https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/how-the-world-must-help-syria-help-itself-3311183

How the world must help Syria help itself

The departure of dictator Bashar al Assad for Moscow within two weeks of the offensive by rebel forces, led by the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), supported by Turkey-supported Syrian National Army and an assortment of rebel forces to the south, has been...

The fighting in Syria has been at a stalemate since 2020, and it was allowed back into the Arab League only last year. Therefore, the timing of the offensive and its rapid success, makes Ahmed observe ‘a deep-seated conspiracy between Israel, Turkey and the United States (US).

For Turkey, it was to get Assad out of the way so that the 3.3 million refugees in Turkey could be returned to Syria. For Israel, the toppling of the Assad dynasty has been a long-standing goal. The regime’s collapse enables the US to further isolate Iran and embarrass Russia.

As in Iraq when the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) took over Mosul and in Afghanistan when the Taliban defeated the Afghan National Army in double-quick time, the Syrian forces melted away. Assad’s backers were busy elsewhere. While Iran was focused bolstering Hezbollah in Lebanon, Russia was concentrating on the Ukraine conflict.

However, since there is sufficient precedence of regime change collapsing under the weight of its success with rebels fighting each other over time. This has been visible in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Sudan.

Consequently, Ahmed believes the aftermath of the offensive will likely leave Syria worse off.

The question arises as to how to avert such an outcome by transforming this juncture into a ‘historic opportunity’ and preserving Syria from another bout of civil war in which the rebels contest each other for the spoils and power.

On this count, the situation is not without promise.

The HTS has been preparing for the role of taking over Syria in its strong hold at Idlib. It has over the last few years taken care to distance itself from its Islamist past as offshoot of the ISI. Its leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, reinvented himself as a pragmatic revolutionary. The HTS acquired administrative experience and capacity in running Idlib.

During its operations and since its victory, it has made the right outreach to other stakeholders, including the Syrian government. It has allowed the prime minister, police and officials to stay on. It has signaled Russians on continuity of their presence at their air and naval bases. It has sought to calm minorities fearful of its Islamist past and cautioned its fighters on protection of civilians.

Even so, the international community would do well to assist, in keeping with the long-standing principle of the Syrian peace process: ‘The future of Syria is a matter for the Syrians to determine.’

The peace process was earlier jointly led by the United Nations (UN) and Arab League, witnessing mediation by joint mediators. As of now, the UN Security Council remains seized of the matter and has a special envoy, Geir Pederson, taking stock. In the field, humanitarians are providing succor to the displaced.

The UN has a start point in Security Council Resolutions 2254 (2015) of 18 December 2015 and Resolution 2554 (2020) of 4 December 2020. These call for an interim governance arrangement enabling inclusive governance, drafting of a new constitution and conduct of credible elections, and held to a finite timeline and international standards of accountability.  

As first step, review of the HTS on the terror sanctions list would need to be done against its claim of not being associated with any extremist entity. While exercising caution in support of the Taliban has proved warranted in its treatment of women, the UN could be more forthcoming in the case of HTS, lest it miss an opportunity in Syria. 

The promise of reconstruction helps incentivise moderation, since accessing external assistance will only be possible if there is a modicum of stability, which is, in turn, predicated on an interim power-sharing arrangement amicably arrived at.

The European Union’s offer of reconstruction assistance is timely on this count. Such assistance can be expected from the Arab states too, enabling a proportion of the USD 200 billion to be raised over time.

India, being a long standing friend of Syria and having widespread regard in the region, must push for the UN’s lead in political and humanitarian support, lest extremism find roots in another ungoverned space. 

 

 https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/how-the-world-must-help-syria-help-itself-3311183

https://substack.com/@aliahd66/note/p-152834647

Buckle up for the ride to Viksit Bharat

A seasoned commentator has it that a future scenario could be “a 100-year long simmering civil war.” Another senior journalist admits to being troubled by the “very dangerous situation” created by the manner “(M)inorities are ghettoized and Hindus (are) seemingly almost triumphal at times.” He laments that people laugh off cautions such as, “Democracy khatre mein hai.”

Given this apprehension of what the future holds, there is a need to articulate possible scenarios ahead. In my last substack post, I reasoned: “(A)rticulating that scenario might goad the silent majority to heed Niemöller better.”

