SEZs). In Madhya Pradesh, the police and administration forced evacuation of adivasi villages in the submergence zone by sealing their hand pumps, demolishing buildings with bulldozers and clear-felling trees. All this illustrates the governments' policy and attitude concerning people's problems. But the NBA continues to expose the wrong-doings of the project authorities including monumental corruption at many levels.

Notwithstanding such gross injustices and police violence on peaceful demonstrators, and failure by all the three pillars of the Constitution to address development-induced “involuntary” displacement, the NBA has maintained non-violence as a strategic imperative.

Persistence in a Right Cause

Maoist violence is being understood as the extreme reaction of the people to economic and physical violence from forest, revenue and police officials, seen as the first-cause. State (police) violence is the response. The violence by both sides is indiscriminate and adversely affects large, uninvolved (mostly adivasi) populations caught in the cross-fire. Escalation of violence has resulted in raising specialist forces and launching ‘Operation Green Hunt'.

However, employing the moral force of Gandhian non-violence, the NBA has been able to make the governments recognise the peaceful struggles of people. Today, thanks to the NBA's persistence over 30 years, and perhaps under-standing its principled stand, the governments do not use gun-violence as they do against the Maoists. However, due to the machinations of the politician-bureaucrat-corporate nexus, the governments persist in malgovernance with callousness, neglect and ignorance, with corruption as the major reason for the violence inflicted upon the PAFs.

Exposing corruption

With commendable perseverance, the NBA succeeded in presenting facts of endemic mismanagement and corruption in the R&R process before the Madhya Pradesh High Court which, in 2008, appointed a Commission under retired Justice S.S. Jha to investigate and report its findings. The Jha Commission, working for seven years, brought out its Report in January 2016. It has exposed many cases of fake registries that provide compensation to unentitled people while omitting entitled PAFs, indicating monu-mental, systemic corruption amounting to around Rs 1500 crores.

The PAFs demand that the Jha Commission Report be placed in the public domain to expose the humongous corruption, and also expose the rank criminality which has derailed the R&R process, denying them rightful compensation granted by the Supreme Court and violating their constitutional right to life. However, to protect the corrupt officials, the Madhya Pradesh Government has brought obstacles to placing the Jha Commission Report in the public domain, denying the PAFs the justice and relief which it would have provided.

People's Voices

Apart from the Narmada valley, there are many ongoing or upcoming hot-spots of resistance against human-cum-environmental disaster countrywide. Demanding development without displacement and destruction, they are inspired by the success of the NBA's 30-year-long efforts and the exemplary non-violent struggles of the Narmada PAFs.

The NBA has led the world in redefining development-for-people, giving the lie to mainstream media reports that these people are against development, as shown by one of the many slogans of these people: “vikaas chahiye—vinaash nahin”. [Note 4] While resistance remains non-violent by design, there is anger and dismay expressed vocally, never physically, though their slogan, “rajniti dhoka hai—dhakka maro, mouka hai”, shows impatience with the politician-bureaucrat nexus.

People affected by the government-defined displacement-causing development are today aware of their rights, thanks to the NBA—witness the unambiguous slogan, “hum apna adhikaar maangte!—nahin kissi se bhik maangte!” People are disputing the governments' power of eminent domain built into the present Land Acquisition Act 2013. This is evident from what the PAF children and adults shout with pride: “jal-jangal-zamin konyachi?—amichi!, amichi!” in Marathi, and only slightly differently in Gujarati, “jal-jangal-zamin konachhe—aamichhe, aamichhe”, staking full claim and right over land, water and forest, whatever the law may say. The governments' injustices are responded to in the call for resistance: “har jor zulum ki takkar mein—sangharsh hamara nara hai!” And as columns of protestors move from one place to another, their lilting marching song is, “narmada ki ghati mein ab sangharsh jaari hai; chalo utho, chalo utho, rokna vinaash hai”.

The environment-ecology aspect of destructive development that threatens to destroy humanity is recognised in “narmada bachao!—manav bachao!”, and two frequently repeated calls for joining hands are “aao ham sangharsh karein—ek doosre ka saath dein” and “hum sab—ek hain”. Positivity of the non-violent revolution against the governments' misuse of power, is in the slogan “ladenge!—jeetenge!”

Social Integration

Apart from bringing the dam-displacement issue to national and international attention, the NBA has brought women to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with men at the forefront of resistance. This is acknowledged in calls of “mahila shakti aayi hai—nai roshni layi hai”, whenever a woman comes up to speak, as increasing numbers do. The NBA has also succeeded in uniting people across the language-divide of the three affected States, coining the catchy slogan “hindi, marathi ya gujarati—ladne wale ek hi jaati”. The NBA's meetings, often held in temples, have united people across castes to resist the submergence of temples.

Existential Threat

The NBAs success in re-defining social and economic development in the national discourse has attracted diverse movements across the length and breadth of India. These have coalesced into the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), of which the NBA is a member movement. The NBA has attracted many individuals, including formally educated young women and men from urban backgrounds, to live and work in the Narmada valley alongside the PAFs. The dignified non-violent stance of simple adivasi and rural people facing oppression and suffering due to the governments' policies and officials' corruption and callousness, is a humbling lesson especially in present times.

Today the NBA is a moral force, and its most important contribution to India and the world is its continuing as a bastion of Gandhian truth and non-violence (satya and ahimsa) in an increasingly violent world, without detracting from the strength and vehemence of its arguments and agitations. But along with these achievements and hope, dark clouds of an existential threat to the PAFs loom with the present monsoon.

The “Development” Altar

The Supreme Court had ordered that raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) dam was to be executed in stages only after completing the R&R mandated for the previous stage. The government was to certify stage-wise R&R completion with an Action Taken Report (ATR) filed before the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court, misled by false ATRs certifying the R&R completion, gave permission for raising of the SSP dam height at each stage, without the PAFs actually being rehabilitated.

Thus, on the basis of repeated falsehood of R&R completion, successive State and Central governments over the years have succeeded in constructing the SSP dam to its finished height of 138.68-metres and even installed the sluice gates.

The present situation is extremely critical because if the sluice gates are closed, the submergence area will increase enormously, and over 40,000 PAFs in Madhya Pradesh alone will be drowned.

This year, the nation faces an almost country-wide drought situation, and prays for a bountiful monsoon. But the 40,000 PAFs in Madhya Pradesh live in dread of that very monsoon for which we pray, because it will drown them.

While PM Narendra Modi strives to place India in a position of prominence in the comity of nations, it can become prominent for the wrong reasons with its Altar of Development claiming the lives of many thousands of the PAFs. 

NOTES

Note 1. The Bradford Morse Report to the World Bank had this to say about rehabilitation, environmental impacts and general economical viability of the Narmada projects: “We think the Sardar Sarovar Projects as they stand are flawed, that resettlement and rehabilitation of all those displaced by the Projects is not possible under prevailing circums-tances, and that environmental impacts of the Projects have not been properly considered or adequately addressed. [W]e caution that it may be more wasteful to proceed without full knowledge of the human and environmental costs.” Hence, “ ... step back from the Projects and consider them afresh ...”

Note 2. The Bonds were to mature in 2014, yielding Rs 1,10,000, but the Gujarat Government declared early redemption in January 2009, offering only Rs 50,000; evidence of huge cost escalation and financial mismanagement, both of which were pointed out earlier by the NBA. [http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Sardar-Sarovar-Bonds--Dinsha-Patel-accuses-SSNNL-of-cheating/394490]

Sardar Sarovar Bonds: Dinsha Patel accuses SSNNL of cheating—The Indian Express (www.indianexpress.com)

Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel has accused the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) of cheating people who had put their money in the 1993 Sardar Sarovar Bonds. “Sardar Sarovar Bonds: Dinsha Patel accuses SSNNL of cheating”; Express News Service; December 5, 2008.

Note 3. That this was finally dependent upon borrower-governments' responses to people's real-time, real-life issues and agitations, implemented by callous and corruptible administrative and regulatory agencies, is another matter that needs to be discussed elsewhere. Indeed in 2002, to the delight of the governments, the WB reverted to financing large dams which it described as “high-risk-high-reward” projects.

Note 4. The slogans were noted during this writer's several visits to the Narmada valley. The English interpretations for those to whom Hindi may be unfamiliar, in order of their occurrence are below:

# vikaas chahiye—vinaash nahin : we want development, not destruction.

# rajniti dhoka hai — dhakka maro, mouka hai : politicians are false—the time to strike is now.

# hum apna adhikaar maangte! — nahin kissi se bhik maangte : we demand our rights, we are not begging.

# jal-jangal-zamin konyachi? — amichi!, amichi! : whose is the water, forest and land?—it is ours! it is ours!

# har jor zulum ki takkar mein — sangharsh hamara nara hai! : we strongly resist and oppose injustice in every manner.

# narmada ki ghati mein ab sangharsh jaari hai; chalo utho, chalo utho, rokna vinaash hai : resistance is on-going in the narmada valley; arise! arise!

# narmada bachao!—manav bachao! : save narmada! save humanity!

# aao ham sangharsh karein—ek doosre ka saath dein : come, let us help one another in our struggle.

# hum sab—ek hain! : we are united!

# ladenge!—jeetenge! : we will fight! we will win!

# mahila shakti aayi hai—nai roshni layi hai : women's power has brought new light to our movement.

# hindi, marathi ya gujarati—ladne wale ek hi jaati : whether we speak hindi, marathi or gujarati, we are together.

Major General S.G. Vombatkere retired as the Additional Director General, Discipline & Vigilance in the Army HQ, New Delhi, after 35 years in the Indian Army with combat, staff and technical experience. The President of India awarded him the Visishta Seva Medal (VSM) in 1993 for distinguished service rendered in Ladakh. He holds a Ph.D degree in Structural Dynamics from the IIT, Madras. He coordinates and lectures a Course on Science, Technology and Sustainable Development for undergraduate students of University of Iowa, USA, and two universities of Canada, who spend a semester at Mysore as part of their Studies Abroad in South India. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor of the University of Iowa, USA.

A study of history of various communities and their relationships can be very helpful for building further on their friendship as well as for removing any suspicions that may exist. Unfortunately a different approach based on revenge has been taken up in some parts of the world. In South Asia this approach has found several followers in narrow-minded religious bigots who promote their own brand of ‘scholar-ship' to spread hatred between communities.

When historical incidents (or mythical incidents covered up as historical incidents) are used for spreading hatred, then an important question needs to be raised as to whether these unjust or cruel acts had come in the way of re-establishing friendships with a ‘forget and forgive' approach in the past. If this is so, and if our ancestors had themselves forgiven these wrongs, then what justification can be provided after so many generations have passed to re-assert these enmities on the basis of these old incidents.

