EPW articles
Monday, 27 May 2019
https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/17002/Agenda-For-The-Next-Defence-Minister
Unedited version
Unedited version
Agenda for the next defence minister
Admittedly, what follows is
wishful. Nevertheless, with the Election Commission of India felled and the
Supreme Court betraying signs of doddering, it is important to preserve the
last institution standing, the military, from the New (Ugly) India.
The timely discussion on
politicization of the military witnessed at election time suggests that the
priority of the incoming defence minister (not known at the time of writing)
would be to invigorate the military’s professional, secular and apolitical
standing.
The danger is in the mandating
of the minister to disregard or, worse, devalue these two-hundred year old
facets.
Musical chairs attended the
appointment over the past five years, with one incumbent bravely battling a
major ailment, a second moonlighting at another major portfolio while also
battling health issues, and the third split between being minister and party
mouthpiece.
None of the three could see,
leave alone prevail, on their more politically inclined colleagues to leave the
military alone. Even though precedence suggests another weak minister is in the
offing, even so, it is worth reminding the minister that in the cabinet system
the buck stops at her door.
At the outset, the minister
is must be warned that she is starting off with a deficit. The
strong-on-defence claim of the ruling party is buoyed by hot-wind. Bluntly put,
India came out second best in the optics surrounding the Balakot-Naushera
episode. While information war is a major front, spin-doctoring cannot
substitute for the real thing. Worse is if policy makers believe their own
propaganda output.
Course correction requires
being mindful of the three inter-twined facets that have been under threat - if
not assault – over the past five years.
Professionalism has taken a
beating in the government’s elevating the third in line for chiefship of the
army over two of his seniors (if not betters) on account of his expertise in a secondary role of the army, counter
insurgency.
No recourse to management
and organizational theory is necessary to discern that - taking cue - there
would be a scramble in the brass to demonstrate their showing in countering
insurgency. For example, a colonel’s brief author-bio at the end of his article
in a service journal highlights his 17 years in Kashmir. Such bias might have
diluted its ability in its primary role, conventional warmaking.
Even so, the defence
minister must ensure the winner in the pack is one not one cottoning the means
and methods recounted in the recently released report by two non-governmental
organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, Torture:
Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir.
On secularism, illustrations
may better prove the threat. An extract from a book on ancient warrior culture
published by a regimental press reads: ‘(there were) four types of flying
machines, including instructions for its construction and pilot training. Based
on these instructions, fly-worthy machine was reportedly reconstructed by a
native ….’*. The former general officer who
authored this installed the statue of the goddess of learning in the Valmiki
Library when he in his time in uniform headed that joint services institution.
While cultural nationalism
has now been indubitably mainstreamed by voters, making tracts as above par for
the course, the new defence minister should not throw the baby of secularism
out with the bathwater.
Societal debate as to the
extent Hinduism and Hindutva are congruent and the extent to which these define
New India is underway. The military needs cauterizing from the effects till the
electorate rules on the results of New India five years downstream.
As for the third –
apolitical – facet, it is cannot any longer be taken as self-evident. Take the
case of the unnecessary upping of the ante in Kashmir after the last round of
elections there resulting in 14 militants dead in short order. Even if the zest
accounted for the Al Qaeda affiliated top-gun there, does this heightened operational
tempo not bespeak of a military attuned to the political breeze?
The Northern Army commander
– supposedly in line for next chief – reprised, albeit after voting finished, the
line put out by the operations directorate that there were no surgical strikes
prior to September 2016 since it had no records of prior such actions. Is the
military unmindful of the political context to the discussion on surgical
strikes? Should the army commander be points-scoring over his predecessor’s
line to the contrary, adopted by an opposition party?
In case the military has
been put to it in both cases cited, then it should have the savvy to ‘shirk’ in
civil-military theoretical jargon (dither and duck) or the backbone to stand up
and ask the conveying authority of the political plank in both cases (likely
the national security adviser (NSA)) to lay off.
A minister needs to have a
reassuring presence. It is not for the military to battle the trickle down of political
compulsions. A minister needs being possessive about her ministerial turf. It
is not a part time job, nor is it confined to managing the civilian side of military
matters alone.
Inability in incumbents so
far has led to the NSA system - fattened on proximity to the prime minister’s
office - to lay into the military using the prime minister’s shoulders at the
first address of the prime minster at the combined commanders’ conference. Lack
of traction on the speech by end of the first Modi term led to the NSA muscling
in on the reins that appropriately should have been with the minister and a chief
of defence staff.
The minister’s first call
would be to wrest back the reins. She must
step up and reenergize the cabinet system of ministerial accountability.
That the Congress manifesto had something sensible to say on institutionalizing
the national security council system does not mean it cannot be appropriated.
(After all, if Imran Khan’s slogan Naya Pakistan
can be appropriated for New India, so can a leaf from a fallen foe’s book!)
A change of NSA would be
useful alongside, with candidates aplenty. For instance, there is the former
foreign secretary, S. Jaishakar, who held his own while holding the confidence
of his political minders.
