📰 U.S., E.U. should not condone Amnesty International’s actions: Government
Move noted “at the highest levels” of the American government, says State Department
•Responding sharply to the U.S. and the European governments for expressing their concerns about the investigations into the Amnesty International, the government said foreign governments must not condone NGOs that break Indian laws.
•“The NGOs are expected to adhere to all our laws, including with respect to foreign funding, just as they would in other countries like the U.S. and the European Union. We also expect that other governments would not condone the contravention of Indian laws by any entity,” said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava on Thursday.
•Over the past few days, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the United Kingdom Foreign Office and the European Union have issued statements expressing concern over the government’s decision to freeze the Amnesty’s funds that led the international human rights agency to close its India office on September 29. Both the U.K. and the E.U. said they have raised concerns through bilateral diplomatic channels as well.
•“The U.K.’s Minister for South Asia [Tariq Ahmed] and our Acting High Commissioner in New Delhi met Indian government representatives after Amnesty International India’s accounts were frozen, to emphasise the importance of organisations like this being able to continue their important work,” said a British High Commission spokesperson, adding that “the U.K. is seeking further information on recent decisions affecting Amnesty and believes the freedom of civil society organisations to operate underpins any functioning democracy”.
•The U.S. State Department also issued a statement saying the moves on Amnesty International had been noted “at the highest levels” of the U.S. government as well as by members of the U.S. Congress, adding that the U.S. is “concerned about obstacles to the work of civil society, whether in India or anywhere else in the world”. The E.U. had issued a similar statement on Tuesday.
•In a detailed note earlier this week, the Ministry of Home Affairs had explained that its actions to freeze the funds of the Amnesty International India’s office related to several investigations carried out by different agencies including the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI over the past decade. The government said having failed to receive registration under the Foreign Contributions Regulatory Act (FCRA) meant for Non-Governmental Organisations, the Amnesty had taken the “commercial route” and accepted funds through Foreign Direct Investment, which is a contravention of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
•However, the Amnesty International has repeatedly denied the charge claiming its actions were “entirely legitimate”. “This decision was not motivated by any question of law as the Indian authorities now claim. It is not about Amnesty India’s sources of funding, which are entirely legitimate and involved no lawbreaking. This is punishment for standing up for humanity’s core values in the world’s largest democracy,” wrote a Senior Director of Amnesty International in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian on Thursday.
Four years after demonetisation, data on seizures of counterfeit notes shows there is a surge in seizure of fake currency in 2019 compared to 2018
•Four years after demonetisation, the highest number of all counterfeit notes seized last year was in the denomination of ₹2,000, according to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual Crime in India report.
•The data on seizures of counterfeit notes from all the States and Union Territories also shows there is a surge in seizure of fake Indian currency notes in 2019 compared to 2018.
•According to the NCRB, ₹25.39 crore in Fake Indian Currency Notes were seized in 2019, compared to ₹ 17.95 crore 2018, showing an increase of 11.7%.
•On November 8, 2016, when the government announced the scrapping of old ₹ 500 and ₹1000 notes, one of the reasons attributed was wiping out fake currency notes in circulation.
Govt claim
•The government claimed that the ₹ 2,000 notes had several high security features.
•According to the NCRB, 90,566 pieces of fake ₹ 2,000 notes were seized in 2019. The highest number of seizures were from Karnataka- 23,599, Gujarat- 14,494 and West Bengal- 13,637 pieces.
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Annual Report for 2019-20, released on August 25, said the RBI presses did not print even a single ₹2,000 note last fiscal. There had been a gradual decline in pieces of ₹2,000 notes in circulation, from 3.6 billion pieces in 2017-18 to 2.73 billion pieces in 2019-20.
•The NCRB report said that 71,817 pieces of fake ₹100 notes were seized last year. The biggest recoveries were made from Delhi- 31,671 pieces, Gujarat- 16,159 and Uttar Pradesh- 6,129 pieces.
NIA specialised unit
•In 2019, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) registered 14 cases, where 13,459 pieces of ₹2,000 counterfeit notes had been seized. It also registered eight cases to probe recovery of fake ₹500 notes. A specialised unit to investigate fake currency notes was established in the NIA few years ago.
