Modinomics, the route to economic revival and growth

You need neither a degree from Harvard University nor ‘animal spirit’ to get the Indian economy going. What you need is common sense and commitment — Narendra Modi has both...

Modi is a maximalist who wants the most for India

Frankly you don’t need either a degree from Harvard or ‘animal spirit’ to revive the Indian economy. If knowledge imbibed at Harvard and unleashed animal spirit could have propped up the economy then it would not have been in such a sorry mess today nor would we have had to witness our Prime Minister and Finance Minister blaming the world for India’s plight. This reality, however, has not prevented our Harvard educated Finance Minister from rudely poking fun at the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Among the many insults hurled by P Chidambaram is his boorish comment that Narendra Modi’s knowledge of economic affairs could be written on the back of a postage stamp. True to his style, Narendra Modi has given it back in full measure and more: While addressing economists, business executives and diplomats at the India Economic Convention 2014 organised by India Foundation in New Delhi last week, he said his knowledge was far less than what could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

The irony was not lost on those who tuned in to listen to Narendra  Modi talk about his economic agenda. That a Finance Minister who has spectacularly failed to halt, leave alone reverse, India’s rapid economic decline would have the temerity to scoff at a Chief Minister who has stayed the course of economic growth and development and heads a State whose contribution to the national economy has helped in no small measure to keep the latter afloat tells its own story of unbridled arrogance. But while being supercilious may titillate the establishment media, it does not detract from the fact that he will be leaving the robust economy which the Congress inherited in 2004 in a shambles.

Nor can P Chidambaram’s smart retort hide the fact that Manmohan Singh, touted as an ‘economist’ Prime Minister and wrongly credited for the 1991-1996 reforms that were part forced on us as part of a bailout package by the IMF and part driven by PV Narasimha Rao’s agenda to discard the baggage of Nehruvian socialism, has singularly contributed to killing the India Story. A feckless Prime Minister who chose to be in office as a stooge of the Nehru Dynasty and presided over a recklessly corrupt regime while feigning ignorance of the unrestrained loot right under his nose could not have been expected to fuel the economy with either policy or imagination. That many expected otherwise shows the Great Indian Rope Trick is not entirely a myth.

Speaking at three separate events in New Delhi this week, Narendra Modi demonstrated that the solution to the myriad woes that afflict the Indian economy can be found in good old-fashioned common sense and that thing called political determination. Both are understandably alien to those who survive on scraps from the high table of the Nehru Dynasty: Their Pavlovian response would be to peddle the voodoo economics of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council as the prescription to cure India’s creeping economic paralysis. There was a time when Manmohan Singh would, in unguarded moments of candour, call for out-of-the-box thinking — that was long before he decided to unleash his “animal spirit” only to discover even if the spirit was willing the flesh was too weak to respond to the looming crisis.

To think out of the box, to think radically, to think big and to think beyond today and tomorrow requires both common sense and commitment — call it political determination if you will. Narendra Modi is right when he says governance is not about rocket science, it is about clarity of purpose and integrity of action. Once these are in place, the rest follows by way of forward looking policy and implementable programmes that address short-term, medium-term and long-term concerns. It is not enough to talk about reviving investor confidence so that the tap of investment is turned on. To create that confidence, good governance is a sine qua non as is faith in the political leadership not to be persuaded by bogus schemes of which we have seen one too many during the wasted decade of UPA rule.

When Narendra Modi talks of investing in infrastructure, reviving the manufacturing sector, nursing the agricultural sector, boosting the service sector and infusing all of them with state-of-the-art technology, he is not really saying anything radically new. To meet the demand for 10 million jobs a year, all this needs to be done. But what makes him stand out and his voice heard in the cacophony of prescriptions is the sincerity with which he says this and the experience he draws upon. He does not pander to populism that the Congress believes fetches votes but also fetches ruination. He does not promise hollow rights but emphasises on dignity of labour and empowerment. He does not talk of giveaways but asset creation and tapping the entrepreneurial spirit and aspiration of Young India.

Many would argue that it’s not pragmatic to talk about the need for Indian companies to become globally competitive and bravely confront challenges in the run-up to elections. Even in the US, Presidential election candidates, irrespective of their political beliefs, turn to peddling protectionism and raising the bogey of foreign competition. That’s considered conventional wisdom. It requires courage to turn conventional wisdom on its head and Narendra Modi has dared to do precisely that. He has talked about the need for Indian companies, big and small, to become competitive and slug it out in the global market with competitors. He has talked about the need for changing attitudes, the need to look beyond the obvious, to embrace challenge as an opportunity, to invest in technology. He frames diplomacy of the future in terms of economic engagement and trade.

That a man whose knowledge can fit the back of a postage stamp eloquently talks about next generation technology, who calls for investment in biotechnology and environment technology, bears testimony to the stupidity of those who make bold to mock at him. Narendra Modi does not look at the small picture, the minor details, the nuts and bolts; that’s the job of those who are tasked with the responsibility of implementing policy. He thinks out of the box and he thinks big. That’s the way it should be. A Prime Minister should really be looking at the big picture, setting targets and goals which are seemingly impossible to meet. For evidence, go back to his speech at the BJP National Council on January 19 in which he talked of 100 new cities to cope with irreversible urbanisation, super-fast trains with dedicated corridors, new expressways and highways, and high technology-driven high yield farming, among a host of other big ticket ideas.

It would be easy to scoff at him and ask, but where will the money come from? The answer to that question is simple: Once investor confidence is restored and the economy’s slide is reversed, the India Story will once again capture the global imagination. Let us not forget that despite the post-Pokhran II sanctions the BJP-led NDA was successful in mobilising resources for path-breaking big ticket projects. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not allow minor details to come in the way of realising big picture ideas. A lot happened. A lot more shall happen when Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes charge.

Singh is King! Really?