This would be precautionary
buffeting of national security from arbitrary decision making, witnessed multiple
times, for example, at demonetization and in the comical rationale (the
radar-cloud relationship) to the Balakot decision.
The more significant matter is
however likelihood of the military being next port of call for ideological and
institutional reshaping by Hindutva.
The first term witnessed a
subtle way of doing so. For instance, when the late former minister visited a
leading military school in Dehra Dun, he took along with him the ideologue,
Tarun Vijay. What the outcome was is not known, but this time round the right
wing will be out to take over the only remaining institutional space in the
country.
One way to keep watch is
with an eye on veterans with known right-wing predilections. Keeping them off professional
discussion rooms is one way, even if they manage a foot in the door for their
sponsors via social media.
A simple measure could be a
conference of editors of the military’s in-house publications in which
editorial ethics are revised. Such a measure would keep instances, such as, in
one case, of advocacy for depriving immigrants voting rights in the north east,
and, in another case, reference to terrorism as an ‘Islamic’ way of war,
despite twenty years even though a better substitute, ‘Islamist’, has been part
of strategic glossary some twenty years now.
The incoming minister needs
being cautioned to insure against beclouding of the military’s patriotism with
the ruling party’s potion on nationalism. History will judge the minister by her
showing on this. As a sweetner, she may be reassured that only with the
military instrument remaining professional, will she be able to deliver
successfully on any muscular policy her boss chooses to adopt,
*Aiyengar, SRR (2018): Timeless ethos of the Indian warrior,
Jabalpur: Grenadiers Association Printing Press.
Saturday, 25 May 2019
The Modi Era
Impact on Strategic Culture
https://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2019_54/21/CL_LIV_21_250519_Ali_Ahmed.pdf
The influence of Hindutva in political culture on India’s strategic culture has been traced. It has resulted in a hardening of strategic culture with the bias towards the offensive also resulting from the military’s organisational culture that has been independently penetrated by Hindutva. But, a strategic doctrine of compellence is combustible, and the retraction of Hindutva from polity is a prerequisite for stability.
This column was written before the election results were announced.
The author would like to thank Kajari Kamal for comments that helped improve the article.
It is by now a trite observation that a change in India’s political culture has been wrought over the past three decades, dated variously to Indira Gandhi’s religiosity on display in the Jammu belt in the run-up to assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1980s, or to Lal Krishna Advani setting off on his rath yatra in 1990. The nomination of a terror-accused “sadhvi,” Pragya Singh Thakur, as a parliamentary candidate by the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is emblematic as a culmination of this trend. The BJP’s impact with a parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades is liable to leave behind an unmistakable saffron imprint on India’s body politic (Arun 2019), and if it stays on in power, it would prove an indelible one.
The change in question is a marked shift rightwards beyond the traditionally-conceived conservative segment of the political spectrum under the impact of the political ideology of cultural nationalism—Hindutva—adhered to by the BJP. The Hindutva project is to create and convert a religious majority into a parliamentary majority (Noorani 2019: 27). Both dimensions of the project—the societal and political—are mutually reinforcing and have registered success over the past three decades. Even though a Supreme Court verdict of 1995 elevates it to “a way of life,” in practice, the term Hindutva now symbolises what to the Court it was not: “narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry” (Hindu 2016). Majoritarianism subscribed to by the Sangh Parivar—of which the BJP is the political front (Noorani 2019: 100–08)—is now a feature of political culture. An indicator is the invisiblisation of India’s largest minority, the Muslims (Mustafa 2017). Even the opposition party, the Congress, has been unwilling to chance the Hindu vote by projecting itself as a secular alternative and has instead settled for so-called soft Hindutva, symbolised by the temple-hopping engaged in by its leadership.
Hindutva and Strategic Culture
What has been the effect of the seeding of political culture by Hindutva on India’s strategic culture? The cultural space can be imagined as three layers, namely political culture, strategic culture and organisational culture. Political culture includes “commitment to values like democratic principles and institutions, ideas about morality and the use of force, the rights of individuals and collectives, or predispositions toward the role of a country in global politics” (Lantis 2002: 90). Strategic culture is the ideational milieu setting pervasive strategic preferences based on widely held concepts of roles and the efficacy of use of force in political affairs (Johnston 1995: 46). Political culture provides the top-down context for strategic culture—sometimes referred to as political–military culture—and feeds into creating and sustaining it, alongside a bottom-up influence of organisational culture of the military (Kier 1997).
While multiple cultures can exist in society, control of the political–military authority and apparatus of the state may render a subculture dominant and more influential (Duffied 1999: 778). Being the ruling party helps ease and expand the scope of such influence. A change in political culture has a corresponding influence on strategic culture. This is multiplied if the political culture has an impact on the organisational culture through penetration of cultural artefacts and tropes, opening up an indirect bottom-up route to further make an impact on strategic culture. The political–cultural ferment with majoritarian nationalism as driver has been active over an appreciable duration of three decades. It is reasonable to infer that strategic culture—taken in theory as resilient and slow-to-change (Lantis 2002: 109–10)—has not escaped impact.