For example, let us look at the long-drawn- out war between Akbar and Rana Pratap which continued till long after the important but indecisive battle of Haldighati. Whatever bitter-ness may have accumulated in the course of this war during which the Rana's family suffered in the wilderness for several years, the fact remains that in the next generation the Rana's son, Amar Singh, established a friendship on honourable terms with Akbar's son, Jehangir. Jehangir made absolutely no efforts to humiliate him in any way, and in fact showed him the utmost respect. Subsequently the scions of the Rana's family fought on the side of the Mughal kings and princes on several occasions. Prince Karan, the son of Rana Amar Singh, was accorded the rank of 5000, which had been earlier accorded to the rulers of Jodhpur, Bikaner and Amber. He was to serve the Mughal emperor with a contingent of 1500. All the territories of Mewar were restored.

None suffered as much at the hands of Mughal rulers and their chieftains as the Sikh Gurus, and yet they revealed their greatness by adopting the attitude of forgiveness and establishing friendship. It is important to note that a few years after the cruelty shown by Aurangzeb to him and their family, Guru Govind Singh did reach a friendly agreement with Aurangzeb's successor, Bahadurshah I. If the Guru was so great as to forget and forgive even at that time, when the wounds were still raw, how can there be any justification to reopen them hundreds of years later and to spread hatred on that basis?

At Haldighati Hakim Sur and his Afghan soldiers had fought valiantly on the side of Rana Pratap. On the Mughal side there were a large number of Rajput soldiers led by Raja Man Singh. Still earlier at the battle of Khanwa, Mahmood Lodi and Hasan Khan Mewati had fought on the side of Rana Sanga against the army of Babar.

When the (Hindu) King of Bikaner was defeated by the King of Marwar, his family sought refuge in the court of Shershah Suri. When Humayun was defeated by Shershah Suri, he sought refuge with the (Hindu) King of Amarkot. Akbar was born there.

It is clear from the above examples that the history of Mughal India is not a history of fights between Hindus and Muslims. Kings fought each other time and again, but generally there were mixed armies on both sides. Further, heroes and villains did not exist in any one religion. On some occasions the persons who showed great valour and large-heartedness happened to be Hindus, on some other occasions they happened to be Muslims. In fact the biggest heroes of this age were those who rose above sectarian considerations to spread the message of universal love and brotherhood—persons like Sant Kabir and Guru Nanak.

In fact there are even instances when Muslim fundamentalists had ganged up against Muslim rulers, and the Mughal ruler then sent an army under the leadership of Hindu Rajas to quell such rebellions!

Describing such an episode Prof Satish Chandra writes: “The rebellion kept the empire districted for almost two years (1580-81) and Akbar was faced with a very difficult and delicate situation. Due to the mishandling of the situation by local officials, Bengal and almost the whole of Bihar passed into the hands of the rebels who proclaimed Mirza Hakim as their ruler. They even got a religious divine to issue a fatwa, calling on the faithful to take the field against Akbar. Akbar did not lose his nerve. He dispatched a force under Todar Mal against Bihar and Bengal, and another under Raja Man Singh to check the expected attack by Mirza Hakim.”

Shivaji, a courageous, kind and able statesman of medieval India, is one of the most fascinating personalities of Indian history. His manifold achievements have made him a folk hero. It is extremely tragic, however, that the name of this remarkable king has been used in recent times to spread hostility against a community. A person who is a symbol of national integration has been used in exactly the opposite way to spread discord.

It is important therefore to emphasise the historical fact that Shivaji had the highest respect for the Islam religion, and enjoyed the affection and respect of a large number of Muslims in his own time. He assigned major responsibilities to Muslims who occupied important positions in his Army. He built a mosque in front of his palace. He paid his respects to several Muslim saints and saw to it that the Muslim population of his kingdom lived without any sense of discrimination or discontent.

V.B. Kulkarni writes in his book, Shivaji—ThePortrait of a Patriot: “Shivaji's veneration for other faiths was as profound as for his own. He showed the highest respect for the holy men of Islam and of Christianity. He looked upon Baba Yakut of Kelsi as his honoured friend and benefactor, while a number of Muslim shrines received liberal endowments from his govern-ment. He showed similar respect and consideration for Father Ambrose when he met him at Surat. Like the temple and the Gita, the mosque and the Holy Koran won his highest respect. During his military operations, he made it his invariable practice to give the Koran to a Muslim divine when the sacred book fell into his hands.”

It was due to his large-heartedness with respect to other religions that Shivaji was able to gather around him a strong and loyal force.

Kulkarni writes: “Men of all classes and creeds enthusiastically took part in the great enterprise of building a new order in the country. The Pathan from the wilds of the North-West Frontier fought shoulder to shoulder with his Hindu comrade-in-arms in sustaining and strengthening the new creation. The sea-faring Muslim from the Konkan was received with open arms in the Maratha navy and given positions of trust and responsibility without the slightest suspicion or fear that the ties of religion would triumph over his sense of loyalty and obligation.”

Similar views have been expressed by another historian, G.S. Sardesai, in his book New History of the Marathas, Vol I: “He (Shivaji) never undertook a serious task without first consulting his gurus. Shivaji made no distinction in this respect between a Hindu and a Muslim saint. He honoured all with equal respect. At his capital Raigad he erected a special mosque for Muslim devotees in front of his palace in the same way that he built there the temple of Jagadishwer for his own worship.”

Further, Surdesai writes: “One thing is quite clear that in defending the Hindu religion, Shivaji was in no way actuated by any hatred towards the Muslims as a sect or towards their religion. Full religious liberty for all was his ideal and the practice in his State. He revered Muslim saints like Baba Yakut of Kelsi to whose shrine he made a grant which is still being enjoyed. He had many devoted Muslim servants and followers who wholeheartedly cooperated with him. His chief Naval Commanders were Muslims—Daulat Khan and Siddi Misri; Madari Mehtar, a farrash (chamberlain) was a servant near his person, who helped him in his flight from Agra. Shivaji's confidential foreign secretary (munshi) was one Mulla Haidar. A considerable portion of the population under Shivaji's rule was Muslim, but it all lived as contented and free as his Hindu subjects.”

Shivaji was thus a tremendous symbol of national integration. But in recent times the name of the same Shivaji has been used by communal fanatics for propaganda against a minority community, namely, the Muslims. Shivaji would have been shocked at such efforts of misusing his name and personality.

Bharat Dogra is a free-lance journalist who has been involved with several social initiatives and movements.

by Apratim Mukarji

Can India get beyond firefighting as a foreign policy goal in South Asia, asks a scintillating analysis of India's neighbourhood policy.1 Despite occasional prime ministerial announce-ments of henceforth paying special attention to nurture neighbourly relations, New Delhi lapses—almost as if involuntarily—into prolonged periods of neglecting South Asian capitals until some “firefighting” becomes absolutely necessary.

This ad hocism is of course most pronounced in the case of its most important neighbour, Pakistan, giving rise to an impression that India would probably have been happy if this particular neighbour could be wished away. “Let us see how long it (Pakistan) lasts,” India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, once remarked.2 That not being the case, there is wonderment around the world that even after three wars and one undeclared war, innume-rable armed and diplomatic confrontations, a very difficult neighbour—proving increasingly to be risky not only for India but also for the neighbourhood and elsewhere for nurturing and exporting jihadis—New Delhi continues to betray an obvious absence of long-term strategy.

A direct outcome of this singular inadequacy on India's part is the following editorial, “Another missed opportunity”,3 a comment that is being used and re-used many times over throughout the parallel histories of the two countries and will probably continue to be used till eternity. It would be quite honest to admit that this particular lament sounds all too familiar to us. “This week's meeting between the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries in Delhi served as a reality check on the stalemate in the bilateral dialogue... Both countries have now officially confirmed that the talks bore no results. In a world where the US and Cuba have restored ties, Russia and China have formed a close partnership, and Iran has emerged from isolation, it is not too much to hope that India and Pakistan can at least discuss key issues.”

Many a time India's Pakistan policy has been identified as constantly oscillating between hauteur and appeasement, in all probability an indication of weakness. This is something which till the other day appeared to be incompre-hensible to the international community since India was considered far more powerful than Pakistan. As former diplomat, academic and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Prof M.L. Sondhi observed in the early 1970s, this obvious imbalance between the two giving rise to an acerbic relationship could only be remedied if both countries went nuclear. With this becoming a reality, Islamabad has no reason any longer to feel inferior, and should respond more confidently to India's peace overtures. But somehow the old sense of rivalry between the two neighbours appears to have remained intact, and an uneasiness at the best and an outright hostility at the worst times continue to be the norm.

But surely New Delhi should have enjoyed normal relations with the other neighbours where the terrible baggage of partition does not colour views and policies. Yet, the same prevarication, alternation between warmth and coldness, tendency to self-glorify and impose one's own interest on a neighbour many times over poorer and less powerful than this country continue to guide India's policy..

Let us review our relations with Sri Lanka, an island-nation always independent of India, as an example of New Delhi's uneven and unpredictable policy formulation. On my second night in Colombo in 1990, I had an unforgettable experience. “Sometimes I wonder if I shall see Sri Lanka annexed by India before I die,” the lady I was sharing the table with sighed, startling me considerably. While in India, I had never come across any such intention on the part of the government. It was also a few months after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) had left Sri Lanka in mid-1990, totally unloved and under a huge cloud of “good riddance” exclamations.

This reward came India's way after it had sacrificed 1165 soldiers in about three years' time (1987-90) in fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north while the J.R. Jeyawardene Government was left free to fight the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgency in the south. There was little doubt that had India not come to its rescue at the time, the government would have collapsed under the twin burden of fighting two deadly insurrections at the same time.

For months afterwards, society ladies in Colombo's party circles would reminisce about their morning outings in front of the Indian High Commission on the Galle Road, throwing pebbles at the building and chanting “Go back IPKF”. “When the Little Viceroy would drive out, our chanting would get an additional boosting,” the ladies explained. The “Little Viceroy” was, of course, the redoubtable Indian High Commissioner, J.N. Dixit, who seemed to be completely unmoved by the outpourings of protest against his government.

Fortunately our relations with Bangladesh have been quite satisfactory lately as the Sheikh Hasina Government has been friendly to us. But India's relations with Begum Zia-led main Opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), remains substantially frozen, and it is anybody's guess that once the Opposition returns to power, bilateral relations may well hit rock-bottom. Even Sheikh Hasina's friendship once dried up; on April 20, 2001, India was shocked by the horror of seeing repeatedly on the TV screen the bodies of sixteen Border Security Force jawans slung across poles like carcasses and being handed over to the Indian side. Cut to April 20, 2001 when a terribly shocked India came face to face with the pictures of sixteen Border Security Force (BSF) personnel killed, mutilated and slung across poles like animal carcasses and being borne by Bangladeshis to be handed over to the BSF. The shock was two-fold: India had been dealt an “unacceptable” treatment by Bangladesh which owed its very birth to this country's all-out military help in 1971 and this atrocity had occurred under the watch of the “friendly” Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League Government.

What had gone so horribly wrong with India-Bangladesh relations? The A.B. Vajpayee Govern-ment was virtually clueless. So desperate was its need to learn the truth that the Prime Minister' Office in its wisdom chose this writer to make an urgent clandestine visit to Dhaka in the guise of a scholar to ferret out the truth. A visa was obtained within a day and I was instructed to leave Delhi within a few hours. My visit, however, did not come to pass as second thoughts prevailed and the PMO had begun to learn the truth bit by bit.

