https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/has-the-military-anything-to-do-with

Has the military anything to do in forestalling an end to India’s Democracy?

Analysing the latest shenanigan from the Hindutva stable, political philosopher Pratap Bhanu Mehta prognosticates that the Modi regime, “will not, under any circumstances, even contemplate or allow a smooth transition of power.”

He reasons: “Can you now imagine Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Amit Shah or their minions calmly contemplating the prospect that they could ever be in the Opposition, after the hubris they have deployed against opponents and critics?”

The ‘hubris’ is visible in the dismissal of a pan-India politician, Rahul Gandhi, as a representative in the lower house. This, to Mehta, is evidence inter-alia that India is under tyranny.

Given that, “(T)he hallmark of tyrants is impunity in power and therefore an existential fear of losing it,” he reckons, it is unlikely that Narendra Modi will hand over power equably, even if voted out democratically.

Modi being voted out is currently in the hypothetical realm and, therefore, a consideration of what position the military should adopt in the circumstance can only also be similarly semi-fictional.

Nevertheless, it must be done since – as Rahul Gandhi put it – Indian democracy is a ‘global public good.’ The military is meant not only to safeguard territorial integrity and political sovereignty, but preserve Constitutional values – that includes Democracy.

While the democratic system of checks and balances in the political system is normally sufficient towards this end – enabling the military to keep out of politics – Mehta is not alone in apprehending that India is not quite normal anymore.

This implies the military must give a passing thought to trends and what to do about these, beginning with double checking if Mehta is indeed on to something and what that means for the military.

Foreign Policy raises a similar question of Türkiye’s Recep Erdogan, asking, “What Happens When a Turkish President Loses an Election?” Its befuddlement shows up in its answer: “No One Knows.”

Therefore, scenario-writing - an indulgence of analysts - is valid. Not wholly vanity impelled (to be able to later say, “I told you so”), it is in keeping with the social mandate of analysts: to provide society with the possible visions of the future so that the worst ahead is avoided and the desirable, lit up.

Assessing if democracy’s demise is deterrable and what might yet preserve it, against those busy with their darndest, is a legitimate exercise in public service.

The trigger events

Mehta’s dark musings follow Rahul Gandhi’s foreign sojourn on the concluding of his promising padyatra, Bharat Jodo Yatra. In the meantime, the ruling party pulled the rug from under Gandhi’s feet, not only having him displaced from the legislature but also his official residence.

Hindutva legitimised this for the public, arguing that Gandhi went over the top when abroad in seditiously claiming the end of democracy in India. Modi’s continuing popularity instead shows democratic good health. Majoritarianism does not mean less democracy, but is merely faithful implementation of the democratic mandate.

Machinations followed: maximum sentence was pronounced by a lower court in Gujarat against Gandhi, in a long-dead case duly resurrected for the purpose. On standby, the Lok Sabha Secretariat lost no time off-loading Rahul Gandhi.

The sessions judge in review agreed with the magistrate court – only, it turned out the judge had earlier represented Amit Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case.

To recall, Prajapati was witness to the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife. The latter case culminated in the death of the Central Bureau of Investigation judge, BH Loya. Good sense prevailing, the judge who stepped in, dismissed the case within a month.

Conveniently, the judge assigned to hear Gandhi’s appeal at High Court level recused herself. The judge now fielding the appeal is former lawyer of Maya Kodnani - a political acolyte of Modi.

Kodnani was just let off by Gujarat’s judicial system on the second count of mass killings in the 2002 pogrom – the Naroda Gam killings – having been let off in 2018 for the first, the much-worse killings at Naroda Patiya.

Even if the former Kodnani lawyer – now gracing the Gujarat High Court bench – delivers a judgment allowing Gandhi to return to the legislature, the message from the ruling party is stark.

It will not brook Constitutional morality and mundane factors as political ethics, or common-place decency, to stand in its way.