Besides, the incidence of majoritarian lines of thinking in strategic literature is such that it can be taken as having made inroads into the military’s organisational culture, thereby enhancing the impact on strategic culture. The rightwing has an insidious presence across intellectual spaces to hollow out institutions; the military cannot be an exception. Its influence on the military’s organisational culture has been largely through the writings by elements in the veteran community perched in right-wing think tanks in the internal publications of the military, echoed in part by unwary serving officers in such publications and on social media (Ahmed 2016). While not elaborated here it can also be asserted that the inflection in strategic and military professional literature of Hindutva trope calls out for an academic study as was done by Christine Fair of the presence of political Islamic thinking in the Pakistani army (Ahmed nd). The election-time controversy over the politicisation of the military is a pointer of worries within the military (Peri 2019).
Strategic culture, in turn, provides the setting and impetus for strategic doctrine, the approach to use of force that ranges across the continuum: defensive, deterrent, offensive, compellent (Posen 1984: 14). Elizabeth Kier (1995: 67), a key participant in the academic debate in the 1990s on the impact of culture on security, elaborated the manner in which organisational culture mediates the influence of political culture on military doctrine. Strategic doctrine can be inferred from strategic behaviour. A hardening of strategic culture has resulted in the strategic doctrine moving from a strategy of restraint to strategic proactivism (Ahmed 2016). Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his electioneering referred to strategic conduct in the surgical strikes of September 2016 that succeeded the Uri terror attack in the same month, the aerial strike at Balakot undertaken in the wake of the Pulwama car bomb incident in February 2019, the resulting stand-off—described by Modi as “qatl ki raat” (night of slaughter), referring to the reported activation of missiles sites (Hindu 2019)—and the anti-satellite test in March. India appears poised to undertake coercion of Pakistan. This locates India in between the offensive and deterrent segment. However, offensive–compellent is but a step away.
In a nutshell, political culture with Hindutva as a principal ingredient has had an impact on strategic culture towards strategic self-assertion. Organisational culture has also been separately impacted, through penetration of cultural nationalist thinking, thereby making it receptive to changes in strategic culture. This explains the offensive content in the strategic doctrine—offensive–compellent—reflected in offensive military doctrines. Drawing back entails a dilution of Hindutva agenda as a prerequisite.
Politics of Strategy
Hindutva, as a driver of change in political culture, contends that India has to overcome its millennia-old aversion to the use of force. The image of Hinduism as an accommodative and heterogeneous faith has to be rescinded in favour of a militant, unified religion (Noorani 2019: 101–05). A simple illustration is the recent macho depiction of Lord Hanuman (Bhatia 2018) in images and art.
This approach is reflected in strategic behaviour in a heightened threshold of retaliation to Pakistani provocations firming in. In case Modi is re-elected, he is liable to be hemmed in by a commitment trap of election-time rhetoric. Zero-tolerance, the very first manifesto promise (BJP 2019: 11), requires terrorism to be “paid back in the same coin, with compound interest” (BJP 2019: 3), colourfully put by Modi as “ghar me ghus ke maarenge” (forcible house entry) (Times of India 2019), evoking a dialogue from an eponymous film on the Uri surgical strikes. The use of force is also liable to be higher since the information war over the Balakot–Naushera episode has obscured whether India did indeed get the better of Pakistan.
Even if a different government is formed, the necessity to “mow the grass” occasioned either by periodic provocation or to end Pakistani impunity, is now common sense. India has evidently learnt from its key strategic partner. Retired general D S Hooda (2019: 12), to whom the Congress turned to help gird up its national security image, tendered a report reinforcing the policy on cross-border operations. Modi’s overplaying the card at election time forced the Congress to claim it oversaw six such strikes—though the military operations branch denied having any record of the same (India Today2019).
The response to terror provocations at the interstices of the sub-conventional–conventional level has long been reckoned as viable. A Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI 2010: 48) report back in 2010 had dwelt on surgical strikes. Pakistan’s nuclear awning, based on tactical nuclear weapons, is not designed to cover the lower portion of the escalation ladder. India did not respond sternly earlier, since no terror attacks warranted such response, testifying to the success of the post 26/11 strategy of restraint. Shivshankar Menon, who was party to the decision as foreign secretary, retrospectively surmises that, “the decision makers concluded that more was to be gained from not attacking Pakistan than from attacking it” (Menon 2016: 62). Menon rightly reminds that the world economy was then in the midst of an “unprecedented financial crisis” (Menon: 64).
In contrast, the BJP has been only too keen to derive political mileage out of military action, taking advantage of the diversionary effect to paper over concerns regarding its performance on issues such as farmer distress, employment, etc (Indian Express 2019). Though it took care to set restrictive parameters to the Balakot aerial strike—leaving out civilians and the Pakistani military from potential target lists (PTI 2019)—this laudable precaution in the event mattered little. The Pakistani counterstrike makes for a combustible mix in the future.