That truth was ugly, establishing that the initial fault lay with the BSF. Since the liberation of East Pakistan, a simmering dispute had been brewing over some of the enclaves in adversarial possession. The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) captured the Pyrdiwah village on the border of Meghalaya in a surprising show of strength on April 15 and surrounded the 31-strong BSF post there. Bangladesh claimed that the village was its part while India insisted otherwise. It was in fact an Indian enclave within Bangladesh.

As tension between the two countries soared and the usual dispute-redressal mechanism was put into operation, the BSF perpetrated a blunder. In order to put pressure on the BDR, it sought to capture a BDR post in the Boraibari village on the border of Assam (though the official position was that the operation was the local commander's responsibility and that there was no such order from the higher-ups). This village was very much part of Bangladesh, and the sixty-odd-strong BSF patrol party was soon discovered and captured by villagers and handed over to the BDR. The Bangladeshis living in the village had long-held grievances against the BSF which had often fired at and killed them for illegal entry into India; so this was their chance for revenge.

While diplomacy came into play and the two neighbouring countries talked to each other back and forth, sixteen mutilated bodies of the BSF men came back to India causing extreme outrage, and Parliament was in tumult for several days. The setback for the Vajpayee Government was all the more galling because the incident occurred right at the moment when New Delhi was setting out to win Dhaka's friendship for achieving several objectives. One of these was negotiating for a sizeable slice of natural gas supply from Bangladesh; another was promoting security and economic interests not only in that country but also beyond; yet, a third objective was to secure transit rights for Indian goods through Bangladesh for quicker access to the North-Eastern States. Above all else, New Delhi was keen to settle the land border between the two countries including the vexing issue of enclaves in adverse possession. It was another matter that almost all these issues were finally dealt with successfully a full fourteen years later.

India-Nepal relations were becoming increa-singly strained in early 1989 over what New Delhi perceived as Kathmandu's and, more specifically, its royalty's “penchant” for raising “irritating” demands. Negotiations were on at the time over agreeing on a new trade treaty; and in New Delhi's perception, Kathmandu was seeking to place itself on an equal footing with India which was not realistic and, therefore, not acceptable. While India was pressing for a single treaty to cover all aspects of economic relations, Nepal demanded that two separate trade treaties should be agreed upon. As negotiations stumbled on tricky points, the Indian Govern-ment all of a sudden imposed an economic blockade on Nepal. As many as 19 out of the total 21 border crossings between the two countries were blocked and supplies of all essential commodities from India to Nepal ceased. The Kolkata Port, the only sea route available to Nepal, and all the land routes connecting various North Indian cities to Nepal became inaccessible overnight. The blockade, which was apparently an Indian Government device to teach the aspiring Nepal (suspected to have been instigated by anti-Indian and pro-Chinese elements in the country) a bitter lesson, lasted from March 1989 to April 1990, forcing the landlocked Himalayan country into unending and unprecedented hardship affecting every segment of its society. In hindsight, after the blockade was lifted and the bilateral relations returned to an even keel, it was revealed that behind the surprising and condemnable Indian measure lay its desire to warn Nepal about seeking closer relations with China without its consent. The Rajiv Gandhi Government sought to establish that while Nepal was an indepen-dent and sovereign state, it must respect India's pre-eminent position in South Asia and act accordingly.

But what happened in 2013 between India and Bhutan was all the more unexpected and difficult to explain. Under the existing trade agreement, the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was selling LPG cooking gas and kerosene at special subsidised rates to Bhutan and was compensated by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in quarterly instalments of fund releases. It so happened that the instalment for the last quarter of October-December 2012 did not reach the IOC during January 2013. The IOC continued its supplies till June and then stopped, and for the month of July Bhutan was suddenly starved of the cooking gas and kerosene. Diesel supplies were fortunately not interrupted, but as every household in the Himalayan kingdom suffered terrible hardships, India's only unwavering friend in the benighted neighbourhood, Bhutan, knocked at the regional superpower's door in sheer desperation. While the problem was eventually sorted out, it was never clear why this unpleasant episode happened at all. There was no answer to the question whether it was a diplomatic overkill or simply a bureaucratic bungling. Some doubts persisted because over the years and despite the excellent bilateral relations, there are a plenty of examples to show that Bhutan has gradually sought to ease out India's overwhelming presence over its destiny.

In the meantime, New Delhi was forced to partake of a serial unpleasantness in its relations with the Maldives, a sphere of prickly neigh-bourly experiences. On February 6, 2012 the India-friendly President Mohamed Nasheed was toppled in a coup and was succeeded by an equally unfriendly Mohamed Waheed. While the event exposed a surprising development in a country which was considered to have been on a democratic path after many decades of authoritarian rule by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, it also showed once more the failure of Indian diplomacy not only to hold on to its sphere of influence but also to expand and build on it. Perhaps a complete analysis of the developments since then was provided by Nasheed himself.

“I was sad when the coup took place,” Nasheed said, “because it seemed to me that India did not understand the seriousness of events in the Maldives. I do understand India has complex issues to deal with when engaging with its neighbours. I think India could have secured an election date much earlier though, had its diplomacy been a bit more forceful. Please don't get me wrong... In my years in prison, I read a great deal about the vision of Jawaharlal Nehru. I think that vision should inform India's actions.”4

Since then, the Maldives has successfully maintained its distance from India; Islamism has been growing steadily, and the country defied India repeatedly by establishing closer relations with China which led in turn to the emboldening of Sri Lanka under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime to follow suit.

In 2015, Nepal revisited the sins of not listening to Indian reprimands. This time, the economic blockade remained undeclared, but the fact of an Indian hand in choking Nepal by the stalling of supply of essential commodities in the name of a Madhesi movement was too palpable. Ever since the Indian Government literally cold-shouldered what Nepal rightfully considered an achievement—the completion of the prolonged and often jinxed exercise over the new Constitution—and advised, quite publicly, to allow space for inclusiveness by providing adequate representation to the Madhesis, the main minority community considered close to India, the public mood was turning anti-Indian, and the blockade and resultant hardship in Nepal since then vitiated the bilateral relations a good deal.

Let us listen to the sane advice from a seasoned former Indian diplomat, Nirupama Rao. “Nobody denies India's immense power in Nepal,” Rao and Atul Pokharel write. “With power comes responsibility. As long as the people of Nepal perceive the outcomes of the special relationships to be unfair, it will be difficult to secure their cooperation. It is up to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi to change that. South Asia and the world are watching.”5 It is important to note that in each of these countries except Bhutan, China has emerged in the last few years as India's main rival and is expanding its sphere of influence consistently. It speaks little good about the regional superpower's omnipotency that with the fall of the pro-Beijing K.P. Oli Government in Nepal, a major Indian newspaper headlined its story as “Oli's fall good news for India, blow to China”.6

Juxtapose the experiences of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka with Indian diplomacy over the years, and one begins to understand why the Indian is the Unloved South Asian.

Footnotes

1. Indrani Bagchi, “Playing Yesterday's Game”, The Times of India, July 27, 2016.

2. Nehru quoted in B.K. Nehru's memoirs, Nice Guys Finish Second, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 1997.

3. The Hindu, April 29, 2016.

4. Interview to The Hindu, April 20, 2012.

5. The Hindu, October 17, 2015.

6. TheTimes of India, July 25, 2016.

Apratim Mukarji is an analyst of Central and South Asian affairs.

by Praveen Davar

Sixtynine years after the State of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India questions are still asked as to why India accepted a ceasefire and why its Army was not allowed to evict the Pakistani raiders from the other side of the LoC which since became PoK and the Gilgit-Baltistan area. This brief article attempts to trace the origin of the dispute and answer these oft-raised questions. Before doing so it is important to know that both the Indian and Pakistan armies during the period were headed by British Generals. While M.A. Jinnah, as the Governer- General of Pakistan, was the supreme authority for Pakistan, Lord Mountbatten, as the Governer-General of India, was the Chief of India's Defence Committee comprising Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Home Minister Sardar Patel and Defence Minister Baldev Singh. All decisions on J&K—accession, sending troops, reference to the UN, ceasefire etc.—were taken by the Defence Committee.

As for the other princely states, it was open to the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, a state which was contiguous to both India and Pakistan, to sign the Instrument of Accession and join it to either Dominion. All the princely states, except J&K, Hyderabad and Junagadh, acceded to India or Pakistan by August 15, 1947. Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, delayed his decision as it was for him not an easy decision: his state was contiguous to both Dominions and, while he was a Hindu, his subjects were predominantly Muslim. He sought to enter into a standstill agreement with each Dominion in accordance with the Indian Independence Act, which, while terminating the suzerainty of the British Crown, had provided for the continuance of certain existing arrange-ments pending the establishment of permanent relations.

The ruler's offer was conveyed in identical terms to both the Dominions on August 12, 1947. Pakistan agreed to have a standstill agreement on communications, supplies and postal and telegraphic arrangements. The Government of India requested the ruler to send a representative of his government to negotiate and settle the terms of the Standstill Agreement and expressed their desire for the maintenance of “existing arrangements and administrative arrangements”. Pakistan acted beyond the terms of the Standstill Agreement by applying economic and other pressures against Kashmir for its accession. Supplies of food, salt, petrol and other essential commodities were cut-off, and so also the only rail link with the state. Tribal raiders covertly led by the Pakistani Army officers started crossing the frontiers of the state in the third week of October. By October 22, the incursions swelled to the size of a large-scale military invasion. The armed forces of the state were mobilised to offer resistance but by October 25 the invaders had advanced deep into Kashmir and were within a few miles of Srinagar.

The state people's movement in Jammu and Kashmir had been led Sheikh Abdullah, an outstanding leader, but neither Jinnah nor any other Muslim League leader had taken any interest in the state people's movement, while a strong bond of cooperation had been forged between the Indian National Congress and the Kashmir National Conference. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah had formed a firm friendship which was to prove a great advantage for India.

With Mountbatten's advice, and under pressure from Nehru and Patel, two days later the Maharaja offered to accede to India and asked for immediate military assistance. V.P. Menon, Secretary, Ministry of States, flew to Jammu and got the instrument of accession signed by the Maharaja on October 26. The emergency meeting of the Defence Committee comprising Nehru, Patel and Baldev Singh, despite initial resistance from Lord Mount-batten, the Chairman of Defence Committee, ordered troops in the Valley to evict the invaders. Operation J&K commenced at first light on the morning of October 27. One after another more than a hundred planes, both civilian (BOAC) and military (RIAF), flew out of Safdarjung Airport, ferrying weapons, rations and troops of the Sikh regiment led by Lt Col Ranjit Rai who was one of the first soldiers to sacrifice his life, but not before his unit had succeeded in establishing a bridge-head on the Baramula-Srinagar road which halted the invasion and saved Srinagar.

According to M.J. Akbar in Nehru—The Making of India,“Fortunately, the Prime Minister understood what was happening as soon as he got the news and he wasted not a moment in his response. As it turned out if Nehru had dithered even for a couple of hours, Srinagar would have fallen, and all would have been lost.”

