Pragati Issue56 Oct2011 Community Ed

8/3/2019 Pragati Issue56 Oct2011 Community Ed

1/32

50 $7

The Indian National Interest Review

www.nationalinterest.inNovember 2011

Pricking

the

poverty

balloon

The poverty numbers

Scared of an open debateIndia at the UNSC

Memoir of an unknown Indian soldier

Jihad for all seasons


2/32


3/32

P E R S P E C T I V E

OPEN UP, INDIA

Why are we araid o a vigorous and open debateRohit Pradhan

TIME TO GET STARTED

India has a chance to decouple national politics romreligious identitySunny Singh

R O U N D U P

TURNING RIGHT

The change brought by right-wing politics in Europeis socially irreversibleIndrajeet J Gupta

CRIMINAL MISTAKE

Indias ocial crime data is not authenticSushant K Singh

B R I E F S

FILTER

Geopolitical readingsRavi Gopalan

PARETO

Economics in small doses

Amol Agrawal

I N E x T E N S O

THE MEMOIR OF AN UNKNOWN INDIAN

SOLDIER

Excerpts rom Eaten by the Japanese: The memoir oan unknown Indian soldierJohn Baptist Crasta

B O O K R E V I E W

A JIHAD FOR ALL SEASONS

Mark Safranski

H I G H L I G H T S

5

3

11

7

14

24

16

19

21

26

PragatiThe Indian National Interest Review

Te pertymbersIndias standard or what constitutes poverty mustevolveRavikiran Rao

MissepprtitiesAs the chair o the UN Security Council, India ailedto make the case or changeRichard Gowan


4/32

PRAGATI The Indian National Interest Review2

C O N T R I B U T O R S

Printed and distributed byQill Meia Pt. Lt.

Layout bySti Re

Published by theTaksasila Istitti , anindependent think tank on Indias strategic aairs.

Some rights reserved. This work islicensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution 2.5 India License.

Aisry Pael

Mukul G AsherSameer JainAmey V Laud

V Anantha NageswaranRam Narayanan

Sameer Wagle

EitrsNitin Pai

Sushant K Singh

Eitrial SpprtPriya Kadam

Aruna UrsAadisht Khanna

GrapicsDibyo Haldar

Aditya DipankarAnuj Agrawal

AcklegemetsHarini Calamur

Mid-day

Ctact

[email protected]

Neither Pragati nor The Indian NationalInterest website are aliated with anypolitical party or platorm. The views

expressed in this publication arepersonal opinions o the contributors

and not those o their employers or oPragati.

We accept letters and unsolicited manuscripts.

Cmmity Eiti

Pragati (ISSN 0973-8460) is availableor ree download at pragati.nationalinterest.in

This edition may be reely distributed(in its complete orm) through both

electronic and non-electronicmeans. You are encouraged to share

your copy with your local community.

Aml Agraal

Amol Agrawal blogs at Mostly Economics (mostlyeconomics.blogspot.com)

Ricar Crasta

Richard Crasta is the editor o Eaten by the Japanese, where he also

contributed three essays

Rai Gpala

Ravi Gopalan is a research associate at Pragati

Ricar Ga

Richard Gowan is Associate Director at New York Universitys Center on

International Cooperation and a Senior Policy Fellow at the European

Council on Foreign Relations

Irajeet J Gpta

Indrajeet J Gupta is a commentator on social and political afairs

Rit Praa

Rohit Pradhan is Fellow with the Takshashila Institution

Raikira Ra

Ravikiran Rao blogs at The Examined Mind

Mark Safraski

Mark Saranski is an analyst at Wikistrat, editor o The John BoydRoundtable: Debating Science, Strategy and Waand, and is the publisher o

zenpundit.com

Ssat K Sig

Sushant K Singh is editor o Pragati

S Sig

Sunny Singh is an Indian author and academic currently based in the UK


5/32

PRAGATI The Indian National Interest Review 3

Its hard to nd a happy diplomat at theUnited Nations Security Council thesedays. Western ocials grumble about

the diculty o negotiating with India, Braziland South Arica (the IBSA countries) overthe Syrian crisis, to say nothing o Chinaand Russia. The non-Western powers, they

suspect, are all plotting to rustrate the U.S.and Europe.

Pie, reply the supposed plotters. The bleakmood in the Council is a result o the Westsdistortion o the UN mandate to protectcivilians in Libya. I NATO hadnt used thatas a basis or regime change, there mightbe real cooperation over Syria. Even theunhappiest European ocials accept thatother powers anger over Libya is genuine.

Does anyone gain anything rom thestalemate? Russia arguably does. Earlierin the year it ailed to halt Westerninterventions in not only Libya but also Cte

RIChARd GowAnRichard Gowan is Associate Director at New York Universitys Center on International Cooperation and a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on ForeignRelations

Misse pprtitiesAs the chair o the UN Security Council, India ailed to make the case or change

R O U N D U P

Geopolitics

dIvoire. As Russias main claim to leverageat the UN is its willingness to act as a spoiler,these set-backs made it look a shadow oitsel. On Syria, its blocking power returnedas it resisted and in October vetoed -EU and US eorts to pass a resolutionsanctioning Syria.

For China, the benets have been less clear,as it preers to look pragmatic on the SecurityCouncil. Nonetheless it elt obliged to sidewith Russia over Syria. But the real losershave been the IBSA countries, which haveoten looked trapped between the West andthe Russo-Chinese axis as they have tried torespond to events in the Middle East.

India ound itsel particularly exposed

this August when it took over the rotatingpresidency o the Security Council.Temporary members o the Council otensee their month in charge o deliberationsas an opportunity or good publicity, but

Oxfam


6/32


Ctie Page 10

the August slot is cursed. In many years itrepresents our weeks o diplomatic dead-time, with senior ocials either on vacationor gearing up or the General Assembly circusin September.

There is sometimes a summer-time crisis toenliven matters, such as the 2006 Lebanonwar and the 2008 Russo-Georgian conict.But in such cases the Security Councilpresident is oten sidelined. Who now recallsthat Belgium held the post in August 2008?

For India, it was clear that Syria was likely tobe the predominant crisis during its Augustpresidency (although ghting in Sudanalso rumbled on without escalating into a

rst-order international crisis). The EU hadbeen pushing or some sort o resolutionaimed at Damascus since June in response tomounting reports o Syrian army attacks oncivilians.

Although the IBSA countries were all knownto oppose a resolution at rst, human rightsorganisations had mounted a sustainedcampaign to change their positions. Oneactivist told me that he expected South

Arica to crack rst, as unlike Brazil andIndia, it had voted in avor o the use o orcein Libya. But by most accounts Brazil provedto be the most exible, opening talks withthe Europeans on nding a compromise inthe Council.

These talks came to ruition at the very starto August with the agreement o a SecurityCouncil statement on Syria. This demanded

the government halt its repression butalso implied that anti-government orceshad responsibility or violence too. IndiasPermanent Representative, Hardeep SinghPuri, had the pleasure o reading out the

statement, and Indian ocials claim somecredit or its agreement. Nonetheless, mosto those who ollowed the negotiationsclosely arm that the Brazilians were theinstrumental actors.

Having opened its presidency with thisminor diplomatic coup, India could do littleto top it. It organised a thematic debateon peacekeeping at the end o the monththat generated zero excitement (althoughas one veteran UN ocial pointed out tome when I complained, that the Councilsritualistic approach to thematic debateshas long deadened the mental cells.) Aair assessment o Indias perormanceby the Institute or Deense Studies and

Analysis concludes that the Security Councilpresidency was competently run butinadequate or India to advance its claims toa permanent seat in the Council.

Even those analysts who took a close interestin Indias behaviour were soon distractedby the ood o big news stories that cameout o the Council in September. Theseincluded not only the ght over Palestines

decision to request ull recognition at theUN, but renewed debates over UN sanctionon Syria. While the Europeans were willingto compromise on the language o theresolution, Russia and China were ercelyopposed.

Attention switched back to India, Brazil, andSouth Arica. As beore, Brazil was widelyrumoured to be the IBSA country closestto cooperating with the West. India, by

contrast, was reported as being the closest tothe Russian position at one point perhapseven closer than China. When the EU nallydecided to orce a vote on the issue on 5October and the Chinese and Russians usedtheir vetoes, the IBSA countries abstained.U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice reerred to thethree powers having prioritised solidarity.She may have hoped that Brazil would orgetabout solidarity and align with the West.

The act that IBSA voted as a bloc can beinterpreted as a success it is generally

For the US and manyEuropean countries, IBSAs

abstention over Syria is anargument against SecurityCouncil reorm


7/32


For a long time in post-independentIndia, the political and intellectualdiscourse was dominated by the

ear o the outsidersan euphemism orthe economically and culturally powerul

West. India may have been desperatelypoor with lie a constant struggle or its

teeming millions, but the omniscient oreignorces were always around to thwart Indiasrise. Most memorably, perhaps, ormerprime minister Rajiv Gandhi detected theendishly clever oreign hand in almostevery unortunate event which blighted thisancient land. Charges o being on the payrollo CIA were leveled regularly at politicalopponents while the guardians o intellectualcitadels zealously guarded their edoms

rom those tainted by their association withthe West. But in a nation still woundedby her long association with colonialism,the inherent distrust o the West and heragencies then was perhaps understandable.