•Though there was no definite account of the number of fake notes in circulation with the government when demonetisation was announced, a study done by the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, in 2015 said that at any given point of time ₹ 400 crore worth fake currency notes were in circulation.
📰 Supreme Court okays scheme proposed by govt. on refund of air tickets booked during lockdown
Proposal equitably balances interests of passengers and air sector, says top court
•The Supreme Court on Thursday endorsed a refund and credit shell policy scheme proposed by the government to reimburse passengers whose flights were cancelled during the coronavirus lockdown.
•A three-judge Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and M.R. Shah agreed with the government’s view that the scheme equitably balanced the interests of the passengers and the financially distressed air sector.
•“The pandemic situation has adversely affected the economy globally, in several sectors. Our country — India — and the civil aviation sector is not an exception... Such formulations [refund and credit shell policy] are workable solutions in these peculiar circumstances which are prevailing in the country,” Justice Reddy, who authored the judgment, said.
•The court ordered the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to ensure that airlines strictly comply with the judgment.
•In a series of directions in tune with the government’s scheme, the court directed that airlines will have to give full and immediate refund — within three weeks from the date of cancellation — to passengers who had booked their flight tickets during lockdown for travel anytime between March 25 to May 24 (the period of lockdown). This is applicable to both domestic flights and international ones out of India on either Indian or foreign carriers.
•In case the tickets were booked during the lockdown through travel agents for flights scrapped in the course of the lockdown, the airlines will pay the refunds to the travel agent, who will immediately transfer them to the passengers.
•The court said the Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs) will, as usual, govern passengers who have booked tickets at any point of time for travel on dates beyond May 24.
•In “all other cases” — which include tickets booked prior to the lockdown for travel during the freeze — the airlines will get 15 days from October 1 to refund the passengers.
•But the court agreed with the government that the flight ban had dented the air sector. Air traffic has dropped heavily. So, any strict enforcement of CARs would not yield meaningful results.
•Hence, the court has acknowledged the government’s alternative scheme for airlines to open credit shells in the names of passengers. The court found that this was a necessary step to balance the interests of the passengers and the airline sector.
•According to this scheme, a credit shell will be opened in the name of the passenger who booked the ticket. This shell is valid up to March 31, 2021. In case the passenger chooses not to use the credit shell, the airline will have to refund the ticket money by the end of March 2021.
•The credit shell is transferable to any person of the passenger’s choice.
•As an incentive mechanism, the proposal offered .5% increase in the valuation of the credit shell if it was not “consumed” till June 30, 2020. The value of the credit shell would increase .75% if the credit remains untouched till March 31, 2021.
•Passengers can travel any route of their choice on the credit shell. If the fare is above the credit shell limit, it can be topped up. If it is less, the balance would be paid back to the passenger.
•The judgment came on a petition filed by NGO, Pravasi Legal Cell, represented by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde and advocate Jose Abraham, highlighting the plight of the passengers whose flights were cancelled during the lockdown.
📰 Campaign to select country’s national butterfly
Seven winged beauties on the final list in poll conducted by nature lovers
•A citizen campaign to drum up support for identifying a national butterfly has gained momentum with close to half a lakh people joining the movement from across the country.
•Spearheaded by butterfly researchers, scientists and enthusiasts, the National Butterfly Campaign has revived focus on the relevance of the charming scaly winged insects in enhancing biodiversity. An indicator of healthy ecosystems, butterflies are found in wide varieties in biodiversity hotspots that teem with rich and diverse flora and fauna.
Vital link
•Butterfly researchers also point out that these insects form a vital link in the food and life chain by becoming prey for birds and insects as well as through their role in pollination. The unique wing colour patterns and designs have also inspired various forms of art, fashion and culture. These insects among others are also known to anticipate environmental hazards, including pollution.
•Kalesh Sadasivan, research associate, Travancore Nature History Society, pointed out that India was yet to designate a national butterfly despite being home to over 1,300 species belonging to six butterfly families that were primarily found in northeast India, Western Ghats and other mountainous and plateau regions. Several countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Bhutan, have national butterflies.
