📰 Iran drops India from Chabahar rail project, cites funding delay
IRCON had signed MoU with Iranian Railways in 2016
•Four years after India and Iran signed an agreement to construct a rail line from Chabahar port to Zahedan, along the border with Afghanistan, the Iranian government has decided to proceed with the construction on its own, citing delays from the Indian side in funding and starting the project.
•Last week, Iranian Transport and Urban Development Minister Mohammad Eslami inaugurated the track-laying process for the 628 km Chabahar-Zahedan line, which will be extended to Zaranj across the border in Afghanistan. Officials told The Hindu that the entire project would be completed by March 2022, and that Iranian Railways will proceed without India’s assistance, using approximately $400 million from the Iranian National Development Fund.
•The development comes as China finalises a massive 25-year, $400 billion strategic partnership deal with Iran, which could cloud India’s plans.
Trilateral agreement
•The railway project, which was being discussed between the Iranian Railways and the state-owned Indian Railways Construction Ltd (IRCON), was meant to be part of India’s commitment to the trilateral agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan to build an alternate trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
•In May 2016, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tehran to sign the Chabahar agreement with Iranian President Rouhani and Afghanistan President Ghani, IRCON had signed an MoU with the Iranian Rail Ministry.
Beijing will get larger role in Chabahar
•Iran and China are close to finalising a 25-year Strategic Partnership which will include Chinese involvement in Chabahar’s duty-free zone, an oil refinery nearby, and possibly a larger role in Chabahar port as well.
•According to leaked versions of the 18-page “Comprehensive Plan for Cooperation between Iran and China”, being finalised by officials in Tehran and Beijing, the cooperation will extend from investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and upgrading energy and transport facilities, to refurbishing ports, refineries and other installations, and will commit Iranian oil and gas supplies to China during that period.
Railway project
•The proposed tie-up comes even as Iran decided last week to go ahead on its own with the construction of a railway line from Chabahar port to Zahedan, in Afghanistan for which an MoU had been signed with the PSU Indian Railways Construction Ltd (IRCON) four years ago.
•The MoU, signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tehran in 2016, was to construct the Chabahar-Zahedan railway as “part of transit and transportation corridor in trilateral agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan”.
•However, despite several site visits by IRCON engineers, and preparations by Iranian railways, India never began the work, ostensibly due to worries that these could attract U.S. sanctions.
•The U.S. had provided a sanctions waiver for the Chabahar port and the rail line to Zahedan, but it has been difficult to find equipment suppliers and partners due to worries they could be targeted by the U.S., said officials.
•The Ministry of External Affairs and IRCON declined to comment. However, asked if the MoU with IRCON had been cancelled, an official said India could still join at a “later date.”
•Iranian officials denied a report that also suggested Chabahar port, where India took charge of operations at one terminal last December, would be leased to China.
•However, Iran proposed a tie-up between the Chinese-run Pakistani port at Gwadar and Chabahar last year, and has offered interests to China in the Bandar-e-Jask port 350km away from Chabahar, as well as in the Chabahar duty-free zone.
•Each of those possibilities should be watched closely by New Delhi, said former Ambassador to Iran, K.C. Singh. “[The Iran-China deal] impinges on India’s “strategic ties” with Iran and the use of Chabahar port,” he cautioned.
📰 Enabling people to govern themselves
With the pandemic showing up flaws in governance institutions, this is a better way for humanity to face new challenges
•Governance systems at all levels, i.e. global, national, and local, have experienced stress as a fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Architectural flaws have been revealed in their design. Breakdowns in many subsystems had to be managed at the same time — in health care, logistics, business, finance, and administration. The complexity of handling so many subsystems at the same time have overwhelmed governance. Solutions for one subsystem backfired on other subsystems. For example, lockdowns to make it easier to manage the health crisis have made it harder to manage economic distress simultaneously. In fact, the diversion of resources to focus on the threat to life posed by COVID-19 has increased vulnerabilities to death from other diseases, and even from malnutrition in many parts of India.
A mismatch is evident
•Human civilisation advances with the evolution of better institutions to manage public affairs. Institutions of parliamentary democracy, for example, and the limited liability business corporation, did not exist 400 years ago. Institutions of global governance, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, did not exist even 100 years ago. These institutions were invented to enable human societies to produce better outcomes for their citizens. They have been put through a severe stress test now by the global health and economic crises. The test has revealed a fundamental flaw in their design. There is a mismatch in the design of governance institutions at the global level (and also in India) with the challenges they are required to manage. Designed like machines for efficiency, they are trying to fit themselves into an organic system of the natural environment coupled with human society. It seems that government institutions are square pegs forcing themselves into round holes.