Cash helped him win trust vote!
(A spoof poster that did the rounds after Congress won July 22, 2008 vote.)
The standard operating procedure which Indian politicians follow is tailored for our polity with its ugly underbelly. For instance, a politician’s ‘aide’ could be anyone who facilitates his or her activities in public view or behind the shuttered doors of the bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi. Pimping for politicians is one of the most lucrative jobs in the nation’s capital and comes without an appointment letter or a paper trail: If things ever go wrong for our cynical politicians, there’s always plausible deniability. That option has been exercised by Captain Satish Sharma who has stoutly denied that he ever had an ‘aide’ called Nachiketa Kapur, leave alone using his services to bribe MPs in the last Lok Sabha to enable the UPA to win the crucial trust vote on July 22, 2008 after the Left withdrew its support over the India-US civil nuclear deal.

But neither Capt Sharma nor his party can deny that there was a person called Nachiketa Kapur or that he had access to the inner courtyard of the PWD-built haveli that has come to substitute Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court in amoral, if not grossly immoral, Delhi where issues of ethics are of least concern for those who claim to rule India. That Mr Kapur, whoever he may be, wielded considerable power (without accountability) and was politically well-connected is borne out by the fact that the American Embassy in New Delhi was sufficiently impressed to send him on a junket under the State Department’s ‘I-Vote 2008’ programme as an observer for the US presidential election.

It, therefore, stands to reason that the contents of the ‘Secret’ US Embassy cable of July 17, 2008, filed by its then Charge d’Affaires Steven White, are not without substance. The cable mentions, among other things, how the Congress mobilised funds to buy votes to win the confidence motion and the manner in which the funds were distributed and to whom. The ‘price’ for a ‘Yes’ vote was Rs 10 crore; the political counsellor of the Embassy was shown chests containing between Rs 50 crore and Rs 60 crore to be used for purchasing votes. The cable also mentions Capt Sharma providing details of how he was trying to target MPs within the BJP and its allies, for instance, the Akali Dal. He owed this much to the party which had bailed him out in 15 cases of corruption filed by the CBI.

Senior leaders of the BJP will confirm that during the week before the vote they were desperately scrambling to keep their flock together. The lure of lucre is not easy to overcome. In any event, few MPs wanted an early election -- if that could be avoided and easy money pocketed, where was the harm? Some back-benchers in the BJP had begun to question the wisdom of opposing the nuclear deal as a cover for their imminent act of disloyalty. The Akali Dal, not too sure of preventing its MPs from straying, wondered whether opposing the deal was the right move as there was a large Sikh community in the US and they wouldn’t take kindly to America-bashing. It may sound laughable in retrospect, but that’s exactly what was conveyed to the BJP. The BJP’s apprehensions came true when cash was actually handed over to some of its MPs by an ‘aide’ of Mr Amar Singh, who had also offered his services and resources to prop up the UPA regime.

Political parties are known to try till the last minute to avoid a mid-term exit from power. The NDA Government would not have fallen by a single vote in 1999 if its political managers had been alert to the Congress’s strategy of getting Mr Giridhar Gomango to participate in the voting despite his having taken charge as Chief Minister of Odisha. He still remained a member of the Lok Sabha and exercised his privilege, although it was both immoral and unethical to do so. Nor should we forget that JMM MPs were bribed to ensure the survival of the Government headed by PV Narasimha Rao. Such subversion of the ethical foundations of democracy comes naturally to the Congress.

That said, two points should bother us more than anything else. First, the Americans had a remarkably accurate sense of the voting pattern five days before the vote. According to their estimate, there would be 273 votes in favour and 251 ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgainst the trust motion, with 19 abstentions. After the vote, the tally stood at 275 votes in favour and 256 against the motion, with 10 abstentions. Who briefed the US Embassy? Second, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was all smiles when he was greeted with cheers of “Singh is King” after he won the vote. The king today looks no different from the emperor without clothes.

(This appeared as my column in DNA.)

Dirty tricks by Congress

Spiteful act, deplorable deed
The Congress is just not reconciled to the idea of Gujarat, more specifically Narendra Modi, showing the way to rapid development and inclusive growth through good governance. Hence, every effort is made by the Congress, through the UPA Government, to harass Modi and stall Gujarat's progress. Having failed to deliver anything that even remotely resembles the Gujarat model in the States where the Congress is in power, the party leadership has responded with limitless hate and spite. The CBI has played hand maiden to the Congress in its deplorable endeavour.

The latest object of Congress envy is Vibrant Gujarat, the hugely successful investors conference hosted by the Gujarat Government and a brainchild of Narendra http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifModi, which has played a significant role in fuelling Gujarat's success story. At this year's Vibrant Gujarat, MoUs for projects worth Rs 1237570.48 crore were signed. This despite the Congress instructing the Union Ministry of Finance to warn public sector banks against participating in the investor summit in any manner. Complaisant babus in the Ministry eagerly conveyed the message to bank chairmen; that didn't quite do the trick. Nor did the campaign by 'friendly' media to run down the initiative help the Congress.

So now the Congress, once again through the Union Ministry of Finance, has instructed the Income Tax Department to make life difficult for the Modi Government by scaring away investors who signed MoUs. The Income Tax Department hahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifutifully
obliged its political masters of the day by issuing a notice on February 17 to Gujarat’s Industries Commissioner, demanding details of Memoranda of Understanding signed during Vibrant Gujarat earlier this year. Never before has something so extraordinary happened.

As I have said in the editorial I wrote for The Pioneer, a State Government is at liberty to raise funds and invite investments to further development and propel growth. That the Government of Gujarat has raced past others is a tribute to the quality of governance under Narendra Modi’s tutelage which no Congress leader can ever achieve — either in New Delhi or in State capitals. To try and scuttle the efforts of the Government of Gujarat and arm-twist potential investors into staying away from the State is tantamount to disallowing States to function freely.It's a crudehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif assault on federalism.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

As my friend and commentator on the INI blog,Nitin Pai, tweeted on Thursday: "So now the UPA govt is using the Income Tax department to bully/threaten investors in Gujarat. Anti-national fascism on display."

If the intention behind the notice had not been mala fide, the Income Tax Department, or for that matter the Union Finance Ministry, need not have served a notice. All that they needed to do was get the details from the Vibrant Gujarat website. For all those who are interested, you can access full details of the MoUs here.

