OPINION

The murder of Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru earlier this week and the scavenging by the political parties over her death is one of the saddest events that I have witnessed in quarter of a century as a reporter. Early in my career, I had felt very peeved covering the funeral of Indian Air Force helicopter pilots killed during the Kargil conflict at Sarsawa air base. The cause for feeling peeved was not the war but the way a colleague from television had forced the toddler of the dead soldier pose with his father’s coffin.

 A thought had then occurred to me, will those in the business of news prey on the dead. The advent of social media has made it worse; the death of a newsperson is being preyed on. What is not being discussed is the sensational manner in which Gauri was gunned down but what is being addressed is what she spoke before her death, and what others spoke after her death.

Having started my career as a crime reporter, I have in the past three days yearned to read a report on the crime scene description; what I have got in bargain is clatter of the war-mongers on twitter. The endless investigation which a television channel has done on who killed Sunanda Pushkar, could have used its resources to find who killed Gauri especially when its promoter comes from the state of Karnataka.

At a time when the country is celebrating 125th anniversary of the famous Chicago speech of Swami Vivekananda and birth centenary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, we are blessed with a Prime Minister who is working round the clock to realize the New India of these two great philosophers of Modern India.
 It may be just coincidence for many but I feel this is one of the most auspicious years for Bharat. The almighty has blessed our country with a government which is not driven by imported ideology from the west but has its roots in the ideological foundations of Bharat simultaneously having an open mind for the world. In the past three years, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet has followed the great visions of these two philosophers in the policy making and their implementation. This is the reason India is gradually emerging as a great power and Vishwa Guru on the world map.

The speech of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi “Young India, New India  A Resurgent Nation: from Sankalp to Sidhhi,” is not mere a speech but a path for the youths to realize the vision of New India of Vivekanand and Deendayal Upadhyay. In his works the Prime Minister has demonstrated several models and successfully implemented the vision of these great souls. Vivekananda used to say citizens must have respect to the motherland and have a sense of national pride.

The Nation has witnessed a paradigm shift in governance in the three years of Narendra Modi Government. Policy statements laced with highly reformative decisions have changed the mood of the nation for development and growth. Prime Minister Modi has pushed through a slew of reforms to bail out the country’s economy from a state of policy paralysis.
The NDA government inherited a baggage of low growth rate, high inflation and apathetic governance. With exports moving in south directions, industrial output almost stagnated.
 
The Prime Minister set the tone for the development and growth by announcing programmes like Make-in-India, Start-up India, Skill Development, MUDRA, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, JAM, DBT and many more. To support these initiatives, he put in place the required policies and reforms. The decision of demonetization and amnesty scheme to flush out black money helped in cleansing the economy to some extent. The creation of NITI Ayog in place of outdated Planning Commission is in line with the new demands and aspirations of a young nation and “New India”.   
The historic indirect tax reform, the boldest step since Independence, came with the introduction of GST (Goods & Services Tax) in mid-night of June 30 and July 1, 2017. The GST regime put the countrymen under “One Nation One Tax” administration. The reform is aimed at bringing in transparency in taxation with an ultimate goal of safeguarding the interest of the consumers as well as the business and industries. 

The news coming from the Doklam standoff is that the tipping point is over but the danger not yet fully averted. Troops are just 300M apart, and two important statements have been made. The Army Chief has said that a two front war possibility is not ruled out and the Northern Army commander has stated that the Indian Army can breach the Line of Control again, clearly indicating a long harsh winter ahead.If the Indian Prime Minister was to state his inability to attend BRICS summit, the international loss of face would have been greater for China. Therefore was the averting of Doklam crisis a tactical move by China? 
 The initial news from China suddenly looked quite rosy and it is to the credit of MrModi and China’s Xi Jinping that statesmanship came first and both leaders acted in the most robust and mature manner. China and India both need peace and confidence building measures, but it may be difficult for China to so easily shed her old ways.  A section of Chinese experts are calling naming of Pakistan based terror groups in Pakistan a costly mistake. There is still a lot that meets the eye.