Interconnected issues
•The global challenges listed in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, which humanity must urgently address now, are systemic challenges. All these systemic problems are interconnected with each other. Environmental, economic, and social issues cannot be separated from each other and solved by experts in silos or by agencies focused only on their own problems. A good solution to one can create more problems for others, as government responses to the novel coronavirus pandemic have revealed.
•Even if experts in different disciplines could combine their perspectives and their silo-ed solutions at the global level, they will not be able to solve the systemic problems of the SDGs. Because, their solutions must fit the specific conditions of each country, and of each locality within countries too, to fit the shape of the environment and the condition of society there. Solutions for environmental sustainability along with sustainable livelihoods cannot be the same in Kerala and Ladakh, or in Wisconsin and Tokyo. Solutions must be local. Moreover, for the local people to support the implementation of solutions, they must believe the solution is the right one for them, and not a solution thrust upon them by outside experts. Therefore, they must be active contributors of knowledge for, and active participants in, the creation of the solutions. Moreover, the knowledge of different experts — about the environment, the society, and the economy — must come together to fit realities on the ground.
A case for local systems
•Governance of the people must be not only for the people. It must be by the people too. Gandhiji and his economic advisers, J.C. Kumarappa and others, developed their solutions of local enterprises through observations and experiments on the ground (and not in theoretical seminars in capital cities). E.F. Schumacher, founding editor of the journal, Resurgence , and author of Small is Beautiful , had pointed out by the 1970s, the flaws in the economics theories that were driving public policy in capitalist as well as communist countries. He had proposed a new economics, founded on local enterprise, very consistent with Gandhiji’s ideas. Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, in 2009, had developed the principles for self-governing communities from research on the ground in many countries, including India.
•When there are scientific explanations for why local systems solutions are the best, if not the only way to solve complex systemic problems, and when the Indian Constitution requires this too, then why does not the government devolve power to citizens in villages and towns in India for them to govern their own affairs?
•An Indian anthropologist gave me an insight. She said she had observed that several Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers she knew, who seemed to have more compassion for communities than their colleagues had, were involved at some time in their careers with the evolution of community-based public health and the self-help group movements in Andhra Pradesh. She contrasted their views about how change is brought about with the views of IAS officers who have implemented the Swachh Bharat programme recently. The latter, also very fine officers, saw their role as ‘deliverers of good government’. Whereas the former, through their experience, had begun to see that the role of government is perhaps to ‘enable governance’.
The district Collector
•The key IAS functionary in India’s governance is the District ‘Collector’ — the role his forebears in the Indian Civil Services set up by the British, were expected to perform. Which was to collect revenues and to maintain law and order. When, after Independence, the Indian state took up a large welfare role, he also became the District ‘Deliverer’ of government largesse. It strengthened the image of a paternalist government taking care of its wards. The District Deliverer’s task became complicated when the numbers of government schemes multiplied — some designed by the central government, and others by State government. The schemes were managed by their own ministries and departments in the capitals, with local functionaries of those departments as the points of contact with citizens. At a meeting of IAS officers in Shimla with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), sometime in 2013, to understand why government schemes were not producing enough benefits for people on the ground, an officer presented a list of over 300 schemes that were operational in her district. The citizens did not know how many schemes there were and what they were entitled to. And even she found it hard to disentangle the schemes.
•The pandemic has not passed yet, but evidence is emerging that some States in India, such as Kerala, have weathered the storm better than others. And some countries, such as Vietnam and Taiwan, better than others too. A hypothesis is that those States and countries in which local governance was stronger have done much better than others. This is worthy of research by social and political scientists looking for insights now into design principles for good governance systems that can solve problems that the dominant theory of government is not able to solve.
•The dominant theory in practice of good government is ‘government of the people, by the government, for the people’. Which slips easily into ‘government of the people, by the government, for the political party in power’. This has been the prevalent theory in most States of India for too long. Even when government is for the people, as a deliverer of services, money into their bank accounts, (and money for building toilets), it is not good enough. The government has to support and enable people to govern themselves, to realise the vision of ‘government of the people, for the people, by the people’. Which is also the only way humanity will be able to meet the ecological and humanitarian challenges looming over it in the 21st century.
📰 The politics of nepotism
The discourse is a salvo in a battle between two elites: the Nehruvian ‘ancien regime’ and the new faction
•In recent weeks, nepotism has become centre stage in mainstream public discourse. Triggered by speculations over the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the debate was initially confined to the film industry. But it has since spread to other domains. What began as a hashtag about a tragic death has acquired a life of its own. How do we understand this sudden upsurge, given that nepotism is not a new phenomenon?