Yatha praja tatha Raja

We The People Are Corrupt!

It’s virtually impossible to check the veracity of AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa’s assertion that the loss to the public exchequer on account of l’affaire Raja is more than the cumulative loot of India by its colonial masters during the days of John Company and later the British Raj. We could try and compute the official gains of the Empire from records in India House, but the value of the loot, in the strictest sense of the term, would be anybody’s guess. It is possible that the profits, both legitimate and illegitimate, that filled coffers in Britain over 200 years of its colonial enterprise in this part of the world added up to less than `1.76 lakh crore. Or, it is equally possible that it far exceeded the net worth of the Empire of Greed that A Raja built during his tenure as Telecom Minister under the tutelage of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Politicians are given to exaggeration and Ms Jayalalithaa is no exception.

Yet, the enormity of Raja’s loot can be minimised only at the risk of aping spokespersons of the Congress who refuse to accept that spectrum was sold for a song to firms many of which came into being only to grab a slice of the 2G pie. There is the additional risk of being seen as justifying the Prime Minister’s refusal to prevent the ‘Great 2G Spectrum Robbery’ since not to do so would be to repudiate the dharma of coalition politics. Needless to say, there was nothing dharmic about either Raja’s stunningly bald-faced defiance of all norms of probity or the Prime Minister’s resounding silence over the plunder that took place under his watch. By no stretch of the imagination does coalition politics mean allowing allies to denude the nation of its wealth: Rs 1.76 lakh crore is not exactly small change even in these days of rampaging inflation.

The outpouring of moral outrage over Raja’s crime may have served the purpose of forcing one of the most corrupt Ministers (by no means was he the lone wolf in the Cabinet) in the present regime to quit office in disgrace although he remains defiant as ever. But it has also swamped a revealing report on Global Financial Integrity that was released last week. The details of the report indicate the extent of corruption in India and confirm what we refuse to accept: We are a corrupt society with a corrupt system; a nation that silently indulges in corruption while raucously protesting against it, as is being witnessed at the moment.

The GFI report says, “From 1948 through 2008, India lost a total of $213 billion in illicit financial flows (or illegal capital flight). These illicit financial flows were generally the product of corruption, bribery and kickbacks, and criminal activities.” Illicit financial flows pertain to the “cross-border movement (or transfer) of money earned through illegal activities such as corruption, transactions involving contraband goods, criminal activities, and efforts to shelter wealth from a country’s tax authorities”. The total of $213 billion is a misleading figure because “the present value of India’s illicit financial flows is at least $462 billion,” the GFI report explains, adding, “This is based on the short-term US Treasury bill rate as a proxy for the rate of return on assets.”

What we are looking at is illicit financial flows of Rs 20.85 lakh crore over 60 years. This, however, is not the sum total of all illicit gains through corrupt practices. “This estimate is conservative,” the GFI report says, adding by way of a cautionary note, “as it does not include several major forms of value drainages out of poorer countries not represented by money”. Among these ‘major forms of value drainages’, the report says, are trade mispricing that is handled by collusion between importers and exporters within the same invoice; the proceeds of criminal and commercial smuggling such as drugs, minerals and contraband goods; and, mispriced asset swaps where ownership of commodities, shares and properties are traded without a cash flow. All this should sound very familiar to Indian ears.

The GFI report points out that the “total capital flight represents approximately 16.6 per cent of India’s GDP as of year-end 2008”; that “illicit financial flows out of India grew at 11.5 per cent per year”; and, that “India lost $16 billion per year between 2002-2006”. Who are responsible for this huge outflow of illicit funds? High net-worth individuals and private companies were found to be the “primary drivers of illicit flows”. India’s “underground economy is also a significant driver of illicit financial flows”.

The report explains that from 1948 through 2008, “the Indian private sector shifted away from deposits into developed country banks and towards increased deposits in offshore financial centres”, also known as ‘tax havens’ from where money was accessed by many of the fly-by-night operators who benefited from Raja’s largesse. The fact that deposits in tax havens have increased from 36.4 per cent of illicit financial flows in 1995 to 54.2 per cent in 2009 tells its own story.

The GFI report provides some other interesting insights. For instance, contrary to the claims of successive Governments, more vociferously by the UPA regime, India’s underground economy, which is “closely tied to illicit financial outflows”, continues to expand with each passing day. The present value of illicit assets held abroad ($462 billion) “accounts for approximately 72 per cent of India’s underground economy — which has been estimated to account for 50 per cent of India’s GDP ($640 billion at the end of 2008)”. Just above a quarter of illicit assets are held domestically.

Champions of unrestricted free market economics and liberalisation insist that these will help fight the menace of corruption and the acquisition of illicit wealth. But this is what the GFI report says: “In the post-reform period of 1991-2008, deregulation and trade liberalisation accelerated the outflow of illicit money from the Indian economy. Opportunities for trade mispricing grew and expansion of the global shadow financial system — particularly island tax havens — accommodate the increased outflow of India’s illicit capital flight.” What should also cause concern is the statistical correlation between increasing illicit financial flows and deteriorating income distribution.

A country where lobbyists have Ministers wrapped around their little fingers and can get policy tweaked to suit the interests of unscrupulous corporates, a society which sees nothing wrong with greasing the palms of babus, policemen and politicians to access services to which people are entitled, a nation whose people believe it is perfectly alright to jump the queue by paying middlemen and bribing the crook at the counter, and a people inure to the crime of all-round corruption should not feign anger and outrage over Raja emptying the till of the store he was supposed to look after and manage while cocking a snook at one and all, including a Prime Minister too effete to protest. A severely compromised media only highlights the rot within.

We are what we are, and so are those whom we elect to office.

[This appears as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on November 21, 2010.]