Currently, in the battle of narratives, the dominant scenario is that of Viksit Bharat. Scenarios conjured by the unpersuaded are not only marginalized, but are deliberately throttled. This suggests that the Viksit Bharat scenario’s dominance is not quite organic, but potentially delusionary.

Clearly, contending scenarios need foregrounding. Doing so here, I first engage with the Viksit Bharat scenario, and then present the alternative(s).

The Viksit Bharat scenario

Bharat goes on to rival superpower China. Bharat’s benefactor along the route, United States, fell by the way side after the American Civil War II in wake of Trump II. Bharat has managed to tame its largest minority, its Muslims. In a sometimes-enforced gharwapsi, those with ‘Babar’s DNA’ were offered a choice: fall in line or be administered Israel’s Gaza potion. At the centenary of Independence the official declaration of Viksit Bharat, included in its observance the release of Umar Khalid et al and the surviving members of the Bhima Koregaon case from anda cells.

Akhand Bharat now notionally straddles the subcontinent. Client states, Pakistan and Bangladesh, imploded in their bid to keep up with Bharat. The economic model of national champions succeeding, governance has been outsourced to corporates. India’s military, though decolonized and politicised, has the Indian Police Service occupy some posts at the army’s apex, since it is ‘not an era of war.’ The defence budget was given to start-ups and big corporates that make up the new military-industrial complex under Atmanirbharta. The demographic balance in Kashmir stands redressed by settling non-Kashmiris in the satellite towns along the new ring road. Adivasis have been suitably Sanskritised for sacrificing their forests and way of life for national (read A-A) economic benefit. The non-savarnas forewent the reservation policy, buying into ‘ek hai toh safe hai’. Ashoka’s Simha was replaced with a saffron-coloured bull-dozer. Tourist guides at Ajmer Sharif and Taj Mahal go on about temples beneath. The wrongs of history were finally corrected with Bollywood blockbusters covering up the tracks and finger prints of Hindutva lugging Bharat to Viksit status.

The originator of the vision had a set of sants anoint himself President-for-Life. During yoga sessions atop Raisina Hill, he takes in the Vedic-reminiscent view of a redone Central Vista. Ongoing is construction at Godhra of the statue of the Hindu Hriday Samrat, to be taller than the Statue of Unity. His successor, Amit Shah, on demitting office, joined the rejuvenated marg darshak mandal. To prevent succession wars, Messrs Bisht and Sarma alternate between heading the government and heading the home ministry. Jaishankar stepped down, his work done with Bharat taking its rightful place in the ‘P’ club of the Security Council, after has-been United Kingdom was given the sack. India’s 50-million strong diaspora – resulting from plentiful illegal outmigration – helped with arguing Hindi’s case for inclusion as official language of the United Nations. Rattled by Rahul Gandhi’s pet project upsetting caste and power equations, judicial acrobatics in the ‘dual nationality case’ led to the judgment from a master-of-roster favoured regime-friendly judge of disqualification from politics for life. Parties peddling soft Hindutva merged into the Parivar, allowing for a Congress-mukt Bharat.

Viksit Bharat under threat

The alternative(s) comprise the many ways, individually and in combination, by which Bharat can potentially be derailed. Alternative scenarios are disruptive of the Viksit Bharat journey. Such threats, either stand-alone and in combination, emanate from multiple fronts - political, social and geopolitical.

The Viksit Bharat scenario formulation is cognizant of the threats and Bharat’s security minders seek already to preempt and overcome these. This explains Bharat’s grand strategy, unwritten for most part but for the new bestsellers: Jaishankar’s speech compilations.

Hindutva’s endeavor will be to mitigate risk by appropriate projection of the advanced guard, covering of the flanks and bringing up of the rear. Old tricks in the Hindutva book – deception, distancing, denial, tactical reverse gear, sucking-up, use of proxies, propaganda, lies and black operations - will be much in evidence.

Clearly, it’s not going to be a pleasant, linear quarter century.

A popular alternative scenario has prompted the mentioned early warnings from the progressive elite. It has Muslims - subject for a decade to micro-terror as lynchings and statist intimidation in the form of demolitions, torture, over-zealous application of illegitimate laws - fighting with their backs to the wall.