The contenders
•As part of identifying butterfly species that could make it to the coveted status, the National Butterfly Campaign Consortium prepared a long-list of 50 butterflies that was further trimmed to seven.
•Krishna Peacock (Papilio krishna), Indian Jezebel or Common Jezebel (Delias eucharis), Orange Oakleaf (Kallima inachus), Five-bar Swordtail (Graphium antiphates), Indian Nawab, Yellow Gorgon and Northern Junglequeen (Stichophthalma camadeva) are the contenders for the premier position.
•A country-wide online poll that commenced on September 11 to identify the most-favoured butterfly species has currently generated 42,090 with Maharashtra recording the highest number of votes — 16,210. Several people have also cast their votes in West Bengal (3,029) and Karnataka (2,435), while 786 nature lovers from Kerala have also joined the campaign.
📰 GST revenues cross ₹95,000 crore in September
Indicates economic activity picking up.
•Revenue collections from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in September hit ₹95,480 crore, the highest in this financial year so far, indicating that economic activity is picking up steam in tandem with the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
•September’s indirect tax collections were over 10% higher than August, 4% higher than the GST kitty in the same month a year ago and marked only the second time that the ₹90,000 crore mark was crossed this financial year.
•GST collections had been sliding after January 2020 when nearly ₹1.11 lakh crore came in. March 2020, by the end of which the national lockdown was imposed, recorded GST inflows of ₹97,597 crore. April and May saw the worst hit, bringing in little over ₹32,000 crore and ₹62,000 crore, respectively.
•“The gross GST revenue collected in the month of September, 2020 is ₹95,480 crore, of which Central GST is ₹17,741 crore, State GST is ₹23,131 crore, Integrated GST is ₹47,484 crore [including ₹22,442 crore collected on import of goods] and cess is ₹7,124 crore [including ₹788 crore collected on import of goods],” the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
•Economists were cautious about reading the healthier numbers as a sign of a sustainable rebound from the sharp 23.9% contraction in the country’s gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2020-21.
•Principal economist at rating agency ICRA Aditi Nayar said the uptick in GST collections had come as a relief, although it had likely been driven by ‘a combination of pent up demand and inventory restocking, and thus its sustainability remains unclear.’
•“Overall, the high frequency data available for the month of September 2020 confirms that a fragmented recovery is under way. We continue to expect the GDP contraction to narrow appreciably to 12.4% in the second quarter,” Ms. Nayar said.
•“With a significant part of the economy resuming operations and international trade as well resuming pace, the collections have shown decent growth,” said Abhishek Jain, EY tax partner. Revenues from import of goods were at 102% and revenues from domestic transactions which include import of services were at 105% of the revenues from these sources during September 2019.
•Among the larger States, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu saw the highest growth in GST inflows at 17% and 15%, respectively, compared to September 2019. Andhra Pradesh saw a 8% growth, Gujarat 6%, while Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh saw a flat trend and collections in Karnataka dropped 5%, from a year ago.
📰 IIT-M team develops sutures with nanofiber yarns
These are bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics or therapeutics at the site itself
•A team of researchers at IIT Madras is ready with a prototype of suture thread made of nanofiber yarns that is bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics and/or therapeutics at the site itself.
•The suture material uses nanofibers woven as yarn using certain specific techniques, and the strength can be varied depending on the target tissue (skin, muscle, cartilage), explains Rama S. Verma of the Stem Cell and Molecular Biology laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras. Each strand has a good tensile strength, besides degrading rapidly and mimics the collagen fibrils of body tissues, he adds.
•Several innovations globally in suture material have advanced infection control and achieved in some cases, better recovery among patients, even as other options such as staples, glues and strips have become available.
•Nanofiber yarns are thread-like structures formed by twisting together hundreds of nanofibers, Prof. Verma explains. The way the nanofibers mimicked the collagen fibril sparked the idea in a lab that primarily works on scaffold-based tissue engineering to create thread like structures by twisting nanofibers together using custom-made machinery. Arti Sunil Richard, Research Scholar, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, also worked on the project that won the ‘SITARE-Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Award 2020’ recently.
