📰 Telangana’s Ramappa temple inscribed as a World Heritage Site
In a diplomatic triumph, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee reached consensus with the backing of 17 countries
•In a major diplomatic triumph, the 13th century Ramappa temple in Palampet, Telangana was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Sunday. At the ongoing online meeting of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in Fuzhou, China, the decision was reached after a consensus, with Norway opposing the inscription while Russia led an effort for the immediate inscription of the temple at 4.36 p.m. IST.
•A consensus with 17 countries backing the move ensured the inscription of the site.
•The nomination for a World Heritage Site for the Ramappa and Kakatiya temples was made in 2014. The site was in the reckoning for inscription in 2020 but the WHC meeting was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Built by Racherla Senapati Rudrayya, a general of Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, in the 13th century, the main temple is flanked by the collapsed structures of the Kateshwarayya and Kameshwarayya temples in Palampet, about 220 km from Hyderabad.
•The temple, known for its exquisite craftsmanship and delicate relief work, is savvy blend of technical know-how and materials of its time. The foundation is built with the “sandbox technique”, the flooring is granite and the pillars basalt. The lower part of the temple is red sandstone while the white gopuram is built with light bricks that reportedly float on water. An inscription dates the temple to 1135 Samvat-Saka on the eight day of Magha (January 12, 1214).
•Earlier, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) cited nine shortcomings at the site after an initial visit in 2019, but on Sunday a majority veered round to India’s view about the site’s outstanding universal value.
•India had mounted a diplomatic offensive to ensure the World Heritage Site status for the Ramappa temple by reaching out to other countries whose representatives were to vote on the proposal.
•At the WHC session on Sunday, Russia invoked Rule 22.7 allowing India to make a statement after ICOMOS made its decision known to defer the examination of nomination.
•Russia, backed by 17 other countries, forced the amendment to reach a consensus. India won the consensus with Ethiopia, Oman, Brazil, Egypt, Spain, Thailand, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ethiopia and others backing its case for inscribing the site.
•Norway was the only country which opposed the move citing ICOMOS’s conclusion. An amendment to the boundaries of the site saw a lot of debate with Norway demanding major changes while the other countries wanted minor changes to the boundary.
•According to the temple priest, some of the iconography on the temple was damaged during the invasion of Malik Kafur in 1310. Treasure hunters vandalised the rest. But the biggest test for the temple was an earthquake in the 17th century (one of the biggest was that of 7.7-8.2-magnitude on June 16, 1819). The flooring was rocked by the waves, while the pillars and vertical structure stayed intact because of the sandbox technique used in its construction.
JJM fails to meet goals ten months after 100-day campaign was launched
•Over a third of government schools and anganwadis still do not have tap water access even ten months after the Jal Jeevan Mission launched a 100-day campaign to provide the facility. There has been minimal progress since a Parliamentary Standing Committee pulled up the JJM in a March report, pointing out the importance of repeated washing of hands as part of COVID-19 safety protocols for schools to reopen.
•However, the Jal Shakti Ministry considers the current progress as an achievement. “Big boost to children's health & hygiene in the country!” said a tweet from Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Sunday, linking to an official statement from the Ministry. “PM @narendramodi ji's desire to see all centres of learning provided with clean water has resulted in 66% schools & 60% anganwadi centers across the nation getting FHTC [Functional Household Tap Connections] through the #JalJeevanMission in just 10 months,” he added.
•The 100-day campaign to achieve 100% coverage, and provide potable piped water supply for drinking and cooking purposes as well as tap water for hand washing and in toilets in every school, anganwadi and ashramshala or residential tribal school, was launched on October 2, 2020. At the time, about 40% of schools and anganwadis already had tap water access. From 4.1 lakh before the campaign started, the number of schools with taps rose to 6.35 lakh by February, according to the JJM dashboard. For anganwadis, the increase was from 4.3 lakh to 6.3 lakh.
•In its report on the demand for grants submitted to the Lok Sabha in early March, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Water Resources deplored the slow rate of progress, pointing out that “children are more susceptible to water borne diseases, more so, when there is also a need for repeated washing of hands as a precautionary measure during the Covid-19 pandemic”. The Jal Shakti Ministry told the panel that “some States/ UTs have indicated that they need more time to complete the task and sustain the efforts” and said the campaign had been extended till March 31, 2021.