RohIT PRAdhAnRohit Pradhan is Fellow with the Takshashila Institution

ope p, IiaWhy are we araid o a vigorous and open debate

India is, o course, very dierent now.Economic reorms have unleashed the latententrepreneurial talent o Indians while theorces o globalisation and the attendanttechnological advances have provided herwith access to rich markets in the West.Consistently in global surveys, India is

one country where US scores the highestapproval ratings while Western culturalnorms are at least supercially dominant inher cities. Indias rising economic status, hersot power, and status as the worlds largestdemocracy ensure her a mostly avourablepress coverage in the West.

But as the old saying goes, the more thingschange, the more they remain the same.

While the Indian middle class has largely

moved away rom its old irrational ears othe West, the New Delhi establishment stillremains extremely sceptical o the outsiders.

Take visiting research scholars, or instance.

MeenaKadri


Public Policy


8/32


It has been well documented in the mediahow the Indian government has createdmultiple hurdles or visiting Fulbrightscholarsrepeatedly delaying their visa onrivolous grounds. Similarly, the prestigiousIndian Institute o Technology (IITs) are

still not allowed to hire oreign nationals aspermanent aculty. While the governmentclaims to be moving towards a morewelcoming system, it remains notoriouslyunreceptive to oreign scholarship.

Apparently, the lack o openness is justiedin the name o security. While minimumregulations may be necessary in some rarecases, it is obvious that paranoia will notserve the larger Indian interests. Prime

minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has otenargued that India must eventually evolveinto a knowledge-based economy. I thisworthy goal is to be achieved, then Indianuniversities and research acilities must buildinstitutional capacity and collaborate closelywith oreign universities and researchers.In any case, in the Internet era , the statecan hardly control the ree disseminationo ideas; the governments attitude only

antagonises oreign scholars.

But why blame only the leviathan Indianbureaucracy. A recent story in the weeklymagazine, Outlook, on oreign agencieswho are unding Indian research and policybodies begins thusly: Should NGOs receivinggrants rom international agencies like theFord Foundation and others be barred romparticipating in the shaping o public policy?

It is entirely unclear how Outlook proposesto bar NGOs unded by internationalagencies rom participating in policy debates.Should international agencies like the FordFoundation be chased out o India? Would

writing op-ed columns or policy bries beconstrued as interering in policy debates?Should oreign scholars be permitted towrite on Indian policy issues or now a test ocitizenship would be prescribed? When anavowedly liberal publication advocates such

policy xenophobia, it is deeply disconcerting.One would imagine that an article whichbegins by asking such a provocative questionmay have discovered some great maleasanceat the heart o the Ford Foundation ordocumented particularly egregious instanceso corruption or doctoring o researchndings. No! The charge is barely that theFord Foundation may have an agenda whichis broadly pro-market, among other things.

To reject a policy or people advocating themmerely because they may be unded byreputed international agencies is extremelymyopic. Who will then und Indianresearch institutions and think tanks? Ina nation where the government routinelyuses newspaper revenues to twist politicalcoverage, why should government-undedresearch have any more credibility thanprivate unding? The charge o promoting an

agenda can be leveled against virtually anyunding agency. Indeed, unding agenciesinter alia exist because they wish to shape thepolicy debate in a particular direction.

It is no ones case that the claims o FordFoundation or any other agency shouldbe accepted as the gospel. Nevertheless,imputing motives or accusing well-meaningpeople o serving oreign interests is littlebetter than hi-tech intellectual lynching. Itonly encourages urther intellectual lazinessand policy cowardice and makes peoplereluctant to challenge entrenched policies.

Vigorous and open debate is necessary inthe policy market; ideas should be reelyand ercely debated until the best ones areadopted.

Unortunately, there is little political appetitein India or more open conversations

with the world. In act, or diametricallyopposite reasons, it is one issue whichunites the religious right with the let-

To reject a policy or peopleadvocating them merely

because they may be undedby reputed internationalagencies is myopic

Ctie Page 20


9/32


There has been much outrage in thepress and in the news channels aboutthe gure o Rs26 per day - the level

o consumption that denes a person as poorin an Indian village. The Poverty Line is astrange beast. Everyone knows poverty whenthey see it, but apparently no one can agreeon an income level below which an Indianshould be classied as poor. The reason orthis is that we are looking or a right answerto the question, which is the wrong way ogoing about it. There is no switch that, whenturned on, objectively classies a householdas poor. There are dierent levels odeprivation, and dierent sides o the debatehave diering intuitions about the level odeprivation at which a household becomespoor. Much o the outrage over the gure

comes rom the act that our intuition aboutwhat constitutes poverty has changed.

My uncle started his career in Bombaysweather oce in the mid-1970s. He was

RAvIKIRAn RAoRavikiran Rao blogs at The Examined Mind

Te perty mbersIndias standard or what constitutes poverty must evolve

single and lived alone then, but he wouldsend part o his salary home to his amily.Towards the end o the month, his moneywould run out, and in the last ew days othe month, hed be able to cook and eat onlyone meal a day. Then, as now, i you werea graduate and you were earning an entrylevel salary in a government rm, you weremiddle-class - lower middle-class to be sure,but middle-class nonetheless. When did youlast hear o a middle-class person lacking orood in India? But thats how things were inthe 1970s, and my uncles situation wouldntexcite comment then. One can only imaginethe situation o the others who were poorerthan my uncle.

This is the background to the question o

where to draw the appropriate poverty line.The National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO) has the dicult job o collectingdata about an economy that is largelyinormal and undocumented. It last arrived

WorldBank


Public Policy


10/32


at a poverty line in 1973-74 when India wasmuch poorer than it is now. How does oneestimate the income o the poor, when theyhave uncertain, intermittent and variableincomes? I one surveys a poor householdand asks them how much they earned in

the past year, there is very little chance oreceiving a reasonably accurate answer, eveni the respondents attempt to provide one ingood aith. The approach the NSSO took,then, was to ask about consumption. Thesurvey asked the respondent amilies whatitems they bought or procured in a previousrecall period. The items that were askedabout ormed the consumption basket, andout o this consumption basket, the ooditems were used to draw the poverty line.In other words, i a amily had the means toconsume 2,400 calories or more o ood perperson per day (2,100 calories in cities), it wasabove the poverty line.

Why the ocus on ood? The obvious reasonis that ood, being a basic need, provides acommon minimum reerence to use acrossthe population. The assumption is that whilepeople dier in their need or luxuries, their

basic necessities are the same. A commonlyheard criticism o the current poverty line isthat it is more o a destitution line. There is alot o truth in this argument, but the reasonor this is that when it was drawn, the ocusneeded to be on the truly destitute. Butthat was not the entire reason - other basicnecessities like medical needs and primaryeducation were let out the basket, because inthe Socialist mindset that characterised the70s, the assumption was that these would beprovided or by the State.

That was not the only quirk in thecalculation. In all subsequent surveys,the consumption basket o the poor asdetermined by the 1973-74 survey was used,scaled up by the Consumer Price Index toarrive at the poverty line gure. This gurewas then compared with the actual rupeevalues or consumption as reported by the

respondents in that survey to determinethe number o the poor. For example, theconsumption basket o 1973-74, at 2004-2005 prices according to the rural ConsumerPrice Index, was worth Rs356 per person per

month. Any household which claimed tospend less than this amount was classied aspoor, regardless o what they actually spentit on.

This approach had the eect o ignoringthe actual consumption basket o the

poor in avour o the reerence basket asdetermined in 1973. This would not mattermuch i the assumption reerred to earlierhad heldthat ood being a basic necessity,the consumption pattern at that level odeprivation would not change much. But thisassumption turns out to be invalid in threecrucial ways.

Firstly, ood is now a lower proportion oexpenditure or the poor. Secondly, they havebeen consuming dierent kinds o ood - lesscereal and more o vegetables and animalprotein. Finally, they have been consumingewer calories than the 2,400 and 2,100 thatthe survey o 1973 indicated.

This last act has been latched on to by thecritics o Indias poverty programs to claimthat the lot o the poor has gotten worse overtime. But i that is the case, what accounts

or the act that the poor are shiting toricher ood, and or the act that they arespending less o their income on ood? Irevealed preerence is anything to go by, thepoor are voluntarily consuming many ewercalories than the proper average statisticshave laid down or their guidance. Proessor

Angus Deaton o Princeton University, whohas probably done more work to understandthe National Survey Statistics than anyother person on earth, has, in a 2008 paper,considered various alternative explanationsor this quirkrising prices o ood, allingreal incomes, the possibility that rising priceso non-ood items were orcing the poor tocut down on oodand discarded all butthe one indicated by the revealed preerenceargument, though he was careul to speciythat more corroborative evidence was neededto support this one.