•“Several experiments were done to prove its compatibility, mechanical strength, stem cell interaction, immune responses, and antibacterial property, and they were compatible with prescribed norms in surgical procedure,” Prof. Verma claims. The team also loaded the fibers to deliver drugs at site, he says, adding that it might be more suitable for internal sutures and on soft tissues. The bio absorbability aspect makes sure that the sutures do not have to be removed.
•Initial funding has been received for the project, and the team is looking for further funding to deliver surgery-ready nanofiber yarn at reasonable costs, he adds.
📰 Constraining critique: On Amnesty halting India operations
Amnesty’s decision to close shop in India is unfortunate
•The role played by human rights organisations in documenting and questioning state functioning and excesses is a necessary component of civil society activism, which enhances democracy by securing accountability. The fact that Amnesty International, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, had to halt operations in India because of the freezing of its bank accounts and intrusive scrutiny from state agencies is therefore unfortunate. The government’s response to Amnesty’s decision, that it will not allow “interference in domestic political debates by entities funded by foreign donations”, suggests that this denouement is linked to the group’s critical reporting of decisions such as the abrogation of special status for Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. The group has maintained that it has raised financial resources lawfully. Amnesty has taken up human rights causes such as minority rights, ending torture, abolition of the death penalty and refugee rights, globally. Advocacy of these causes has led to the group being at loggerheads with regimes of various types — from the democratic to the authoritarian — across countries. India now joins the ranks of countries such as Russia where the group has stopped operations. There is no doubt that the pursuit of these objectives, even if it is not uniform across a lopsided world, has only enhanced and furthered the cause of human rights and their awareness for global citizens. Democratic regimes that are bound by constitutionalism should not consider critical activism by groups such as Amnesty as being adversarial, but instead view it as constructive critique of their functioning. If the critique is not reasoned, the state can rebut it through communiqués and responses, but should not restrict freedom of expression through intimidation or restraining actions.
•Central governments in India have consistently registered discomfort with critical civil society organisations over the years, but the National Democratic Alliance-led government has taken steps to constrain groups even more, especially those that are trans-national in their functioning. This was exemplified in the monsoon session where amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act drafted without consulting stakeholders were rushed through Parliament with little discussion. For India to aspire to become a developed and a just nation, it must build on its strengths such as its demographic dividend and the procedural institutions that have been built over decades. For it to reap benefits from these advantages, entrepreneurship, governmental actions and other economic tools would be necessary but not sufficient. The country needs to allow for a vibrant civil society that has spearheaded several reforms related to accountability (the Right to Information Act), welfare (the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), privacy rights, gender equality and rights of sexual minorities, environmental activism among others. Non-governmental organisations will continue to have a role to play in this. It is to be hoped Amnesty’s decision to halt operations is therefore temporary and that it would be able to function within India’s regulatory framework.
📰 Undying embers: On Hathras rape
Increasing gender sensitivity is crucial to enhancing women’s safety
•The bleak image of a burning pyre illuminating a ghastly night while policemen stood guard will be forever etched in India’s collective memory. A 19-year-old Dalit girl, who had been allegedly raped and assaulted at Hathras village in Uttar Pradesh on September 14, succumbed to her injuries on September 29. She was cremated in the dead of night with the family claiming they had been kept away from her last rites. This was another unconscionable atrocity committed in Uttar Pradesh. The girl was brutally assaulted when she was doing her chores, collecting fodder in the fields along with her mother. Her spinal cord was fractured and tongue slashed. This inhuman act which follows a string of sexual violence cases in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere in India highlights some grim truths, primarily that the safety of women is not a guarantee despite the stringent laws in place. After the Nirbhaya rape in Delhi in 2012, the government set up a committee led by Justice J.S. Verma. On its recommendations, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was amended in 2013, bringing in changes to the Indian Penal Code and other laws. This March, the four convicted of the gang rape of Nirbhaya were hanged to death.