The assumption has it that precedence of some Muslims participating in terror acts will prompt imitation. The assumption fails to explain how the terror incidents miraculously stopped with the advent of the Modi era - whereas logically the number ought to have heightened. In effect, the latter part of the Vajpayee – a ‘moderate’ – belief is untrue: “Some Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.”

If this scenario holds water, then the evidence should have been visible in renewed domestic terrorism. That it is not so is not quite testimony of Doval’s effectiveness, but that Muslim terror was a canard to begin with, bringing to fore alternative scenarios.

Alternative scenarios

Scenarios anchored on political factors include the collapse of the Hindutva enterprise with the inevitable, if not imminent, departure of its protagonist - claims to divine origin notwithstanding. All national institutions hollowed out, including the judiciary, makes for a brittle State. History of Hindutva’s favourite period, the medieval era, provides a clue. Though at its territorial zenith, the departure of authoritarian Aurangzeb led to the Mughals biting the dust. The mother ship, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), may be unable to run India through proxies less charismatic than Modi. The denouement will be more a fusion than fission.

Secularism and socialism already junked – never mind judicial rear-guard action – federalism is another political frontier to be tackled. The strategy to escape this is to have the RSS make inroads where it is less prevalent, as in South India and Bengal. The book-long denigration of the Lion of Mysore, Tipu, and exaggerating Bangladesh’s troubles to polarize Bengalis on this side, are respective strands of strategy. The idea is that Hindutva’s advance will pave the way for the ruling party, thereby easing Muslim-bashing, spreading Hindi, enabling inroads of A-A etc, but more importantly, the South’s acceptance of a 800-seater Lok Sabha. As Chandrachud put it, a saffron flag on every house keeps India together.

The social threat is not only from the national fabric tearing apart along religious lines; that’s only the visible part. Other fissures are papered over for now with slogans as ‘batenge toh kitenge.’ That socio-economic threats are elided is clear from Rahul Gandhi’s idea of a social audit through a caste census given short shrift. Debate shied away in parliament on growing inequality and India’s would-be Chaebol being caught out, a social tsunami - an Indian Arab Spring – is a constant threat. That a Spring is swirling close at hand is possible to infer from events in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The potential is clear from abject revelations on the reservation status in the elite institutions and withholding of the jobs data from central government positions. Further divestment and corporatization will ensure the breathing space reservations have reservations provided thus far is given up. Absent an Equal Opportunities policy, the failure on demographic dividend will only be compounded if Bhagwat’s advice - ‘more Hindus, the merrier’ - is taken. The regime’s appropriation of Ambedkar can only serve to defer.

The regime has sensibly stepped most gingerly in the strategic sphere. It is aware of the outcome of Nehru punching above his weight. Its avid deployment of spin doctors and a lap-dog media imply there is much to hide – such as effects of surgical strikes and Chinese incursions. It avoided a similar moment by lying over the latter and has not revealed what’s being given up for accommodating Chinese interests. This tender-footing around the most significant strategic challenge it has faced shows it prioritises Hindutva consolidation within over national self-regard, reputational risk and, indeed, the age-old national sovereignty marker: territorial integrity. This is made further clear from the regime’s most serious take on the Urban Naxal threat. It knows where the cookie will start its crumble.

Viksit Bharat as threat

This look at possible futures shows that both the success of Viksit Bharat and its running aground are fraught. Taken together – its success and the backlash this prompts – will make for instability. Indian history is replete with upheavals – Nadir Shah’s invasion, the Mutiny, Partition. The quakes we’ve had since – 1984, 1992, 2002 – shall prove mere forerunners. The scenario of rebellion-suppression increases with the State’s policy propensity for instigating the former and its capacity for the latter. At present, we are witness to both, a tendency towards policy over-reach incentivized by militarization. With Modi seemingly losing charisma, Hindutva might be hastened by panic. People may yet prefer the stick to the carrot of deferred gratification of a Viksit Bharat.

The ride will not be a quarter century long.

 India is past the Early Warning phase

ali's version

Dec 03, 2024

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/india-is-past-the-early-warning-phase?r=i1fwshttps://thewire.in/communalism/india-is-past-the-early-warning-phaseThe Wire, 10 Dec 24

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Two recent episodes of The Interview With Karan Thapar constitute any Early Warning this country so desperately needs.

Towards the end of both interviews, the interviewees respectively articulate that each is apprehensive of the direction the nation is headed. While one despairs that India is facing an ‘existential crisis’, the other confesses to ‘sleepless nights’ mulling over the future.