It is with reason that D S Hooda (2019: 12) in his version of the national security doctrine calls for being wary of the risk of escalation. Modi was willing to run this risk, ready to chance a missile exchange merely for influencing the release of a downed pilot.
Clearly, the BJP marches to a different tune than a “normal” conservative party. The BJP’s political interest supersedes the national interest since it is charged with state capture. The aim is a majoritarian democracy, shifting the constitutional goalposts from civic nationalism to ethno-religious nationalism (Economic Times 2017). The Pakistan angle helps generate hyper-nationalism and militarism (Ayoob 2019), deflecting Hinduism from its civilisational moorings (Tharoor 2018: 209–10).
Retracting from the Brink
The strategic cultural shift towards an assertive India has long been in the making. The continuity owes to the rule of the Congress as it remained fearful of being outflanked by the BJP for being soft on security. As a result it continued with the strategic trajectory set in the National Democratic Alliance’s first term (1999–2004). An example of like-mindedness in national security perspectives is seen in the omission of Hindutva terrorism by the national security adviser in the first United Progressive Alliance’s period in his post-retirement reflections on terrorism (Narayanan 2019). This is indicative of a pervasive bias in strategic culture, attributable to the Hindutva-generated cloud over Indian Muslims. Hence, it is an evidence of the genuflection of strategic culture to political culture.
The Indian strategic cultural discourse echoes the right-wing thesis of Indian effeteness. This impels the military’s approbation of strategic assertion through surgical strikes and is manifested in its doctrinal products valuing proactivism and the offensive. This places India in harm’s way. The Pulwama–Balakot–Naushera episode should sensitise the region to dangers ahead.
An electoral verdict enabling crystallisation of the political culture along Hindutva lines is liable to push strategic culture towards compellence. There is also the bogeyman of Akhand Bharat, an up-stream element of the Hindutva project. The backstory to a radioactive denouement is the mainstreaming of Hindutva into political culture. If the electoral verdict is against Hindutva, the opportunity must be used by the incoming government to insulate political culture and cauterise strategic culture by bottling up Hindutva.
References
Ahmed, Ali (2016): “India’s Strategic Shift: From Restraint to Proactivism,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 51, No 48, pp 10–12.
— (2017): “The Dark Side of the Army’s Social Media Groups,” Tribune, 2 March, https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/dark-side-of-army-s-social-media-groups/371308.html.
— (nd): “Comments and Reviews (unpublished),” https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3payxkvnjkd0d8/Ali%20writings%20-comments%20and%20reviews.pdf?dl=0.
Arun, T K (2019): “How India’s Politics Has Changed over the Last Five Years,” Economic Times,15 May, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/69332255.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.
Ayoob, Mohammad (2019): “Is the Future of Indian Democracy Secure?,” Hindu, 17 May, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/is-the-future-of-indian-democracy-secure/article27153232.ece?homepage=true.
Bhatia, Sidharth (2018): “Art Appreciation Modi Style,” Wire, 8 May, https://thewire.in/politics/narendra-modi-angry-hanuman-art-sangh-parivar.
BJP (2019): “Sankalp Patra: Lok Sabha 2019,” https://www.bjp.org/en/manifesto2019.
Duffield, John S (1999): “Political Culture and State Behavior: Why Germany Confounds Neo-realism,” International Organisation, Vol 53, No 4, Autumn, pp 765–803.
Economic Times (2017): “Hamid Ansari Pitches for Liberal Nationalism,” 14 February, //economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/57151507.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.
FICCI (2010): Task Force Report on National Security and Terrorism, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi.
Hindu (2016): “Hindutva at the Hustings,” 27 October, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/Hindutva-at-the-hustings/article15801007.ece.
— (2019): “On Home Pitch, Modi Bowls the ‘National Security’ Line,” 21 April, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/on-home-pitch-modi-bowls-the-national-security-line/article26904755.ece.
Hooda, D S (2019): “India’s National Security Strategy,” March, https://manifesto.inc.in/pdf/national_security_strategy_gen_hooda.pdf.
India Today (2019): “In RTI Reply, Centre Says No Records of Surgical Strikes during Upa Regime,” 7 May, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rti-reply-upa-surgical-strikes-1519181-2019-05-07.
Indian Express (2019): “Mind the Gap,” 30 March, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/narendra-modi-election-speeches-national-security-balakot-lok-sabha-5649338/.
Johnston, Alastair I (1995): “Thinking about Strategic Culture,” International Security, Vol 19, No 4, pp 32–64.
Kier, Elizabeth (1995): “Culture and Military Doctrine: France between the Wars,” International Security, Vol, 19 No 4, Spring.
— (1997): Imagining War: French and Military Doctrine between the Wars, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lantis, Jeffrey S (2002): “Strategic Culture and National Security Policy,” International Studies Review, Vol 4, No 3, pp 87–113.