•The Uttar Pradesh government has set up a Special Investigation Team to look into the allegations levelled by the family; the Chief Minister has promised a compensation of ₹25 lakh and “safety”. That the Chief Minister had to pledge protection is a tacit admission that the administration has failed its most vulnerable citizens. Caste tension continues to simmer on the ground with its inevitable cycle of humiliation, violence and inequities. The girl had been forced to drop out of school years ago. The use of sexual violence to oppress lower castes has been on the rise. On the question of protecting women, Uttar Pradesh has slipped terribly. The latest National Crime Records Bureau data show that Uttar Pradesh registered the highest number of crimes against women in 2019, accounting for 14.7% of India’s total. Fast-tracking the investigation and ensuring justice is the least authorities can do. But the challenge is to ensure that these tragedies are not forgotten. Together with increasing gender-sensitivity, the Uttar Pradesh government — and other State governments — must use the law to enhance women’s safety. Else, those embers on a sordid night may not be the last ones.
📰 The Mahatma as an intercultural Indian
His proximity to the East and the West proved to be fruitful; his intellectual openness helped him to live up to his ideals
•There is a tendency in today’s world to think and to say that Gandhi’s ideal of non-violence is a noble idea but impractical and unrealistic. The odd thing about this affirmation is that it tends to sanctify Gandhi while rejecting his principles. However, Gandhi was not a saint; nor was he a religious leader. He was, first and foremost, an original thinker and an acute political strategist, who believed profoundly in the possibility of introducing humanity to the principle of non-violence.
A realistic hope
•Gandhi’s idea of non-violence was not a dream; it was a realistic hope, armed with a dose of practical idealism; that of the global welcoming of the law of love. By saying this, he presented himself, at the same time, as an Asian who was influenced by Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, and as a person who was deeply influenced by the teachings of Jesus Christ, Socrates, Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau. Thomas Merton once wrote that Mahatma Gandhi was “an alienated Asian”. Maybe so, but it is not because Gandhi learnt many things from the West that he had necessarily become a stranger to his own culture and to the traditions of the East. On the contrary, his proximity to the East and the West proved to be very fruitful and made of him, what we can call, “an intercultural Indian”. Gandhi was endowed with an intellectual openness, which helped him to learn from others, and, as a result, live up to his ideals. As such, he was not only an Indian political and moral leader but also the founding father of modern non-violence as it has been practised for the past 100 years around the globe.
Ethical mode of conduct
•As such, with Gandhi, the philosophy of non-violence turned into an instrument of public dissent and a pragmatic tool of the powerless against the powerful. However, in the eyes of Gandhi, while being an instrument of conflict resolution and universal harmony, non-violence was also an essentially moral exercise. What Gandhi called the “soul force” was actually an ethical mode of conduct. As a matter of fact, he viewed non-violence essentially as an ethical commitment and a constructive political action. For Gandhi, the ethical and the political were the same. Therefore, for him, the struggle against violence and fanaticism was at the same moral level as disobeying unjust laws: it was expressed by the soul force and the pursuit of truth to uplift others. Gandhi had a profoundly ethical view of life: he recognised neither the infallible authority of texts nor the sanctity of religious traditions, but he was also the foremost critic of modern politics and its authoritarian practices. That is why, reading Gandhi today is unavoidably to rethink modern politics as a new relation between power and violence and as a way of transcending the conventional distinction between citizens and the state. It is also a move towards an inter-cultural democracy, where solidarity of differences is not compromised by mere nationalism, and democratic action is not limited by mere constitutionalism and representation. Working in this perspective, the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence finds the conventional meaning of politics as incomplete, while problematising democratic politics as a way of assigning a duty to citizens to be vigilant about the abuses of power by the state and to struggle against the “Sultanization” of political power in our contemporary societies.