Red Terror unabated, India watches football

Maobadis slaughter 27 CRPF jawans
UPDATE

.According to Chhattisgarh DGP Viswa Ranjan, at least 15 Maobadis were possibly killed when CRPF personnel retaliated during the ambush. The bodies of the Maobadis have however not been found. Maobadis are known to take away the bodies of their cadre killed in encounters with security forces.
.Around 100 Maobadis, who struck with automatic rifles, were involved in the ambush and the gunbattle lasted for two to three hours.
.The death toll in Tuesday's attack on CRPF personnel has gone up to 27 after the body of a CRPF constable was found by search parties.

Maobadis have struck again, this time in Chhattisgarh, killing 27 CRPF jawans in a deadly ambush on Tuesday, June 29. Eight security personnel (among them four SPOs of Chhattisgarh Police) were injured, five of them seriously. The attack took place while the CRPF jawans were returning after clearing a road in a remote area of Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district. Among the dead is Assistant Commandant of the force Jatin Gulati.

Union Home Secretary GK Pillai said in New Delhi: “A large number of heavily-armed Maoists, perched on a hilltop, opened fire from automatic weapons on a 63-member security contingent which was returning on foot from road opening duty.”

The latest attack by Maobadis comes three months after the massacre of 75 CRPF jawans and one Chhattisgarh policeman in Dantewada district on April 6. On May 17, Maobadis blew up a bus carrying 50 people, including 18 special police officers, near Sukma in Dantewada. Only six people -- all seriously injured – were believed to have survived that attack; the rest, including women and children, were killed. On May 8, eight men of the CRPF were killed when Maobadis blew up a vehicle in Narayanpur district.

On May 28, Gyaneswari Express was derailed in West Bengal’s Midnapore district after men of the PCPA, a Maobadi front organisations, damaged the tracks. At least 141 passengers died after a goods train came and rammed into the derailed express almost immediately.

[My views on Maobadi attack on Gyaneswari Express on NDTV special programme.]

Some points to ponder upon:

. UPA Government continues to flounder in its search for an effective counter-Maobadi strategy.
. Ongoing security offensive remains largely ineffective as there are no well-defined objectives.
. In the absence of well-thought out tactics, Maobadis continue to have the upper hand.
. The Prime Minister is either indifferent or incompetent to deal with the Maobadi challenge.
. Manmohan Singh says Maobadis pose ‘single biggest threat to internal security’; does nothing.
. Home Minister P Chidambaram’s efforts to launch a fight-back are stymied by a ‘limited mandate’.
. CCS meets and disperses without even discussing counter-Maobadi strategy.
. Army and IAF chiefs speak out of turn ruling out military intervention.
. Coordination among States remains abysmally poor, near absent.
. Senior Ministers continue to speak in different voices on how to confont the menace.
. Sonia Gandhi and her cronies like Digvijay Singh are pushing for ‘dialogue’ and a soft line.
. Congress is a divided house: Nobody wants to take a firm stand.
. Congress’s ally Trinamool Congress won’t let UPA act with firm determination.
. Mamata Banerjee refused to blame Maobadis for Gyaneswari derailment.
. CBI inquiry shows PCPA (a Maobadi front) planned and executed Gyaneswari disaster.
. Maobadis continue to enjoy upper hand; jawans, innocents regularly with impunity.
.India continues to bleed. Urban middleclasses, since they are not affected, are not bothered.
. Media glosses over Maobadi crimes, offers platform for ‘intellectuals’ to propagate Maobadi ideology.

Trust the National Human Rights Commission, now headed by retired Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, to claim the ‘human rights’ of Maobadis are being violated by security forces! A statement issued by NHRC on Tuesday, June 29, says:

The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports depicting photographs of security men carrying the bodies of Naxalites, including women, with their hands and feet tied to bamboo poles.
The report was published on the 18th June, 2010. It was alleged that the photograph was taken following an anti-Naxal operation in West Midnapore, West Bengal.
The Commission in its proceedings on the 21st June, 2010, observed that the report, if true, raises a serious issue of violation of human rights of the victims.
A notice has been issued to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India inviting factual report in the matter by the 27th July, 2010.
In a major success, security forces had gunned down 12 Maoists, including three women (among them one who had led the attack on the EFR camp at Sildah, West Bengal, in which 24 jawans were killed) in a fierce encounter in Ranja forest of Salboni in West Midnapore on June 16.

Since NHRC is so bothered about the ‘human rights’ of the practitioners of inhuman barbarity, they should take note of this story from Jhargram, West Bengal, filed by PTI on June 29:

A 10th class student was killed by Maoists at Jamirdiha village in West Midnapore district. Police said the bullet-riddled body of Phulchand Mahato, still in his school uniform, was found on the side of Kasmar canal Tuesday morning. The Maoists left a poster near the body proclaiming Mahto as a ‘police informer’.
Mahto had attended classes on Monday and left his Banspahari High School building in the afternoon but remained untraced ever since, prompting his family to lodge a missing report at Belhapari police station Monday night. The family identified the body on Tuesday.

It may be recalled Maobadis had raped a 16-year-old girl in Jharkhand for daring to stand up to them, and threatened to kill her if she went to the police.
Whose side is NHRC on? The people of India or those who are waging war on the state and the people of India?
Another report says:

Five Maoists, including a top aide of the outfit's senior leaders Kishenji and Telugu Dipak, were arrested from the outskirts of Kolkata on Tuesday. Acting on a tip off, five Maoists were arrested from South 24 Parganas. Of the arrested Maoists, Madhusudhan Mondal alias Narayan, Rajesh Mondal, Sachin Ghosal were arrested from Amtala, while Siddhartha and Sanjay from Garia in the district. Madhusudhan alias Narayan was the zonal committee secretary of the Maoists during the Nandigram movement and was close to Kishenji and Telugu Dipak. He arranged the stay of Kishenji when he went to Nandigram.

So Nandigram wasn't a 'people's movement' after all!