Democracy, stood on its head

The logic is Chanakyan: the true test of rulership is in gaining and retaining power. Since the first duty of a king is security of the realm, welfare of the praja can wait. Retention of the throne enables welfare of the praja.

By this logic, democracy – in its modern-day definition – is a Western import from colonial times. Decolonisation involves a revert to the Vedic interpretation of democracy – when India mothered democracy. Domestication of democratic theory thus is in order.

The Hindutva concept of democracy has it that with the majority vote behind it in a first past the post system, it can do without the Basic Structure doctrine holding it up. It is only going about implementing the mandate of its voters. Majoritarianism is an allegation of losers.

Since a fourth of the voters are of the committed sort – unapologetic bhakts – the rest is a matter of social engineering, through aggregation of support by caste-based incentives. If welfarism isn’t enough - as some apprehend – there is always the rabbit of polarisation to pull out of the hat.

Finally, of course, there is always a Pulwama redux to fall back on. Despite opportunities to fix relations with Pakistan, no effort has been made – citing it remains a fount of terror. This impasse provides the plausible backdrop for a well-timed black operation.

This option might not figure this time round, since Pakistan is not without support this time round. The status quo ante not having been restored in Ladakh so far, the attitude of China at another India-Pakistan crisis cannot be foreseen with any clarity. Even so, as Manekshaw famously put it, the time to take on Pakistan is when the passes to the north are snowed in.

Bhanu is therefore right in apprehending that the regime might not walk away into the sunset even if the electoral verdict is against it. Afterall, that 63 per cent Indians have not chosen it does not stop it from going about reprogramming India – Constitutional propriety be damned.

The regime’s not playing to lose

The regime has its usual strengths to fall back on, foremost being information warfare techniques marshalled for perception management, to manipulate the information to prevent the electorate from a reasoned choice.

The props to this end have already been set in motion – the brouhaha around the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits in the year and the Ayodhya temple inauguration advanced to autumn.

Calling early elections is another card to ride the momentum – lest the opposition gets to capitalise on indicators from an economy long downhill or gains time for a modicum of unity.

Just shy of a centenary of the mothership, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Hindutva is not about to rest on its oars nor let go of the rudder.

That the Executive had hijacked the Legislature is clear from Rahul Gandhi’s eviction, as part of stage setting for the national elections next year.

That leaves the Judiciary for working the democratic system of checks and balances.

The Judiciary has been in an existential struggle over the collegium issue. It has not been above mutual back scratching, for instance, studiously keeping off the challenge to the regime’s diminution of Article 370.

In any case, just as one swallow does not a summer make. Having an enlightened Chief Justice may not prove enough. The likes of Sathasivam, Gogoi and Nazeer also grace that exalted bench.

The last line of defence is obviously, “We, The People”.

The Israelis have over recent months stumped their would-be dictator, Benjamin Netanyahu, forcing him to scuttle his ‘reform’ of the judiciary. Can this be mirrored in India?

Would Indians stand up against an illegitimate – if not illegal - appropriation of the vote, precursor for onset of a Hindu Rashtra?

An editorial in The Guardian warns, “Hindu nationalism in India is writing an epitaph for the country’s experiment with multi-ethnic secular democracy.” But, “Modi’s bet is that a single Hindu identity can transcend Indian society’s faultlines of religion, caste, region and language.”

Modi has sensibly postponed the delivery of his economic claims to 2047, promising in the interim of Hindutva as palliative. But does he have the buy-in of majority Indians on Hindutva?

Many believe ends justify the means, so, democratic niceties - such as respecting electoral results - must not be allowed to keep from wholesale ushering in of Hindutva. 

Deterrence can’t work

Modi reputedly cut his political teeth as participant in the agitation that occasioned Emergency and found his political feet in the agitating against it. Therefore, he also best knows how to deter, detract from and defuse such an agitation.

