📰 Indian envoy in Doha meets Taliban leader
The meeting came at the request of the Taliban, say officials
•In signs that the Government of India has softened its stance on the Taliban, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that its Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal met with the head of the Taliban’s political office, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, on Tuesday.
•While Indian security officials and diplomats are understood to have engaged with Taliban representatives for several months, this is the first time the government has publicly acknowledged such a meeting which, the MEA said, came at the request of the Taliban. Officials told The Hindu that the request came as Taliban leaders have been keen to receive some “acceptability”, and that India remains “cautious” about its approach to the group.
•“Discussions focused on safety, security and early return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan. The travel of Afghan nationals, especially minorities, who wish to visit to India also came up,” a statement issued by the MEA said, adding that Mr. Mittal said India’s concern was that “Afghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner.”
•About 140 Indians and members of the Sikh minority still remain in Kabul, and need to be brought back. India has thus far transported 565 people, including 112 Afghan nationals to Delhi. The numbers have been far lower than other countries like the U.S., which has evacuated 1,22,000 people, including more than 1,00,000 Afghan nationals, in some measure due to the fact that the government has security concerns and is strictly regulating any visas, and in some measure as it is unable to ensure the safe evacuation of people wishing to travel.
•According to the MEA statement, the Taliban leader assured the Indian Ambassador that all the issues would be “positively addressed”. Mr. Stanekzai, who trained and graduated out of the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, made a statement on Saturday calling for India to continue its political and trade ties with Afghanistan, and pursue connectivity projects.
The Haqqani group
•The meeting and the statements came after a number of signals from New Delhi that it was recalibrating its earlier position on the Taliban as a terrorist group, after Taliban militants took control of the country on August 15. In particular, India has had concerns about the Haqqani group, which is a part of the Taliban and Taliban Deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, who were responsible for the attacks on the Indian Embassy in 2008-2009. The attacks left more than 75 people, including Indian diplomats, dead. It is also believed that the Taliban is a proxy of Pakistan.
•In the last few months, however, the MEA had said it was in touch with “various stakeholders” in Afghanistan, not denying that the Taliban was one of them, and Indian officials have met with Taliban representatives in Doha, according to sources. In June, one such meeting was confirmed by Qatari special envoy for reconciliation Mutlaq bin Majed Al-Qahtani. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, when India decided to pull out all embassy staff, they were stopped from leaving for the airport by gunmen guarding the city, and the government had to open its channels to the Taliban to secure their release.
Money changed hands
•According to sources, the Embassy in Kabul worked its communications to the Taliban through other countries and leaders like former President Hamid Karzai and High Council for National Reconciliation Chief Abdullah Abdullah, and eventually received permission after some money changed hands, and assurances given that the convoy would travel unarmed so as to reach the airport with Taliban escort.
•As a result, while officials say some form of tactical engagement is necessary, it remains to be seen whether the Modi government will agree to re-establish its diplomatic presence in the country and to recognise a Taliban government, once it is formed.
•While countries like Russia, China, Qatar, Iran and Pakistan have kept their embassies in Kabul open, others like the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and European countries have closed their missions there. Speaking to Members of Parliament at a briefing last Friday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said India would “wait and watch” the Taliban’s actions, especially with regard to human rights, treatment of women and minorities, and attitude towards terror groups that could target India using the Afghan territory.
P5 members divided; Delhi plays ‘active role’ to ensure resolution went through
•Despite the abstention of two “P-5” countries, Russia and China, from the India-led United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2593, the Government of India said it was a “matter of satisfaction” that the resolution, addressed India's “key concerns” on Afghanistan.
•According official sources, the resolution, which called on the Taliban to keep its commitments on preventing terror groups in Afghanistan and urged them to assist the safe evacuations of all Afghan nationals wishing to leave the country, was the result of careful coordination and “high-level official contacts with UNSC members, including a call to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the efforts were overseen by a special new group led by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.
•“The Resolution demands that Afghan territory not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter and train terrorists and plan or finance terrorist attacks. It specifically mentions individuals designated by the UNSC resolution 1267,” which includes the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), said the sources explaining why India played an “active role” in ensuring the UNSC resolution went through on Monday night, a day before it demits its role as UNSC President for August.