The variance between the consumptionbasket o 1973 and what the poor actuallyconsumed had another consequence: theprice index derived rom the ocial basketgrew much more slowly than a price index


11/32


constructed out o the actual basket. This isbecause the price o ood has gone up muchless than that o other items, and withinood items, cereal is less expensive thaneggs or chicken. I these prices had beentaken into account, the price index would

have gone up more, the poverty line wouldhave consequently been higher, resultingin a larger number o people below it. Pro.Deaton has done work to quantiy this,and according to his calculations, usingan updated index would have resulted in apoverty ratio o 30percent in 2004-5, nearly3 percentage points higher than the ocialnumber.

But should this have been done? The

answer cuts to the heart o the purposeo the poverty line. The poverty line hastwo purposes - one is to measure how welleconomic policy has achieved its purpose,and the other is to determine who arecurrently poor, so that they can be helped.The two purposes are oten antithetical. Toachieve the rst purpose, we need to use aconstant basis or comparison. To achievethe second, our standard needs to evolve

based on what we currently consider valid.Proponents o the rst purpose would arguethat i a poor person o 1973 were to betransported to 2004 and provided with anincome o Rs.350 per month, he would ndhimsel improved in circumstances - andthis is the act that should matter when itcomes to determining the poverty line. Theproponent o the second view would arguethat to determine who should currentlybe helped by anti-poverty programmes,we should use the current consumption opeople to determine who is poor.

There is no right answer to this conundrum.One solution is to regularly updatethe poverty line basket, but to do sotransparently, so that we know what haschanged. This is what was attempted by theTendulkar committee in 2009, and whichhas led to the gure o Rs26 a day. It made a

ew signicant changes to the way povertywas calculated. It abandoned the caloriecount method in avour o a poverty linebasket that now included medical expensesand primary schooling, thereby recognizing

what successive surveys had ignored - thateven the poorest turn to the private sectoror their health and childrens schooling. Itabandoned the 1973 consumer price indexweights in avour o what a price indexconstructed out o NSS data. And based

on all this, it constructed a new povertyline which counts 36percent o the countryas poor as against 28percent accordingthe earlier calculation. It is important tonote that except in certain minor senses,this is not a correction. It is more anacknowledgement that India is a richercountry now, and its standard o whatconstitutes poverty has evolved. Also, thecommittee recalculated the 1993 povertynumbers according the new standard, andthe poverty rate turned out to be 46percent- in other words, even ater updating thestandard or poverty, we nd that therehas been signicant reduction during theeconomic reorm period.

It is the Tendulkar committee number thathas come under re in the latest round orabble rousing. The issue has been ramedrather cleverly - 32 rupees a day is a numberthat will tug at our heart strings. But it is 32rupees, per person, per day. I you translatethat number to per household per monthit amounts to Rs5,760 per month or ahousehold o six people.

It is no ones case that one can livecomortably with that income. The businessnewspaperMint ran a story that proledamilies just above the poverty line, aimingto show how bad their lives were. Crucially,the concerns o these amilies were things

like sending children to a good school andowning a modest home, things middle-class readers can relate to. Is that poverty?Perhaps it is, but it is dierent rom the kindo poverty that hit the headlines in 1987,

A commonly heard criticismo the current poverty

line is that it is more o adestitution line


12/32


about the woman in Kalahandi who had tosell her daughter so that the rest o the amilycould get something to eat.

It has been reexively assumed in the debatesthat it is humane to raise the poverty line,so that ewer people are denied access to

government services or the poor. It is notclear why this assumption is valid. Raisingthe poverty line will give rise to a version othe searching-under-the-streetlight problem.The problem is this:

A cop nds a drunk man in a parking lot lateat night, searching the ground under the onlystreet light in that parking lot. He asks whatthe guy is doing, and the drunk replies thathe dropped his car keys and is looking or

them. Asked where he was when he droppedthe keys, the drunk waves towards a car inthe darkness. Asked why hes searching under

the street light, he says that i the keys areactually over in the darkness, hed never ndthem anyway.

Applied to poverty, this approach turnsinto the Studying Rural Poverty in ThaneDistrict phenomenon. I used to note that

there was a disproportionately large numbero studies, news reports, and so orth onpoverty among the Warlis o Thane. Itoccurred to me that the reason or this isthat Thane is the closest one can encounterrural poverty i one sets o rom Mumbai.

And because many NGOs, schools o socialwork and reporters are based in Mumbai, the

Warlis are a convenient subject or eld trips,project work and news reports.

I you raise the poverty line, it will be easierto encounter the poor, and it will be thatmuch easier to ignore the destitute.

recognised that the trio o powers havebeen signicant swing voters in the Councilthis year. But this may only be a temporaryphenomenon. Brazil is approaching the endo its two-year term on the Council, andSouth Arica continues to have a greaterstake in acting as the leader o the Aricanbloc than in aligning with India. IBSAs briemoment o importance in the Council couldsoon be orgotten, and Indias leverage dulyreduced.

Meanwhile, the IDSA analysis that IndiasCouncil presidency oered an inadequatecase or a permanent seat may be toocautious. For the US and many European

countries, IBSAs abstention over Syriais an argument against Security Councilreorm. Critics o reorm have long arguedthat increasing the number o permanentmembers to include Brazil and India wouldlead to paralysis. They can now say Syriaproves that.

I the net result o this years disputes in theCouncil is to urther delay reorm, Indian

policy-makers will surely grow less interestedin the UN. They will still have good causeto criticise the inequities o the UN system.But they should also recognise that inhandling this years crises they have missedopportunities to make the case or change.

Misse pprtities Page 4


13/32


While we are living in a moment oextraordinary change across theglobe, little has been said o India,

and o how these changes may aect us.Much o our attention seems ocused on theshadow puppetry o our entrenched politicalclass, or the street tamasha o our sel-proclaimed saviours rom corruption. Lost inthe cacophony are the rst clear glimpses ochange, both internal and external, that willaect us not only now, but in the oreseeableuture.

Ater nearly two decades o economicliberalisation and despite the political deep-reeze o the current central government, the

slow Indian juggernaut rolls on. The changeswrought to our lives are transormative, andalthough ar more needs to be accomplished,the overall transormation o the economyand its impact on the citizenry is obvious.However, this economic growth goes handin hand with an increasingly literate andambitious population, much o which isquite young. This demographic cohort isboth strategic advantage and potential causeo concern or our polity: while the young aremotors or potential economic growth, theyare also less patient in ace o bureaucraticand political stagnation.

Similarly the permutations o coalitionpolitics, as well as the numerous electionso the 1990s have done a great deal to bringmost o our polity close to the centre. Whilelevels o competence may vary, and specicideological issues remain outstanding, there

is little real dierence between the intentionso our wildly varied political parties. This toois a double edged sword: in moving closer tothe centre, the political parties have oundways to work across ideological and political

Sunny SInGhSunny Singh is an Indian author and academic currently based in the UK

Time t get starteIndia has a chance to decouple national politics rom religious identitydivides. At the same time, in some ways,their ineptitude and lack o clearly denedagendas are rendering them irrelevant. Inmany ways, Indian democracy is revealingthe signs o a mature democracy: its politicalparties are by and large becoming irrelevantto its policies!

But the changes do not stop at our borders:the imminent, creeping shit o economicpower rom West to East is a change that,along with the terminal decline o the EU,and the slow degeneration o the US, can nolonger be ignored. Add to this the historicalwild card thrown up by the Arab Spring, andwe are truly living a transormative era.

While this brings great challenges, there arealso unprecedented opportunities. Economicgrowth and growing literacy are marking ourpolity in signicant ways, not in the least bythe steady ragmentation o old-style identitypolitics. While the Anna-show over thesummer may not have been to the liking omany o us, the social, political and economiccross-section o its supporters does suggestthat the Indian voter is moving towards

demanding specic steps rom its politicalsystems. This also suggests that caste,religion, region, and language are slowlytaking a backseat to electoral platorms basedon administrative proposals, although we arestill ar rom having achieved this.

When all this is combined with the evolvingglobal environment, we nd that we havea unique historical opportunity to leave

Partition and the narratives o religiousdierences behind. Many o the aboveactors are playing a part in solidiying thisopportunity: economic growth and politicalstability that are steadily ragmenting


Politics


14/32


DigantaTalukd

ar


15/32


However, while many o the external actorsare beyond our control, there are internaland external policy steps we can begin takingnow in preparation or this moment in thenot too distant uture.

Externally, we need to decouple our

oreign policy in the Middle East andNorth Arica region rom both Pakistans(and Saudi) brand o Islamist rhetoric aswell as the American (and Israeli) brand oIslamophobia. Neither o these has servedour interests well, and must be replaced bya new non-aligned policy in the region thatbuilds on the immense wells o goodwillor India, while jettisoning our deaultdeensiveness regarding our Muslim citizenry

or its rights. This shall o course require a arclearer engagement with the region than wehave had so ar.