•Almost four months after that extended deadline, the JJM is yet to achieve its goals. In fact, it has only added tap water access in about 50,000 schools and 40,000 anganwadis since that time, marking a significant slowdown. In its statement on Sunday, the Ministry noted that the progress came “despite Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown resulting into repeated disruptions”.
•In fact, there is widespread disparity among States, with a few laggards pulling down the national average, despite the fact that nine States and Union Territories have already achieved 100% coverage. In Jharkhand and West Bengal, less than 15% of schools and less than 10% of anganwadis have tap water access. Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, saw significant improvement, with the number of schools with tap water rising from just 13,400 before the campaign to more than 1 lakh now, leaving less than 20% of schools to be covered.
📰 Money changer: On need for an official digital currency
India needs to move forward on introducing an official digital currency
•In contrast to India’s continued ambiguity over the legality of cryptocurrencies, its stance on introducing an official digital currency has been reassuringly clear and consistent over time. And, four years after an inter-ministerial committee recommended that India launch fiat money in digital form, the Reserve Bank of India has indicated that pilot projects to figure out its viability are likely to be launched soon. In a speech a few days ago, T. Rabi Sankar, Deputy Governor, RBI, said, “RBI is currently working towards a phased implementation strategy and examining use cases which could be implemented with little or no disruption.” The clarity is welcome, given that the much-awaited Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, is yet to be introduced. In recent years, the significant rise of private cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether has spooked central banks throughout the world, and pushed the case for official digital currencies. Mr. Rabi Sankar himself cited a 2021 BIS survey of central banks, which found that 86% were actively researching the potential for such currencies, 60% were experimenting with the technology, and 14% were deploying pilot projects. China, having already engaged in pilot projects for its digital RMB, is in fact planning a major roll-out soon. There has been little doubt, therefore, that India needs a digital rupee. The important questions are about the details and the timeline.
•There are crucial decisions to be made about the design of the currency with regards to how it will be issued, the degree of anonymity it will have, the kind of technology that is to be used, and so on. It is possible that the question of the degree of anonymity, especially, will be quite a challenging one. While official digital currencies can borrow the underlying technology feature of private cryptocurrencies, they significantly differ from the latter in their philosophy and goals. Also to be considered are possible impacts of the introduction of an official digital currency on people, the monetary policy, and the banking system. There are risks to be considered as well, not the least of which will be those emerging from cyberattacks. What is more, many laws need to be amended to make the digital rupee a reality. So, while India might have done exceedingly well in digital payments in recent years — the Deputy Governor said they have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 55% over the last five years — the digital rupee will be something else altogether. Notwithstanding all these challenges, it would seem that the answer to Mr. Rabi Sankar’s speech title, ‘Central Bank Digital Currency – Is This the Future of Money’, is a yes.
📰 A climate risk: On extreme weather events
Only proper planning can insure against the inevitable extremities of nature
•The monsoon is nearing its halfway mark and July, which is among the rainiest months, began with a rainfall deficit but has since seen a revival. For most of last week, all-India rainfall has been over 50% more than what is normal for this time of the year. Many regions in the Konkan coast and the southern peninsula have been seeing instances of extreme rainfall. According to India Meteorological Department (IMD) data on the regional distribution, the ‘South Peninsula’ has seen 29% more rain from June 1-July 25 than what is normal for this period. Rainfall in Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra, was torrential enough to beat its all-time record, according to the IMD. The monsoon is characterised by unexpected variability that forecast models can capture only in a limited way. However, much evidence is accumulating that there is a distinctive change in climate patterns. The frequency and the strength of cyclones over the Arabian Sea have increased in the last two decades. There has been a 52% increase in the frequency of cyclones over the Arabian Sea from 2001-2019 and an 8% decrease over the Bay of Bengal compared to 1982-2002, when, historically, most cyclones have been in the Bay of Bengal, according to a new study in Climate Dynamics.