Menon, Shivshankar (2016): Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Mustafa, Seema (2017): “The Invisibilization of Muslims,” Citizen, 13 December, https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/12497/The-Invisibilization-Of-Muslims
Narayanan, M K (2019): “The Many and Different Faces of Terror,” Hindu, 3 April, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-many-and-different-faces-of-terror/article26714414.ece.
Noorani, Abdul Ghafoor (2019): RSS: A Menace to the India, New Delhi: LeftWord Books.
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Tharoor, Shashi (2018): Why I Am a Hindu, New Delhi: Aleph.
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Friday, 24 May 2019
http://www.milligazette.com/news/16687-modi-2-0-indian-muslim-survival-kit
Modi 2.0: Indian Muslim survival kit
NOTE: THE ADIL AHMAD DAR MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE BELOW IS ERRONEOUSLY DONE BASED ON A MISTAKEN REPORT IN THE KASHMIR TIMES. THE SURRENDERED MILITANT REFERRED TO WAS ADIL HUSSAIN DAR, NOT THE PULWAMA BOMBER, ADIL AHMAD DAR.
On the renewal of his mandate for another term by India’s voters, Narendra Modi has reportedly promised inter-alia an ‘inclusive’ India. Normally it would not be fair to question a positive intent within days, but in light of Modi’s past five years at the helm it is easy to agree when some question his commitment to inclusivity.
The principal features of his first term has been the political marginalization of Muslims, their invisibilisation from democracy’s representative institutions and instilling of fear through micro-terrorism practiced by his supporters, the most visible form of which being lynchings. His elevation of a monk with known anti-Muslim predilections to the chief ministership of India’s largest state, that has 20 per cent Muslim population, and—the final straw—the nomination for parliament of terror-accused, Pragya Singh Thakur, are illustrations of what can be expected from his regime continuing.
In Kashmir, the killings this year are just shy of the three figure mark. Arguably, the operational zeal of security forces resulted in the Pulwama terror attacked, that was in turn capitalized on by Modi for political gains. Now that he has returned to power, it is a no-brainer that the antecedents of the terror attack will be glossed over, such as where the 80 kgs of explosives was obtained from by the terror group in the most heavily militarized and surveilled place on earth. The fact that the Jaish member who set off the car bomb, Adil Ahmed Dar, was earlier picked up by security forces from an encounter site in which two Hizb militants died will be covered up. Suspicion will therefore forever cloud the incident that led up to the Indian reprisal with the Balakot aerial strike.
By his own campaign-time soliciting, Modi’s election sweep can be attributable to the decision to strike back. Never mind that there is no evidence of any damage at the target end, reportedly due to his decision to go ahead in a cloudy night (which to his mind would limit radar effectiveness!) that led to no photographic evidence with India to show for bomb damage. It is a separate story that the Pakistanis hit back with alacrity and in the ensuing dogfight India lost a plane, with the pilot being captured. The rest – a downed F-16 – is information war. Modi’s claim that his threats to bring down a ‘qatl ki raat’ on Pakistan is just that, a story which even he does not take ownership of, but attributes to some western sources.
It is this so-very convenient timing of the incident for Modi compels ruling in other explanations — such as Pulwama being yet another black operation — than Pakistani sponsorship alone, reminiscent of the Parliament attack. In the 26/11 episode, it bears recall that the so-called Deccan Mujahedeen that made a guest appearance has not been seen since. It enabled the ruling party to escape answering tough questions of significance for voters, forcing these off the radar by the diversionary resort to faux nationalism for vote-fetching purposes. It enabled Modi to don the mantle of Hindu Hriday Samrat, worthy of a statue on retirement taller than the one he built of the Iron Man of India, Sardar Patel. For his showing in putting India’s Muslims into a corner and intimidating Pakistan, he received India’s largest mandate.
The magnitude of his vote share is of significance in thinking about the next five years. That 37 per cent of the voters voted for him suggests that the earlier patronizing perception of the native wisdom of the electorate is no longer valid. Modi’s New India is just that, a New India, with a new, ugly Indian. Such voters bought into the line that it is payback time for Muslims for their over-lordship of India for some seven hundred years. They are the potential foot soldiers who will indulge in one-sided violence on call and form part of lynch mobs. To expect them to snap out of their trance in the next five years is naïve. They are the product of thirty years of brainwashing by an organization with the largest membership in the world, the Sangh Parivar.
The next five years are likely to see an intensification of the conditions that prevailed in the last five. Modi’s first tenure was heralded by the killing of a techie in Pune, who as the killer mob later claimed ‘looked like a Muslim’ and - therefore - beaten to death. Modi’s parliamentary majority will be deployed for making constitutional changes to further throttle secularism. There is the Citizen Amendment Bill issue to be taken forward. Now that the north-east that had some reservations is in the kitty, it can be proceeded with. Its provisions define Indian identity, restricting it to those with religious affiliations anchored in the subcontinent.
As sop to his north-eastern voters and those who voted for him in West Bengal, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be taken to its logical conclusion. In the north-east, gulags will likely be established to place the forty lakh odd people falling afoul of the procedures mandated by the Supreme Court-monitored process. The ruling party head has promised to extend the NRC elsewhere in the country, which perhaps fetched his party some Bengali votes. The Supreme Court is seized with hastening the matter, having ruled against the intervention of an activist, Harsh Mander, on the process outcome.