Russia, China stand
•In their statements explaining the split within the UNSC’s permanent members, Russia and China said they wanted all the groups, especially Islamic State (ISIL) and the Uighur East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) be named specifically in the document, and listed a number of objections to the drafting of the resolution. They accused the resolution’s sponsors the U.S., the U.K. and France of having rushed it through on a “tight schedule” while seeking to absolve the U.S. of responsibility, and distinguish between “their and our terrorists”.
•“Perhaps, if we had had more time, the results of the vote would have been different,” said Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia during the explanation of vote (EoV), adding that Russia “sees attempts to shift responsibility for the failure of the 20-year-long presence of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban movement and to the states of the region that will have to deal with the effects of this prolonged campaign.” Russia has also cautioned against “freezing Afghan financial assets”, a clause that was not included in the document.
China’s complaint
•China’s U.N. Ambassador Gueng Shang also complained that the resolution was not “balanced” and had been “forcefully pushed” through. Even so, neither country vetoed the resolution. According to sources, another resolution in September, as the situation in Afghanistan becomes clearer and after the Irish Ambassador takes over, the presidency is expected to be debated as well.
•India is expected to chair the 1988 Sanctions committee that looks at Taliban sanctions next and participate in the decision to extend the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), where it will also have to balance competing demands from the U.S., the U.K. and France bloc ranged against Russia and China.
•Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s travel plans in September will be watched closely, as he has been invited to attend the SCO summit in Dushanbe, of countries including Russia, China, Pakistan and Central Asian states on September 16-17, as well as the Quad summit in Washington, including the U.S., Australia and Japan, expected to be held on September 26-27.
•Sources said that a high-level group consisting of Mr. Jaishankar, Mr. Doval and senior officials set up by Mr. Modi, are now focused on developments in Afghanistan, ensuring the evacuation of stranded Indians and also airlifting Afghan nationals, especially “religious minority groups” from Kabul.
‘Group monitoring situation’
•“The group has also been monitoring the ground situation in Afghanistan and international reactions,” said a source familiar with the Government of India’s response to the evolving crisis in Afghanistan where the last U.S. aircraft left earlier on Tuesday morning.
•Representing India at the UNSC, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, highlighted the role of the LeT and the JeM. He said that these outfits should be “called out and condemned”, but didn’t specifically refer to the Haqqani Network, which has been responsible for attacks on the Indian embassy and consulates in Afghanistan in the past.
•“The adoption of the resolution is a strong signal from the Security Council and the international community on its expectations in respect of Afghanistan,” Mr. Shringla told the media after the resolution was passed.
📰 China opens first road-rail transport link to Indian Ocean
It connects the logistics lines of Singapore, Myanmar, China
•The first shipments on a newly-launched railway line from the Myanmar border to the key commercial hub of Chengdu in western China, that provides China a new road-rail transportation channel to the Indian Ocean, were delivered last week, state media reported on Tuesday.
•A “test cargo” through what is being called the China-Myanmar New Passage arrived at the Chengdu rail port in Sichuan province on August 27, the official China News Service reported.
•The transport corridor involves a sea-road-rail link. Goods from Singapore reached Yangon Port, arriving by ship through the Andaman Sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean, and were then transported by road to Lincang on the Chinese side of the Myanmar-China border in Yunnan province. The new railway line that runs from the border town of Lincang to Chengdu, a key trade hub in western China, completes the corridor.
•“This passage connects the logistics lines of Singapore, Myanmar and China, and is currently the most convenient land and sea channel linking the Indian Ocean with southwest China,” the China News Service said, adding that "the one-way journey saves 20 to 22 days”.
•China also has plans to develop another port in Kyaukphyu in the Rakhine state, including a proposed railway line from Yunnan directly to the port, but the progress there has been stalled by unrest in Myanmar.
•Chinese planners have also looked at the Gwadar port in Pakistan as another key outlet to the Indian Ocean that will bypass the Malacca Straits. Gwadar is being developed as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the far western Xinjiang region, but has been slow to take off amid concerns over security. The costs and logistics through CPEC are also less favourable than the Myanmar route with the opening of the rail transport channel from the Myanmar border right to western China’s biggest commercial hub, Chengdu. Transportation time on the railway line from the Myanmar border to Chengdu takes three days.
•The Irrawaddy website that focuses on Myanmar news said the route is “the first to link western China with the Indian Ocean”.