•Even the duration of these cyclones has increased by 80%. More cyclones are bringing in more moisture from the Arabian Sea and contributing to extreme rainfall events over the western coast, the most recent example being cyclone Tauktae in May, which at 185 kilometres per hour was among the strongest cyclones to approach Mumbai. They drive storm surges that flood the coast. Studies show that a heating globe has increased atmospheric moisture levels, contributing to short, intense spells of rains. The interaction between warming, rainfall and temperature is complex and variables such as aerosol emissions, particulate matter pollution, agriculture and forestry patterns must be accounted for. However, the broader picture is that extreme events — bursts of torrential localised rainfall and prolonged droughts and heatwaves — are likely to increase, making the role of accurate forecasts that are able to warn of such events at least three to five days ahead even more important. But the bigger challenge is to undertake so-called climate-proofing of the most vulnerable regions and taking warnings of scientific risk assessment seriously. Evacuations ahead of a flood or a cyclone are not always effective and what is needed is limited construction in places that have been marked vulnerable. Just as it is possible to plan earthquake-resilient structures and site them scientifically, but hard to anticipate a major quake, similarly, proper planning can insure against the inevitable extremities of nature. International climate change agreements to limit greenhouse gas emissions will yield benefits only in the very long term but what is done in the near future will mean the difference between surviving and thriving.
📰 Are law and technology a solution to fake news?
Stakeholders are attempting to find a robust and effective solution to sift fact from fiction
•Fake news and its associated social problems have been a major concern and the Indian government has been attempting to bring in several legal amendments to deal with its creation, propagation and effects. Social media companies, too, are investing billions of dollars into technological solutions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify fake news and its proliferation. Are these the best solutions to solve a problem as old as humanity or is there any other effective solution?
•Looking at statistics on the justice delivery system in India, the legal system needs to become more robust before it can be considered an effective solution. Further, the formulation of laws in themself do not prevent a wrong action.
•When Timnit Gebru, former co-lead of Google’s ethical AI team, made an unceremonious exit, the MIT Technology Review identified the key aspects of her unpublished paper that had caused a stir within Google. In summary, to train large AI models, massive computing power and energy is required and this has been expanding since 2017, along with an ever-increasing carbon footprint. The Technology Review stated that the ‘Transformer’ model, as on January 2019, used 6,56,347 kilowatt-hour (kWh), producing a carbon footprint of 6,26,155 lbs of CO2 equivalent at a cloud computing cost between $9,42,973 and $32,01,722 for a single training of the AI model. These models have to be trained multiple times before they become usable. Further, since the models tend to use text already present on the Internet, there is a tendency for the AI to reflect strong negative human biases. The numerical values highlight the cost on the environment and the remote possibility of access to already deprived sections of society.
Contextualising the problem
•Fake news is disinformation that has no basis in reality, but is presented as fact. Being designed to manipulate both the intellect and emotions of a person, it can evoke strong emotional reactions in its reader, which could sometimes result in violence. Statistics from social media websites show that fake news generates much higher engagement among readers than real news. While digital networks have contributed to the exponential proliferation of fake news, this is not really a new phenomena.
•In an experimental study conducted among first-year undergraduate History students, who were given some historical content, it was found that novice learners made claims that did not have supporting evidence, were either inaccurate or unrelated.
•India’s diversity is its strength, but also the source for numerous conflicts that have persisted over the decades. These conflicts, being rooted in historical claims around politics, culture and religion, will intensify if the historical assumptions and data behind related fake news are not contextually analysed and challenged. The problem is aggravated with the decline in history learning programmes worldwide. While the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) curriculum has elements of historical thinking, State boards are primarily focused on the memorisation of content.
A way forward
•The Constitution of India provides a long-term solution under Article 51A (h), which says, “It shall be the duty of every citizen to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” While the National Education Policy, 2020, captures the needs of the nation, it unfortunately misses out on historical thinking.
•Historical thinking is the set of thinking skills required for learning history or doing history and is content agnostic. It consists of concepts like points of view, evidence, validity and reliability of the source, contextualisation, and corroboration, apart from other skills. Historical thinking skills can also be applied to a diverse set of domains such law, forensic science, politics and research, and dealing with the real world problem of ‘fake news’.