And what of the Kashmiri people and how did they feel about the war raging around them? Sheikh Abdullah in a speech was effusive in his praise for the sacrifice and gallantry of the Indian Army. He said: “The attainment of our dream of independence might have received a setback or its realisation delayed owing to the grim war that had been forced upon us from Pakistan. The blood, which the heroic sons of India have shed on the battlefields of Kashmir in defence of the people, cannot go in vain and is bound to blossom forth as a symbol of comradeship between the people of Kashmir and India. Let us stand by the pledge that India has given us and we have given India forever.”

Gilgit's population did not favour the state's accession to India. Sensing their discontent, Major William Brown, the Maharaja's comm-ander of the Gilgit Scouts, mutinied on November 1, 1947, overthrowing the Governor Ghansara Singh. The bloodless coup d'etat was planned by Brown which was also joined by a rebellious section of the Jammu and Kashmir 6th Infantry under Mirza Hassan Khan. A provisional government (Aburi Hakoomat) was established by the Gilgit locals with Raja Shah Rais Khan as the President and Mirza Hassan Khan as the Commander-in-Chief. However, Major Brown had already telegraphed Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan asking Pakistan to take over. The Pakistani political agent, Khan Mohammad Alam Khan, arrived on November 16 and took over the administration of Gilgit. Gilgit-Baltastan and the western portion of the state (called Azad Jammu and Kashmir) have remained under the control of Pakistan since then. After taking control of Gilgit, the Gilgit Scouts along with the Azad irregulars moved towards Baltistan and Ladakh and captured Skardu by May 1948. They successfully blocked the Indian reinforcements and subsequently captured Dras and Kargil as well cutting off the Indian communications to Leh in Ladakh.

The war in J&K went on for fifteen months, till the end of 1948. On January 1, 1948, India took the issue of Jammu and Kashmir to the United Nations Security Council. In April 1948, the Council passed a resolution calling for Pakistan to withdraw from all of Jammu and Kashmir and India to reduce its forces to the minimum level, following which a plebiscite would be held to ascertain the people's wishes. However, no withdrawal was ever carried out, India insisting that Pakistan had to withdraw first and Pakistan contending that there was no guarantee that India would withdraw after-wards. By the end of November 1948 Indian forces had recaptured Dras and Kargil, securing the route from the Valley to Ladakh. Simul-taneously they took Mendhar and linked up with the Poonch garrison, so lifting the year- long siege. Having fully secured Ladakh and Rajouri-Poonch, India accepted ceasefire for which international pressure had been building up and could not be resisted any longer. The guns fell silent on the last night of 1948 and ceasfire became effective from January 1, 1949.

Writes Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramanian in his recently released book on India's Wars : A Military History: “Despite his (Nehru's) tenta-tivenness with matters military when forced to face the grim realities of an impending war and its impact on what was dear to him (Kashmir), many of his early military decisions were spot on. Given the precarious situation at Poonch, his decision to divert a part of the buoyant 161 Brigade southwards, much to the consternation of some of his military commanders, was instrumental in saving Poonch. Similarly, his decision to overrule his British C-in-Cs and allow the use of air power, albeit with some restrictions, against the raiders within Kashmir proved to be a significant force multiplier.”

India agreed to a plebiscite subject to certain very specific conditions, the most important of which was that Pakistan should withdraw all its troops and vacate the entire territory of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. This Pakistan refused to do and still refuses to do. According to top diplomat J.N. Dixit, “An even more interesting factor, which is not widely known, is that Sheikh Abdullah himself was not very keen that Indian forces retrieve the western areas of the state from Pakistani troops. The reason was that he was not sure of his popularity with and acceptance by the people who now inhabited Pakistan-occupied areas of Kashmir. His leadership and his political party, the National Conference of Jammu and Kashmir, did not have the same support in those areas which they had in the rest of Jammu and Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah therefore endorsed India referring the case to the UN Security Council instead of having to cope with a portion of the state which would have opposed him after the completion of the military operations.”

Though the whole of J&K, including PoK and northern areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, rightfully and legally belongs to India, the only pragmatic solution for India and Pakistan is to respect the status quo. This was the essence of both the 1999 Lahore Declatation and 1972 Simla Agreement. The only alternative is war which, in the 21st century, will not be conventional but a nuclear war resulting in mutual destruction. Hence it must be ruled out.

The author, an ex-Army officer, is a member of the National Commission for Minorities. The views expressed in the article by him are personal.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has met around 300 people at Srinagar. Pakistan, too, has offered to have talks on Kashmir. Both steps, however laudable, are late by two to three years. The Kashmiris then wanted a settlement through a dialogue. Leaders like Yasin Malik and Shabbir Shah did take part in the conclaves held at Srinagar and New Delhi.

The topic at that time was to make New Delhi realise that the State had acceded to the Union of India only three subjects: Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications. But overzealous Jagmohan and Governors like N.N. Vohra and his predecessors spread themselves all over. They did not keep in mind that accession was limited to only three subjects. The Kashmiri leaders were unhappy but felt helpless.

Today, the young generation has gone beyond what their elders had promised. The youth now want independence, with freedom to chalk out their foreign policy. In fact, their concept of sovereignty is like the freedom which any country in the world enjoys. Their represen-tatives invited me to Srinagar last month. I found them really agitated but quite clear about what they want.

To call them fundamentalists or anti-India will not be fair. True, they want Srinagar to be like Washington or London and don't want links with Islamabad. They argue that their foreign policy will be decided by the elected members of the State Assembly and not dictated by New Delhi or, for that matter, Islamabad.

I told them that I believed their demand was understandable but how could India create another Islamic country on its border when it already has a bad experience of having one Islamic state, Pakistan? They shrugged their shoulders when I argued with them that the Lok Sabha, with a majority behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi, would not concede their demand. This was your problem, they said.

The quantum of autonomy can be a matter of debate but certainly not the accession. By going back to the very raison d'être of Pakistan, we would start another kind of debate and might disturb the equanimity which Hindus and Muslims have achieved despite an unequal situation.

Those who pelted stones in Srinagar may be the misguided youth in one way. But they represent the aspirations for independence in the other way. They have gone far ahead of Yasin Malik and Shabbir Shah, who are in jail. The youth resent the very accession to India. But they are equally indignant against Pakistan, although some extremists are trying to cloud that.

I think that till a couple of years ago, the matter could have been settled between the governments at New Delhi and Srinagar but today the Kashmiris would have to be part of any dialogue on the future of the State. The UN resolution for a plebiscite in Kashmir or the Shimla Agreement between Mrs Indira Gandhi and Pakistan's Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has lost relevance. The situation today is different.

It is regrettable that neither India nor Pakistan realises this or, at least, gives that impression. It is now a triangular issue and all the three points will have to be touched for an amicable settlement. Another delegation to Srinagar may be a futile exercise because the Kashmiris feel that promises made earlier have not been made good.

Former Chief Minister Omar Farooq Abdullah, who now leads the National Conference, is quite right when he says that he finds no utility in delegations visiting Srinagar when the reports prepared by the earlier ones are accumulating dust in the Home Ministry's corridors. New Delhi will have to prove its bona fides first before the thread can be picked up from where it was left off earlier.

After all, what was the demand of Sheikh Abdullah who had to spend some 12 years at Kodaikanal in the south? He wanted New Delhi to recognise that the State had joined the Union by conceding only three subjects. It was not for the Union to usurp more powers without consulting the unit that had acceded to it.

Maybe, much water has flowed down the Jhelum since. But the situation can be retrieved by rolling back all laws which go beyond the scope of the three subjects. The youth in Kashmir may not feel happy but this is one possibility, although a remote one, to bring back the State on its tracks.

During my talks with the students at Srinagar, I told them that it was not possible to meet the demand of full independence. India is already suffering from the pinpricks of Pakistan. By granting full independence to Kashmir, New Delhi will only be increasing its problems. I also argued with the students that the land-locked Valley would have to depend either on India or Pakistan for business.

In reply, they said that they would be like Switzerland, a tourist resort, and would earn money from visitors of different lands. They would not have a standing Army, the upkeep of which costs a huge amount. They would still have the problem of finding a market for their men and material but they are oblivious to this fact at present.

New Delhi is quite right in demanding a discussion on terrorism before discussing Kashmir. The dialogue which Pakistan has offered can start with terrorism and also embrace Kashmir because they are the two sides of the same coin. The Army, which calls the shots in Pakistan, may have its own agenda but cannot be opposed to a dialogue for normalising the border bristling with the armies of the two countries.

India should sort out the problem in Kashmir first before sitting with Pakistan. This can be done by accepting what Sheikh Abdullah, a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru, demanded. The Sheikh said that India should withdraw all laws that went beyond the scope of the three subjects originally acceded to the Union of India.

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

This is an abridged version of the letter written by late Jayaprakash Narayan to the then Prime Minister of India, Smt. Indira Gandhi, on June 23, 1966. The letter has great relevance for students of Kashmir's politics and those concerned with peace in Jammu and Kashmir. It was sent to us by Prof Gull Wani, who teaches at the University of Kashmir.

When I was in Delhi recently for a day, I learnt that you had asked Mr Sadiq and some of his colleagues to meet you on the 26th for a review of the Kashmir question. In view of the importance of that meeting, I am venturing to place before you some of my ideas in that connection.

The Kashmir question has plagued this country for 19 years. It has cost us a great deal materially and spiritually. We profess democracy but rule by force in Kashmir—unless we have auto-suggested ourselves into believing that the two general elections under Bakshi Sahib had expressed the will of the people or that the Sadiq Government is based on popular support, except for a minority of pro-Pakistan traitors. We profess secularism, but let Hindu nationalism stampede us into trying to establish it by repression.

Kashmir has distorted India's image for the world as nothing else has done. There is no nation in the world, not even Russia which appreciates our Kashmir policy, though some of them might, for their own reasons, give us their support. No matter how much loud and how long we shout that Kashmir is an inalienable part of India and that therefore there was no Kashmir problem, the fact remains that a very serious and urgent problem faces and will continue to face us in that part of the country. The people of India might be kept in the dark about the true state of affairs in the Valley, but every foreign chancery in New Delhi knows the truth and almost every foreign correspondent. We hope that someone—may be Sadiq Sahib or Mir Qasim Sahib—might one day perform some miracle that would bring about a psychological revolution in the Valley. I feel due to historical events any manner of de-accession of any part of the State is now impracticable—no matter how just or fair according to the principles of democracy and secularism. Whatever be the solution, it has to be found within the limitations of the accession.