•The railway line currently ends in Lincang on the Chinese side opposite the Myanmar border trade town of Chin Shwe Haw. Plans are underway to develop Chin Shwe Haw as a “border economic cooperation zone” under the Belt and Road Initiative.
•The Irrawaddy said the route goes through Mandalay, Lashio and Hsenwi on the Myanmar side and “is expected to become the lifeblood of international trade for China and Myanmar, while providing a source of income for Myanmar’s military regime”.
📰 Managing natural resources
A project in Meghalaya empowers communities to take informed action pertaining to their environment
•Just about 50 km from Meghalaya’s capital Shillong is Umdohbyrthih village. It was once known for its rocky terrains, streams, springs and verdant valleys. In recent years, however, its forest cover and natural resources have rapidly deteriorated.
Accessibility to knowledge
•Many villages are facing a similar crisis. The State, known to have spots designated as the ‘wettest places’ on earth, is now facing a severe water crisis. Natural resource management becomes critical in this context. This is not a new concept, especially in Meghalaya where traditional practices on sustainable use of natural resources have been passed down from one generation to another. This indigenous knowledge began to slowly fade, however, owing to population growth, the quest for unsustainable developmental activities and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, among other factors.
•Another roadblock to natural resource management was of knowledge inaccessibility among rural communities. When free access to information on an issue is not made available to communities, they begin to rely on external agencies for solving their local problems. The government wanted to see if, when provided with correct knowledge, solutions to problems can be devised and even implemented by community members themselves, with proper facilitation support. Reactivating the community’s connection to natural resources and enabling them to tackle the resource crisis became a priority for the State.
•We got an opportunity to do this through the World Bank-supported Meghalaya Community-Led Landscape Management Project. We set up a cross-functional team with diverse expertise. The team worked with many facilitators and empowered them with digital infrastructure. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme became the main scheme channelising resources to impact poor households so that there was systematic convergence of all line departments such as agriculture, horticulture, soil and water conservation. The programme leverages technology and the youth population.
•Leveraging technology, more than 2,000 village community facilitators have already been trained and are working towards climate change reversal. These facilitators take informed action pertaining to their environment. The idea is to bring at least 14,000-18,000 community facilitators (three from each village) to the fore. This has been made possible with the help of digital applications like Participant Digital Attestation. This app allows community cadres to record their attendance by scanning QR codes. It provides them content, training sessions and digital certification. These tools help create a free flow of knowledge without hierarchy and empower communities to overcome knowledge barriers.
•To build autonomy, we use simple tools. They have been designed keeping in mind many things: creating community agency, building the capacities of all persons in the programme, and ensuring frequent interactions among them. Technology empowers us with real-time data, which in turn results in better programme governance, transparency and accountability. Communities are now able to articulate the complexities of their problems through a scientific lens and create their own natural resource management plans.
A one-stop centre
•To carry forward this momentum, we are launching a Centre of Excellence in Meghalaya, a one-stop centre for natural resources management. Its mandate is to build leadership capabilities to enable close cooperation among departments, democratise access to knowledge, and continue with research and development on every aspect of natural resource management. Through our work, we intend to empower thousands of village community facilitators.
📰 The next step in democratic evolution is overdue
India must change, from a darkening elected authoritarianism to building institutions for citizens’ inclusion in governance
•The human body, like a nation, is composed of structures and processes. A bony skeleton holds it together. Processes such as breathing, blood circulation and the formation of new cells give the body life. When vital processes become weak, the body becomes unhealthy even if the frame is strong. And when they cease, overpowered by infection, life ceases, and the bones remain to be buried.
Elements of a democracy
•A democratic nation, or any nation, is also composed of structures — its constitution and laws. What distinguishes democratic nations from authoritarian ones is the liveliness of citizens’ participation in the governance of their nation. In healthy democracies, citizens participate effectively in the shaping of the policies and laws by which they are governed. Democratic constitutions provide elected assemblies for citizens’ representatives to shape new policies and pass laws.
•Open-minded deliberation in these forums is necessary to meet the requirements of democracy. It is also essential for finding good solutions for systemic problems which must be considered from many perspectives. When these forums become chambers for close-minded partisan politics, they cannot find solutions to the complex, systemic problems that all nations must address in the 21st century: climate change, historical inequities, increasing economic inequalities, and violence brewing with discontents within. The U.S. houses of Congress seem ham-strung by party politics; debates in the Indian Parliament have degenerated into floor battles with missiles; and, citizens of many European democracies are dismayed by the performance of their elected institutions.