Establishing a just society
•On the social level, Gandhi envisioned an ideal society where social justice is done, including for the last person. This is a common world in which institutions aim to get the best out of the individual. The entire Gandhian thought in the realm of citizenship and democracy revolves around the establishment of a just society. As such, Gandhi’s idea of democracy hinges on moral growth in humankind, where an undisciplined and unrestrained individualism gives its place to an empathetic humanism. Moreover, while speaking on non-violence and democracy, Gandhi believed that humanity had to develop certain qualities such as fearlessness, non-possession and humility. The main aim was to restructure humans to suit to an inter-cultural and pluri-dimensional democracy. Gandhi’s repeated emphasis on service to all human beings from all traditions of thought was the essence of his non-violent democratic theory.
An approach ahead of its time
•In this pluralistic approach to the dialogue of cultures and faiths, Gandhi was far ahead of his time. Indeed, his non-violent democratic theory as a philosophy of inter-cultural dialogue is still far ahead of our time, several generations after his death. Gandhi was not a dogmatic nationalist but essentially a pathfinder towards a common ground among different cultures and diverse mentalities. Therefore, his philosophy of democracy remains neither mono-cultural nor essentialist. It is essentially pluralistic and empathetic. More importantly, his attachment to politics is more ethical than religious. Consequently, religion for him is identified with ethics rather than theology. Therefore, his concept of democracy and modes and methods of achieving it, including Satyagraha and Swaraj, are not theological concepts. Gandhi believes that human destiny has constantly been on the move towards a non-theological truth. And he was a person who pursued truth in all aspects of life, not only spirituality, and encouraged others to join him in this pursuit.
•Gandhi considered democracy as a dynamic element in the ethical becoming of human civilisation. His effort to bridge different views of life was matched in many ways by his approach to the many-sidedness of truth. That is why he did not reject different traditions of social life; he simply affirmed what he considered to be authentic in them and thought of bringing them together in the realisation of an ethical common ground. This enabled him to maintain that it would not be possible to understand the concept of democracy without having some understanding of the philosophical tradition of a critique of violence in which it is nurtured. Gandhi, therefore, speaks of democracy and non-violence as two sides of the same reality.
Idea of ‘Indianness’
•He defined his mission of promoting non-violence and democracy in India beyond all political and philosophical sources of hatred, exclusion, suspicion and war. He was well aware of the fact that politics is a fragile concept and is vulnerable to nationalist justifications of violence and war. That is the reason why he refused to define India in terms of ethnic purity or linguistic unity or some other unifying religious attribute. More than rallying Indians to combat various “others,” Gandhi’s philosophy of democracy introduced an anti-monistic and pluralistic dimension into a primarily territorial rootedness of Indianness. In this sense, it could be argued that for Gandhi, there was no sentiment of loving one’s country (namely India) without loving the culture of the other. Gandhi’s appeal to planetary companionship was based on an inclusive and dialogical idea of living together which disapproved all forms of national or religious self-centredness. As he pointed out: “The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one. He who distinguishes between the votaries of one’s own religion and those of another miss-educates the members of his own and opens the way for discord and irreligion.”
📰 The Prime Minister India almost forgot
Lal Bahadur Shastri’s political life has lessons, but it is his sudden passing that vitiates his public recall and his history
•Sharing his birthday with Gandhi and coming from the province of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the self-effacing layman who became India’s second Prime Minister (1964-66). His climb atop the greasy pole of politics was preceded by nearly 40 years of participation in the freedom movements of the Indian National Congress and independent governments. However, his seemingly unlikely ascent to that office and his untimely demise led him to be overshadowed by his long-serving predecessor and successor.
•Consequently, in the political game current of historical appropriation from colonial and post-colonial India, both his life and death have found an echo in print and on screen. Thus, first eclipsed and now enlarged, Shastri’s prime ministership and its major preoccupations of the language movement, the lack of food, war and peace and economic crises are easy to either forget or fabricate.
Setting the bar
•Before that, as the Minister who resigned twice, assuming moral responsibility for railway accidents in 1956 (Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh and Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu) and setting an early standard, Shastri was one of six who left their cabinet posts in 1963 to work in the party organisation under the Kamaraj Plan. He was the only one though who was recalled by an ailing Prime Minister in January 1964 in a roving capacity, and, within six months, was unanimously elevated as Nehru’s successor, upon his death. In between, in a poll conducted by the Indian Institute of Public Opinion, he had received almost half the votes to fill the role. These instances make him more and not less likely an answer to that question After Nehru, Who? His matter-of-fact conduct in office was in the face of not just testing circumstances but also the individual challenge of stepping out of the shadow of his predecessor.