•In the case of fake news, a person would have to be able to read a piece of news, examine the source for bias and ascertain whether the claims being made are factual with data or whether they constitute deliberate misinformation. Since fake news is designed to appeal to emotion, it becomes all the more important that a person is skilled at interrogating evidence, contextualising the information and corroborating it with alternate sources. If historical thinking has such widespread application, why is it missing from active public discourse and in the education system?
📰 Joining the dots in the second coming of Pegasus
This time, Pegasus shines a light on the Government for civil society to see it as a clear accountable entity
•Pegasus is not a stranger to our shores. It first surfaced in our public discourse towards the end of 2019. Researchers from University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab called up some telephone numbers in our country and informed them that their WhatsApp chats were compromised. There were some stirrings, but the controversy died out quietly and disappeared from our public discourse. The attention then was predominantly on the issue of how secure WhatsApp was and how weak its claims of end-to-end encryption were. WhatsApp’s public relations exercise to reassure its customers of its safety and privacy grabbed disproportionate attention. All these deflected the public’s attention from our Government’s involvement in the ugly saga and the misuse of NSO of Israel’s spyware to snoop on its own citizens. Parliament and civil society let the Government off easily. Perhaps, the impression that the surveillance then was largely confined to the Bhima-Koregaon happenings also contributed to its limited appeal.
Signs of a surveillance state
•Most of us failed to connect the dots. The frequent and prolonged instances of Internet shutdowns; use of the sedition law on critics of the Government’s policies; use of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA); rushing of crucial pieces of legislation affecting core sectors of our economy through the Houses of Parliament; consigning the data privacy Bill to a select committee; the framing of rules to rein in digital news platforms, and the demonic efficiency with which State governments were toppled appeared less dramatic and had no shock value as unconnected events. But if connected with each other, and the Pegasus spyware running in the background, they present a picture of India’s descent into a surveillance state.
•Treated separately, each one of those incidents, caused little more than a few days of screaming headlines, reprimanding editorials, raucous prime-time television debates, weak and short-lived protests by political parties and rights activists. The probability that the second coming of Pegasus into our political discourse will not be very different from its first appears very real, if this too is treated as a separate and isolated event. Fortunately, this time it came with two major differences.
The targets now
•This time the attention is exclusively on the Government’s role and there are no red herrings in the form of questions about the safety of encryptions offered by service providers. The people involved in the revelations are not just little known activists. They range from the Leader of the Opposition, a constitutional authority, a number of journalists, human rights activists, Ministers in the Government, ruling party leaders, several political leaders, serving or retired officers. The list also revealed that the government agencies made no distinction between state interests and the interests of the ruling party. The expansiveness of the global list of people named as intended targets of the spyware and the prestige of publications involved in cross-border collaboration are indeed arresting.
•Pegasus’s second coming has yet another distinction. It foregrounds the collusion between government and weapons grade surveillance tech that has no intermediary functions to confuse us. The episodes that were hitherto played out as government versus tech in our country allowed the combatants to compete for our support. The government and the tech companies claimed to fight one another on our behalf. However, they were actually fights between tech and government for possession and control of our data. Government sought its possession to control society, to eliminate dissent and opposition. But it tried to portray to us that it sought to tame the tech companies to protect our interests, privacy, and the security of the realm. Tech companies sought to possess our data sets to make prediction products out of them and sell them to advertisers. Both the Government and tech companies vied for surveillance over us. One for control and the other for profits. However, there is always the undetected possibility of their interests coalescing. In the case of Pegasus the collusion is evident. The NSO Group does not compete with the Government for the possession of data surplus of its application. It is a pure and simple provider of surveillance-as-a-service to the Government. In the event, Pegasus this time shines a light on the Government for civil society to see it as a clear accountable entity.
Government stonewalling
•It is evident that the Indian government till now is acting out of a standard play book. It is stonewalling. It has so far evaded the essential questions that are raised by the revelations. Ministers and representatives of the ruling party are questioning the credibility of claims made by the global consortium of media organisations that announced the startling revelations. They are accusing the publications of acting with ulterior motives to undermine India’s democratic institutions. Supporters of the Government’s narrative charge the publications with attempting to defame the country. The Government’s, and its supporters’, defence so far is essentially semantic quibble and based on raising doubts on the source of the telephone numbers that the media consortium says is from a leaked list accessed by media portal Forbidden Stories.