Internally, it is time our leaders o variousstripes stopped swinging schizophrenicallybetween a host o non-secular policies andpositions. Vote bank politics are damagingto the nation, no matter which side o thereligious divide plays it; similarly the implicitdouble standard, based on intellectual

hypocrisy or a divisive ear o our minoritycommunity, by politicians and commentatorsmerely divides our internal polity and orcesus on the deensive on key issues.

For the rst time in independent India, wehave a chance o detaching national politicsrom religious identity. This does not meaninstant change but we can start the ballrolling.

identity politics are also providing a stakein the nation to many o Indias historicallydisenranchised, not least to the nationsminorities.

As horizons abroad have steadily narrowed inthe past decade, especially in the atermath

o 9/11, there has been a palpable shitwithin Muslim communities within India.Nowhere was this most clear than in thepolitical rhetoric rom minority communityleaders ollowing the atrocities o 26/11.

While we have not yet put sectarian tensionsbehind us, there has been a clear and mostlypositive shit in minority perceptions andexperiences that we in India must nd a wayo harnessing.

Add to this the body blow dealt this yearby the Arab Spring to Wahhabi-undedIslamist nationalism, and we have a realwindow o opportunity. Although manyo our leaders and commentariat stillobsess about the Kashmir issue, we mustalso realise that this issue is dead in thewater: increasing political participation byKashmirs citizens, growing economic stakesin peace and political stability, increased

marginalisation o Islamist elements(who are running out o both sponsorsand masters abroad), and the impendingimplosion o Pakistan are all actors in this.

While Kashmir remains an emotive issueor India, it is the symbol o our seculariststate while or Pakistan it remains a clear

taunt to its ailed national projectwe mustbegin to move beyond simplistic constructs.

When (not if) Pakistan implodes, India

shall be aced with ar larger problemsincluding rogue non-state actors armed

with nuclear weapons, terrible instability inour immediate neighbourhood, as well as a

potentially catastrophic humanitarian andreugee crisis. Kashmiri separatist leaders,their Saudi-unded nancial backers, and

Pakistan-run hired guns will play only minor(albeit violent) parts in the process.

While many o the externalactors are beyond our

control, there are internaland external policy steps we

can begin taking now


16/32


In the Dutch general elections o June2010, the Party or Freedom (PVV) won15.5 percent o the overall vote, 24 seats

out o 150 in the house o representatives othe Netherlands and emerged as the thirdlargest party. Founded on a platorm oanti-Europe integration, anti-immigration,closer cultural assimilation and a stridentlyanti-Islam stance, the PVV, led by thecharismatic and controversial Geert Wilders,was viewed as a right-wing ringe party -more inclined towards attention-seekingthrough provocative statements and extremepositions. For a country that was knownto be one o the most liberal in Europe,this verdict went against traditional values

o consensus and tolerance and heraldeda major change in the political landscape.The PVV played a key role in post-electionnegotiations and agreed to support thecoalition government without joining it.

On 14th July 1789, the Bastille, a prison inParis and a symbol o the Kings power, wasstormed by protesters and marked a turningpoint in the French Revolution. This day iscommemorated as Bastille Day, a nationalholiday in France, and resulted in a universalrecognition o words that orm the aspirationevery struggle against oppression - Liberty,Equality, Fraternity. In July 2010, on the eveo 221st Bastille day celebrations, the FrenchNational Assembly passed a bill that thatbanned citizens rom wearing masks or veilsthat would cover their ace in public. Morespecically, this move was interpreted as aban on women wearing a Burqa in public.

Undeterred by protests in a country with 7million Muslim inhabitants, the ban wentinto eect in April 2011.

A Pew Research Center poll carried out in

IndRAJEET J GuPTAIndrajeet J Gupta is a commentator on social and political afairs

Trig RigtThe change brought by right-wing politics in Europe is socially irreversibleApril-May 2010 ound that 80 percent othe French public supported the Burqa ban.Poll results in Germany, Britain and Spainindicated a 71, 62 and 59 percent supportor a Burqa ban. In July 2011, a ban againstwearing masks or veils in public went intoeect in Belgium and a similar law is on thecards in the Netherlands. The political andsocial undercurrents in these two countriesand other parts o Europe, go beyondthe symbolism o a Burqa ban or tighterimmigration control. In October 2010,German Chancellor Angela Merkel remarkedthat multiculturalism has utterly ailed. Inhis speech at the Munich security conerencein February 2011, the British Prime Minister

David Cameron made a similar pointwhen he implied that the state doctrine omulticulturalism had led to a ghettos ratherthan a melting pot o cultures.

While it is easy to view these sentiments asrecent and in the context o anti-Muslimor anti-immigrant sentiment, the realityis that liberal outlook in Europe has beenunder threat or some time now. One

could argue that this is due to the ear andthreat o (Islamist) terrorism or maybethe concept o multikulti was utopian.

Another actor could be the changing rolesin business and society, case in point thetakeover o Arcelor by Mittal Steel and thelack o comprehension o such an possibility.There is a possibly legitimate grouse againstimmigrants due to their unwillingness tointegrate, making the original inhabitants

uncomortable in their own streets.Furthermore, the socio-political reasonsor the erosion o liberal values have beencompounded by slowing economies, risingdebt levels, growing unemployment rates,

R O U N D U P

Europe


17/32


aging population and the global nancialcrisis o 2008.

Throughout this period, public socialspending has remained high and relativelyunchanged and there is increasing strainon the sustainability o Europes welare

state model. A liberal immigration policy isconsidered to have made things worse byattracting unskilled migrants who are seen asnet beneciaries in an environment when theaverage unemployment rate among migrantsis higher than that o the native-born. Right-wing parties across Europe have joined causeby using the publics displeasure o changingcommunities to urther their political goalsand a depressing economic climate has

acted as a catalyst in strengthening realor perceived misgivings. Across Europe,tolerance is being tested by suspicion. Liberalattitudes are being challenged by socialand religious sensibilities o immigrants,governments are aced with the prospect ospending more to maintain economic parity.

While terrorism and threats to Europes wayo lie has improved ortunes o the extremistparties, it can be argued that aggressive and

extremist posturing have boosted suspicionand even rationalised radicalisation amongimmigrant populations. In some countrieslike Denmark and Germany, integrationremains a challenge but despite the negativeclimate against immigration, governmentspending has not decreased. In contrast, theNetherlands plans to reduce the languageand orientation budget to 10 percent oits current budget by 2015, while keeping

its integration goals unchanged. Theeconomic realities seem to be working atcross-purposes with social objectives andwhat currently appears to be a measure todissuade Muslim and low-skilled migrantscould extend its reach beyond religious oreconomic considerations.

In the coming years, more mainstreampolitical parties are likely to adopt the talkingpoints o extremist parties i only to address

the rustrations o certain voters and stemthe growth o these parties. But this sectiono voters have little patience or a nuanced

approach and the more populist extremistparties are better positioned to address theirears and have a continuous conversationwith them. This has perhaps evencontributed to the mainstreaming o valuesthat were seen as illiberal and relegated tothe ringe.

These changes in Europe seem to be drivenby anti-immigration sentiment, threat tocultural identity and a liberal values but thereare economic realities that uel intoleranceagainst immigration and non-nativecultures. The welare states o Europe are

under pressure due to economic decline andimmigrants are seen as adding to the burdeno the state. The European prescriptionor retaining its liberal values provides orbuilding o walls at its borders while pushingits immigrants to integrate or leave. But thisapproach comes at the cost o higher wallsthat communities will build within theseborders, urged on by extremist groups.

The all o the Berlin wall reunied Germany

and paved the way or ree movement andreconciliation within Europe. 22 years later,Europe aces the challenge o balancingsecurity with liberalism and preservation onational culture with welcoming skilled andunskilled migrants. There is a deliberate shittowards accepting some illiberal restrictionsor greater public good. It remains to be seeni Europe can convincingly transorm itselto address increasingly vocal and illiberal

positions, but the social changes broughtabout by its right turn could very well beirreversible.

The welare states o Europeare under pressure due

to economic decline andimmigrants are seen as

adding to the burden o thestate


18/32


Foreign afairs

B R I E F S

RAvI GoPALAnRavi Gopalan is a research associate at Pragati

FilterGeopolitical readingsANALYSIS OF CHINAS CYBER

WARFARE CAPABILITIES

DESMOND BALL o the

Strategic and Deence StudiesCenter at the Australian National

University at Canberra analyzes

the development o Chinas

cyber-warare capabilities since

the mid-1990s, the intelligence

and military organizations

involved, and the particular

capabilities that have been

demonstrated in deence

exercises and in attacks oncomputer systems and networks

in other countries.