An open letter to Prime Minister Modi by a set of former government officials echoes their words.

The letter informs of the ‘extreme anxiety and insecurity’ prevalent in India’s minorities and that the confidence of secular Indians everywhere stands shaken. The trigger appears to be the recent focus on medieval religious places by fringe groups, culminating in their eyeing the Ajmer Sharif Dargah.

The apprehension

The first interviewee says that majoritarians tearing apart the social fabric holding India together will prompt rise of extremism in the minority. Currently, the fear of reprisal is keeping Muslims down, but an explosion of sorts could result from their resisting second-class status foisted on them. He does not see any ray of hope, since no one is ready to take up cudgels on their behalf.

The second interviewee credits Muslims for keeping the faith in the Constitution by not joining co-religionists elsewhere turning out suicide bombers, there having been only one suicide bombing in India - at Pulwama. Should the situation get any worse, it may not remain so and India would be waylaid.

On its part, the missive paints a nebulous picture of the future, restricting itself to ‘disturbances’ disrupting the prime minister’s Viksit Bharat dream.

It appears that the well-meaning conveyers of the early warning believe that Muslims may resort to a violent pushback, causing untold misery, if the right wing - with state backing - continues down a majoritarian path.

On the face of it, the scenario appears plausible - Muslims disrupting law and order in reaction to India’s disruption of rule of law.

One, precedence has it that when pushed to the wall as in the Mumbai riots in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, Muslims have struck back. They could do so again, when pushed into a corner.

The second assumption takes for granted that terrorism India witnessed in wake of the Gujarat pogrom were largely by Muslims seeking retribution, abetted by an inimical neighbour.

Questioning assumptions

My reservations on the scenario of future Muslim indulgence in political violence bordering on violent extremism flow from questioning the assumptions and from strategic logic.

Firstly, the Mumbai bomb blasts apart, there is enough evidence brought to fore by progressive forces busting the mythology of externally-aided Muslim-perpetration of terrorism. That such evidence is dismissed in national security circles as ‘conspiracy theories’ is part of the manufacture of the narrative, especially done to hide identity of actual perpetrators and motives of their masterminds.

That films need to be made, subsidized and propagated by the highest executive authority, like The Kashmir Files and Sabarmati Express, suggest that a narrative of Muslim villainy is being pushed. Such over-compensation is to compel counter narratives (as here) to trudge uphill in the battle of ideas.

Take my case, I quit being a quarterly contributor on strategic affairs for a well-regarded journal when it twice in quick succession excised my arguing that Muslims were unnecessarily arraigned for terrorism, while masterminds were out trying to make a vote bank out of the majority community by propping up a Muslim ‘Other’.

The expectation that Muslims will fight back against the majoritarian onslaught is therefore based on unconsciously imbibing the right-wing trope of Muslim propensity for aggression. Even some sane people cannot see stone throwing as an act of communication (Kashmir), of desperation (Sambhal) and as self-defence (Jehangirpuri).

Strategic logic

My second argument is that the relative power of the politically emaciated Muslim community when gauged against the capture of the state by the majoritarian forces makes for strategic prudence on its part.

There is consensus that the past ten years have been rather trying for the community:

• Muslims have been subject to micro-terror by cow vigilantes.

• They are ghettoized. This makes them easy prey of both lawless state security forces and empowered majoritarian mobs, as Rahul Bhatia’s The Unmaking of a Democracy brings out.

• Many are displaced, through riots (Muzaffarnagar) or demolitions (Bahraich), and the displaced are now being disenfranchised (Assam).

• Psychological war is unabated (Ajmer).

• Cohesion of Muslims is first being cut up for them to be later devoured piecemeal (‘Turk vs. Pathan’ in Sambhal).

• They already have the lowest indicators of social and economic wellbeing among all communities.

• Even in Kashmir, where per some counts the numbers of Kashmiri dead touches six figures, security forces boast that the shelf-life of a budding militant is rather short.

In contrast, the national security establishment is manifestly suborned. National security minders are well able to think through both consequences and unintended consequences.

India is thus in a position to control temperatures, turning up the heat only so much that the frog in the slow-to-boil cauldron does not skip out. If the frog misbehaves, there is always the police and paramilitary that have been militarized over the past decade.