•The uncommonly cautious wording of the preface to the consortium’s admittedly limited claims to their findings is sought to be used to undermine the extraordinary significance of its revelations. The consortium desisted from making sweeping claims. It said, the leaked list of 50,000 numbers “are believed to have been selected as those of people of interest by government clients of NSO Group”. The consortium also said that the list “indicates the potential targets” identified in advance by the NSO’s clients for “possible surveillance”. The list is only “an indication of intent” and the appearance of a number in it does not reveal “whether there was an attempt to infect the phone” or “whether any attempt succeeded”.
•But amidst all this extraordinary caution is this devastating revelation which the Indian government chooses to deliberately ignore to indulge in semantic wrangling: “However, forensic examination of a small sample of mobile phones with numbers on the list found tight correlations between the time and date of a number in the data and the start of Pegasus activity — in some cases in as little as a few seconds.” Amnesty International’s forensic lab found that of the 67 phones examined, 23 were infected and 14 showed signs of attempts to penetrate. The rest were cases of possible change of devices or those using the Android operating system that did not keep record of logs needed for forensic work. By any standard this is considered an overwhelming basis for further investigation. It establishes an unquestionable basis for subjecting all the rest of the numbers from the list of 50,000 numbers for investigation. And in India’s case, all the 300 numbers from the country that were found in the list. Already, over 10 of them were forensically examined and found to be either successfully infected by Pegasus or attempted to be penetrated. That is enough of a case for a comprehensive investigation into the claims of the media consortium. But the Government narrative harps on words such as ‘indicative,’ ‘possible’ and ‘potential’ as being too general and dismisses snooping charges.
•The Indian government’s defence that rests on questioning the source of the list has little merit. Investigative journalism is under no obligation to reveal its sources. In fact, it is ethically bound to not reveal in order to protect the identity of its sources.
•As important as the questions that the Government forcefully articulates is its remorseless stonewalling of the most important question repeatedly asked of it. It does not tell us in unequivocal terms whether it has or has not purchased the Pegasus spyware. It did not answer that question during the country’s first brush with the spyware in 2019 too. Even today it seems to be firm in its resolve not to answer. It hopes to wear down the political opposition, activists, human rights groups, and civil society. It evidently thinks that it can wait out the news cycles to run their course. It probably can. Civil society and the media, cannot, beyond a point, keep the pressure on. A government with brazen determination, brute majority in the legislature, and as yet unchallenged political capital, can afford to wait out the limited firepower of its political opponents’ artillery.
Judiciary as bulwark
•The only institution in the present situation that can make the Government accountable is the judiciary. The track record of our top court on major issues of defining importance to our national life is at best mixed in the recent past. What it chooses to do or not do now can make a difference to India. The options before it are clear as they are stark. To allow the present government a free run in turning India into a surveillance state is one. The other is to stop the Government in its tracks, restore to its people the gift of a free and liberal state that the founding fathers of the Republic gave them. The country has very little time.
📰 Lessons from India’s food security response
Government measures to tackle the food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic were effective
•With a reduction in COVID-19 infections as the second wave weakens in India, it is important to focus on the pandemic’s disruptive impact on the food security and livelihoods of the poor and marginalised.
•The deadly virus has been around for two years and it is not clear as to how and when it will end. However, we do have enough in terms of a hindsight analysis of policies and interventions that promise food and livelihood security, along with the strengthening of health support, for millions facing the wrath of the pandemic.
•It is imperative to also note an alarming escalation in the global hunger that is unfolding right now. There was a ‘dramatic worsening’ of world hunger in 2020, much of it likely related to the fallout of COVID-19. While the pandemic’s impact has yet to be fully mapped, a multi-agency report, ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, estimates that around a tenth of the global population – up to 81.1 crore persons – were undernourished last year.
•India has made enormous progress in food production over the years, with an inspiring journey towards self-sufficiency in food production marked by the Green Revolution. In 2020, India produced over 30 crore tonnes of cereals and had built up a food stock of 10 crore tonnes. The country has registered record harvests over the last few years. India exported a record 1.98 crore tonnes of rice and wheat in FY21.