And here is a chronology of Maobadi terrorism in the past couple of years:
June 29, 2008: Maoists attack a boat on Balimela reservoir in Orissa carrying four anti-Maoist police officials and 60 Greyhound commandos, killing 38 troops.
July 16, 2008: 21 policemen killed when a police van is blown up in a landmine blast in Malkangiri district of Orissa.
April 13, 2009: 10 paramilitary troops killed in eastern Orissa when Maoists attack a bauxite mine in Koraput district.
April 22, 2009: Maoists hijack a train with at least 300 people on board in Jharkhand and force it to Latehar district before fleeing.
May 22, 2009: Maoists kill 16 policemen in the jungles of Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra.
June 10, 2009: Nine policemen, including CRPF troops and officers, ambushed by Maoists during a routine patrol in Saranda jungles in Jharkhand.
June 13, 2009: Maoists launch two landmine and bomb attacks in a small town close to Bokaro, killing 10 policemen and injuring several others.
June 16, 2009: Maoists kill 11 police officers in a landmine attack followed by armed assault. In a separate attack, four policemen were killed and two others seriously injured when Maoists ambush them at Beherakhand in Palamau district.
June 23, 2009: A group of motorcycle-borne armed Maoists open fire on Lakhisarai district court premises in Bihar and free four of their comrades including the self-style Zonal Commander of Ranchi.
July 18, 2009: Maoists kill a villager in Bastar and in a separate incident torch a vehicle engaged in road construction work in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.
July 27, 2009: Six persons killed when Maoists trigger a landmine blast at Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh.
July 31, 2009: A special police officer and another person killed by Maoists in Bijapur district.
Sep 4, 2009: Maoists kill four villagers in a forest in Aaded village in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.
Sep 26, 2009: Maoists kill BJP MP from Balaghat Baliram Kashyap's sons at Pairaguda village in Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh).
Sep 30, 2009: Maoists set ablaze Gram Panchayat offices at Korchi and Belgaon in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
Oct 8, 2009: 17 policemen killed when Maoists ambushed them at Laheri police station in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
Feb 15, 2010: 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) killed as Maoists attack their camp in Silda in West Midnapore district of West Bengal.
April 4, 2010: Maoists trigger a landmine blast killing 11 security personnel of the elite anti-Maoist force Special Operations Group (SOG) in Koraput district of Orrisa.
April 6, 2010: 75 CRPF personnel and a Chhattisgarh police official killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district.
May 8, 2010: Eight CRPF jawans were killed when Maoists blow up a bullet-proof vehicle in Bijapur district of Chhhattisgarh.
June 29, 2010: At least 15 CRPF personnel killed in a Maoist ambush in Naraynpur district of Chhattisgarh.

[Bus attack photograph courtesy ANI.]

So, Congress wants to cut a deal with Taliban!

By Kanchan Gupta

The venerable Wall Street Journal, which still takes the business of journalism seriously, has carried an interesting news story in its Wednesday’s edition. Headlined “Indian Minister Urges Afghan Political Settlement”, it is based on an interview with Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna, who apparently spoke to the writer, Joe Lauria, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, which is now in session. The opening paragraph of the story is truly attention grabbing: “India, one of the biggest investors in Afghanistan, believes there is no military solution to the conflict in that country and that NATO combat operations should give way to a political settlement with the Taliban, according to Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna.”

The newspaper quotes Mr Krishna as saying, “India doesn’t believe that war can solve any problem and that applies to Afghanistan also... I think there could be a political settlement. I think we should strive towards that.” According to the daily, Mr Krishna “dismissed suggestions that India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan, a fear prevalent in some circles in Pakistan. ‘I think that is a baseless allegation,’ he said.” Mr Krishna, in his interview, “charged that Pakistan’s disruptive role in the Taliban insurgency continued”, and said “the military situation in Afghanistan was complicated by the ongoing aid for the Afghan Taliban provided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency”.

A full reading of the news story and the extensive quotes of the Minister published alongside would reveal that he has not suggested a “political settlement with the Taliban”, at least not in so many words. But it is only logical to deduce that this is what he meant when he talked of a “political settlement”. Given the political reality of Afghanistan where the Taliban are determined not to allow democracy and modernism to take root, and want the country to return to the joyless, dark days when a one-eyed monster called Mullah Omar ruled that benighted nation with ruthless force in the name of Islam, the only people you can strike a deal with and come to a “political settlement” are the Taliban.

“If India can work happily with Great Britain after they having ruled us for so long, it only shows that we can play the game,” Mr Krishna told The Wall Street Journal. That is an allusion which only the naïve would miss or misinterpret. In interpreting foreign policy, each word, especially when uttered by the Foreign Minister of a country, is dissected many times over. And the most casual reading of Mr Krishna’s comments would suggest that they indicate a major shift in the Government’s policy on Afghanistan and a break with the national consensus that has helped its evolution: The Congress-led UPA is now willing to “play the game” and cut a deal with the Taliban.

What Mr Krishna has also signalled is the UPA Government’s rethinking on American involvement in Afghanistan. Till now, although India has steered clear of the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, it has been a beneficiary of everything that has followed the fall of the criminal Taliban regime and the installation of the Government headed by President Hamid Karzai. New Delhi would not have been able to reopen its mission in Kabul and set up consulates elsewhere had Mullah Omar still been in power. Nor would India have been able to re-establish its people-friendly profile among the Afghan masses through infrastructure development and healthcare projects.

It would be foolish to believe that the ‘Indian presence’ in Afghanistan will remain untouched and undiminished if the US and NATO troops were to abruptly pack up and leave that country. A “political settlement” — or, to put it more bluntly, a deal with the Taliban — may please those in the UPA Government who believe Islamism is a benign idea and Islamists are the natural allies of ‘secularists’, but it will be disastrous for India and its national interest.

Since Mr Krishna is the Minister for External Affairs, we must presume that whatever he has told The Wall Street Journal, as well as the implied meaning of his statement, reflect current thinking in South Block. More important, since Mr Manmohan Singh unilaterally frames foreign policy these days, Mr Krishna’s comments must be taken to reflect the Prime Minister’s views — unless they are refuted or denounced by the Government’s drum-beaters in the media. It may not be entirely coincidental that the Prime Minister’s prescription for redrafting India’s policy on Afghanistan bears close resemblance to the current thinking in Washington, DC.