It is here that Sheikh Sahib's role may become decisive. It was not justice to have arrested him without giving him the chance to clear himself of the charges so wildly made against him. Nor do I think he is a traitor. Godse thought that Gandhiji was a traitor. The RSS thinks that Jayaprakash Narayan is a traitor. Nobody can be held to be a traitor by the Government of India unless it has been established in accordance with the due process of law. It was indiscreet of Sheikh Sahib to have met Chou-en-Lai. But that is all that can be said about it. No fair-minded person would consider that as a treasonable act. When the Chinese had attacked in 1962 had he not written to the Prime Minister expressing our deep anguish? Did he not, on May 25, 1964, publicly rebuke in Rawalpindi Chaudhari Ghulam Abbas for having sought Chinese intervention? In London did he not say at a press conference (The Times, March 19, 1965) that China's claims on Ladakh were inadmissible? About Sheikh Sahib's statements abroad I agree that it would have been better if the Sheikh had spoken less and more guardedly. But Sheikh Sahib cannot be expected to be anything but himself—he just cannot keep quiet. This is a common failing of us Indians. I would add one more quotation from the Sheikh and this is what he said before leaving for his trip abroad in 1965: ‘We might have differences among ourselves. But after all India is the homeland of us all. If God forbid, India ceases to be India and goes down, how others can be saved? We have to look at problems from that angle.'

I have been pressing for the release of Sheikh Abdullah as I see it that if there is any chance of this matter being settled, it is with the help of Sheikh Abdullah. I am not hundred per cent sure of this—no one can be. But the odds appear to me to be favourable enough to urge for Sheikh Abdullah's unconditional release. An element of risk may be there, but there is risk in every big political or military decision, in fact in most human decisions, as even when two persons decide to wed.



Here may I digress a little? Nandaji seems to have told Shri R.K. Patil that Jayaprakash is ‘completely out of touch with public sentiment' on the question of Kashmir and Sheikh Abdullah. I suspect that more of your colleagues are of that view. I therefore want to offer certain comments.

First, of all some people (mostly crypto-communists and Hindu nationalists of all hues) have created a certain image of JP—a silly idealist or a hidden traitor—and whatever that man says or does it is twisted to fit that image. For instance, I am supposed to have advocated the giving away of Nagaland to the Nagas, Kashmir to the Pakistanis. I have never even remotely made any such suggestion. But having created a false image it was easy for anyone to throw stones at it. But that did not alienate JP from the public sentiment. Without appearing to be vain, I make bold to say that except for you personally, there is no one in your government who is as constantly and widely in touch with the people as I. Almost daily I address public meetings and invariably my experience has been that I am heard in pin-drop silence and afterwards people come to assure me that they had been completely misled and if that was what I meant, they were for it. The only two of my meetings that were disturbed were in Delhi at the time of my visit to West Pakistan and the trouble-makers were RSS boys whose minds were closed. I am not saying that everyone who listens is persuaded but I am saying that the views I propounded—with frankness and sincerity—are far from being out of touch with public sentiments.

Lastly (on this digressive count), the leaders of this country are not doing justice to the people. It is the job of the leaders to lead, but most of them are too timid and weak to speak out the truth, to propagate unpopular policies and, if the need arose, to face the wrath of the people. For my part, I have faith in our people—they are sound and intelligent. If they are given all the facts they can take the right decisions.

Returning to the main theme of this letter, why do I plead for Sheikh Sahib's release? Because that may give us the only chance we may have of solving the Kashmir problem. The Sheikh is the only leader who could swing Muslim opinion in the Valley towards his side about the future of Kashmir—which will have to be within the limits of accession.

Several questions arise at this point. Will Sheikh Sahib agree to any such status? If he did, would he succeed in persuading the Kashmiris to rally round him? Would not autonomous Kashmir, sooner or later, attempt to secede from the Union? Nandaji tries to cloud the whole issue by asking for proof that the Sheikh's thinking has changed. This appears puerile to me. Keeping people in jail is not the best way of inducing them to be more malleable. Nandaji should have learnt that much from his own experience in British Indian jails. Moreover, supposing the Sheikh were released in the fanfare of the official propaganda about the Sheikh having changed, would an iota be left of his political utility for India? On the contrary, I am sure that on his release Sheikh Sahib would again reiterate the right of the Kashmiris to decide their future and we should have the maturity enough to understand that and not to denounce him as a Pakistani agent. He can never hope to persuade the Kashmiris to accept an autonomous position within India if he did not make it clear that it was they and not anybody else who were to take that final decision.

The more important question is: how would Sheikh Abdullah want the Kashmiris to decide their future? I am sure not by plebiscite. The Sheikh can do that by fighting the 1967 elections on the basis of his agreement with the Govern-ment of India (as envisaged above). Could the Kashmiris people be enthused over autonomy within the Union? I think they could, with Sheikh Sehab frankly telling them that that was the only way they could save their territory becoming a battle-ground for India and Pakistan.

I may be asked: what grounds have I for believing that Sheikh Abdullah would accept autonomy within India? My reply to that is:

‘It has been known these many years that Sheikh Sahib has been resolutely against Kashmir being merged with Pakistan. He did no doubt entertain ideas of some kind of an independent Kashmir but I believe he is realist enough to realise that (a) no solution of Kashmir could ever be accepted by India, after the last war with Pakistan that involved de-accession of the State, or any part of it, from the Union, and (b) an independent state in that part of the world could have little chance of survival in the face of Pakistan's consuming hunger for the Valley of Kashmir and the emergence of the Chinese power in the region—a power that cannot be expected to exercise self-denial in relation to its weak neighbours.'

In addition, I have this to say: Sheikh Sahib had told Narayan and Radhakrishnan that he would be prepared even to accept full internal autonomy for Kashmir provided history were not allowed to repeat itself. By that he meant, provided the autonomy was not gradually whittled down and the Centre did not interfere in the State's internal affairs... To think that we will eventually wear down the people and force them to accept at least passively the Union is to delude ourselves. That might conceivably have happened had Kashmir not been geogra-phically located where it is. In its present location and with seething discontent among the people, it would never be left in peace by Pakistan. China is bound sooner or later to take a hand in the sport of fishing in troubled waters. With the issue settled to the satisfaction of the great majority of the people, the external mischief-makers would not find a favourable soil for sowing their mischief. Internationally, India's prestige would soar. No reasonable government would then be able to point an accusing finger at us.

Another question may be asked: will Sheikh Sahib negotiate with the Government of India to the exclusion of Pakistan? Well, he told two sarvodaya friends that bilateral talks with India will be the “first stage” meaning thereby that later on Pakistan would have to be brought into the picture. Instead of resenting Sheikh Sahib's anxiety to secure Pakistan's acceptance of his compact with India, we should ourselves take the initiative and use his good offices in this behalf in the manner found feasible.

I am sorry to have inflicted on you such a long letter. But I felt it was my duty to my country to put these thoughts before you and your colleagues.

With kindest regards,

Yours sincerely,

Jayaprakash Narayan

Smt Indira Gandhi,

Prime Minister of India,

New Delhi

Even after a lot of criticism, the government continues to use pellet guns in J&K against protestors. The recent victims include an eight- year-old Junaid, whose lung has been ruptured, and Adil, who has been blinded. Thirty patients in a day, victims of pellet guns, clearly shows that the government is in no mood to relent.

This reflects the tenor of the statement by Arun Jaitley made in Samba of the Jammu region where he said that militancy and stone- pelting need to be dealt with firmly and no laxity should be shown in dealing with such a situation. Although Narendra Modi, at a meeting with Opposition leaders the next day in Delhi, said that he shared the pain of the Kashmiris. He said it was a matter of distress whether the lives lost were of our youth, security personnel or police. But the PM is now known to initiate damage-control when the situation worsens and starts affecting his political prospects. Rajnath Singh earlier said that instead of stones, bricks and firearms in the hands of Kashmiris he would like to see pen, computers and jobs. Both Rajanth and Jaitley have blamed Pakistan for fomenting the current trouble in Kashmir.

It is unbelievable that the BJP leaders hold such simplistic ideas about Kashmir. Their approach is only going to worsen the situation.

When Rajnath or Modi say they would like to see development in J&K, do they really think economic prosperity is the answer to the unrest in Kashmir? If economic well-being would have guaranteed happiness then the youth of Punjab would not have taken to drugs. Mental happiness is no less important than physical well-being for peace to return to the Valley. That can happen only when a political solution, which is agreeable to the Kashmiris, is arrived at. Most commentators say it will have to be some kind of autonomy.

Jaitley must be asked: why did the women and children pick up stones? Stone-pelting was the people's answer to the use of force against them by the Indian Government. Jaitley must thank the people of Kashmir as most of them have shown restraint and not picked up guns. Only a small minority indulges in the kind of violence which can kill the security forces. It is a pity that while the security forces can easily save themselves from stones, or at least will not suffer fatal injuries, they have no qualms about using pellet guns against the people with serious consequences. No security personnel is getting killed, except for the two who died initially, in the present round of daily violence. Only the number of civilians getting killed is going up. Kashmiris are right in doubting whether they are considered equal citizens of India, when pellet guns are used only against their agitation and not elsewhere in the country. No sensitive government would use such inhuman methods against their own citizens. Israelis use it against Palestinians but then Israel doesn't have the kind of relationship with Palestine which India claims to have with Kashmir.

The BJP seems to know only one way to deal with the problem—to remain tough. The curfew, already the longest in the history since J&K became part of India, has been there for more than a month-and-a-half now. Police have given up. People are directly facing the brunt of the military and para-military. Security forces, which are trained to face the enemy at the border, start treating people like enemies. It doesn't look likely that security forces being present there in such large numbers will help create an atmosphere which can pave the way for normalcy to return. The BSF has been called out after 13 years which is not a good sign.

Modi has appealed for peace to return to the Valley so that dialogue could begin. Jaitley thinks that the stone-throwing protestors are the aggressors but in reality the security forces are the bigger aggressors given their power of ammunition. So, it is in the hands of the govern-ment to bring peace to the Valley. The govern-ment only cuts a sorry figure by blaming Pakistan for even the stone-pelting implying that Pakistan is able to influence proceedings in Kashmir while it has completely failed to have an impact.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has also referred to Pakistan as ‘hell' to which a South Indian actress and former Congress MP has given a very rational reply. There are protests against her and an advocate has sought a sedition case to be filed against her. This has now become a trademark strategy of the Hindutva brigade. First a controversy is created. Then if questions are raised about this, the Hindutva brigade will take to the streets and create a scene. Nobody will question the original action. Only the reaction will be attacked. For example, there is noise about registering a case against Akhlaq's family in Dadri but nothing is said about the people who killed him in the first place.

But commendably, Ramya has stood her ground. The irrational behaviour of the Sangh Parivar affiliates will have to be pointed out and questioned whatever the cost required to be paid. They are masquerading Hindu nationalism as the only form of nationalism, which is quite at variance from the idea of nationalism which our freedom fighters believed in. Actually, since the BJP has come to power there is a sheer display of hooliganism in the name of nationalism and it must not be tolerated. Communal harmony was an integral part of our nationalist legacy which is now sought to be dismissed in the name of minority appeasement. Ramya is right. People in Pakistan are just like us. People don't hate each other. It is the governments which have created an atmosphere of enmity. Why should the people be dragged into it?

In Pakistan 48 per cent people enjoy the benefit of improved sanitation whereas the figure for India is merely 34 per cent. The proportion of underweight children in India is 43 per cent whereas in Pakistan it is merely 31 per cent. Hence for certain poor sections of the population Pakistan may not be so much of a ‘hell'.