Quiet change on many fronts
•Revisiting Shastri’s premiership repays an attempt to put things in perspective, as arguably his tenure was one of quiet change on most fronts. It began amid a renewed bout of food scarcity and resultant price rise which can be taken back, albeit in a broken line, to the days of the Second World War and placed in a wider frame of similar problems across the decolonised world. More prosaically, it caused a forex crisis from food procurement and a provincial friction between surplus and deficit zones, and saw piecemeal rationing as well as the construction of the Food Corporation of India on the way to an eventual ‘Green Revolution’. Such systemic challenges and the structural response to them require organisational consensus and federal cooperation as much as prime ministerial control. This was more so in the mid-1960s when the monolithising days of the Congress’ clientele ‘system’ were on their last legs, afflicted by a generational churn among its regional satraps.
•Shastri’s selection as Prime Minister was itself an affirmation of the party’s organisation and self-correcting mechanism, notwithstanding its moral ambiguities and patronage politics. In his own unflashy ways, Shastri would put his imprimatur to weigh down on the corruption-induced departures of stalwarts such as Punjab’s Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon, Orissa’s Chief Minister Biren Mitra and Union Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari.
•Equally, he also had a mentoring side to him, exhibited in his encouragement of the party’s Bureau of Parliamentary Research, as a former beneficiary. A third domain was the party’s factionalism and its contrasting framing of him as either a leader of too much discussion and indecision, or of too little consultation and consensus. Indeed, clichés abound, when it comes to Shastri’s past and present: small man, stopgap, original accidental premier, cardboard nationalist.
Many challenges
•As a report card of Shastri’s first year of premiership highlighted, the language violence in Tamil Nadu, youth challenges in Orissa, returning President’s rule in Kerala, persisting feuds in Uttar Pradesh, enduring demand for a Punjabi suba and continuing farce in Kashmir, were some of the question marks at the cross-section of nation, region and institution for the Prime Minister. In the international arena too, Shastri had to navigate between a subdued Non-Aligned Movement, the now-nuclear challenge of China, a change in the Soviet leadership, a new leader in Pakistan, President Ayub Khan and an Anglo-American-Commonwealth combine distracted with varied issues such as Vietnam and Southern Rhodesia. Fittingly, for a person whose first foray in foreign affairs had been to Nepal, the first fruit of Shastri’s diplomacy was the agreement with then-Ceylon on persons of Indian origin there — an endorsement of the importance of neighbourhood.
Handling Pakistan
•If this attention to the neighbour nearby than an ally far was a virtue initially, it became a necessity in the year of war(s), i.e., 1965. First, in spring-summer was the Rann of Kutch dispute with Pakistan, where a combination of its remoteness, reciprocal military situation on the ground, a relatively straightforward question of overdue boundary determination, and successful British mediation meant that Shastri was content with a reasonable reference to an international tribunal, which eventually gave India the lion’s share of the demarcated territory. However, it was in August, 18 years from their Independence and Partition, that India and Pakistan came to their first, declared war over that unfinished business from 1947: Jammu and Kashmir. As it followed, familiar tropes of infiltration and mopping up, crossover and confrontation, critical calculations of cooperation from the one side and suspicions of collaboration from the other, failed to materialise.
•Instead, clashes around the then-Ceasefire Line broadened to battles across the international border in Punjab in the first week of September 1965, for which Shastri was then and now hailed for his resolve. Prepared for a prolonged war, he resisted indiscriminate international intercession, restrained internal war fever especially its potential to deteriorate in communal outbreaks, remained firm through the retreats in one sector and the advances in another in the war’s widening arc, and rallied the country with his call of ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ to become his epitaph.
•In the end, he accepted the Soviet offer for mediation and set about the road to Tashkent, where an agreement was signed with his Pakistani counterpart, President Muhammad Ayub Khan in January 1966, more or less restoring the status quo. It was there that he died, within hours of their declared denouement to war. The image of a sombre Ayub carrying the coffin of Shastri was a big symbolic testimony to his short but substantial stature.