The most deadly terror attack in South Asia, the Sri Lankan Easter day terror attack, has put the spotlight back on terror in India, this time in South India. Apparently the intelligence on the impending attack in Sri Lanka was provided by Indian agencies after interrogation of a Tamilian involved. The Sri Lankan army chief claimed the bombers had visited Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Bangaluru. The National Investigation Agency can be expected to deploy its resources more diligently on this case than the manner it investigated the Samjhauta blast and the Abhinav Bharat cases. This will put the Muslim communities that are relatively forward under scrutiny.
In Kashmir, the threat to Articles 35A and 370 looms. It is of an existential nature to the culture of Kashmir. Any constitutional and legal tinkering will provoke a political fight back, with youth liable to join with violence. There are also some 340 militants yet to be wrapped up in Operation All Out. The usual 100-odd terrorist infiltrations may compensate for some of those killed. While 40 youth signed up this year so far, the number could cross a 100 by year end. This means that there would still be some 300 odd militants left over as the assembly elections loom large sometime in autumn. The pressure cooker in Kashmir can thus be set to continue, even though the government could well change tack. Having demonstrated its muscles and winning the national elections, the hardline is expendable now.
What line it pursues in Kashmir would be dependent on what it plans to do with Pakistan. Pakistan for its part has offered talks. The chances of this are bright, if only so that on terminating these down the line sometime, India cannot be blamed for not having tried the talks route. It is apparent that the pressure of the United States on both sides, emanating from its overriding need to exit Afghanistan, is more likely to see the two sides talk rather than not. This may be useful in letting up the anti-Muslim pressures within the country, since some bhakts are apt to conflate Indian Muslims with Pakistan.
The survey of the security environment besetting the minority suggests that the insecurity will persist for another five years. It may do so indefinitely till a balance reemerges in Indian politics against the current sway of Hindutva forces. Muslims would require surviving the interim. This might entail continuing the pragmatic policy of the last five years in which they concentrated on bread and butter issues and long-term improvements as education and employment. They must not be left out of the handouts by the regime, since reportedly the economy is liable to slow down ahead. The key to survival is to keep the focus on outlasting the regime, with the help of liberal and progressive forces. There is no call to be the foil in the resolution of the dilemmas internal to our compatriot Hindu society.
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/modi-2-0-where-is-indias-pakistan-policy-headed-4015981.html
Modi 2.0 | Where is India’s Pakistan policy headed?
Even as elections in Kashmir ended, the Army intensified its operations in the state, going in for 14 ‘kills’ in Defence parlance. The tally of militants dead is pegged at 86 so far this year. The upping of the ante after the elections even though Ramzan is ongoing was perhaps intended to set the stage for the next government. The new Modi dispensation with its renewed mandate can thus hit the ground running in the trouble-torn state.
Its return to power owes much of the dynamics of its Kashmir policy, from which flows the conjoined Pakistan policy. The Pulwama terror attack provided an opportunity for the ruling party to walk its tough talk. It is a separate matter that the terror attack was arguably brought on by the pressure cooker conditions of the preceding months that resulted in killings of seven, allegedly stone-throwing civilians, in December.
Commentary has it that the reprisal aerial attack at Balakot was put to good use by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to embellish his strongman leader image. His campaigning references to surgical strikes and Balakot can be taken as the outline of his government’s strategic doctrine, illustrated best by his phrasing borrowed from the tagline of a film: ‘andar ghus ke maarenge’.
For its part, as the general elections results came out, Pakistan not only had Imran Khan tweeting his congratulations and hopes for taking the peace process forward with the new government, but alongside take care to test a Shaheen II missile as a signal of its deterrent.
It has also appointed a new envoy to Delhi for exploring any opportunity for talks. Alongside, it is in the process of filling in the position of its national security advisor, vacant since Imran Khan took over, with a military man so that a credible interlocutor is in position for a back-channel process.
Early in his innings, Khan had reached out to India, but amid scepticism that he was fronting the Pakistan Army, he decided to keep his powder dry till a new government was sworn in. During election rounds, Imran Khan made a mention of Pakistan’s preference for a right wing government in Delhi, perhaps believing that such a government, more self-assured, would be more ameable to the give-and-take of negotiations.
Recent feelers include reports of the Pakistan Army keen to de-escalate on the Line of Control. There was a stage-setting exchange of pleasantries between the two foreign ministers at the Shanghai Cooperation Council foreign ministers’ meeting in Bishkek earlier.
How India responds to Pakistani overtures will be known soon enough. Previously when Modi was sworn in as the PM, he invited neighbouring prime ministers to the Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt. India may keep Pakistan waiting till it peoples the Cabinet first.
Even as the context to its Kashmir policy is shaping up in Delhi, on the ground, the annual operational momentum can be expected to continue. There is no repeat of the Ramzan ceasefire of last year. The summer campaign under way is gearing up for the Amarnath Yatra.