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.

MUSINGS

After reading my recent comments in the context of those hitting photographs of the four- year-old Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh, injured during the latest round of bombardments in Syria's Aleppo, my Kashmiri friends said: ”Today there are hundreds of Omran Daqneeshs in our midst. Our Kashmiri children have been physically and emotionally wounded in this ongoing violence in the Valley, yet the govern-ment is only doing politics. No solutions, no end to this crisis. All that seems to have emerged after weeks of clampdown is that pellet guns could possibly get replaced by some other guns!”

Why should guns be used on an unarmed civilian population? Prefix any word of your choice—pellet or pepper or powder—but guns are guns! Also, can the fragile human being take the strain of this lethal combination—guns, curfew, crackdowns, arrests and detentions, rationed supplies of food and medicines and, to cap it all, dents in the very connectivity.

The situation in the Valley continues to be grim. Eid is barely a fortnight away but will the Valley be in a positon to observe even the basics of this ‘festival of sacrifice', in an atmosphere riddled with fear and uncertainty, not to overlook the killings and devastation? What celebrations, cry out the Kashmiris, when there is nothing to look forward to in this state of siege! Soldiers all around, new bunkers erected around residential colonies and school premises!

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been giving statements but not a single sentence reaching out to the aggrieved citizens who had been hoping that some level of declarations come up to indicate that a political process would start off. She seems in no mood to accept the core issue—that is, the Kashmiris are indeed angry and want no “toffees” and nor “milk” but a political settlement or at least concrete indications that a political process would be underway.

Kashmiris do not want to hear about the happenings in Balochistan or in PoK. In fact, contrary to the hyped propaganda the reality is this: Kashmiris do not want any level of merger with Pakistan, “We want nothing to do with Islamabad or with New Delhi! We just want our azaadi so that we can live with dignity on our land and not in this state of siege.”

A political way out has to be found to ease the situation. As a retired civil servant, who had earlier worked as an advisor to a former Governor of J&K, told me: ”Some level of concessions or flexible autonomy will have to be worked out, otherwise the situation cannot be brought under control. This time the Kashmiris' anger cannot be contained by mere promises or assurances or announcements of delegations visiting the Valley. Too late for diplomatic moves. Too many killed and injured, too much alienation.”

Veterans lament that if the Government of India had been somewhat farsighted and with that taken care to reach out to the Kashmiris with the best possible democratic framework—which would have included freedom to speak out without fear of the aftermath and to live without the overpowering presence of the security forces —then anger-cum-alienation of this magnitude wouldn't have engulfed the Valley.

And to know how earnest or sincere is the government in trying to solve the basics to the crisis, one has to read this recent statement by the editor of The Milli Gazette, Zafarul Islam Khan. I quote him—“... a meeting of some ‘eminent Indian Muslims' was held with the Home Minister on August 21 in which I too was invited. Friends in the Valley and beyond have objected to my participation while the current government has no agenda to solve the Kashmir problem. My answer to all was that if my participation can in any way help the resolution of this intricate problem, I am ready to meet anyone and sacrifice anything. A delegation of some Muslim personalities to go to the Valley is being planned. I will not be part of it for two reasons: there are no indications that the government is serious about tackling the issue, and I cannot accept government largesse and facilities to do such a work. Here is the message I sent to the coordinator of this group, Dr M.J. Khan, which sums up the discussions and my perspective and readiness to sacrifice for a lasting peace in the subcontinent, which cannot be achieved without untying the Kashmir knot: ‘It was clear during our interaction with the HM that he is not ready for any confidence-building measures as of now: no readiness to bring the injured youth right away from the Valley, no readiness to immediately stop pellet guns, no readiness to announce compensations right away. No talk of lifting AFPSA from the unaffected areas like north Kashmir and moving the Army away from the inhabited areas. Instead, more troops are being airlifted to the Valley. No readiness to talk to the Hurriyat or Pakistan for a final solution of this festering wound. Hence, personally I do not see any usefulness of visiting Kashmir. In any case, it should be an independent initiative, not one sponsored and paid for by the Home Ministry. By accepting such help, we lose credibility. Personally, I have overnight lost my credibility in the Valley which was built over three decades. Despite this, I am ready to lead an independent initiative if there are people ready to listen and work for a final solution on the lines of or close to the failed Agra agreement. A Nobel Prize is waiting for Modi if he can rise to the occasion. If not, such eruptions will keep happening every few years sapping our energies and defaming us in the eyes of the world.'”

From N.C.'s Writings

Last month was observed the twentyeighth death anniversary of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's third military dictator, who was killed in an air crash in that country in August 1988. To mark the occasion and because Pakistan is now in the focus of attention due to the latest events in Kashmir, we are reproducing the following incisive editorial N.C. had written on August 17, 1988 (it was published in the August 20,1988 issue of Mainstream) after Zia's demise.

With the passing away of President Zia-ul- Haq, Pakistan enters a new phase in its chequered political career. His death is also bound to bring about a significant shift in the mosaic of regional politics in South Asia.

For eleven long years, General Zia ruled over Pakistan—the longest that any personality, civil or military, has held power in that country. As a military dictator, General Zia lacked legitimacy in the eyes of an overwhelming segment of public opinion in his own country but he displayed consummate craftsmanship as an astute political figure in the sphere of inter-national diplomacy.

Playing on the so-called strategic imperatives of the US foreign policy, General Zia could skilfully extract maximum aid, both economic and military, from Washington. If Pakistan became the main base of operation for the Afghan mujahideen, it exploited this role to become the major beneficiary of the US arms bounty in consequence.

Son of a maulvi attached to the Army, General Zia throughout kept up his links with the Jamaat-e-Islami, which provided the mainstay of his political support when he engineered, in 1977, the coup against Bhutto, who had chosen him as his trusted commander-in-chief super-seding the claims of several Generals senior to him.

Unlike Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who on becoming President had divested himself of the post of the Army Chief, General Zia never gave up his position as the supremo of the Army. Throughout he maintained his iron grip over the armed forces operating through a coterie of trusted men among whom the only civilian was Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who has now taken over the reins on the sudden demise of President Zia.

In his death the US has lost one of its most trusted stooges in this part of the world. After the fall of the Shahenshah of Iran, it is Pakistan under President Zia which has provided the political and strategic foothold for Washington in South and South-West Asia. In the formation of the US Central Command, in working out its strategic thrust in the Persian Gulf area, in coordinating the US naval presence in the region with ground support for any eventuality, General Zia emerged as an indispensible factor in the Pentagon's scheme of things. Under President Zia, Pakistan provided military advisers to a large number of Arab countries. Two divisions of troops were until recently engaged in the service of the Saudi Arabian regime. Of all the key figures in Pakistan it was General Zia who held out till the end against the signing of the Geneva accords on Afgha-nistan, and even after Pakistan was compelled to sign the accords, it was General Zia who was in the forefront in violating its provisions with impunity. The mujahideen caucus has lost one of its protectors with the death of Zia-ul-Haq.

Because of the key position that General Zia held in the Pentagon's list of priorities, there was never a hold-up of US arms aid to Pakistan during his regime despite the clamour in the US Congress for a democratic order in that country. Even his policy for the acquisition of nuclear weapons did not come in the way of Pakistan getting abundance of US aid. It is an amazing case of poetic justice that the US Ambassador should lose his life along with General Zia in an aircraft gifted by the US.

President Zia played striking histrionics in his relations with India. His education at the Doon and St Stephens, his hi-fi passion for watching cricket, his generous hospitality to mediamen and Sikh pilgrims from India—all these bear testimony to his superb public relations exercise. One of his last stunts was to bestow special honours on Morarji Desai while backing Khalistani terrorists in Punjab. At the same time, General Zia fought shy of signing a friendship treaty that India offered and he never hesitated to provide hospitality to promoters of Khalistan and asylum for extremist terrorists carrying on their dastardly acts in Punjab.

General Zia-ul-Haq could never countenance a democratic set-up in Pakistan. Even the truncated one he set up with Junejo as the Prime Minister was snuffed out earlier this year. His campaign for Islamisation was meant as an antidote to democratic urges in different parts of Pakistan.

There is no question that the removal from the scene of this hatchet-man of democracy will open up new possibilities which no military junta will find it easy to muzzle. The coming weeks and months will be the testing time for the Generals as well as the democratic forces in Pakistan.

(Mainstream, August 20, 1988)

EDITORIAL

An all-party parliamentary delegation has lately visited Kashmir. It held a meeting in the Capital today. Thereafter the following statement was issued on its behalf:

“The members of the All-Party Parliamentary Delegation have expressed concern over the prevailing situation in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The members of the delegation are of the opinion that there is no place for violence in a civilised society. There can be no compromises on the issue of national sovereignty.

“The members appeal to the people of the State to shun the path of violence and resolve all the issues through dialogue and discussion. The members requested the Central and State Government to take steps for dialogue with all stakeholders. The members asked the Central and State Government to take steps to ensure that educational institutions, government offices and commercial establishments start functioning normally at the earliest. They requested the government to take effective steps to ensure security for all citizens and provide medical treatment to citizens and security personnel injured in the agitation.”

Since July 8, when a top militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Burhan Wani, was killed in an encounter in South Kashmir, the latest round of agitation began and the situation has still not returned to normalcy. The violence accompanying the agitation has left as many as 73 dead, and they include two cops; several thousand are reportedly injured, many of them due to the use of pellet guns by the security forces that has led to the loss of eyesight of a large number of people.

As for CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, who was part of the all-party delegation, he said that Left parties want the PM to restart dialogue with Pakistan when he visits that country for the SAARC Summit in Islamabad next November.

He also demanded that the government withdraw the AFSPA from the civilian areas in the Valley. This Act gives the security forces sweeping powers to search and arrest people at random.

Former CM of J&K Omar Abdullah has termed the all-party delegation's appeal “lame and sterile”, saying a sense of urgency to bring an end to the ongoing violence was missing therein.

Omar's observation does indeed carry a lot of weight. But the fact is that the drafting of the appeal in itself was an achievement given the hostile approach of influential sections in the ruling dispensation. Take the case of Ram Madhav. A leading figure of the RSS sent by the Sangh to guide the BJP, he is currently the BJP General Secretary in charge of Kashmir. According to him, the call for a “political solution” to the Kashmir issue was a mere “slogan” raised by “romantic” people. He has also said that those not believing in the Indian Constitution must have be dealt with sternly.

He further called for a “particular strategic culture” in the country. For him “political solution” has only one meaning: “that J&K is an integral part of India—simple and final”. If the Hurriyat or certain other sections of public opinion in J&K are taking a tough line, so are persons like Ram Madhav. Still one has to wade through such impediments to restart dialogue with all stakeholders since there is no alternative whatsoever.