The Shah-Vanzara model of controlling the police has gone national.

Witness the dragnet maintained in Kashmir since the reading down of Article 370 and the insouciance with which a central university campus in the national capital was invaded.

Evidence of a Kashmir-like take-no-prisoners approach (after a lone surrenderee in 2017 after many years, no surrenderees were recorded in 2018-19, with 9 featuring in early 2020) is from the bullet-holed backs of the 10 Kukis last month to one injured security forces’ trooper; and from 31 Maoists killed in one recent instance a month prior to no security forces’ casualty.

Given such power asymmetry, it would be strategic imbecility for a disjointed and widely spaced out Muslim communities to attempt take on the majoritarians.

Recall for the 800 odd Hindu dead by Razakar action prior to Police Action, mobs of Hindu extremists – in instances reportedly even aided by the invading army - exacted a 20-to-40-fold price in its immediate aftermath.

Any violent reaction to forthcoming pressures will only play into the hands of the authoritarian regime, giving it excuse to clamp down further, thereby enabling more pressure – both programmatic and physical.

It is not poor foreign policy that keeps India at odds with its neighbours, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is also to give fresh life to the hostage theory of Partition, that provides excuse to leash a potential fifth column.

Muslims can at best throw stones defending their dargahs and mohallahs. At worst, a last resort is a Warsaw Uprising.

Muslims have already expended the political capital they had, administering the nation an early warning of their own. Amongst the signatories to the mentioned letter are Muslim gentry (Qureishi, Shah and Jung), who had earlier engaged with the leadership of the right wing parent formation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, urging restraint on its affiliates, militant camp-followers and ideological bedfellows.

Their warnings were two years back, with little changing since. Its now a period of heightened preparatory response.

The battle has to be fought within the majority community, without waiting for the first shots to be fired by Muslims. The interviewees did not dwell on what might transpire after Muslims reach the end of their tether. Articulating that scenario might goad the silent majority to heed Niemöller better.

 

Inadvertent revelations on how Kashmir messed up the army

Book Review: KGAKGG

https://open.substack.com/pub/ali1250760/p/inadvertent-revelations-on-how-kashmir?r=8hepj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The dust jacket of Kitne Ghazi Aaye Kitne Ghazi Gaye by ‘god’s favourite child’, ‘The KJS Dhillon’, carries the blurb ‘National Bestseller’. Presumably, it touched a chord in its intended audience: ‘young boys and girls aspiring to be part of the Indian Army family…to motivate these young people…to unleash the warrior within themselves…’.

My interest was in a passage that caught my eye as I browsed through it at a bookshop. The anecdote is of my father, then corps commander Chinar Corps - depicted as a ‘strict disciplinarian’ but remaining unnamed in the book - chancing upon a young second lieutenant on the sidelines of a night operation in the Valley. Instead of chewing him out for some minor administrative infraction he’d spotted, father’s motorcade drove off, much to the relief young officer.

That the author includes the incident in his autobiography, though its neither significant nor has him as protagonist, caught my eye. I wanted a closer look at what the author has to say about a strange incident in Kashmir in the period, Kunan Poshpora. His unit finds mention in narratives critical of the army’s showing in Kashmir back then. But, curiously, there is nary a reference to the incident in the book.

Perhaps the book’s scope as a motivational tract for youngsters lead to its excision, though this risks observations that the author infantalises the youth of today. This may more likely owe to the author being posted out by the time of its alleged occurrence. He didn’t get back to that unit later, since, as with many officers of his generation, he went on to the Rashtriya Rifles (twice it would seem from the non-chronological memoir) and command of another regimental unit in Kashmir.

Since the author prides his six tenures in Kashmir totaling some 12 years of service life, that is a yardstick to measure the book by. Many officers, particularly of infantry, have had multiple tenures in Jammu and Kashmir, making them part of the army’s Kashmir cadre or honorary Kashmiris, as the author jocularly brings out. To the army’s Kashmir engagement can be attributed some of the anomalies, if not quite pathologies, that have come to be associated with the service.

If anyone’s looking for a sophisticated understanding of the Kashmir problem, it would only be fair to expect to find it within the covers of the book. His claim to fame dates to his tenure at the helm of Chinar Corps when the Pulwama incident took place and the clampdown to keep Kashmir from boiling over on the vacation of content of Article 370. And yet, given his creditable academic record at National Defence Academy, where he passed out with a 6.8 grade point average, it is hard to believe that his take on the problem is so limited, unable to tread beyond the official narrative.