In an article in Security

Challenges, Cias cyber

arfare capabilities, he

states that it was oten very

dicult to determine whether

these attacks originated with

ocial agencies or private

Netizens as well as that Chinasdemonstrated oensive cyber-

warare capabilities were airly

rudimentary such as denial-o-

service, Trojan horse etc. that

have been airly easy to detect

and remove. He also states

that there was no evidence that

Chinas cyber-warriors could

penetrate highly secure networks

or systematically crippleselected command and control,

air deence and intelligence

networks and databases o

advanced adversaries, or to

prices. He casts serious doubt

over industry condence in the

revolution, questioning whether

it can spread beyond the US, or

indeed be maintained within

it, as environmental concerns,

high depletion rates and the

ear that US circumstances

may be impossible to replicate

elsewhere, came to the ore.

He avers that investor

uncertainty would reduce

investment in uture gas supplies

to lower levels than would have

happened had the shale gasrevolution not hit the headlines.

He cautions that although the

markets would eventually solve

the problem, rising gas demand

and the long lead-in-times on

most gas projects would inict

high prices on consumers in the

medium term.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

AND NATIONAL STRATEGY

PAUL CORNISH, JULIAN

LINDLEY-FRENCH and

CLAIRE YORKE o the Chatham

House raise awareness o the

role and potential o strategic

communications as a means

o delivering policy and

seek to clariy how strategiccommunications could help

governments manage and

respond to current and uture

security challenges.

conduct deception operations by

secretly manipulating the data in

these networks.

He concludes that it could

however employ asymmetricstrategies designed to exploit the

relatively greater dependence on

IT by its potential adversaries but

could not compete in extended

scenarios o sophisticated

inormation warare operations

and would unction best when

used pre-emptively, as the PLA

now practices in its exercises.

SHALE GAS: HYPE VS REALITY

PAUL STEVENS o the

Chatham House states that the

shale gas revolution which was

responsible or a huge increase in

unconventional gas production

in the US over the last couple o

years was creating huge investor

uncertainties or internationalgas markets and renewables

and could result in serious gas

shortages within the next 10

years.

In a Chatham House report,

Te Sale Gas Relti:

hype a Reality he states that

the global recession that caused

a drop in the gas demand andthe sudden and unexpected

development o unconventional

gas supplies in the US had

contributed to a steep all in gas


19/32


In a Chatham House report,

Strategic Cmmicatis a

natial Strategy, they argue

that strategic communications

should not be understood to be

merely a messaging activity, but

as the core o a comprehensivestrategic engagement eort

integrating multi-media, multi-

outlet, community outreach

and ace-to-ace eorts in a

single campaign designed or

adaptation to a complex and

changing environment.

They also state that strategic

communications could challenge

governments to explain

themselves more clearly and

convincingly in order to gain

and maintain public support or

policy and in order to ensure

that messages and actions do not

conict with one another and

undermine the competence and

reputation o government.

FOLLOWING THE MONEY TRAIL

STUART LEVEY o the

Council on Foreign Relations and

CHRISTY CLARK o the Podesta

Group state that although UN

implemented targeted nancial

sanctions had gained acceptance

among governments and the

private sector in disrupting

illicit networks and pressuring

intransigent regimes by making

it ar more dicult or them to

access needed nancial services,

their enorcement continued to

be lax outside the US.

They argue that the Financial

Action Task Force (FATF)

over its 20+ years o existence

had successully changed theinternational landscape on

nancial controls or combating

money laundering and terrorist

nancing. in their op-ed or

Foreign Policy, Fll te

Mey, and call or FATF to

develop and enorce standards

or implementation o nancial

sanctions.

The FATFs published

standards had incentivizedcountries to continually improve

and gain FATFs seal o approval,

or at least not warrant its

disapproval.

TRAINING AFGHAN SECURITY

FORCES: LESSONS FROM THE

USSR

OLGA OLIKER o the

RAND Corporation presents

an overview o Soviet eorts

to improve and acilitate the

training and development o

Aghan security orces rom

1920 to 1989 that could inorm

current approaches to planning

and operating with Aghan

orces and overcoming cultural

challenges.

In her RAND monograph,

Bilig Afgaistas Secrity

Frces i wartime Te Siet

Experiece, she states that

although the personnel o the

Soviet military, ministry o

the interior (MVD) and KGB

were tasked with coordinating

the eorts o the Aghan

armed orces, the Sarandoy

gendarmerie-like police orce,

and KhAD intelligence services,

respectively, there was poor

co-ordination among each

other and such stove-piping

among the Soviets were

mirrored within the Aghans

and this was compounded by

limited inormation sharing by

the Soviets with their Aghancounterparts because o personal

mistrust and security concerns.

The Aghan conscript army

continuously experienced high

desertion due to poor conditions,

political, tribal, and ethnic

tensions as well as targeting

by insurgent groups and poor

maintenance ensured that

equipment was wasted whilemilitias were encouraged which

had little loyalty to the Aghan

government.

She concludes that the ISAF

could learn some lessons rom

the Soviet experience in terms

o a greater Soviet willingness to

deploy large numbers o police

advisors, well-matched in rank

and age to Aghan counterparts,

better retention in volunteer

Sarandoy orce as well as the

dangers o relying on militia.

H2O LEVERAGE

BRAHMA CHELLANEY o

the Center or Policy Research

in New Delhi draws attentionto the Chinas rise as a hydro-

hegemon assuming unchallenged

riparian preeminence by

controlling the headwaters o

multiple international rivers

and manipulating their cross-

border ows and acquiring

leverage against its neighbors

by undertaking massive

hydro-engineering projects on

transnational rivers.

In a Japan Times article

Cias parallele rise as a

yr-egem, he states that

riparian neighbors in South and

South-East Asia were bound

by water pacts in contrast to

Beijing which did not have a

single water treaty with any co-

riparian country. Beijing rejectedthe notion o water sharing or

institutionalized co-operation

with lower riparian states in

avor o bilateral initiatives even


20/32


as it promoted multilateralism in

other areas on the world stage,

causing water to increasingly

become a political divide in its

relations to neighbors like India,

Russia, Kazakhstan and Nepal

as well as the states o the lower

Mekong.

He also states that these

water disputes were likely to

worsen with Chinas ocus on

erecting mega-dams on the

Mekong, Brahmaputra and

Illy would cause signicant

disruptions to countries such

as Bangladesh, Vietnam and

Kazakhstan, changing the statusquo on ows o international

rivers and calls or cooperation

to halt Beijings unilateral

appropriation o shared water

resources as pivotal to Asian

peace and stability.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN

TRANSPORTATION CHOICES

DEBORAH GORDON o the

Energy and Climate program at

the Carnegie Endowment and

DANIEL SPERLING, director o

University o Caliornia Davis

Institute o Transportation

Studies state that the global

prolieration o vehicles

presented two alternatives: one

where cheap oil, ree roads,

sprawled development and

subsidized home ownership

would result in a oreboding car

monoculture and an alternative

option involving low-carbon,

location-ecient, economically

productive mobility where

Government, industry, and

consumersespecially in

emerging economiescouldreinvent transportation models

and employ innovative solutions.

In their European Financial

Review article Critical

Crssra: Aacig Glbal

opprtities t Trasfrm

Trasprtati, they state that

the prolieration o automobiles

alongwith the the rise o

megacities would spur a spiralingmotorization process that would

result in unhealthy, inecient,

unsustainable cities and crushing

nancial burdens and advocate

an intervention to move away

rom wasteul transportation

system to more sustainable,

diverse approach that mimics

natural ecosystem with the

direct involvement o business,

government, and consumers

that would transorm vehicles,

transorm uels, and transorm

mobility.

They state that

transportation could be

redesigned as a system and not

be bound to a single mode and

provide examples o cutting-edgecities which were leading the

way on a number o ronts, using

strategic policy tools to advance

low-carbon mobility.


21/32


WHAT IF SWISS NATIONAL BANK

(SNB) HAS NEGATIVE EQUITY?

SNB shocked markets by

deciding to peg its currency

against Euro. SNB is buying

oreign currency to deend the

peg leading to rise in its orex

reserves. Meanwhile SNB has

also been shiting its orex

reserve portolio rom USD to

EUR and aced losses in 2010 as

EUR depreciated. What i the

scenario occurs again and SNBhas a negative capital base?

SNBs Vice-Chairman

Thomas Jordan claries that a

central bank is not like a private

rm/bank (Does the Swiss

National Bank need equity?).

A central bank cannot become

illiquid and chances o its capital

turning negative are remote.

Even i it has negative equity, it

does not constrain the central

bank as it has banknote-issuing

privilege. Moreover, they

generate surplus income over

the long term. Thus over time,

a central bank like the SNB can

usually rebuild its equity level all

on its own ater a loss.

This speech tells you a lotabout central banking operations

and why it is a special entity.

Apart rom its magical powers

to create money out o nothing

when an element o the

institutional structure

becomes more salient over

time as in the case o ECB. Redirection occurs when

objectives o institutions

are changed or reorientated.

Like Stability and Growth

Pact has changed rom a

mere disciplinarian device

to determining scal rules in

EMU economies.

Drit happens when

institutional structures areoverwhelmed by external

developments as seen

in discrepancy between

nancial integration in EMU

countries.