As US President Barack Hussein Obama watches his much-touted AfPak policy unravel, his strategists work overtime to convert the 21st century’s Great Game into a Grand Bargain. Mr Obama spoke of a ‘surge’ in the deployment of US troops, but there are as yet no signs of 40,000 more Americans being sent to win the war against the Taliban. And while policy-makers in the Obama Administration dither, Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has submitted a ‘confidential’ report — whose contents have been leaked to The Washington Post! — to the American President, underscoring the problems posed by “inadequate resources” at his disposal. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” he has said.

While Gen McChrystal has made a case for the immediate deployment of additional soldiers to bolster the presence of 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon appears to be divided on the issue. It would like Mr Obama to take a political call on whether to go ahead with the ‘surge’ or begin pulling out troops from Afghanistan, and then strategise on the next steps to be taken. Interestingly, Gen McChrystal is also believed to have said in his report that “while Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increa-sing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India”.

That’s an understatement, but it nonetheless accurately reflects the Afghan reality which is intimately enmeshed with the reality of Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ policy that visualises Islamabad’s control over Kabul with the Taliban’s help and the imposition of Islamist absolutism. In such a scenario, it is amusing to think of the UPA Government cutting a deal with the Taliban.

[This appeared as the main article on the edit page of The Pioneer on Wednesday, September 25, 2009. The same day, alarmed by the possible fallout of SM Krishna's comments, the MEA spokesperson issued a statement, saying, "The Minister has been misquoted in his interview with The Wall Street Journal." A classic example of the adage -- What did the politician have for lunch? What he said at breakfast! A related news story of interest in The Wall Street Journal which appeared a day later: Dubious Afghan Vote Drove U.S. to Revisit Strategy.]

PM’s intolerable moralising

Kanchan Gupta / Comment / May 9, 2009.

Manmohan Singh persists with his sanctimonious, self-righteous and intolerably smug pronouncements although his sententiousness increasingly rings hollow. One comment of the Prime Minister stands out for its sheer duplicity in the waffle that was billed as an exclusive interview by the Hindustan Times last week. It first pertains to India being shamed before the world on account of the riots that occurred in Gujarat in 2002.
“The image of India took a beating when the BJP tried to impose a monolithic view on the entire country. If people with extremist and bigoted views come to power, India’s image as a great, liberal, plural and secular democracy will be hurt,” Mr Singh told the newspaper. Such high falutin statements would no doubt impress those who can see nothing wrong with the Congress and a Prime Minister who has cravenly served the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty instead of performing his prime ministerial duties. Public memory being notoriously short, many would fail to recall the Congress’s innumerable sins of omission and commission. Those who came of age this general election would know even less about the Congress’s tainted past.
But since Mr Singh has chosen to raise the issue of “the image of India” taking “a beating”, it would be in order to record that the nation’s image has suffered far worse when the Congress has been in power. If the shine was lost when the BJP was in power — as the Prime Minister claims it was — it hasn’t exactly been restored with him at the helm of the UPA Government. We shall come to this later.
The violence in Gujarat was not, contrary to Mr Singh’s mumbo-jumbo, triggered by the BJP trying to “impose a monolithic view on the entire country”. That’s nothing but a crass attempt to re-write history, something in which the Congress excels, along with its admirers in the Left. The riots followed the torching of two bogeys of the Sabarmati Express, in which Hindu pilgrims were travelling, by a Muslim mob at Godhra on February 27, 2002. In the blaze 58 people were killed — 23 men, 15 women and 20 children. According to a statement made by Mr Singh’s Government in the Rajya Sabha, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus died in the subsequent rioting; 223 people were reported ‘missing’ and 2,548 sustained injuries. Clearly this wasn’t about the BJP “imposing a monolithic view on the entire country”.
If India’s image “took a beating”, as Mr Singh says it did, it was on account of the lies that were forged in the laboratory of neo-Goebbelsian propaganda owned by Teesta Setalvad and publicised as facts by the Congress and its drum-beaters in the media. Horror stories of murder, rape and pillage were put out that have now been found to be untrue. The report of the Special Investigation Team, set up by the Supreme Court, details instances of these lies. The Prime Minister has surely read the report, which, among other things, mentions how identical statements were prepared by Teesta Setalvad and ‘eyewitnesses’ were bullied into signing them. If India stands shamed, it is on account of amoral politicians and crafty activists slyly suppressing facts and manufacturing lies.
And, if the post-Godhra violence, in which both Muslims and Hindus died, resulted in India’s image taking a beating, then the nation’s image was tarnished beyond repair by the numerous riots since 1947 that resulted in thousands of deaths in States ruled by the Congress. We could go back to the distant past and recall the several riots that occurred in Gujarat when the Congress was in power and in which the death toll surpassed that of 2002.
Or we could go back to 1989 when the Congress Government in Bihar did nothing to quell the Bhagalpur riots in which, according to official figures, 1,070 people were killed and 524 injured. For the benefit of Mr Singh, it should also be recalled that 11,500 houses were destroyed, displacing 48,000 people, in those riots that couldn’t have enhanced, by his own logic, India’s image. Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, who subsequently came to power in Bihar, did nothing to prosecute the guilty or follow-up on eyewitness accounts; that task has now been taken up by the JD(U)-BJP Government. Mr Yadav, as we all know, is a senior Cabinet colleague of Mr Singh. Interestingly, participating in a parliamentary debate soon after the Bhagalpur riots, Mr Yadav had squarely blamed the Congress for the terrible blood-letting. “It is the Congress that has engineered most of the riots,” he had thundered. Of course, he wouldn’t recall that speech today.
We could also recall the Nellie massacre of February 18, 1983 in which 2,191 men, women and children, some of them suckling infants, were slain in cold blood. Doubts still persist about the actual death toll; survivors insist at least 5,000 people perished in that pre-dawn slaughter. That carnage could have been averted had Mrs Indira Gandhi, of whom Mr Singh no doubt cherishes fond memories, not insisted upon holding a bogus Assembly election amid the anti-foreigners’ agitation because she wanted the incumbent Congress Government in Assam to continue to remain in power. Nellie could not have given India a good name.
Mr Singh feigns amnesia, but he needs to be told that India did not quite come out smelling of roses after the 1984 pogrom in which more than 4,000 Sikhs were brutally murdered by Congress hoodlums led by those whom the party now lists as its ‘leaders’ and rewards them with tickets to contest parliamentary elections. Twenty-five years later, the victims still wait for justice. As do those who survived the Maliana massacre. Surely Mr Singh has heard of it?
And what about India’s image taking a beating because its Prime Minister brazenly defends the decision to exonerate a wanted Italian fugitive, Ottavio Quattrocchi, who has looted this country? When the story broke, the Prime Minister’s Office pretended that it had no knowledge of the CBI asking Interpol to remove the Red Corner Notice against Quattrocchi. But the vigour with which he now defends that decision suggests he couldn't have been unaware of it. “The Quattrocchi case was an embarrassment for the Government of India,” Mr Singh says, adding, it did “not show the Indian legal system in good light”. No, Prime Minister, the decision of your Government to let Quattrocchi walk free with his ill-gotten wealth is an embarrassment for India; it does not show you and your Government in a “good light”, nor does it do wonders for the image of India.
More importantly, the Prime Minister’s timid acquiescence to the subversion of the criminal justice system and abuse of power can only fetch contempt and ridicule for India. With such a person in office, everything is possible — from fixing telecom policy to milking the exchequer; from being dictated foreign policy to letting terrorists have a free run of the country. It makes us look like a banana republic.
Yet Mr Singh waxes eloquent on India’s image!