One day before the BRICS summit there was a warning in the Chinese media that India should not sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (C-PEC) project in which China has invested heavily. This highway in Pakistan passes through Baluchistan, where an insurgency is raging. Pakistan blames India for fueling this insurgency, which is hardly the case.

The Chinese media warning was that if India supports this insurgency, and the economic corridor is set back it will be at India’s peril. China after turning a Nelson’s eye to Pakistan’s terror group support in J&K is suddenly worried about its long term economic interests. It could also be a case of Uyghurs an estimated 80% living in Xinjiang hurting the Chinese dragon.

Suddenly at the BRICS conference there are seventeen references to terror including Haqqani network, also in the list are Lashkar and Jaish terror groups as well. Is this the turning of a new chapter or is it a sense of lull before the storm one wonders? While dealing with a power that lulled us into “Hindi ChiniBhaiBhai”, the guard still needs to remain up.

The problem in India is that we do not know very little about China nor has New Delhi tried to find out, the Indian obsession has been Pakistan while China was the main threat.
There is no peaceful rise of any nation; it’s only the Chinese who want the world to believe in the “peaceful rise of China”.  It’s a story that a six year old child will not buy, thus for China’s neighbour to believe the same will be at their own peril. 

History has shown that a strong China has been an expansionist country. “China Dreams”, by Col Liu Mingfu clearly shows that China wants to be the Number 1 power.  Besides the ‘62 war China’s vociferous media reminded India about during the Doklam standoff, the story of Tibet is also worth recalling.

Tibet was a protectorate of both China and England; it is just that China grabbed the nation by force, while India looked elsewhere.  India withdrew its trade representatives from Kashgar, Gartok, Yatung, and Gyantse, thus denying the use of the traditional trading route. China did not have lines of communication open to Leh or Xinjiang thus the importance of Shaksgam Valley and the Aksai Chin area because the modern roads constructed by China to link Xinjiang, pass through this area.

In 1951 the Chinese Military governor to Tibet General Chang Chin Wu journey was facilitated to Lhasa by India via Calcutta, thus clearly showing that the hold of China on Tibet was not good enough to have their military governor travel, yet by 1959 the Chinese occupied Tibet and the Dalia Lama sought refuge in India.

The standoff at Doklam, as also, the current two rogue nations, North Korea and Pakistan are both creations of China. There is more to it than meets the eye in suddenly the Chinese agreeing on naming terror groups. Is the hand that feeds the terror group also being bitten, or is it international pressure, the issue is open and debatable.

If the Chinese are talking of sorting out boundary disputes, these need to be done from a position of equality, if not strength, as India has not developed its infrastructure up in the mountains. Let’s not give either ourselves or our diplomacy a pat in the back, as there are many more hurdles like Nuclear Suppliers Group, and other trade related issues.  There may be more Doklam and that possibility cannot be ruled out.

India needs to prepare militarily for the long haul, strong conventional forces are a deterrent and at the international level military muscle matters. With the current warning signs immediate arming and preparation for the harsh winter ahead need first priority of the defence minister for all three services. Nations do not rise peacefully as history tells us.

The immediate neighbour to both China and Pakistan is India, and for that India needs to spend at least 2% of her GDP on defence.  Make in India can only succeed once the 50 DRDO labs and the 41 ordnance factories are pruned, because at the end of the day India remains a net importer of arms of all types. 

(The writer is an Indian Army veteran who has authored books Gorkha: In Search Of Identity and Gorkha: Society and Politics)
 
 

When news the broke out last week about Chapra MP Rajiv Pratap Rudi being asked to resign from the Union Cabinet, memory of a similar exercise came rushing back. In 1986, then all powerful Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had undertaken a similar application – carrying out a reshuffle and asking his non-performing ministers to quit.

Though Rajiv Gandhi commanded much larger a majority in Parliament (support of over 400 LokSabha members), but he wasn’t as tough, or should we say wise, a politician as present Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajiv Gandhi had his hatchet man Arun Nehru ready for the job, the kind of role which Amit Shah plays. But there was difference, Shah holds position of party head and thus can summon a party Minister. Nehru was designated just a Minister of State, not even a Cabinet rank.