September 7 S.C.

by Mansoor Ali

In the course of a plenary session of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on June 23-24, 2016, India had made a concerted effort to join it; but that bid was rejected primarily due to objections to India's application to that effect from the Chinese Government and also because of the unexpected support Beijing was able to enlist from Washington's allies like Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland and Turkey. It should be noted that the US had promised New Delhi to persuade its traditional allies to support India in its endeavour to join the Group; however, that obviously did not happen. It must also be understood that there were several instances in the past wherein Washington secured the support of these very countries by applying sufficient pressure on them whenever that was necessary for the US even if such a move came in conflict with those countries' interests.

It goes without saying that New Delhi's failure to enter the NSG has not only affected India's prestige in the world arena but also helped the Opposition groups in the country to mount attacks on the Narendra Modi Government for its inability to secure international support on vital global issues.

In the light of this development and other similar cases it is worth reviewing the efficacy of New Delhi's one-sided international policy based on cooperation with the US at the expense of relations with other states. There is a strong view that this policy does not meet our expectations but rather compromises India's leading role in the non-aligned movement (NAM) before the developing world and impel our traditional allies like Russia and Iran to seek closer ties with China (whose interests do not necessarily coincide with ours on a range of questions).

COMMUNICATION

The headline “Why Vegetarianism is Anti-National” [by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd in Mainstream (August 27, 2016) pp.11-13] is catchy. If the intent of the article was to incite visceral reaction, it served its purpose. But if the object of the article was to appeal to reason, especially at a time when the Hindutva madness has descended upon the country, it fell flat. Let me try by touching on some aspects of the article.

The article says: “A nation's strength is dependent on the knowledge potential of the young people, more than the physical energy that the ‘yoga school' is talking about.” In the India I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, no non-parochial primary, middle or high school included yoga in its curriculum. Yoga was thought to lean towards Hinduism, a feature that made it objectionable for inclusion in a secular system of education. Here in the United States, where I am based for nearly 25 years, I observe yoga being aggressively included in the curriculum by secular schools across the country. Yoga, as any scholar would know, owes it origin principally to the Sankya and Sraman philosophical schools of Indian thought—both of which reject the idea of a creator, God. Its wholesale exclusion in post-independence India from education on the unexamined theory of identification with Hinduism made us, several generations of Indians, deprived of deep and sublime secrets of a good life, which secrets go well beyond “physical energy” that Mr Shepherd makes reference to. Indeed, yoga has more to do with the “knowledge potential of the young” that Mr Shepherd says India needs more than “physical energy” because yoga appears to train the mind even as it does the body that carries it.

He then goes on to say: “...in India, mostly the Brahmin, Baniyas and Jains (who are also Baniyas) eat several varieties of vegetarian curries...” Jains are not automatically “Baniyas”. Indeed, all their 24 fordmakes (“Tirthankars”) were Kshatriyas and the adherents to the path shown by them came from all sections of the society, including Kshatriyas like me whose forefathers were warriors, even as many of them migrated to commerce in peace times. He adds: “Even if they are not fed with egg, meat, beef, their body and mind growth would not suffer much.” (emphasis added) The idea that vegetarians suffer because they are vegetarians has no evidentiary basis. Indeed, Jains credit the vegetarian diet to the birth of agriculture which made it redundant to kill in order to live healthy. Unsurprisingly, traditional vegetarians have developed sophisticated know-how on how to stay healthy in mind and body. Some say that even prior to the invention of agriculture, most of our human ancestors were principally vegetarians. See, for instance, the following recent article in the Scientific American, among many others: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegeta-rians/ Among animals, the strongest (elephant), fastest (horse or deer), and most productive (cattle and other livestock) are vegetarians.

The article contains an endless series of judg-mental statements, some of which can be considered offensive. Castigating certain propon-ents of vegetarian food choices, it says: “They never studied the impact of these campaigns in a country of superstition, idol worship and Brahminism.” Characterising India in such terms appears misplaced. If the author has a problem with idol worship, for instance, as he is entitled to have and express, he might consider a different subject for his article. But the connection to vegetarianism is at best remote, and at worst profoundly jaundiced. He goes on: “The Hindu food culture's role must be under-stood in comparison with Chinese, Japanese and Euro-American food cultures, their economic strength and intellectual power. India, as of now, cannot match them in any discoverable knowledge.” The sentence is a piece with the rest of the article in implying that vegetarianism is responsible for India's lack of economic strength, intellectual power, discoverable knowledge, mental and physical energy, weakness, defeat from Middle Easterners and Europeans. According to the author, vegetarianism will “surrender this country to more energetic, more imaginative and more creative forces”. Food choices the world over have come about as a result of a complex interplay of ecology, environment and culture. India, for instance, has been blessed with an ecology, terrain and climate more suited to agriculture than those living in Middle Eastern deserts. It seems logical that those in the deserts would probably not survive if they were vegetarians. In short, it is wild to make judgments about food choices without considering many aspects.

Having said that, it goes without saying that Mr Shepherd is perfectly entitled to his views, but one hopes Mainstream promotes scholarship and analysis over unexamined judgments. Mainstream perhaps wants to make sure that minority points of views are heard. But India is comprised of many minorities and one hopes Mainstream is mindful that its readers also seek from Mainstream a scientific and secular temper grounded in analysis, scholarship and reason. Even as Hindutva is reprehensible, judgmental views are equally so.

Finally, the same issue of Mainstream also contains another article that seeks to assail the forces of Hindutva (“Antiquity of Bhaaarata”). Prof D.N. Jha would also do well to consult Jaina literature. Jains believe that the first “chakravarti” of modern times was Bhaarata, the son of Rishabh, the first Tirthankar. The name of India comes from his name, they believe. In Jaina literature, he will also find answers to some of the other issues he raises.

Jaipat Singh Jain

New York

“The BJP is an authoritarian, not fascist, force. The fight against it cannot be conductet in alliance with the other major party of the ruling classes,” writes Prakash Karat, the erstwhile General Secretary of the CPI-M, in the following article in The Indian Express (September 6, 2016). It is being reproduced here, with due acknowledgement, for the benefit of our readers. An effective rejoinder to this thesis follows in the subsequent pages.

Know your enemy

Prakash Karat

The existence of a BJP Government at the Centre, with a stable majority in the Lok Sabha, has led to a debate within Left circles and among some liberal intellectuals about the nature of the government in power. The advent of the Modi Government saw a Right-wing offensive unfold in the country. A combination of Right-wing neo-liberal economic policies and the aggressive advance of the Hindutva agenda mark the offensive. How to counter this offensive is the primary concern of Left, democratic, and secular forces in India today.

A significant section of Left and liberal opinion has characterised the present situation in the country as the arrival of fascism. An influential stream of opinion within this thinking defines the present set-up as “communal fascism”, arguing that this is the Indian variant of fascism.

What sort of Right-wing threat is India facing? A correct understanding of the ruling regime and the political movement that it represents is necessary because it has a direct bearing on the political strategy and electoral tactics to be followed in order to fight the BJP and the Modi Government. There has to be clarity in defining the character of the BJP. The BJP is not an ordinary bourgeois party. Its uniqueness lies in its organic links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The BJP is a Right-wing party with respect to its economic and social agenda, and can be characterised as a Right-wing party of majoritarian communalism. Further, given its linkage to the RSS, which has a semi-fascist ideology, it is a party that has the potential to impose an authoritarian state on the people when it believes that circumstances warrant it.

Fascism as an ideology and as a form of political rule emerged in between the two World Wars in the 20th century. When the capitalist system was engulfed in deep crisis and faced with the threat from a revolutionary movement of the working class, the ruling classes in Germany opted for an extreme form of rule that abolished bourgeois democracy. Mussolini's Italy and Japan were also fascist regimes.

The classic definition of fascism leaves no room for ambiguity: Fascism in power is “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reac-tionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital”. In India today, neither has fascism been established, nor are the conditions present—in political, economic and class terms—for a fascist regime to be established. There is no crisis that threatens a collapse of the capitalist system; the ruling classes of India face no threat to their class rule. No section of the ruling class is currently working for the overthrow of the bourgeois parlia-mentary system. What the ruling classes seek to do is to use forms of authoritarianism to serve their class interests.

In India today, the Hindutva ideology and chauvinist nationalism are used to polarise the people on communal lines and to attack religious minorities. Brutal methods are used to suppress the religious minorities; dissent and secular intellectuals are sought to be put down by branding them “anti-national”. From above, at the level of the institutions of the state, and from below, through the outfits of the Hindutva brigade, a determined effort is being made to reorder society and polity on Hindutva lines. While these activities pose a grave and present danger to democracy and secularism, they do not, by themselves, constitute the establishment of a fascist order.

India today confronts the advance of an authoritarianism that is fuelled by a potent mix of neo-liberalism and communalism. Apart from Hindutva communalism, the other major source of authoritarianism is the Right-wing neo-liberal drive. The neo-liberal regime acts to constrict the democratic space, homogenise all bourgeois parties. hollow out parliamentary democracy, and render the people powerless as regards basic policy-making. The impact of neo-liberalism on the political system has led to the narrowing of democracy.

In the world today, imperialism and the ruling classes of various countries deploy different forms of authoritarianism rather than open fascist rule in order to perpetuate their class rule and pursue the neo-liberal policy. Such authoritarianism can be imposed on a system where formal democracy and elected governments exist

There are varieties of authoritarianism in the world today. In some, political mobilisation around religious-ethnic lines is used to impose an authoritarian order. Religion-based communalism or political mobilisation is accompanied by the imposition of extreme Right-wing economic policies. India is one such country.

There are striking similarities between India and Turkey with regard to religion-based political mobilisation and authoritarianism. After the Modi Government came to power in May 2014, the writer Amitav Ghosh was among the first to write about these common features. Both countries have ruling parties that use religion-based “nationalism” to mobilise support. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is an Islamist party while the BJP is based on Hindutva. Each has a strong leader with authoritarian tendencies—Recep Erdogan and Narendra Modi—in government. The AKP seeks to desecularise the Turkish state and targets the Kurdish minority and secular intellectuals. The BJP and the Modi Government target the minorities and seek to suppress the dissenting voices of secular intellectuals. Both have embraced neo-liberalism. However, it would be erroneous to characterise the government and state in Turkey or India as fascist: they are better described as being Right-wing authoritarian.

The authoritarianism of the Modi Govern-ment is buttressed by its growing military cooperation and strategic ties with the USA. The fight against the BJP-RSS combine is thus more complex and multi-dimensional than a black-and-white struggle between fascist and anti-fascist forces.

The BJP and its patron, the RSS, have to be fought in the political, ideological, social, and cultural spheres. The fight against the BJP and Right-wing communal forces has to be conducted by combining the struggle against communalism with the struggle against neo-liberalism. Since the two major parties—the BJP and the Congress —are alternately managing the neo-liberal order for the ruling classes, the political struggle against the BJP cannot be conducted in alliance with the other major party of the ruling classes. Unlike in the fight against a fascist order, where elections in a democratic system become redundant, the electoral battle is also important in India.

The slogan that the fight is now against fascism obfuscates some of the vital issues around which the people can be mobilised to oppose the BJP and the Modi Government. These include its rapacious economic policies and subservience to big business and finance capital, issues that affect the livelihoods and economic rights of the people.