Congress Role in 1984 Massacre of Sikhs

When a mighty tree fell...

A street dog sniffs at the corpse of a Sikh burnt alive by Congress goons in November 1984 to avenge the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

4,733 Sikhs were killed in the pogrom for which nobody has been punished by the Congress.

Manmohan Singh and Congress suffer from selective amnesia as they rake up the 2002 Gujarat violence to malign the BJP. But even if they choose to forget the 1984 pogrom that left more than 4,000 Sikhs dead, the story remains fresh in the minds of many, among them survivors waiting for justice for 25 years

Kanchan Gupta

Caught on the wrong foot over the brazen manner in which it tried to absolve Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar of the serious charges that have been levelled against them by survivors of the 1984 pogrom that resulted in the slaughter of 4, 733 Sikhs, the Congress has struck back at its principal political adversary, the BJP, by once again raising the bogey of the 2002 post-Godhra violence in Gujarat.

Addressing a Press conference in Mumbai on Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who would like people to believe that he was “not informed, not consulted, over the CBI’s clean chit to Jagdish Tytler” although that is an impossibility, has said, “Nor will I be found wringing my hands in frustration while one of my Chief Ministers condones a pogrom targeted at minorities.”

Ironically, even as the Prime Minister was seeking to resurrect the Gujarat ‘pogrom’ and remind people of the ‘atrocities’ committed against Muslims, the Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court and headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan submitted its report, refuting the allegations that have sustained the myth-making aimed at demonising Mr Narendra Modi and tarring the BJP’s image.

The SIT’s report shows Mr Singh’s description of the Gujarat violence as a “pogrom targeted at minorities” is as fanciful as his denial of any knowledge about the CBI exonerating those who are accused of leading murderous mobs during the 1984 violence, planned and executed by Congress ‘leaders’ to avenge the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi. Noted writer and veteran journalist Khushwant Singh, recalling those terrible days of 1984, told the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry, set up by the BJP-led NDA Government, that the hideous bloodletting left him “feeling like a Jew in Nazi Germany”.

It is possible that Mr Manmohan Singh has no memories of that massacre; selective amnesia is a disease from which too-clever-by-half politicians tend to suffer. It is also possible that he and his patrons in the Congress believe that by pretending nothing of note happened in 1984, those born after Congress mobs ran amok on the streets of Delhi, garlanding Sikhs with burning tyres, can be persuaded to vote for a party which claims to stand against the BJP’s ‘divisive politics’.

Such sanctimonious self-righteousness is best avoided by the Congress, not least because its then president — and India’s Prime Minister — Rajiv Gandhi had no qualms about justifying the carnage. “Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji,” Rajiv Gandhi said on November 19, 1984, even as thousands of families grieved for their loved ones killed by Congress hoodlums, “We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed India had been shaken. But when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.” Some riots? Only natural? Shake a little?

Of course, Mr Singh would claim no knowledge of any of this. Perhaps he would even insist that he was “not informed, not consulted” by Rajiv Gandhi, or, for that matter, the mobs that bayed for blood (and feasted on it) for four days before someone called the Army in.

Twenty-five years is a long time. Public memory is notoriously short and it is unlikely those who have attained the right to vote in these 25 years would know what the protest against the Congress deciding to give party tickets to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar is all about. It would, therefore, be in order to recall the chain of events lest we be persuaded to believe that nothing of consequence happened by a Prime Minister who spends sleepless nights worrying about a terror suspect held in distant Australia but blithely disowns responsibility for the shocking attempt to whitewash the crimes of his party and its ‘leaders’ committed against thousands at home.

So, here is the story, briefly told, of how more than 4,000 Sikh men, women and children were slaughtered; in Delhi alone, 2,733 Sikhs were burned alive, butchered or beaten to death. Women were raped while their terrified families pleaded for mercy, little or none of which was shown by the Congress goons. In one of the numerous such incidents, a woman was gang-raped in front of her 17-year-old son; before leaving, the marauders torched the boy.

For three days and four nights the killing and pillaging continued without the police, the civil administration and the Union Government, which was then in direct charge of Delhi, lifting a finger in admonishment. The Congress was in power and could have prevented the violence, but the then Prime Minister, his Home Minister, indeed the entire Council of Ministers, twiddled their thumbs.