Depletion happens when

institutions experience a

gradual breakdown over

time. The authors say this

hardly applies to EMU asit is a young institution.

Most economists would

not agree and call EMU

a undamentally awed

institution to begin with.

One could use this typology

to analyse changes in other

institutions as well.

HOW THE CRISIS SHAPED

ICELANDS NEW CONSTITUTION

Thorvaldur Gylason writes on

its cost o creating money is very

low and hence it only makes

gains over a period o time. We

have seen this case in Feds casewhich has made prots rom

its bailouts and investments in

nancial rms at the peak o the

crisis.

GETTING AN INSTITUTIONAL

PERSPECTIVE OF EMU

ECONOMIES

Amidst the Euro bashing,comes a nice paper rom Marion

Salines, Gabriel Glckler,

Zbigniew Truchlewski and

Paola del Favero o ECB (Beyond

the economics o the euro

- analysing the institutional

evolution o EMU 1999-2010).

The paper examines how and

why the institutional ramework

governing EMU has evolvedsince the creation o the euro.

More interestingly, the paper

gives a nice typology by which

one can understand changes in

institutions:

Layering is an institutional

change which happens when

new institutional elements

are added to existing ones. In

context o EMU examples areaddition o institutions such

as the EFSM/EFSF, creation

o the Lisbon agenda etc.

Displacement takes place

Foreign afairs

B R I E F S

Paret

AMoL AGRAwALAmol Agrawal blogs at Mostly Economics (mostlyeconomics.blogspot.com)

Economics in small doses


22/32


this ascinating set o events

in Iceland (From crisis to

constitution, voxeu.org). We have

seen political crisis leading to

new (or change in) constitutions

as seen during collapse o

communism in 1989. It is rare to

see economic crises as triggers

o constitutional change. Even

Great Depression did not prompt

the Americans to change their

constitution with laws like Glass-

Steagall Act deemed as sucient.

In Icelands case the history

is slightly dierent. Ater

separating rom Denmark

in 1944, the Iceland leaderspromised a new constitution

but ailed to deliver on their

promises barring some new

rules. The crisis in Iceland in

2008 started rom a revolution

to protest against nancial crisis

but led to a bigger movement to

orm a new constitution.

The process to create the

new constitution was veryinteresting. First constitutional

committee was appointed

by parliament consisting o

a thousand citizens drawn

at random rom the national

registry. The committee

discussed the matters and

then organised a nation-wide

election in Nov-10 where 522

candidates stood or 25 seats.

This 25 member team ormed the

constitutional assembly/council

(CAC) which worked on the

proposals in detail and presented

their bill with Parliament on

29-Jul-11.

The key highlights o the

new constitution are: One

person, one vote, Protection

o Natural resources, Icelands

nature and environment, Right

to inormation, Appointment o

public ocials and Independent

state agencies.

ExPLAINING THE RESILIENCE OF

INDIAS SERVICES SECTOR

Abhijit Das, Rashmi Banga,

and Dinesh Kumar explain the

resilience o Indias services

sector (Global Economic Crisis:

Impact and Restructuring o the

Services Sector in India). Thoughthe paper ocuses on services

sector in 2008-09 crisis period,

it has broader lessons or Indias

thriving services sector.

There are two main ndings:

Indias income elasticity

o services exports is high

(around 3, or sotware it

is 6). Meaning i oreign

incomes go down by 1 unit,

our services exports go down

by 3 units and vice versa. The

price elasticity o services

exports is low (inelastic). This

means i prices o services

exports decline, it does not

lead to any major rise in

services exports. Hence

there is not much which can

be done via the pricing route

More importantly, Indias

services are mainly consumed

by domestic sources. In

services, exports orm around

6percent o services till 2000-01 and has risen to 15percent

by 2008-09 which is still

a low gure. So services

growth might decline post a

global shock but still remains

resilient thanks to a much

larger domestic demand or

services.

What is the way ahead? It

looks at productivity levels inthree sectors: retail/wholesale

trade, sotware services, and

banking. It says there is a scope

o improvement in all three and

government should make its

policies boosting growth in these

three sectors.

liberal intelligentsia. For the ormer,shunning globalisation and markets isabout protecting India culture rom

Western assaults while or the let-liberalestablishment, it is all about conserving theirmonopoly on policy.

Much as some people may wish otherwise,we live in an increasingly interconnected andglobalised world. No country can be an island

in itsel. Any country which stops the reeow o inormationor ideasis likely to belet behind. India can ill-aord that.

ope p, Iia Page 6


23/32


What I present to you is two stories.One is o a simple Indian soldierrom a village near Mangalore, one

who, according to his brother Louis, nevergot into a ght with anybodyndinghimsel in the most brutal war in history,

World War II, and being taken prisoner bya ellow Asian armythe Japanese Army,which treats thousands o Indian prisonerswith a brutality that results in highermortality rates or them than or POWs

o the Nazis. And then, ater a miraculoussurvival, comes home to write his story,which is orgotten, perhaps scorned by hiseudal superiors.

The second story is o a son discovering hisathers story even as his ather is 86 yearsold, and eeble enough as to leave the worldat anytimeand being so moved by it asto be compelled to publish it and to give

it to the world. It is a story about athersand sons, part o the universal story thatwill never end, and will never cease to haveascination.

Bigrapical Itrcti:

It is harder or a rich man to enter Heaventhan or a camel to enter the eye o a needle,or so the Bible says; but it was always prettyeasy or a rich man to enter St. Aloysius

College and its high school, and to escapethe whipping the padres gave to the scallyand morally unlucky. Ater all, the collegetowered over property donated by the localsquire, its chapel being a magnet, every

Te memir f ak Iia slierExcerpts rom Eaten by the Japanese: The memoir o an unknown Indian soldier by JohnBaptist Crasta

Sunday, or the towns cream o Catholicsociety. My ather, though not one o Indiaswretched poor, was consigned by his amilyincome to its struggling lower middle class.

And oten, because he had not paid his two-rupee monthly school ees on time, he waskicked out o his St. Aloysius High Schoolclasses by the Italian Jesuits who were thenin charge.

Te Trtre Sip:

Slowly and more slowly it sailed on, headingor the south, and our ordeal worsened ashours passed. Heat, suocation, stench,thirst. We were allowed a handul (hardly twoounces) o cooked rice and a little dry shand a cup o water twice daily. The Japanesesaid i we ate more in the ship, we would allill as we were not doing any atigue. We didnot worry much about the quantity o ood.

We would not have minded even i we were

not given any; but with the two cups o watersupplied per day, one might die o thirst. Wetried to go on the deck to have a breath oresh air or which we longed so much; butthe moment we climbed up the staircase,we would be kicked down by the Japanesesentries.

Te Sec vyage f te Trtre Sip:

Could humanity be degraded to such an

extent? Could Providence be as cruel? Thesteamer had only one kitchen rom whichwater was being rationed, and the twothousand men had to come one ater theother, in a line, or that cup o lie-preserving

I N E x T E N S O

Book

RIChARd CRASTARichard Crasta is the editor o Eaten by the Japanese, where he also contributed three essays


24/32


liquid. The rush began at 6 am. My turncame at about 10 am, ater our hours owaiting, only to be met with the curt words,Water nished! Heavens, what was I to dountil next day? Who knows? Beore I couldreach the ront o the line, water might be

exhausted again next day? Death was certain.I went round with a cup to my Indianriends, to Malays, even to Japanese, and wasmet with the reply Sorry, I have very little.

Te Sec vyage f te Trtre Sip:

Dysentery broke out on the ship. The ewlatrines were being used by both unt and tmen. In our own party o one hundred andty, three or our deaths occurred daily. The

corpses were wrapped in a worn-out blanketand lowered into the deep ocean, unwept orand unsung. I could see hardy men prostratewith dysentery, unable to move, without anyclothes. The Japanese did not pay any heedto what was going on. Dysentery spread toother holds o the ship, killing seven to eightdaily. But the ship was not stopped, nor wasan attempt made to evacuate the victims.Insanitation and squalor increased. Therehad been cases o men dying rom dysentery

within a day o getting sick. Except orseparate accommodation being allowed, notreatment was given to the men, and thedisease spread anyway. The scene was pitiuland heart-rending. Brave, virile soldiers whowould have deed anybody in battle werenow helpless like babies and were groaningand rolling naked on the oor presenting aweird spectacle. I could not bear it and tearsstarted trickling rom my eyes as nothing in

my lie had moved me to that extent. Wasthis the penalty we were paying or beinghonest and principled?