Hindutva has been mindful to penetrate into all corners of India prior to its final push. The RSS is hydra-like and has country-wide tentacles. It has the capacity to drum up support for, or, if necessary, obscure reality. The ruling party too has made inroads into areas hitherto thought immune, such as the North East.

The State itself has by now been sufficiently captured to do Hindutva’s bidding. Its agencies have set upon the opposition – both political and non-governmental – with an alacrity becoming in guard dogs.

Where there is potential of a staunch resistance to the Hindutva agenda – as in the Dravid South, Kerala, Punjab or in Bengal – dogs of war have been let loose.

The Kerala Files is out to undo Keralite solidarity, while Amritpal Singh was conjured up to Khalistan days. Tamil Nadu, being on the geographical periphery could be marginalised as a hotbed of dissent. As for Bengal, engineered ethnic violence could unsteady Mamta Banerjee’s hand.

The Ram Navmi and Hanuman Jayanti processions, cow vigilante vigil across the Gangetic belt and the anti-love jihad campaigns in Maharashtra have demonstrated Hindutva ability to drum up mobs, making genocidal calls by saffronite busybodies entirely believable.  

My middle-class neighbourhood of gated communities annually witnesses an unnerving walkabout by khaki knicker-walas on Vijaya Dashmi.

The one-sided violence in North East Delhi, and the turn to a Dozer Raaj across north India pre-emptively defuse backlash from by-now unlikely quarters – Muslim ghettos. The legal hounding of Muslim mobilisers serves to scare the rest.

The liberals are simply too few. Their periodic open letters to the prime minister have a dual purpose: helps them keep a clean conscience, while washing their hands clean. Writing for themselves at the crunch they are unlikely to want to endanger the economy for righting democracy. When confronted with the reality of Hindutva, they will step up to align the King with the dharma.

To discern potential of a peoples’ movement, there is only the farmer’s agitation to fall back on. It got Modi to step back, though Modi is unaccustomed to backtracking - evident from the head of a sporting federation hanging on despite the sit-in by wrestlers at Jantar Mantar and the Supreme Court’s adverse view on police inaction.

But the farmers were prompted by an existential threat to livelihoods. Can a threat to the Constitution loom similarly threatening for a similar demographic?

No class, caste or ethnic group or a combination readily comes to mind that could take up cudgels against Constitutional reengineering by Hindutva. Nor can a coalition from diverse backgrounds be forged against the deterring and proactive scuttling action of the Hindutva-run State and that of its ‘cultural’, covertly-political ally, the RSS.

In other words, there is little discernible prospect of an Indian Spring. After 10 years of Modi, to expect Indians taking to the streets, as the Middle Class did for self-interested reasons in the anti-corruption agitation towards the end of Manmohan Singh’s 10 years, is wishful.

Even if 2024 does not prove a bye, should Modi cheat or not go away, he will likely have a walkover.

The Scenario

Firstly, the outcome will be kept shrouded. The information management machinery of the regime will touch high gear to tout a clean chit given of the Election Commission, a “collapsed star” compared with Seshan’s Commission. The regime will credit itself with a win, making it impossible to prove otherwise.

Secondly, the majoritarian strain of democracy will be touted. The regime will swing into the next set of tamashas – the observance of the centenary of the RSS – ensuring that the palimpsest of national life does not register anything amiss.

Thirdly, the Courts will be ‘seized of the matter’, taking their usual time to come get to it. The matter ‘being sub judice’ will allow time to the regime to get on with an India reset - Chief Justice Chandrachud having retired by end 2024.

Fourthly, Modi could turn on his histrionic skills and fabled oratory - seen first at his asking for time to settle things down after demonetisation and when he called off the farm laws.

On the security front, the suppressive might of the State will fulfil the prediction of a wit on the Kashmirisation of rest of India. For sure, it won’t be required in the Gangetic belt.

A diversionary threat from Muslims will be trotted out. Clubbed with an external crisis with Pakistan, it will be easier sold.