•Constitutions, elections, and assemblies are not all that a democracy needs to function. Though this is what the simplistic U.S. vision of converting nations to democracies — on the heels of its armed interventions in many nations — seems to suggest. Democracies have life from what happens outside the elected chambers and what happens between elections. People who belong to different political factions, practise different religions, and have different histories within the history of their nation, must listen to each other, and learn to live democratically together every day of their lives. Therefore, what healthy democracies need most of all are processes of democratic deliberations among citizens themselves.
Widening fissures
•Sadly, the cracks in the Indian nation dividing ‘people like us’ from ‘people not like us’, are widening in institutions at the top as well as in relationships on the ground. Majoritarian electoral systems of democracy will harden these divisions in India, as they are in the United States. Therefore, stronger processes are urgently required for democratic discourses amongst citizens themselves to bind the national fabric before it frays further.
•The media, which used to provide space for diverse perspectives to be heard, is divided along partisan lines. And social media, touted as a saviour of democracy by enabling citizens to freely listen to many points of view, has turned out to be a hardener of divisions. Smart algorithms have created echo chambers of people who like each other, and who do not listen to those in other chambers, and lob hate bombs at each other across the walls.
•Discussions of India’s chronic problems that cry for new solutions have descended into debates about whether the origins of the problems were in the times of the National Democratic Alliance or the times of the United Progressive Alliance. It seems that in any discussion about what ails the country, whether in Parliament, the media, or social gatherings, one must be seen to either support the political dispensation in power, or its opposition. There is little room for thoughtful, non-partisan deliberations among citizens.
Taking a new step
•It is time for the next step in the evolution of democratic institutions. Kalypso Nicolaidis of the School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute, says, “Consent of the governed is about more than periodic elections or referenda. The process of deepening the reach of democracy remains the same as it has been for the last 200 years: a struggle to expand the franchise. This time around, it is a franchise that does not necessarily express itself through the right to vote in periodic elections, but rather through widespread inclusion in the political process in all its forms.” A civil society movement, Citizens for Europe, has proposed a solution: a European Citizens’ Assembly — a permanent transnational forum for citizens’ participation and deliberation.
•Words of caution though. Citizens for Europe explains the drawbacks of purely online methods, which civil society groups in Europe have tried, viz., “the risk of accentuating ideological cleavages and excluding groups affected by the digital divide”. Online forums must be supplemented by real meetings. On the other hand, merely putting people together into a room does not create conditions for thoughtful deliberation. Elected assemblies everywhere are cleaved along partisan lines. James Madison, a framer of the U.S. Constitution, had anticipated this. He wrote in Federalist paper No.55, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” It is not just the quality of the people in the room that matters. Citizens’ meetings, online or offline, must be properly designed and professionally facilitated to enable all points-of-view to be listened to for new insights to emerge.
•I return to the analogy of the human body. The human body is a complex system composed of many complex organs and processes — the heart, the brain, the liver, digestion, respiration, self-healing, etc. Breathing is a very simple process — it is the first one that a baby learns as soon as it emerges from its mother’s womb. Yet, we forget how to breathe well as we grow up. Yoga teaches us that learning to breathe well can tone up all the complex systems of the body and mind.
The missing dialogues
•Human societies are also complex systems, composed of many formal institutions, and many processes of interactions among people. Listening like breathing is a basic process.
•We have forgotten how to listen well, especially to “People Not Like Us”. In schools we are taught how to speak well and win elocution contests and debates. There are no lessons in how to listen well, and no prizes for the best listeners. We listen only to “what” others say; we do not listen to understand “why” they believe what they do. Often, we stop listening even while another is speaking, mentally preparing our ripostes to win a debate. Dialogues to understand are not debates to win. They are explorations of complex issues by combining the knowledge of diverse people.
•Monocultures of thought can be as sterile as monocultures in Nature. Diversity in the composition of the participants is essential for ensuring that complex issues are fully understood and new insights can emerge. However, diversity of opinions can create cacophonies unless the deliberations are managed well.
•The time has come to learn to listen well, not just speak well; and to conduct dialogues, not debates. The assemblies Emperors Ashoka and Akbar conducted centuries ago in India provide some role models. Technologies of democratic deliberation have advanced since the times of the Athenians, Ashoka, and Akbar, as James Fishkin explains in When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. The soft power of India, the world’s most richly diverse nation perhaps, will increase when it returns from the presently darkening elected authoritarianism to lead in the evolution of institutions for citizens’ participation in democratic governance.