Since Pakistan is attempting to woo India back to the table, it is likely to keep its infiltration levels down for now though the Northern Command’s chief –reports that it continues its usual tricks. With fewer locals signing up for insurgency – 40 at last count for this year – the security forces are looking to whittle down the overall number of militants currently pegged at 340 further.
The key decision to be taken early by the new government would be the timing of the Assembly election. Autumn is being touted as the likely window after another extension of the Governor’s rule takes it into the second year.
The manner the elections shape up will be contingent on the security situation. In the case of talks with Pakistan, the proxy war will likely be in low gear. Pakistan requires refurbishing its proxy fighters to keep the insurgency going. If its talks offer gets thwarted, heightened infiltration and activities along the Line of Control is likely.
While a political party cannot be held to its campaign rhetoric – intended as such mouthing is to garner votes – the new government could shift gears in case it wishes to reciprocate the Pakistani outreach.
The government is in a position to do this since it has already demonstrated its strength. It can afford to dictate the agenda and restricting talks with Pakistan to the latter ending terror and demonstrating this on the ground.
It can take advantage of Pakistan being on the ropes economically, with the financial action task forcekeeping tabs on the actions against terror. It can ride its victory at the UN on the Masood Azhar sanctions.
Within Kashmir, the fear over Articles 35A and 370 will energise an election turnout so that the Assembly poses a legal hurdle to any constitutional tinkering by the ruling party’s parliamentary majority. The younger parties will also mount a challenge to their older counterparts, making for feisty polls – putting to rest the question mark over voter turnout of a mere 30 per cent recently.
Though speculation over the twin policies – Pakistan and Kashmir – is not warranted this early, it can be hazarded that the elections crystallise into a strategic cultural shift towards a self-assertive New India. This may play out pending any gear shift towards a softer approach to Pakistan and in Kashmir in the near term by Modi 2.0.
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=6
Gratis advice for the
next National Security Adviser
NOTE: ADIL AHMED DAR, THE PULWAMA BOMBER, IS MISTAKENLY REFERRED TO AS THE SURRENDERED MILITANT FROM AN ENCOUNTER IN SHOPIAN ON 11 SEP 17, BASED ON AN ERRORNEOUS REPORT IN KASHMIR TIMES THAT GOT THE NAME OF THE MILITANT WRONG. THE SURRENDEREE WAS ADIL HUSSAIN DAR.
The right wing’s information
warriors that comprise self-selected nationalists, former spooks, unwary
denizens of the strategic community, ruling party inclined hacks and paid-up
members of the bhakt brigade, are having their last hurrah. Having manipulated
opinion polls, they have extended ‘acche din’ by a week. Even so the nation
awaits the electoral verdict with bated breath, to learn if it is possible – as
the information warriors believe – to fool all the people all the time.
The last bit of pulling wool over
peoples’ eyes was in the information operations surrounding the
Balakot-Naushera episode. The narrative was that India came out on top, delivering
a mortal blow to Jaish at its labyrinth within mainland Pakistan, bringing down
an F-16 with a Mig-21, and scaring the living daylights out of Imran Khan,
forcing him to hand back the captured Indian Mig-21 pilot.
The unfortunate part of this was
that the target was not so much Pakistan - itself a target of the Pakistani
Inter-Services Public Relations’ General Asif Ghafoor – as much as the Indian
electorate. The electorate needed diverting from naysayers looking for dirt in
Gross Domestic Product numbers, unemployment figures, demonetization effects,
suicides by farmers etc. Alongside, for good measure, some ten such contrarians
were locked up for being urban Naxals out to ‘get Modi’, making others
similarly-inspired more circumspect.
The nation awaits the electoral
verdict if this strategy of buoying the national morale with tales from the
Pakistan front worked. The opinion polls have it that it has done wonders. But
this amounts to the information warrior brigade writing-up its final
confidential report on its showing over the year. That it has done a creditable
job of what it was put to is without question.
There is nary a word on the
possibility that the Pulwama terror attack may have been a black operation. The
antecedents of Pulwama bomber, Adil Ahmad Dar, who was constantly in and out of
police stations as much as in and out of tanzeems, needs probing further,
especially the cryptic report in this publication that he was once whisked away
from the site of an encounter in which two Hizb compatriots died. That such suspicion
can legitimately be entertained is clear from the immaculate timing of the
episode, enabling the response to Pulwama enough time to play out and be taken
advantage of electorally by the ruling party.
That the information warriors
have carried the day is also clear from the absence of a round of missile exchanges
even though India went down in the psychological-ascendance game after the Pakistani
Naushera riposte to its over-hyped Balakot aerial strike. Strategising and war-gaming
would have reckoned with following up to even the score. Instead, information
war was resorted to, to paper over the loss of high ground.