Even as stray dogs gorged on charred corpses and wailing women, clutching children too frightened to cry, fled mobs armed with iron rods, staves and gallons of kerosene, AIR and Doordarshan kept on broadcasting blood-curdling slogans like ‘Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge’ (We shall avenge blood with blood) raised by Congress workers grieving over their dear departed leader.

In mid-morning on October 31, 1984, Mrs Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh guards posted at her home. Her death was ‘officially’ confirmed at 6 pm, after due diligence had been exercised to ensure Rajiv Gandhi’s succession. By then, reports of stray incidents of violence against Sikhs, including the stoning of President Zail Singh’s car, had started trickling in at various police stations.

By the morning of November 1, hordes of men were on the rampage in south, east and west Delhi. They were armed with iron rods and carried old tyres and jerry cans filled with kerosene and petrol. Owners of petrol pumps and kerosene stores, beneficiaries of Congress largesse, provided petrol and kerosene free of cost. Some of the men went around on scooters and motorcycles, marking Sikh houses and business establishments with chalk for easy identification. They had been provided with electoral rolls to make their task easier.

By late afternoon that day, hundreds of taxis, trucks and shops owned by Sikhs had been set ablaze. By early evening, the murder, loot and rape began in right earnest. The worst butchery took place in Block 32 of Trilokpuri, a resettlement colony in east Delhi. The police either participated in the violence or merely watched from the sidelines.

Curfew was declared in south and central Delhi at 4 pm, and in east and west Delhi at 6 pm on November 1. But there was no attempt to enforce it. PV Narasimha Rao, the then Home Minister, remained unmoved by cries for help. In his affidavit to the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry, Lt-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, decorated hero of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, said, “The Home Minister was grossly negligent in his approach, which clearly reflected his connivance with perpetrators of the heinous crimes being committed against the Sikhs.”

The first deployment of the Army took place around 6 pm on November 1 in south and central Delhi, which were comparatively unaffected, but in the absence of navigators, which should have been provided by the police and the civil authorities, the jawans found themselves lost in unfamiliar roads and avenues.

The Army was deployed in east and west Delhi in the afternoon of November 2, more than 24 hours after the killings began. But, here, too, the jawans were at a loss because there were no navigators to show them the way through byzantine lanes.

In any event, there was little the Army could have done: Magistrates were ‘not available’ to give permission to fire on the mobs. This mandatory requirement was kept pending till Mrs Indira Gandhi’s funeral was over. By then, 1,026 Sikhs had been killed in east Delhi. Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar were among Congress ‘leaders’ who, witnesses said, incited and led mobs. Both deny the allegation, but the evidence is overwhelming.

A report on the pogrom, jointly prepared by the PUCL and PUDR and published under the title, Who Are the Guilty? names both of them along with others. The report quotes well-known journalist Sudip Mazumdar: “The Police Commissioner, SC Tandon was briefing the Press (about 10 Indian reporters and five foreign journalists) in his office on November 6, at 5 pm. A reporter asked him to comment on the large number of complaints about local Congress MPs and lightweights trying to pressure the police to get their men released. The Police Commissioner totally denied the allegation… Just as he finished uttering these words, Jagdish Tytler, Congress MP from Sadar constituency, barged into the Police Commissioner’s office along with three other followers and on the top of his voice demanded, ‘What is this Mr Tandon? You still have not done what I asked you to do?’ The reporters were amused, the Police Commissioner embarrassed. Tytler kept on shouting and a reporter asked the Police Commissioner to ask that ‘shouting man’ to wait outside since a Press conference was on. Tytler shouted at the reporter, ‘This is more important.’ The reporter told the Police Commissioner that if Tytler wanted to sit in the office he would be welcome, but a lot of questions regarding his involvement would also be asked and he was welcome to hear them. Tytler was fuming…”

The slaughter was not limited to Delhi, though. Sikhs were killed in Gurgaon, Kanpur, Bokaro, Indore and many other towns and cities in States ruled by the Congress. In a replay of the mayhem in Delhi, 26 Sikh soldiers were pulled out of trains and killed.

After quenching their thirst for blood, the mobs retreated to savour their ‘revenge’. The flames died and the winter air blew away the stench of death. Rajiv Gandhi’s Government issued a statement placing the death toll at 425!

Demands for a judicial inquiry were stonewalled by Rajiv Gandhi. Human rights organisations petitioned the courts; the Government said courts were not empowered to order inquiries. Meanwhile, Rajiv Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and went for an early election, which the Congress swept by using the ‘sympathy card’ and launching a vitriolic hate campaign.

Once in office, Rajiv Gandhi was desperate for a breakthrough in Punjab. He mollycoddled Akali leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal into agreeing to sign a peace accord with him. Sant Longowal listed a set of pre-conditions; one of them was the setting up of a judicial commission to inquire into the pogrom.

Thus was born the Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry, which took on the job of crafting a report that would suggest extra-terrestrials were to be blamed for whatever had happened. Worse, submissions and affidavits were passed on to those accused of leading the mobs; some of these documents were later recovered from the house of Sajjan Kumar. Gag orders were issued, preventing the Press from reporting in-camera proceedings of the Commission.

For full six months, Rajiv Gandhi refused to make public the Ranganath Misra Commission’s report. When it was tabled in Parliament, the report was found to be an amazing travesty of the truth; neither were the guilty men of 1984 named, now was responsibility fixed.

Subsequently, nine commissions and committees were set up to get to the truth, but they were either disbanded midway or not allowed access to documents and evidence. India had to wait for the report of the Nanavati Commission for an approximate version of the real story.

Justice Nanavati’s report said, “The Commission considers it safe to record its finding that there is credible evidence against Jagdish Tytler to the effect that very probably he had a hand in organising attacks on Sikhs.” This is not an indictment, Mr Manmohan Singh and his Government decided, so why bother about it? Four years later they remain unrepentant, their attitude remains unchanged.

Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three men, women and children killed in Delhi, another 2,000 killed elsewhere, scores of women raped, property worth crores of rupees looted or sacked. Families devastated forever, survivors scarred for the rest of their lives.

But the Congress doesn’t care!

OPED | The Pioneer | Tuesday, April 14, 2009