📰 Making the Paralympics count
This is a chance to improve the conditions for the disabled pursuing sports and to refresh the way we view disability
•August 30 was a big day for India at the Paralympics. The country won five medals, including two gold, bettering the Rio 2016 contingent’s haul in just a day. Indians with disabilities, like all Indians, are proud of these achievements. This presents an opportune moment to reflect on how we can make the Paralympics truly count for India.
•The Paralympics is a unique opportunity to empower the disabled. It offers everyone the chance to watch disabled bodies in action and to find commonality with them in the shared desire for national success. Sustained media attention ensures that athletes with disabilities capture the public imagination in an unprecedented way.
Discourse around the disabled
•In India, persons with disabilities find it extraordinarily difficult to live a life of equal productivity and dignity as their able-bodied counterparts. The discourse around their status as Divyang — persons with divine bodies — fuels their alienation. Instead of viewing the disabled as ordinary individuals who require additional support to meet their unique needs, this language places them on a different pedestal and presents them as being endowed with supernatural powers. Rather than engaging with them in meaningful, constructive ways, many people either make a person’s disability their focal point, stripping away their multi-layered identity, or ignore their additional challenges altogether. Stereotypes and unfounded biases about the disabled’s incompetence, inability to make informed choices and asexuality, among others, are still alive and kicking.
•It is no surprise, then, that engaging in recreational activities like sports is rarely on the minds of disabled people. Even those disabled persons who wish to undertake such activities face formidable obstacles. Mainstream schools, parks, colleges and swimming pools do not provide a conducive environment for them. Arguments about complications and causing inconvenience to others are commonly made to deny access. As a blind person myself, I remember being turned down by a swimming pool in Delhi when I approached them with a wish to pursue swimming classes. The reason? They had received complaints from female swimmers about unsolicited contact in the pool and felt that having a blind person in the pool could get them into trouble. One doesn’t have to be a Paralympian to enjoy the benefits of sports. Recreational sports can help build identity, confidence and a healthy relationship with one’s own body. This is what many disabled people miss out on.
•Disabled people with more ambitious sporting aspirations often enter into exploitative coaching relationships and navigate a complicated and unfriendly sports governance framework. This state of affairs is particularly troubling as Section 30 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, requires appropriate governments and sporting authorities to take measures to improve access to meaningful sporting opportunities for the disabled. These include redesigning infrastructural facilities and providing multisensory essentials and features in all sporting activities to make them more accessible.
•For India, the success in these Paralympics will be truly meaningful only if it prompts introspection and reorientation. At the systemic level, this has to cover governance reforms in the Paralympic Committee of India. The Committee is now headed by a medal-winning former Paralympian, Deepa Malik. The Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs brought parity to the cash rewards structure for medal-winning Paralympians placing them on equal footing with their able-bodied counterparts at the Olympics. These are steps in the right direction.
An opportunity for everyone
•To deliver the value of sport more inclusively, satellite television providers and sports broadcasters must take steps that enable the disabled to watch and participate in sporting activities. Further, pictures of the Paralympics in electronic media and on social media must be accompanied by image descriptions for the visually challenged. At the individual level, everyone can view athletes with disabilities in a holistic sense while also acknowledging their additional challenges and striving to create more opportunities for the disabled people in our lives so they can participate in all walks of life.
•It is easy to admire the courage of our para-athletes from afar. It is much harder to use these Games as an opportunity to do our bit to change things, to ensure that we are regularly surrounded by such competent and driven disabled people who are given the additional support they need to thrive. With intent, resolve and action, we can make the Paralympics count for India not just on the medal table but in the everyday.
📰 It’s time to build BRICS better
The grouping succeeded up to a point but it now confronts multiple challenges
•The 13th BRICS summit is set to be held on September 9 in digital format under India’s chairmanship. This plurilateral grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is chaired by turn. India held the chair in 2012 and 2016 too. The preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers in June and dialogue at the BRICS Academic Forum in early August offered an important opportunity to present an objective assessment of the grouping’s record amid differing views of believers and sceptics. The importance of BRICS is self-evident: it represents 42% of the world’s population, 30% of the land area, 24% of global GDP and 16% of international trade.