Kga te deil:

The next day, another Japanese soldier,Koga Hugcho, was put in charge o us. Icall him Koga the Devil. I still cannot orgethis Satanic ace nor orget his atrocities. Ianyone deserves to be hanged rst or the

ill-treatment o prisoners, it is he. A man oabout 30 years, quite well-built, with slanteyes and an apes mouth with a gold tooth,he looked like a mixture o Japanese andChinese, a most unprincipled and inhumane

brute. Although he said he belonged toTokyo, I am inclined to think he was either aTaiwanese or a Manchurian. The next threemonths that we passed with him were thebitterest o our lives. Our daily routine was:rise at 4 am, go to the surrounding jungle

and etch two or three loads o rewood;breakast (two spoonuls o rice) at 5.30,o to the tapioca garden at 6 am, cut grasstill 11 with hal an hours break, return orlunch; hal an hours break, again o to thegarden, back by 4 PM; ll a ty-ve gallondrum with water and boil it ready or ourmasters bath; again collect two or threeloads o rewood. Thus were we kept busyrom beore daybreak to sunset. In addition,

each o us was called upon by him to helpthe Japanese cook in preparing the morningoodin which case, we were required toget up at 2 am. Fire had to be lit to boil rice,curry and water. The rewood was invariablydamp and gave out clouds o smoke,completely blinding our eyes. I the re wasnot lighted, the Japanese cook would curseus and even beat us. Food had to be readybeore daybreak so that the raiders might notnotice the smoke. By now, the planes had no

targets let. They would watch or any signso smoke and let go their deadly bombs.

During atigue, i Koga thought our speedwas not up to his expectations, he wouldbeat us with sticks, sts, and kicks. Hesaid that Indians, like the British, werelazy and were not t to live. They knewonly to enjoy. That is why they were beingdeeated. He told us the Allied Navy hadbeen completely annihilated near Formosaand in the Philippines. Land ghting wasgoing on in the latter place, and the Japanesewere winning. There was no chance o ourreturning to India. We would remain there inNew Britain and cultivate tapioca.

In the evenings, even in heavy rain, the

Japanese made us boil water or their bath.This was almost an impossibility as thereplace and rewood became wet. But there

was no argument with our masters.

Our hut was more like a pandal[16]. Evenin a light rain, water trickled inside. It wasinested with rats, mosquitoes, ants, lizards


25/32


and snakes. Had the Japanese given us hala days rest, we could have improved it, buteven on our so called holidays, they made uscollect coconuts and extract oil or them!

I had a relapse o malaria. Koga allowed merest as long as my temperature was on; but

as soon as he elt my orehead cool, he wouldask me to work. To make matters worse, anulcer appeared on my right oot. The woundbroadened, giving out pus and a horriblesmell. The leg swelled, and I could not walk.No arrangement was made or dressing thewound. Not even a piece o linen was given.I tore my langoti[17], dressed the ulcer inlthy water rom the nullah, and bandagedit in a dirty rag. Flies swarmed around thewound. Blood trickled down sometimes.The Japanese saw this, but were not movedwith compassion. Koga said it was a triingthing and asked me to go on atigue. I couldonly walk with the help o crutches. OtherJapanese who saw me on the way thought Ideserved rest.

Owing to agonizing pain, my temperaturedid not subside. I and the our othersrequested Koga to shoot us as it was better

to die than to remain as their prisoners. Hejokingly gave us shovels and spades, asking usto prepare our own graves so that we mightbe shot the next morning.

Basanta was the one most cruelly mistreated.For some triing oence, he was tied withlive battery wires; and when the unortunateman cried or mercy, all the Japaneselaughed. He ell down. They kicked him andmade him get up, again tying him up with

the torturing wires. Besides Basanta, therewas another Sikh, Kartar Singh, with us.Koga ordered them to shave o their beardsas, according to them, the beards made themill. For disobeying him, they were beaten.

One day, Basanta was standing by. Koga, likea dog, came upon him and passed urine onhim. On another occasion, Basanta was spatupon.

We again pleaded with Koga to shoot us all.He warned us not to repeat this request. Wewere their prisoners and must obey them.Even the British General Percival was beingordered about by a Japanese soldier. We had

been deeated in the war and must not speakanything out o the way.

Faters a SsA Tale f Literatre,Reieti, a Reempti:

But there was another, non-literary dutyto be perormed beore I could eel some

degree o liberation rom that powerulsense o incompleteness in my relationshipwith my ather. Dr. Arunachalams gestureo touching my athers eet, repeated laterby another Mangalorean I greatly respect,Konkani musician, composer, and impresarioEric Ozario, had haunted me. Because,having been an individualistic, city-raisedChristian too cut o rom my culture andeven rom my Indian Christian village roots,

I had never touched my athers eet. Back inAmerica, I eared that I would never orgivemysel i my ather passed away rom thisworld without my ever having touched hiseet, while othersno doubt my brothers,kindred souls, and cosmic, Brahmanicextensions o myselhad done so.

In October 1998, ten months later, I arrivedin a monsoon-lashed Mangalore and dashedhome rom the airport, heading directly or

my athers bedroom. He didnt come out togreet me as he usually did, or he was weakerthan beore, slowly losing his once-solid gripon the world. I walked right in and huggedhis rail rame, paused a ew seconds, andthen bent my once-proud body and touchedhis eet.

Killig t Eat: r Callig up teJapaese t Face teir dark Sie:

And though I believe all o us have within usa dark side, and that in a proound sense weare also the Other, it is also important, in theillusory everyday world that we call Reality,that we append the stories o the weak andthe voiceless to the histories written bythe mighty and the once-mighty, and thateach us o register our horror, our personalootnote, to the Ocial and oten SanitizedCommunal History. Any lingering doubts

I may have had about the title disappearedater I met Roger Mansell, an Americanwar historian who had been examining the

Ctie Page 25


26/32


Last week, Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram released Crime InIndia-2010, a report by the National

Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) whichcompiles and analyses crime statistics inIndia or the year 2010. At present, thisreport is the only authoritative source oinormation about crimes in the country.There are 187.6 crimes recorded per lakho population in India, varying rom 87 inUttar Pradesh to 424.1 in Kerala. The reportalso tells us that compared to 2009, crimehas increased by 4.9 percent in 2010. During2010, crime against women (2,13,585) hasgone up by 4.8 percent compared to 2009(2,03,804). The all-India conviction rate orcrimes is 40.7 percent but only 9 percentaccused were convicted in Maharashtra.

However, these statistics have severelimitations as all crimes are not reportedto the police and i reported, many are notregistered by the police. An Indian Police

SuShAnT K SInGhSushant K Singh is editor o Pragati

Crimial mistakeIndias ocial crime data is not authentic

Service ocer, Tripurari has validated thisunder-reporting o crime data in a study,Policing without Using Force: The JalpaiguriExperiment. As the Superintendent o Policein Jalpaiguri, he made registration o FIRsmandatory at the 17 police stations o thedistrict. Outcome: the monthly average othe number o recorded cases jumped rom249 in the pre-experiment phase to 1,060ater ling o FIRs was made mandatory.

The study, published in the Indian PoliceJournal in 2010, asserts that major oences(such as thet o automobiles, murder ordacoity) are less susceptible to suppressionor minimisation because these are widelypublicised. The degree o suppression ocrime, or burking in police parlance, is more

prevalent in the case o minor crimes likepetty thets. But burking is not unique toJalpaiguri or Bengal. It is rampant all overIndia.The international rights group, HumanRights Watch has noted that despite legal

R O U N D U P

Crime

JonathanDavis


27/32


Te memir f a k Iia slierPage 11

Japanese record in World War II. Mansellwas horried by the lack o remorse in arecent Japanese compendium o World WarII recollections called Senso. He explainedthat American G.I.s had been cannibalizedsimply as an act o demoralization; theseacts had nothing to do with the nutritionalneeds o the Japanese. So I decided to retainthe title or this second, public edition, even

allowing in a moment o optimism that thebook might receive attention in Japan andpersuade the Japanese to conront and admitto their widely observed racism and starta national campaign to tackle it, making it

less possible or a uture Pico Iyer to say, InJapan, an Indian is the lowest o the low.

Besides, why should it be so hard or theJapanese to issue an apology to all the Indianswho were so abused and manipulated, andto their children and descendants? Willnot that hasten the process o healing andorgiveness?

The book (3rd edition) is now available ine-book orm on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/eWVexV

obligations under Indian and internationallaw, police throughout India requently ailto register complaints o crime. It citedthe Lucknow police which had reportedlyregistered FIRs or only 4.5 percent o thecomplaints they received in 2007. This whenyou thought that the Jalpaiguri experimentwhere only 24 percent o the crime wasrecorded was shocking.

The problem o burking can be overcomeby an independent, third-party validationo the NCRB data by a public survey. Inmost developed countries, an annual Crime

Victimisation Survey is conducted to providea more realistic and actionable picture ocrimeestimate the number and types o

crimes not reported to the police, identiypeople most at risk, and map public attitudetowards crime and towards the criminal

justice system.

These surveys are ound to be a veryimportant source o inormation about crimelevels and public attitude to crime. In 2005-06, only 42 precent o crimes reported duringthe British Crime Survey (BCS) were reportedto police and only 30 precent were recorded

by the police. BCS thus provides the Britishgovernment with an important alternativeto police-recorded crime statistics. WithoutBCS, the British government would haveno inormation on the 70 precent o crimeswhich went unreported. BCS urtheridenties those most at risk due to dierent

types o crime. This is used to design andinorm crime prevention programmes andimprove public attitude towards police.