The specific situation obtaining in the country today cries out for the broadest mobilisation of all democratic and secular forces against communalism, while also building a political alliance of Left and democratic forces based on an alternative programme. Only such a dual approach can check and roll back India's Right-wing forces.

The author, an erstwhile General Secretary of the CPI-M, is currently a member of the party's Polit-Bureau.

Stalin's Ghost Won't Save Us from the Spectre of Fascism: A Response to Prakash Karat

Jairus Banaji

While all authoritarianisms are not fascist, all fascisms are a form of authoritarianism. What is distinctive about fascist authorita-rianism is its appeal to forms of mass mobili-sation and attempt to create sources of legitimacy among ‘the masses'—through cultural (for example, pseudo-religious) and ideological domination

In The Indian Express (September 6, 2016) Prakash Karat, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist has an opinion piece defending the BJP against its characterisation by sections of the Left in India as the external face of a fascist movement driven by the RSS and its vision of a non-secular, Hindu state. The threat that is sweeping through India today is one of authoritarianism, not fascism, he argues. Nor are the conditions present for a fascist regime to be established, even though a ‘determined effort is being made to reorder society and polity on Hindutva lines'. The crux of Karat's argument is a conception of fascism lifted straight from the famous formula adopted by the Comintern's Executive Committee in December 1933. “Fascism is the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reac-tionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

Why is it that every time mention is made of Prakash Karat powerful images of rigor mortis rush through my brain? Is it because the young student leader from the JNU days always impressed me as the pure type of the apparatchik, the social type that flooded the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by the late 1920s, swamped it as the emerging base of Stalin's rapid consolidation of power within the party and then in the country as a whole?

The apparatchik destroyed Lenin's party but he couldn't discard Marxism completely. He adapted to Marxism by converting it into a draw full of rubber stamps. Incapable of thought, much less of any more creative process like actual intellectual engagement, the building of theory, unfettered debate, etc., he (for we are dealing overwhelmingly with males) opened the draw to look for the right stamp every time some phrase or expression triggered a signal.

Stalin with Dimitrov

‘Fascism', ah yes, what does the stamp say? It had Georgi Dimitrov's name on it. A definition of fascism first adopted by the Executive Committee of the Communist International at the end of 1933 became famously associated with Stalin's favourite, Dimitrov, when it was taken over and circulated more widely in his report to the Seventh World Congress in 1935. This is the one I've cited in the preamble above, ‘Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship (etc.)'. It rapidly became orthodoxy on the Stalinist Left, the ‘official' line on fascism.

Karat reiterates it with a profound sense of loyalty and timelessness, citing it in the Indian Express piece. The implication here, of course, is that nothing that has been said or written about fascism since 1933—1935 has any relevance for him. We have gained not a whit (in under-standing, knowledge, analysis and so on) since those (pre-Holocaust!) years. Do we have a better understanding of fascism today? Obviously not as far as Karat is concerned. That definition is ‘classic', as he says. ‘Classic' here means cut in stone, impermeable to argument, eternally true like some truth of logic. As Karat says, there is ‘no room for ambiguity' here.

The Comintern had deliberately narrowed the definition to ‘finance capital' to allow other sections of the capitalist class to join the fight against fascism once Stalin decided he desperately needed alliances (‘Popular Fronts') with all manner of parties regardless of who they represented. For Karat the reference to ‘finance capital' suffices. It sums up the essence of fascism, and fascism for him is simply a state form, a type of regime that breaks decisively with democracy (‘bourgeois' democracy).

The response to this is simple: how did such a state emerge in the first place? Fascism must have existed in some form other than a state for it to become a state? Since Karat stopped reading Marxism decades ago, it may be worth rehearsing some of this for him. Before fascism succeeds as a state it exists as a movement. And fascism only succeeds in seizing power because it first succeeds as a mass movement.

The question the revolutionary Left simply failed to address in the twenties and thirties (with a handful of exceptions such the German Marxist Arthur Rosenberg and the psycho-analyst Wilhelm Reich) was why fascists are able to build mass movements. How do they create a mass base for the parties they form? As soon as we frame the issue in these terms (breaking with Karat's myopic fascination with end results), the problem itself becomes a practical one. We have to look at the specific techniques used to generate mass support. We have to ask also how this ‘mass' that fascism creates and dominates differs from, say, the social forces that Marx saw driving revolutionary movements forward.

To suggest that fascism is largely or entirely about ‘finance capital', that a handful of bankers could have created the fascist movements in Germany and Italy shows how detached dogma can become from reality when it ignores the formation of culture and looks simply at the economy as a force that affects politics without mediations of any sort.

Anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, Islamo-phobia, Islamism, Hindutva, patriarchy, male violence, caste oppression, militarism, and (not least!) nationalism then become basically irrelevant; window-dressing on a beast (capita-lism) that works in some purely economic way, as if the ‘formation of the authoritarian structure' (Reich) which has everything to do with how reactionary ideologies come about in the wider reaches of civil society is not a process every bit as material as the economy.

What does Karat think he is debating? Is there anyone on the Left who claims that we are currently in the throes of a full-blown Hindu Rashtra in India, that the machinery of the law lies in ruins, that the media, servile as they are, have been taken over and remoulded by a self-defining Hindu state, that trade unions have been abolished, Opposition parties banned, active opponents rounded up and murdered? That would be India's counterpart of a fascist state.

On the other hand, is there anyone (on the Left especially) who is naive enough to think that there is no danger of any of this? That the rampant cultures of communalism, attacks on minorities and repeated violence against them (this includes unlawful detention) are not being used (consciously used) as tools of fascist mobilisation of a spurious ‘Hindu majority'? That the Indian state has not been extensively infiltrated by the RSS at all levels, even down to the vice-chancellorship of the JNU?

That the Gujarat cases had to be transferred out of the State of Gujarat by the Supreme Court, no less, speaks volumes for the Court's view of the shamelessly compromised state of the justice system in Gujarat under Modi's government there. That the mass violence against Muslims in Gujarat became pivotal to the consolidation of Modi's support-base in the State and then rapidly in other parts of India, leading to his emergence as the Prime Minister; that Modi financed his campaign for power with the explicit backing of big business groups who were looking for a ‘decisive' leader; that nationalism is now being used to whip up hysteria among the middle classes to try and justify the repeated use of charges like ‘sedition' and justify attacks on freedom of speech, thought and politics; that the Right-wing in India has repositioned itself in the more totalising and utterly sinister discourse of ‘nation' and ‘nationalism' to create the absurd sense of an Indian Volksgemeinschaft and cons-truct definitions of the other as ‘anti-national', a sort of fifth column of the nation's enemies... if none of this reminds us of the way fascism emerges and builds itself up historically, then we have no memory, and certainly not a historical one.

“India today confronts the advance of an authoritarianism...,” Karat argues, wanting to distinguish this from fascism. The issue surely is what form of authoritarianism we are up against in India today. While all authoritaria-nisms are not fascist, all fascisms are a form of authoritarianism. What is distinctive about fascist authoritarianism is its appeal to forms of mass mobilisation and attempt to create sources of legitimacy among ‘the masses'— through cultural (for example, pseudo-religious) and ideological domination.

This is why Hindutva becomes a marker of something more sinister than just authoritarian politics. In Karat's mental map, as I said, culture and ideology play no major role; they are simply tools to divide people to allow those in power to implement what he sees as the truly dangerous agenda of ‘neo-liberalism'. They are a sort of sideshow, pure excrescences on a largely economic programme where capital remains the chief instrumentality.

Karat agrees that the RSS has a “semi-fascist ideology (and) the potential to impose an authoritarian state on the people when it believes that circumstances warrant it”. Why ‘semi-fascist'? What is its other half? When Golwalkar praised the extermination of the Jews as a possible model for the way a future Hindu state might want to deal with its minorities, was he being ‘semi-fascist'? Is the growing culture of intolerance and forcible suppression of political views the BJP finds abrasive ‘semi-fascist'?

And the qualification ‘when it believes the circumstances warrant it'? How do people at large tell the RSS has finally come around to that belief? That it has so decided? The answer, alas, as with so much of the immobile Left, is —when it's too late!

The German film director Alexander Kluge calls this approach to history and politics ‘Learning Processes With a Deadly Outcome'. If that mum with her three kids in the basement of this house in Halberstadt on April 8, 1945 had fought the Nazis in 1928 and millions of others like her had done the same, she wouldn't be there now, on this dreadful day in April, sheltering from a fleet of 200 American bombers that will, in seconds, wipe out her entire town.

If Stalin and the Comintern hadn't worked overtime to sabotage the possibility of a United Front between the German Communists and the Social Democrats and the two parties had fought fascism with combined strength; if the Left in Germany had campaigned more consistently and vigorously against anti-Semi-tism than it ever did and started those campaigns much earlier; if feminism had been a stronger force in German society and the patriarchal/authoritarian order less firmly entrenched in German families... and so on and so forth.

Learning processes that shape history, that affect its outcome, are those that strive consciously to learn the lessons that generate a politics that preserves and affirms life against the ‘deadly outcome'. Do we wake up one morning and say, India's fascism was ‘majoritarian communalism' after all!!

“The political struggle against the BJP cannot be conducted in alliance with the other major party of the ruling classes.” This of course reflects a major rift within the CPI-M itself and may well be Karat's way of posturing for control of loyalties in the web of factional conflicts that have characterised the party for years. So why was the CPI-M in alliance with that ‘other major party of the ruling class' in the first place?

The alliance broke over a nuclear deal with the US but doubtless no similar deal with Putin would have occasioned a major crisis of that sort. Since the United Front has come up and Karat prefers the safety of a ‘Third Period' position (short of calling the Congress, a former ally, ‘social fascist'; ‘Third Period' refers to the politics of the Comintern in the period of widespread economic collapse that was said to have started in 1928), perhaps we can leave him with Nehru's more Marxist grasp of this issue than he himself seems to have:

“It is, of course, absurd to say that we will not co-operate with or compromise with others. Life and politics are much too complex for us always to think in straight lines. Even the implacable Lenin said that ‘to march forward without compromise, without turning from the path' was ‘intellectual childishness and not the serious tactics of a revolutionary class'. Compro-mises there are bound to be, and we should not worry too much about them. But whether we compromise or refuse to do so, what matters is that primary things should come first always and secondary things should never take precedence over them. If we are clear about our principles and objectives, temporary compro-mises will not harm...” (Nehru, An Autobio-graphy, p. 613)

There is a constant sense in Karat's opinion piece that neo-liberalism is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than communalism. But this is a senseless position. To the extent that communa-lism leads to a fascist transformation of the state, it deprives the working people of any basis for resisting capitalist onslaughts. Neo-liberalism disarms the working class economically, destroying its cohesion in an industrial, economic sense. Racism, communalism and nationalism (all nationalism, not just what Karat calls ‘chauvinist' nationalism) do the same in more insidious ways, destroying the possibility of the working class ever acquiring a sense of its own solidarity and of what it really is.

(Courtesy: www.sabrangindia.in)

The author is a well-known historian and Marxist intellectual.