Pivoting safety nets
•Coming to the impact of COVID-19’s fallout, vulnerable and marginalised families in India continued to be buffered against the food crisis by its robust Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
•Key measures initiated by the Union government included allowing the States to lift their allocations for six months in one go, in anticipation of a surge in demand for foodgrains through the public distribution system. As data shows, there was an unprecedented spike in the uptake of subsidised and free foodgrains during the lockdown. The public distribution system became a lifeline for millions hit by the pandemic.
Increase entitlements
•A dynamic analysis of the food security scenario and feedback from different stakeholders allowed the Government of India to increase entitlements given to National Food Safety Act (NFSA) beneficiaries in 2020. For instance, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), 81.3 crore NFSA beneficiaries received an additional 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month and 1 kg of pulses per family per month, free of cost, for eight months from April to November 2020. Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat package, 8 crore migrants were provided 5 kg of foodgrains per month, free of cost.
•The government also allowed NGOs/civil society organisations to buy rice and wheat at subsidised prices directly from nearby Food Corporation of India (FCI) warehouses. Rice was sold at ₹22 per kg (market price is ₹35 per kg) and wheat at ₹21 per kg (market price is ₹27 per kg) last year.
•The PMGKAY was introduced in 2020 for eight months to provide relief to 80 crore beneficiaries covered under NFSA from COVID-induced economic hardships. The scheme was reintroduced this year for the third phase implementation for two months till June, and later extended till November under the fourth phase.
•During the third phase of PMGKAY, about 89% of the allocated foodgrains were distributed to beneficiaries. The distribution reached 94% in May. Implemented for eight months last year and for seven months this year, the PMGKAY outlay will add up to a total expenditure of ₹2,28,000 crore over 15 months.
Addressing challenges
•The COVID-19 pandemic has once again drawn attention to addressing the aspects of access and portability of food entitlements. It is critical to leave no one behind in times such as these and crucial for states to find solutions so that no one goes hungry.
•Ensuring that food support focuses on at-risk groups, including persons with disabilities, the elderly, single women-led households, transgender persons, HIV-affected persons, displaced persons, refugees and orphan children, is at the heart of ‘Leave No One Behind’.
•The scale of India’s public food distribution systems is immense and has gone through constant navigation and improvement, which is commendable. But more needs to still be done to improve access and inclusion among the missing vulnerable population.
Way ahead
•First, the introduction of the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme is an innovation that can be a game changer, allowing beneficiaries to access their food entitlements from anywhere in the country. This is especially important for a country like India with a massive mobile population and migration between States. The scheme takes the massive digitisation of the supply chain, distribution and access to the next step, ensuring anyone benefits from anywhere in India.
•Second, climate change will continue to affect agriculture and food security, and the impact on the poor and vulnerable can be devastating. Massive efforts are needed towards programmes that focus on building resilient agriculture that is adaptive to changing weather and needs through the introduction of newer varieties of crops, efficient irrigation systems, and the promotion of crops as per the agro-climate zones.
•Thirdly, a third of all food produced is wasted. There should be enhanced efforts to prevent losses. Lost or wasted energy used for food production accounts for about 10% of the world’s total energy consumption, and annual greenhouse gas emissions associated with food losses and food waste reaches to around 3.5 gigatonnes of the CO2 equivalent.
•Finally, 2021 offers a unique opportunity for advancing food security and nutrition through transforming food systems with the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the COP26 on climate change. The outcomes of these events will certainly shape the actions of the second half of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. India has a central role to play in this transformation and offering experiences and solutions to address the thought processes and models for a resilient, equitable, and food-secure world.
📰 Getting India’s military convergence formula right
For genuine military jointness, a blending of minds and tailor-made solutions are critical
•The Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat’s recent description of the Indian Air Force (IAF) as a supporting arm — in an interview on July 2 — and the IAF chief Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria’s rebuttal, is the newest bump in the turbulent journey marking the reorganisation process of the armed forces. Unfortunately, this bump, probably caused by misinterpretation of an oversimplification by the Chief of Defence Staff, comes just when the process appears to be touching down after being airborne for long. Whatever the cause, the differences do not speak well of the intellectual underpinnings of the reorganisation process. Is there a problem with air power? What about the IAF warning against splitting it into ‘penny packets’? Is air power an adjunct?