Inormation underpins all planning. Anempirical approach towards policing can besustained by reliable and comprehensive data

on crime. In the absence o authentic data, allattempts at planning or policing in India arean exercise in utility. A survey to ascertainthe real state o crime in the country byconducting an annual crime survey has tobe topmost on the governments agenda.National Statistical Survey Organisation canbe tasked by the government to undertakethis survey in India; perhaps starting with 35biggest cities in the rst phase.

Till that happens, the ocial crime data willcontinue to paint a rosy picture. And thevision o transorming data into inormation,and inormation into insight shall remain autile dream.

A version o this article appeared in Mid-day

Lucknow police hadreportedly registered FIRsor only 4.5 percent o the

complaints it received in2007


28/32


MARK SAFRAnSKIMark Saranski is an analyst at Wikistrat, editor o The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy and Waand, and is the publisher o zenpundit.com

For ten years, the spectacular attack on9/11 meant that al Qaeda representedthe ace o the Islamist global

insurgency in the popular imagination.Occasional videotapes o Osama bin Ladenand judicious ranchising o the al Qaedabrand to enterprising psychopaths like AbuMusab al-Zarqawi, allowed al Qaeda tocontinue overshadowing larger and ar betterorganized terrorist groups long ater theability o al Qaedas leaders to wreck havocaded. On November 26, 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group little known in the Westbut all too amiliar to India, demonstratedwith bombings and bloody gun battles inthe streets o Mumbai that al Qaeda was notalone in waging global jihad. LeT, the Army

o the Righteous, showed in Mumbai thatthey too would bring war to the Hindus,Jews and Crusaders.

Carnegie and RAND scholar Stephen Tankel

Terrorism

B O O K S

A Jia fr all Seass

has endeavored to demystiy and deconstructLeT in his meticulously researched book,Storming The World Stage: The Story ofLashkar-e-Taiba and bring into the light thecomplex relationships that entwine LeT withthe Pakistani state and the subterraneanuniverse o radical jihadi politics. Conductingextensive interviews with Islamist militants,

Western and Indian intelligence ocials,Pakistani politicians and ISI ocers andbuttressing his narrative with sixty-threepages o end-notes, Tankel has produced aportrait o Lashkar-e-Taiba that is accessibleto the layman while remaining a methodicalwork o scholarship.

Using a predominantly chronological

approach to narrative, Tankel traces theevolution o Lashkar-e-Taiba rom anobscure Salast oshoot o the minoritysect Ahl-e-Hadith group, Markaz ud Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI) that grew to become

WSJ


29/32


the avorite strategic proxy o Pakistansdreaded ISI or waging irregular warareagainst India in Kashmir. In the process, LeTgrew into a wealthy and powerul Islamistnetwork providing panoply o social andhumanitarian services and a military reach

that made the LeT a transnational playerwith which to be reckoned.

Tankel excels at detailing the organisationaland political nuances o LeT, including thecomplicated relationships o leading gureslike Zaar Iqbal, Haz Saeed, Zaki-ur RehmanLakhvi and the bewildering array o LeTsront groups, Deobandirivals and jihadi quasi-allies, including al Qaeda.

The endemic interplay oideology with internecineduplicity and coercionis emphasised by Tankelas he illustrates howLeT leaders walked a tightrope betweenpreserving their nationalistic specialrelationship with the Pakistani state andthe militant pan-Islamism o other jihadistgroups and young, rank-and-le LeT

hotheads.It was pressure rom the ISI and the militaryregime o President Pervez Musharra onLashkar-e-Taiba to toe the lineon loweringtensions with India over Kashmir in themid-2000s that set in motion the LeT on theroad to Mumbai. Nominally pan-Islamic andSalast, the LeT nevertheless was organisedand generously patronised by the ISI to bePakistans most eective operator in the

Kashmiri Jihad, to the point where LeTrecruiters lured zealous young men withoers to go to Iraq only to gently redirectthem to wage jihad on the other side o theLine o Control.

With Islamabads reasons o state rmlyminimising Kashmir as an outlet orLeT jihadist rage, LeT leaders aced theprospect o either acilitating jihad on other

ronts, notably Aghanistan, or risk losingollowers to more radical organisations.For example, Tankel places LeT ghters atthe battle o Wanat, a high casualty, smallunit engagement that sparked much soul-

searching in the American Army regardingthe quality o leadership in the chain ocommand and the viability o the pop-centricCOIN strategy in Aghanistan, and creditsthem or the unusually good perormance othe Taliban attackers in that battle.

Lashkar-e-Taibas Mumbai operation inTankels view was an eort in amalgamated

jihad; an act o terrorism that reconciled thedierence in priorities between an India-centric LeT leadership and a membershipthat, like the wider jihadist community, waseager to strike at America and the Jews.

This can be seen, Tankelargues, in the targetingo Chabad House, where

killing Jews wouldbe worth ty liveselsewhere and the TajMahal Hotel patronisedby Westerners. Tankel

leans heavily on the testimony o ISI agentand convicted Lashkar terrorist DavidHeadly a.k.a. Daood Gilani who comeso in Storming the World Stage as a armore dangerous and sinister gure than

he did in American media coverage o hisChicago trial. Source notwithstanding,Tankel is getting at the heart o LeT strategiccalculation here in linking LeTs internalgroup dynamics to the largest objectiveso the Islamist radicals and the nationalinterests o Pakistan.

Stephen Tankel does not attempt to coverall dimensions o Lashkar-e-Taiba, beingpredominantly interested in political,

organisational and strategic aspects othat terrorist organisations history. Thetheological drivers behind LeT and theincreasing radicalisation o its youngergeneration are given short shrit. Forexample, we understand rom Tankel thatthere is ideological i.e. theological - rictionbetween LeT militants and their Deobandicounterparts, on occasion to the point oviolence, but not why. Avoiding a close

examination o religious motivation is acommon omission in American academicanalysis o Islamist terrorism, which putsTankel in the mainstream o researchers, butrepresents a missing acet that would have

Storming the World Stage: The

Story o Lashkar-e-TaibaStephen Tankel

Columbia University Press , 2011


30/32


would play that role in an Indo-PakistaniWar is let to the readers inerence.

LeT also demonstrated in Mumbai a uidtactical excellence in its use o o-the-sheltechnology, small arms and mobility toreap an enormous return-on-investment

by attacking sot targets, much along theasymmetric lines advocated by wararetheorist John Robb. Tactics that are acritical threat to any open society by orcingit to take preventive measures which areruinously expensive and contraindicated tokeeping society ree and democratic. Thisis another topic that might have receivedgreater analytical exploration.

Storming the World Stage is a solidly

researched book by Stephen Tankel thatis apt to become the mandatory reerenceon Lashkar-e-Taiba and a useul resourceon the general subject o Pakistanshistorical resort to proxy warare. With hisexamination o Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tankelhas made a worthy contribution to ourunderstanding o terrorism and jihad inSouth Asia.

Subscribe to Pragati today

Quill Media is delighted to oer you a subscription to our service which will deliver toyour doorstep a high-quality printed edition each month.

A ull 12-month subscription (12 monthly issues) is priced at Rs 2500 per annum (inIndia, inclusive o postage). As a special oer, we will oer a 12-month subscription at aminimum introductory price o Rs 500 per annum. I you eel you can pay more, pleasedo: you can pay in multiples o Rs 100, over and above the minimum price.

To subscribe online, visit: http://www.quillmedia.in

Or send a bank drat in avour o Quill Media Pvt Ltd to Quill Media, 15A Hemanta BasuSarani, 4th Floor, Kolkata 700 001. Clearly mention the name, ull postal address, emailaddress and telephone number o the subscriber on a separate note. For more detailscontact Quill Media at Tel +91 33 4021 5670 Email: [email protected]

enriched the readers understanding.

Another element o LeT that might havebeen given more attention or takento a granular level o detail by Tankelare Lashkars military and intelligencecapacities as irregulars and their strategic

implications. Tankel inorms us that LeTghters are qualitatively among the bestamong the regions jihadis and LeT expertisein bombmaking and IED design are muchsought ater, but little else. An organisationthat, like Hezbollah, is state-sponsored butnot controlled, Lashkar-e-Taiba is suitedor waging what military analyst FrankHoman terms Hybrid War, but how LeT

It links LeTs internal groupdynamics to the largest

objectives o the Islamistradicals and the nationalinterests o Pakistan


31/32

Rea a Sare

This is a Community Edition oPragati. We encourage youto share it with those who might nd it o interest. Get a reedigital edition oPragati in your email inbox each month by

signing up at

ttp://pragati.atialiterest.i/sbscribe


32/32

Date post:	06-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	n-pai
View:	230 times
Download:	0 times

Pragati Issue56 Oct2011 Community Ed

Documents