There could be two complementary explanations.

One is that the higher military leadership forged in the Kashmir cauldron was of a typical kind. While not all resorted to ticket punching, the army leadership’s immersion in counter insurgency was of such an order that not all its members were able to transit intellectually to the demands at higher operational and strategic levels. At the higher levels, a capability for critical thinking is a must.

It’s possible to infer that the incestuous nature of the army’s Kashmir engagement was all-consuming, hobbling critical faculties of those on the upward career curve. Though the Kashmir cauldron has thrown up credible military leaders (Nanavatty, Panag, Menon, Hooda readily come to mind), there is also a set that has prospered under right wing regime(s) - remaining unnamed here as their self-confession makes them rather well-known.

The author was picked as the perspective planning head, when General Rawat - who superseded two seniors of the mechanized forces on account of his supposed Kashmir expertise - was Chief. He informs of Rawat asking him at the end of one of their sittings together if he’d take over Chinar Corps. Clearly, Rawat knew ‘Tiny’ Dhillon’s 6’4” frame fit the bill for a fast-tracked promotion. To say the least, Rawat’s statements on Kashmir were always shocking. We know a Chief’s speeches are drafted in Perspective Plans – headed by Dhillon then in his fourth tenure in that branch.

Rawat wanting someone to take forward the ‘take no prisoners’ Operation All Out, which since the Burhan Wani phase, had consumed some 600 Kashmiri youth and foreign terrorists, appropriately alighted on Dhillon. (One militant, Adil Hussain Dar, whose gun jammed, was taken alive in the period.) Chuffed up, the author goes on to boast of a 100 killed in the first five months of 2019, including the Pulwama mastermind ‘Ghazi’ within a 100-hours. His illegitimate and illegal warning was, ‘You pick up the gun, you are dead.’ Of those killed, 75 per cent were callow Kashmiri youth. To his credit per his unverifiable claim, he brought over 50 young boys from the militancy.

Even so, it is retrospectively clear that the scene was being set for the evacuation of Article 370 by killing those who might create a ruckus. Quietude in wake of Amit Shah’s 5 August histrionics in Lok Sabha owes much to such setting of the stage, not to mention Ajit Doval’s camping over in Kashmir for a fortnight to control the paramilitary pumped in, lest another Bijbehara occur.

That the general was party to a hoax on the nation is clear from his bit of perception management on national television that an improvised explosive device had been found on the Amarnath Yatra route. That lending of the authority of his uniform to the excuse for the regime’s year-long crackdown across Kashmir, albeit prolonged by the Covid outbreak, is the author’s ticket to infamy.  

It’s no wonder then that he, fixated as he was with Kashmir, missed the wood for the trees as the Chinese marched up to their claim line in Ladakh. As Chief of Defence Intelligence Agency he ought to have read the tea leaves, since input had been received of Chinese headed onto Tibet during their winter exercise. This is yet another elision - proving the baleful effect of the army’s Kashmir obsession that cost the nation 20 Galwan brave-hearts.

The monotonous regurgitation of the official narrative in the book, right from the inception of the problem in Kashmir to how the autonomous state was defenestrated, can also have an alternative explanation. The second one gains plausibility from the author in the acknowledgements informing of encouragement to record his memoirs from a former major and star of the right-wing lapdog media, Gaurav Arya.

This suspicion is reinforced by the ingratiating account of the author’s meeting with Amit Shah, the all-powerful home minister, during his visit to Kashmir when Shah was contemplating voiding Article 370. Dhillon egregiously recalls opining to his wife on return from a one-on-one working breakfast meet: ‘Bees yuvraj mil kar bhi iss bande ka mukabla nahin kar sakte.’ What can be more sickeningly cloying than that?

For his pains, he has so far only been rewarded with the chairmanship of the board of governors of Mandi Indian Institute of Technology, the director of which - on Dhillon’s watch - has been the butt of memes. But then, the market is rather full with generals – and sister service equivalents – falling over each other to attract the attention of India’s ruling duo – national interest and institutional integrity be damned. Though subtitled My Life Story, expect a sequel.