Since Rajiv was also party president, he took it on himself to summon the non-performing Ministers and express his annoyance. As the news reports published then mentioned, that the Ministers were asked to meet Arun Nehru on their way out. Nehru would ask them to sign on the dotted lines on their resignation letters.

One among them was veteran Bihar Congress leader Abdul Ghafoor, who was state’s chief minister at the height of Jaya Prakash Narayan’s agitation. After hearing Rajiv Gandhi, he pulled out his resignation letter, which he was carrying, and said that he would rather give it to his Prime Minister than meet a constitutionally innocuous Arun Nehru.

This news had great impact on the polity of Bihar. Ghaffoor’s humiliation was taken as affront by the minority community and since then Muslims have voted in Bihar for Lalu Prasad Yadav, who always addressed the old man as Chacha (uncle)Ghaffoor.

Another similarity between the two leaders is sidelining of party’s old guard. Rajiv Gandhi on taking over took the first step of sidelining party’s then politically most powerful leader Pranab Mukherjee. Narendra Modi did the same in the case of Lal Krishna Advani. But in the case of former, Mukherjee had age on his side, he bounced back and as they say rest is history. Gandhi also spoke loudly against the other members of the old guard, calling them brokers, at the Congress Plenary in Kolkata. Gandhi likewise rubbed then President Giani Zail Singh the wrong way, which made him nearly lose his job.

In less than three years, Gandhi was in defensive mode, with the old guard crawling its way back into the position of power. But while shaking the old guard, Gandhi also gave opportunity to a new breed of leaders – Madhav Rao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kamal Nath, Ahmed Patel, Digvijaya Singh, Jitendra Prasada and Margaret Alva among others.

These leaders, though some among died young, managed to hold the party together after his death and some of them are currently in the forefront of the battle of survival which the party is fighting. Rajiv Gandhi despite holding the position of huge political power could not carry out the change of guard, which the present Prime Minister is doing.

It sometimes seems that Modi has taken greater lessons from the tenure and politics of Rajiv Gandhi than his son Rahul Gandhi. While the Prime Minister espouses an agenda of development and progress, so similar in grammar to the manifesto of Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress, Rahul Gandhi roots for regressive ‘kisan’ politics.

Congress vice-president little realizes that the Indian agrarian social structure is dominantly caste-based which cannot be welded into a single entity whatever be the process of agricultural reforms. The best way to overcome the caste divide is to push for industrialization and consequent urbanization. The caste divide of rural India melts seamlessly into the labour colonies of urban India.

The suggestion is not against amelioration of the state of agriculture in the country but an advise against having ‘kisan’ as the fulcrum of the national politics. A country which has a rapid growth rate of internet literacy thanks to “Google Baba” cannot be any further held to ransom by the culture of subsidies and licenses, something which Rahul Gandhi’s father also wanted to do away with.

Narendra Modi’s credential as a ‘transformative’ Prime Minister will need approbation of history as three years is a small period in a nation’s politics and a politician’s life to judge one’s contribution. But certainly there is little doubt that Narendra Modi did not start from a position of political bonhomie, as was the case with Rajiv Gandhi.He benefitted immensely from the sympathy wave caused by the unfortunate assassination of his mother.

Probably playing with this handicap, as they say in the golf, Modi has so far succeeded to remain close to par. His cause has been helped by a weak opposition where the Left is bereft of cadres and the Congress that of leader.

With a very ‘professional’ political manager as his party president, Modi unlike Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP Prime Minister in NDA I Government, has insured that the party control has remained with him and not any Advani of his generation. He has ensured that 7 Lok Kalyan Marg remains the sole powerhouse of the politics of NDA II government.

Vajpayee government was akin to a tent colony with several camps, Modi régime resembles a huge pandal with one presiding deity and disciples with undivided devotion to the deity. Keeping dissidence in check and Opposition at bay after completing three years in office is certainly a case study in fine political management.

(Sidharth Mishra is Editor, Capital Khabar)