•Among the highlights of Shastri’s heritage is the shift from personalised to institutionalised government; the laying of stress from industry to agriculture, and a move from command to economy, all overtaken by the march of time. His quiet ascent to prime ministership and his loud actions as Prime Minister fell through the cracks between the Nehruvian era and Indira’s India. His motivated resurrection, in an outsized opposition to these narratives, by those whose grandiose rhetoric sits oddly with his dignified reality, is his current fate. His political life has lessons but, unfortunately, it is his sudden death that has caused conspiracies and vitiates his public recall, doing little justice to his history.
•Like most in his time, he rose humbly from the provinces in national politics, and carried his convictions from his faith in people, their constitution and representation. Crucially, he remained modest in both his personal probity and policy making and was not invested solely in his occupancy of his office.
📰 A strategic dealing with China
India must engage with China economically even as it confronts it militarily
•On July 2, an article in The Economist was headlined Hit Them Where It Hurts Us: India has few good ways to punish China for its Himalayan land-grab. It argued that “most economic sanctions would harm India, too”. Instead of taking knee-jerk, retaliatory decisions against China following border flare-ups, India should consider joining the rest of the world in reining in China and calling it out for its worst excesses.
•Consider this: Chinese venture capitalists have poured in more than $8 billion into some of India’s most successful startups. China supplies many goods and services that India needs, and will continue to need. While India relies heavily on imports from China, a smaller portion of China’s imports are from India.
•Further, the timing of the economic decoupling with China that India is attempting could not have come at a worse time. The Indian economy, which was faring badly even before COVID-19 struck, is badly affected by it. The pandemic is showing no signs of abating. The situation is not going to get any better over the next few quarters unless India takes pragmatic steps to overcome these challenges. On the economic front, India must re-engage with China economically even as it confronts it militarily.
Lessons from China
•In fact, China itself provides lessons on this strategy. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and sometimes threatens invasion. In August, a top official from Taiwan said that Taiwan faces an increasingly difficult position as China pressures it to accept conditions that would turn it into the next Hong Kong. But China remains the top destination for Taiwan’s exports and outbound investment. Trade between the China and Taiwan has remained strong over the past four years. The Taiwanese firm Foxconn, for instance, makes almost all the iPhones that the world buys from factories in China.
•Similarly, tensions simmer between China and the its largest trading partner, the U.S., but that doesn’t stop China from continuing to do business with the U.S. Tesla’s massive car and battery plants are coming up in China and American farmers still sell soya to China, though U.S. soybean exports to China have fallen.
•The European Union, China’s second largest trading partner, continues to be robustly engaged with China. A recent report by the Norwegian logistics firm Tschudi bared the surprising extent of overland trade facilitated by rail links established with Europe by China as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On this, a report of the China Railway Corporation, cited by Tschudi, makes a telling point that “in the first half of 2017 more than 3,000 container trains” ran “between the two continents since the start of 2017 exceeding the total for the previous six years combined and serving 35 cities in China, with 34 destinations in Europe”.
•Unlike India, which has been talking for years about establishing road and rail connectivity with its immediate neighbours and even Southeast Asia but doing little about it, China’s ambitious BRI is a vision that is being realised in quick time. This has now reached India’s doorstep and is bad news for India.
•The Brookings Policy Brief of May 2020 titled India’s limited trade connectivity with South Asia 2020 details how “after 2005, China has consistently increased its trade with South Asia”. It says, “Defying the logic of proximity, most of India’s neighbours are now largely reliant on China for their imports.” India in fact is in danger of becoming a bit player in its own backyard.
•China under President Xi Jinping is strategic. Mark Leonard, the Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, elaborated on the depth of debate and discussion that goes into Chinese policymaking in his 2008 book What Does China Think. The Chinese American economist, Yukon Huang, makes the same point in far greater detail in Cracking the China Conundrum. India should listen to these voices and not react in a knee-jerk manner with China.