•In India, whichever field one may consider, there is no denying the prevalence of influential families that wield nepotistic influence. But does this mean we make peace with nepotism? Certainly not. But a lot depends on how the debate is framed, and the nature of the contingent politics around the nepotism discourse.
The current debate
•What is now derisively described as ‘nepotism’ is how things were traditionally done. In pre-modern societies, the realms of domesticity and work were merged, with the family playing a central role in determining an individual’s entry not only into an occupation, but also the public sphere. In insufficiently modernised societies such as India, this tendency remains strong. Second, traditional social norms still dictate that family comes first, caste/clan second, and everything else, including merit, last.
•In India, where upper caste dominance across domains is well documented, nepotism extends beyond the family and operates along the axis of caste as well. Deep historical inequalities and a dwindling welfare state have made India one of the most unequal societies in the world, with the richest 1% holding more than four times the wealth of the bottom 70%. It stands to reason, therefore, that anyone concerned about nepotism would want to attack the cause of which nepotism is the symptom: the reproduction of inequality. After all, the more unequal a society, the greater the scope and incentive for nepotism. In a hypothetical society of perfect socio-economic equality, each individual’s nepotistic reserves would cancel out that of everyone else’s. So, tackling nepotism calls for political mobilisation against socio-economic inequality. The most effective means of reducing such inequality are social justice measures such as affirmative action, universal access to public health and education, and redistributive policies such as an inheritance tax.
•But the theme of inequality is conspicuously absent in the nepotism discourse. Its preferred binary is not ‘privileged’ versus ‘non-privileged’ but ‘outsider’ versus ‘insider’, with all the outrage reserved for the insiders. The idea is not to call for a level playing field but to stoke the so-called outsider’s desire to displace the ‘insider’ as the new ‘insider’, without dismantling the insider-outsider structure as such.
•The key to understanding the nepotism discourse lies in the parallels it shares with the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement. First, beneath the hood of moral righteousness, the nepotism discourse is also powered by right-wing majoritarian elements. As was the case with the anti-corruption movement, this aspect remains understated, if not hidden, thereby enabling the discourse to get traction across the political spectrum, including from liberals.
•Second, the nepotism discourse is right-wing populist in precisely the same way that the anti-corruption movement was, with both having the same objective: to consolidate the base of Hindutva politics by channelling public resentment against traditional elites. In politics, where the old elite, symbolically and literally, is the Nehru-Gandhi family and its allies, the strategy worked brilliantly – giving the illusion of authentic change while one faction of upper caste elites displaced another to become the ruling elite.
•The contours of this factional war are clear in the Bollywood context. Since 2013, several notables at the periphery of the Bollywood power structure have chosen to ally with majoritarian politics. But six years down the line, their strategic alliance with the new power elite in Delhi is yet to yield a meaningful change in their status vis-à-vis their own industry’s power centres, which continue to be the same old families. As these families continue to monopolise lucrative opportunities for those disinclined to challenge their supremacy, life could get tough for anyone who has fallen out of favour.
•Understandably, there is genuine cause for resentment here. Also, since many of these ambitious ‘outsiders’ to Bollywood themselves come from bubbles of privilege in terms of their class and caste origins, they are not easily silenced, unlike, say, an Adivasi or Dalit summarily displaced from her home in the rural hinterland. In a society where a feudal sense of entitlement simmers beneath a veneer of economic modernity, aspirational upper castes with bottled up resentments are legion in every domain. They represent a political resource waiting to be mobilised. The 2011 Anna Hazare movement showed how it’s done.
From the same old toolkit
•Corruption did not peak in 2011, when the movement began. But a media-supported public campaign made it seem like it had, helping foment resentment against the UPA regime, which became synonymous with a venal elite that owed everything to the nepotistic influence of the Nehru-Gandhis. Corruption did not disappear after 2014. But the anti-corruption mobilisation had done its job — as a Trojan horse that enabled the forces of Hindu majoritarianism to capture power at the Centre.
•The increasing sophistication of right-wing propaganda and its layered execution through social media campaigns has meant that it rarely registers early enough on liberal radars. Nepotism is the latest instrument from the right-wing populist toolkit. As an ideological weapon, it is a missile with multiple warheads. At one level, it does what populism always does: fuel rage against an elite in the name of “the people”. At another level, Hindutva forces are using it to achieve three objectives: consolidate their upper caste base by appearing to empathise with their frustrations; translate status anxieties into resentments against sections of the elite that are yet to make a break with the Nehruvian consensus and embrace Hindutva; and, finally, communicate to recalcitrant sections of the liberal-Nehruvian elite the same message that goes out to some MLAs whenever a non-BJP government needs toppling: switch sides or face the consequences.