India is past-master at black operations, so a crisis is on call. India also has considerable skill in managing crises, ensuring one does not boil over – witness Balakot and Ladakh.  

Even the China front is handy for a crisis, since a tough foe would compel greater coherence within and allowing for greater enforcement leeway. The Chinese – aware by now of Modi’s Pavlovian use of foreign and security policy for his domestic purposes – shall play along. A democratic India as foe is less preferable for China, standing as India would be for an alternative model to progress in an increasingly China-centric world.

What’s the military got to do with it?

The famously apolitical military will find itself in an unprecedented situation.

Staying apolitical under the circumstance will be political, since it would suit Hindutva purposes ideally.

The military leadership could rely on tradition to point out that there has been no military interference in politics for two millennia, when the last coup ended the Mauryan dynasty.

The regime however will have to run the risk from their glorification of Netaji Subhash Bose’s Indian National Army. Revisionist history has it that rather than the non-violent freedom struggle, it’s the Naval mutiny in Bombay and another at Jubbulpore that convinced the British to pack up and leave.

These instances show the military can take a political view, the circumstance justifying it.

In a circumstance of a pilfered national election, the military’s adoption of a political view is not infeasible, illegitimate or unimaginable.

What should a military do?

The experience of peer militaries is instructive. There is the precedent of Turkish military attempting to dissuade Erdogan from going down an Islamist and dictatorial path. There is the Egyptian military displacing Morsi and, earlier, of the Algerian military risking civil war to take down Islamists. Recently, a stir among Israeli reservists forced the defence minister there to demur, compelling Netanyahu to back off from twiddling with what remains of Israeli democracy. A study of what General Mark Milley coped with during the time of the Trump turnover at the White House might throw up some guidance.

While instructive, the Indian context cannot be elided.

While deterrence of such a denouement is best, it is not about to happen. Only recently, the deep-selected Chief of Defence Staff was discoursing on how well India’s economy is doing, though it escapes the mind how this is part of his mandate.

The military has been rendered sufficiently inert. In anticipation of an electoral heist, it has already been sent up to high altitude and, at the crunch, will have a crisis going to keep it busy.

Agnipath has been foisted on it to keep it inflexible to the chain of command. Agniveers, who have come of age in the Modi era, duly conditioned by a 100 Mann ki Baats, would be nonplussed if Modi is shown in poor light.

Sensibly, the Agnipath scheme has not extended to the paramilitary or central police under Amit Shah’s ministry. So, if the Army were to get it wrong, it can be stumped. A trooper stationed every 10 yards at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, is not meant against a sneaky terror attack, but a frontal one that only a military could mount.

If the military is unable to deter, it is not the remedy either.

The example of General ‘Tappy’ Raina is useful. A Kashmiri Pandit he was positioned as Army Chief by ethnic fellow, Indira Gandhi, in anticipation of calls such as from Jaiprakash Narayan. In the event, he proved impervious to enticement from both quarters and Emergency met with a sorry end.

The military must plough a lonely furrow

Remaining true to the professional salt at the juncture, will ensure the political system – political parties, democracy’s four ‘pillars’, State institutions and societal - relies on its own resources to undo any damage to it.

The military will cauterise itself from any adverse fallout, besides being true to the dictum: ‘do no harm’.

If the system rights itself, it will get more resilient. If it does not, it will settle into the new normal – a Hindu Rashtra.

The military must ensure transit to either outcome without compromise in national security. Its not for a military to decide on the complexion of the State, but to remain at hand to defend it.

Democracy is a desirable virtue. India will eventually settle into an Indian version of it, post Modi. As for a dictatorial tendency, its longevity coterminous with Narendra Modi, it can be endured.

The military need only step up if Hindutva itself endangers national security any more than it is already, by steamrolling a reluctant nation along a path it is manifestly set against. That will be a truer cue for the military, not the preparatory phase in which Hindutva dips into its bag of dirty tricks.