•External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, noting that BRICS was 15 years old, recently portrayed it as a young adult, equipped with “thoughts shaped and a worldview concretised, and with a growing sense of responsibilities.” Others tend to view it as caught up in angst and confusion typical of a teenager.
•Still, member states have been carrying BRICS forward in an era of complex geopolitics. They have bravely continued holding dozens of meetings and summits, even as China’s aggression in eastern Ladakh last year brought India-China relations to their lowest point in several decades. There is also the reality of the strained relations of China and Russia with the West, and of serious internal challenges preoccupying both Brazil and South Africa. On the other hand, a potential bond emerged due to the battle against COVID-19. In this backdrop, does BRICS truly matter?
Four priorities
•Launched by a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006 and riding on the political synergy created by regular summits since 2009, BRIC turned itself into BRICS in 2010, with the entry of South Africa. The grouping has gone through a reasonably productive journey. It strove to serve as a bridge between the Global North and Global South. It developed a common perspective on a wide range of global and regional issues; established the New Development Bank; created a financial stability net in the form of Contingency Reserve Arrangement; and is on the verge of setting up a Vaccine Research and Development Virtual Center.
•What are its immediate goals now? As the current chair, India has outlined four priorities. The first is to pursue reform of multilateral institutions ranging from the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the World Trade Organization and now even the World Health Organization. This is not a new goal. BRICS has had very little success so far, although strengthening multilateralism serves as a strong bond as well as a beacon. Reform needs global consensus which is hardly feasible in the current climate of strategic contestation between the U.S. and China and the devastation caused by COVID-19 to health, lives and livelihoods. Nevertheless, Indian officials rightly remind us that BRICS emerged from the desire to challenge dominance (by the U.S.) in the early years of the century, and it remains committed to the goal of counter-dominance (by China) now. Mr. Jaishankar observed that the “counter-dominance instinct and principled commitment to multipolarity in all forms” is “written into the DNA of BRICS.”
•The second is the resolve to combat terrorism. Terrorism is an international phenomenon affecting Europe, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. Tragic developments concerning Afghanistan have helped to focus attention sharply on this overarching theme, stressing the need to bridge the gap between rhetoric and action. China, for example, feels little hesitation in supporting clear-cut denunciations of terrorist groups, even as its backing of Pakistan, which is heavily enmeshed with a host of international terrorist groups, remains steadfast.
•In this context, BRICS is attempting to pragmatically shape its counter-terrorism strategy by crafting the BRICS Counter Terrorism Action Plan containing specific measures to fight radicalisation, terrorist financing and misuse of the Internet by terrorist groups. This plan is expected to be a key deliverable at the forthcoming summit and may hopefully bring some change.
•Promoting technological and digital solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals and expanding people-to-people cooperation are the other two BRICS priorities. Digital tools have helped a world adversely hit by the pandemic, and India has been in the forefront of using new technological tools to improve governance. But enhancing people-to-people cooperation will have to wait for international travel to revive. Interactions through digital means are a poor substitute.
•Among other concerns, BRICS has been busy deepening trade and investment ties among its member states. The difficulty stems from China’s centrality and dominance of intra-BRICS trade flows. How to create a better internal balance remains a challenge, reinforced by the urgent need for diversification and strengthening of regional value chains, all exposed during the pandemic. Policymakers have been encouraging an increase in intra-BRICS cooperation in diverse areas like agriculture, disaster resilience, digital health, traditional medicine and customs cooperation.
Takeaways
•The idea of BRICS – a common pursuit of shared interests by the five emerging economies from four continents – is fundamentally sound and relevant. The governments have invested huge political capital in pushing the BRICS experiment forward, and its institutionalisation has created its own momentum.
•The five-power combine has succeeded, albeit up to a point. But it now confronts multiple challenges: China’s economic rise has created a serious imbalance within BRICS; Beijing’s aggressive policy, especially against India, puts BRICS solidarity under exceptional strain; and BRICS countries have not done enough to assist the Global South to win their optimal support for their agenda. It is necessary for leaders, officials and academics of this grouping to undertake serious soul-searching and find a way out of the present predicament.
•A parting thought: BRICS negotiators need to master the art of brevity and tight drafting. When they do so, they will realise that unduly lengthy communiqués are an index to the grouping’s weakness, not strength.