•Fomenting new social antagonisms along the axis of ‘the people’/outsider versus the elite/insider is a proven political strategy of right-wing authoritarian populists. The nepotism rhetoric is a similar operation where the resentments and frustrations of the less privileged, aspirational, upper and middle castes are sought to be weaponised against older, relatively more privileged upper caste factions, now ‘othered’ as the Nehruvian elite.
•The nepotism discourse, then, is another salvo in a battle between two elites: the Nehruvian ‘ancien regime’ with its pluralistic instincts, and the brash new aspirational faction that wants its share of the spoils of power. This is a share it feels entitled to on the basis of its political commitment to Hindutva. But given the heavy competition and the small size of the pie, a great many feel deprived and resentful as they see the old liberal elites continuing in their privileged perches, as they always have. It remains to be seen whether deepening this social antagonism through polarising rhetoric offers enough fuel for a propaganda campaign capable of insulating the ruling party from the political costs of governance failures and economic headwinds.
📰 Yet another challenge to the Dalit movement
The language of mobilisation needs to change
•The pandemic is forcing us to understand the changing nature of society. In north India, specifically, it has also reshaped the discourse on marginalisation. Dalit issues are part of this discourse but are submerged in the broader discussions on economic vulnerabilities highlighted by COVID-19.
•This pandemic has brought about two important shifts in the political discourse on the marginalised. As the lockdown caused untold suffering to poor, migrant labourers, it brought them from the margins to the centre of deliberations. Second, discussions on the space for the marginalised in the public health system and their safety are in focus. However, the concerns of Dalits remain hidden under the broader categories of poor, vulnerable, marginal, etc.
Changing vocabulary
•In contemporary debates, there is a reappearance of class-based vocabulary. Caste-based issues have either become invisible or are only visible as part of the wider discourse. Leaders such as Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad have not been able to engage effectively with these new shifts. They have not been able to carve out a location in these new debates for their own politics. They have to reorient their exclusively caste-based language and reshape their political discourse to be in tune with the times. There are a large number of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes among the migrant labourers. But Dalit leaders in north India have not been able to represent their concerns. Their dilemma is how to address their constituencies using class terminology such as ‘labourer’ and ‘poor’ even as a majority of the migrant poor are Dalits and OBCs. This dilemma has made Dalit leaders non-assertive. It is possible that these shifts in political debates may continue in the
post-pandemic phase at least for a few years as vulnerabilities of the marginalised will increase.
•The Dalit movement in north India is habituated in using caste-based binaries in its mobilisational language but has failed to respond to the changing political diction. In fact, leaders have not changed their political diction for 30 years, since the time of the Kanshi Ram-led Bahujan movement. The movement is facing a crisis of agendas and social programmes. The constant repetition of unfulfilled claims and commitments and slogans and promises create disillusionment among a section of their support base.
•Another issue is that the Dalit movement in north India is grappling with a leadership crisis. This crisis has appeared due to a break in the umbilical cord tying the movement with the party. In States such as U.P., Bihar, Punjab and Rajasthan, Dalit assertions are mostly centred around the electoral politics of Dalit-Bahujan political groups and parties. Even alternative social movements led by Jignesh Mevani and Mr. Azad seem to be caught in the logic of electoral politics.
Leadership crisis
•During the Bahujan movement in the 1990s, the idea was that the movement and the party could facilitate each other. But the BSP, which emerged from the Bahujan social movement, developed gradually as a party structured like a pyramid. Under Ms. Mayawati, it has stopped its reciprocal relationship with the Dalit movement. In the BSP, the emergence of political leaders of various Dalit-Bahujan castes at different levels became frozen. This caused erosion in the broader social base and ultimately weakened the Dalit movement. So, while on the one hand, the Bahujan movement allowed numerically important Dalit-Bahujan communities to have political aspirations, on the other, the freeze on the emergence of leaders at various levels smashed political ambitions, destroyed the initiatives of the cadre and hampered the natural growth of the party and movement. The Dalit movement is constantly facing new challenges but its leaders are not able to change their strategies and grammar of politics to respond to them.
•Under the influences of the Ambedkarite ideology and the Dalit-Bahujan movements, an assertive and politically aware Dalit consciousness was being formed among a section of Dalit groups. In the meantime, interventions by Hindutva leaders among Dalits mobilised a section of the most marginalised Dalits under the Hindutva flag. Now the pandemic has posed a new challenge for the Dalit movement. Caste-based identities formed the ideological resource base, but now concerns have gone beyond caste and religion, thus posing a different challenge. The challenge may be temporary but it may lead to a paradigm shift for Dalit politics.
•The Dalit movement has to evolve new social strategies for its expansion in order to keep up with the changing times.