This restraint makes sense only
in terms of domestic politics. The uncertainty that attends escalation – such
as an untimely Diwali - is something the political head could have done without
in elections run up. So it made sense to wrap up early, with the pickings
magnified by information war: 300 jihadis dead, one F-16 downed, Imran the Khan
pleading for peace etc. The reasoning is perhaps that the score can be evened
in killing some more Kashmiri armed youth – the score has long crossed 600 over
the last three years of Operation All Out, with 87 killed this year of which 9
were killed last week. This spike since end of polls in Kashmir suggests a
certain desperation to get even before being boarded out of power.
The desperation was in evidence
as the rounds of polls progressed. Information warriors not only manage
perceptions, but also keep tags on the information space. So it was within
their ken to feel the electoral pulse through the rounds. The feedback perhaps
explains the desperation that culminated in the nomination as the ruling
party’s parliamentary candidate of the terrorist, Pragya Singh Thakur, even as
the breathtaking spin put out by no less than the prime minister was that she
was the epitome of a five thousand year old Hindu civilization.
That no Hindu could be a
terrorist implies that all terror India has been subject to over the past fifteen
years has been Muslim-perpetrated. (The violence in the north east and in
central India is attributed to insurgency not counting as terrorism.) In one
instance, this writer heard a former foreign secretary opine in an open forum
that the Hindu terror angle needs to be mellowed down lest it impact India’s
Pakistan strategy cornering it over terror. The opinion polls suggest that the
nation has bought into this line. That this line has been in evidence over the
past decade and half implies ownership by some amorphous entity.
Information war of the order
surrounding the elections as depicted here bespeaks of an organization behind
it rather than a set of non-governmental information warriors under a right
wing umbrella. In an earlier column in this publication (23 March 2018), the
possibility of an Indian ‘deep state’, based on its intelligence agencies
subscribing to the cultural nationalist philosophy and participating in its
project, had been mooted. The buck in the shadowy intelligence world stops at
the door of the national security-cum-intelligence czar’s door.
It is self-evident that the reins
of the governmental complex that unwarily participated in the field operations
connected with the electoral information war are National Security Adviser
(NSA), Ajit Doval, controlled. It can be reasonably surmised – from the
hagiographies put out on Doval and breathless tracts on the Modi-Doval doctrine
– that he holds the reins also of the non-governmental side, with former spooks
owing him allegiance bridging the two. There is also the Amit Shah controlled
apparatus comprising ruling party trolls, which more than likely defers to the
larger intelligence project of returning Modi to power. Modi’s two Man-Fridays
– one managing the governmental side and the other the non-governmental – have
timed beautifully. That politics is outside an NSA job description indicates
the extent of rollback pending.
Operation Elections - the
information war project that has surrounded it - has shot its bolt. The
Election Commission can yet retrieve is down-in-the-dumps credibility in case
it keeps election voting machines sacrosanct over the coming days. In case the
Election Commission redeems itself, what should be the national security agenda
of the next NSA?
The objective in this rather-extended
introduction has been to present the extent of the problem. The next NSA has
his task cut out: to identify, contain and dismantle the ‘deep state’. This
would not be easy since those self-selecting to the deep state are impassioned
by the belief in their cause of midwife-ing religious majortarianism. If the
gullible voters need perception management to this end, then manipulating
democracy and subverting institutions is small price to pay. An awareness of
the iceberg below the water surface is a good start point for an incoming NSA.
Obviously, this cannot be done
unless the political class bottles-up Hindutva: religious majoritarianism
masquerading as cultural nationalism. Merely wresting the national discourse
back from the ideology’s grasp does not make India safe. The NSA can help
retrieve the state from right wing formations that made instrumental use of the
ideology for state capture. A state duly freed from right wing infiltration and
penetration can assert its space, emboldening throwing away of ideological
blinkers by society at large. A resulting virtuous cycle can over time undo the
damage of the last thirty years to polity, society and institutions.
Is there a (wo)man for the job?
To acknowledge that the intelligence community is outsized is passé. Two NSAs
in quick succession from within its ranks have revealed its limitations and
dangers. The foreign service provided three head honchos. The first was
over-extended, overseeing the governmental apparatus alongside as principal
secretary; the second could not withstand the demands physically; and the
third, though right-minded, was light-weight. The steel frame abdicated,
allowing NSA Doval to take headship of the strategic policy group. Yet another
policeman cannot be risked. This leaves the military, its credentials burnished
since dismantling the iceberg requires moral fiber that only a military life
can impart. (There is civil society to also be vetted as site for candidates,
but space prevents going into this here.)
Some candidates with demonstrated
intellectual capital, professional stature and moral strength are easy to spot,
to wit, Admiral Arun Prakash and retired lieutenant generals Rustom Nanavatty,
HS Panag and Prakash Menon. One needs look no further than General DS Hooda,
presciently picked by the Congress to upbraid its national security
credentials. He courageously put out a well-regarded blueprint that informed
the fairly forward-looking security paragraphs in the manifesto of the Congress
party. The agenda is spot-on in its intent to bring the NSA appointment to
parliamentary heel, a constitutional-empowering of the appointment as necessary
first step in the rollback of the deep state.
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