•Armies and navies will see air power as an adjunct, history being the reason. Analysing the experience of the United States, the greatest exponent of air power in history, the air power theorist Tami Davis Biddle wrote in 2019 that ‘aerial bombing cannot control the ground. It is fundamentally a coercive activity in which an attacker seeks to structure the enemy’s incentives — using threats and actions to shape and constrain the enemy’s options, both perceived and real. It is an important and much-utilized military instrument for both deterrence and compellence. However, its ability to produce results varies, and students of strategy must understand the circumstances under which it is more or less likely to achieve particular results or political ends’ (https://bit.ly/3iHHrza). Holding and controlling land or water is essential in conflict. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, air power failed to deliver the promised results to the U.S. But everyone acknowledges how greatly air power can aid victories though.
Issues before the IAF
•Media reports suggest that counting even ageing aircraft, the IAF is 25% short on fighter squadrons. A pan service shortage of about 400 pilots, almost 10% of their authorised strength, further aggravates this. Therefore, the IAF has a point when it warns against splitting assets, for, there may be nothing much to split. Whether now, or in any future joint arrangement, the service chief is responsible for the operational availability of assets. He alone will be blamed for failures. So he must protest with all his might. Vulnerabilities should be known to all stakeholders. When the U.S. Navy faced a budget cut in 2015, Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations told the Senate that ‘(if the budget gets cut) more ships and aircraft (will be) out of action when in battle, more sailors, Marines and merchant mariners (will be) killed, and (there will be) less credibility, to deter adversaries and to assure allies in the future’ (https://bit.ly/2TxL1TJ). But shortage alone is not at the core of the IAF’s objections. It is also the prospect of operational plans for the IAF being made outside the service.
Finding common ground
•A common understanding of the nuances of military air power is the key. Towards this, it has to be accepted that others too understand air power. The 67-year-old naval air arm figures among the top 10 air forces of the world. With the experience of operating almost every kind of aircraft the IAF operates, and with the benefits of the operational wisdom borne of the harsh integrity of the supremely tough aircraft carrier and other small deck operations, the naval leadership understands air power. This applies to the Indian Army too, in its own way. Confidence needs to be developed that rightly staffed apex joint organisations can draw up professional operational plans for air power. This will need some effort in the short term towards enhancing professional military education though, at the staff level.
Synergy and hurdles
•With dwindling budgets, a steadily deteriorating security situation and the march of technology, the armed forces understand the need to synergise. But natural human faults interfere. For instance, different services do not co-exist well where they are colocated. Bitter fights over land, buildings, facilities, etc. mar optimal operational synergising. Then there is the issue of giving each other the best, or of wanting to be with each other. The Andaman and Nicobar Command suffered from the lack of a substantial operational charter, and the services not positioning appropriate personnel or resources there. Moreover, as a joint tenure did not benefit career, no one strove for it. The U.S., when faced with the same problem, made joint tenures mandatory for promotions. Steamrolling with decrees is useful in such areas.
•Major reorganisations must strictly follow the sequence of written concepts, their refinement through consultation, simulation or table top war gaming, field evaluation and final analysis before implementation. This would help address command and control, asset adequacy, individual service roles, operational planning under new circumstances and the adequacy of joint structures. Who gets to lead what also matters. The Western Command between the Indian Army and the IAF, the Northern Command with the Indian Army, Maritime Command with the Indian Navy and the Air Defence Command with the IAF may be an acceptable formula.
What is needed
•As we hurtle towards inevitable reorganisation, some specifics are required. The first is the need for a comprehensive National Security Strategy to guide the services develop capacities required in their respective domains. The second is the need to transform professional education and inter-service employment to nurture genuine respect for others. The third is that the armed forces must resolve their differences among themselves, as the politicians or bureaucrats cannot do it. The fourth is to ensure good quality staff, in adequate numbers, at apex joint organisations, to reassure individual services and those in the field that they are in safe hands. The fifth is the acceptance of the fact that what works for other countries need not work for us. We may need tailor-made solutions which may need more genuine thinking. For genuine military jointness, a genuine convergence of minds is critical. Decrees have limitations.
