Pragmatic Euphony  

Some gaps in the understanding are filled, but more questions emerge.

Too many trees have been felled and much ether used to debate the Indian offer to recommence peace talks with Pakistan. Most of the sensible debate — not the jingoistic bit of how we have been shamed by Pakistan cocking a snook at us — is predicated on the Obama plan of starting the withdrawal of US-NATO forces from Afghanistan by the middle of next year. Combine this with the proposals at the London conference of buying out the Taliban and detractors of the Indian offer for talks are convinced that India has already ended up on the losing side.

While all this seems overtly true, it just might not be the complete truth — and certainly not the final truth. It is here that this piece in Indian Express by K Subrahmanyam assists us by filling in some of the blanks. He flags two important issues. First is the course of action followed by the US forces between the completion of the surge and start of the drawdown operation.

That depends on the course of the campaign the US will launch on completing the surge operation. The purpose of buying up the pseudo-Taliban is to pacify the Afghan territory as the US forces will move closer to the Durand line and intensify their attacks on the jihadis on the Pakistani side with their drones.[Indian Express]

The Time magazine story on Operation Moshatrak to capture Marja in Afghanistan further strengthens Subrahmanyam’s thesis.

If he and his forces prevail, it will serve as the template for the far more challenging battle this summer for the Taliban capital of Kandahar, about 100 miles to the east. Success in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, would mean that McChrystal is on track to achieving Obama’s ultimate goal: to start sending U.S. troops back home in July 2011.[Time]

The second point that K Subrahmanyam notes was also pointed by this blogger earlier[here]. Let us hear it again in the words of K Subrahmanyam.

Faced with these alternatives, there is a distinct possibility of the Pakistani army getting yet another terrorist act perpetrated in India to provoke an Indian military response which can be used as an excuse to dodge responding to the US demand for action against the jihadis. …The most important issue for India today is not the purchasing campaign for the pseudo-Taliban, but how to deal with the likely Pakistani provocation to trigger an Indo-Pakistan war in order to dodge action against the jihadis.[Indian Express]

In no way can one argue that this makes an open-and-shut case for Indian offer of talks with Pakistan. This blogger is still not fully convinced of the case for talks but Mr Subrahmanyam’s piece does help us gain a better understanding of the reasons for this engagement. While concentrating on getting a better understanding of the situation is important, it is equally, if not more, important to explore and suggest ways in which India can make the best out of this engagement. That is the real challenge moving forward now.

While all this sounds fine and nice, it does leave us with a big question. Is it merely the US using India to further its goals in the region? Or is India also doing something to use the US to secure its own interests in the region? This is not a rhetorical question. Ponder.

P.S. — A couple of other related issues that must be highlighted here. They have been flagged courtesy a very vigorous email discussion with my fellow INI blogger Ananth.

One, it is now clear that the sudden surge in opinion pieces in the Indian mainstream media — albeit poorly-argued and hastily put together — asking for Indo-Pak talks was rather well-synchronised with the telephonic call made by the Indian foreign secretary to her Pakistani counterpart. It would be hard to digest that this was purely coincidental.

Two, Indian government has to handle its public diplomacy and strategic communication in a more professional manner. Although everything dealing with the nation’s diplomacy and national security can not be in the public domain — RTI or no RTI — the government owes the nation an explanation as to what prompted it to commence the talks now. A stony silence from the state is not an option in today’s time and age.

Why India’s offer of bilateral talks with Pakistan is a really bad idea?

The Acorn is known to choose his words carefully. So when he sets out to welcome the impending Indo-Pak talks, albeit cautiously and with a big caveat in tow, one has to sit up and take notice. His only rationale for welcoming the talks is that it takes away the Pakistani excuse of an intransigent India threatening Pakistan, which Pakistan claims is not allowing it to devote all its energies towards combating the Taliban in that country.

The premise that Pakistan’s litany of excuses can be so destroyed is wrong on many counts.  For one, General Kayani made it amply clear the other day by stating that “We plan on adversaries’ capabilities, not intentions”. And Indian military capabilities are not going away in a hurry, especially when India has to deal with another far more powerful threat emanating from a rather strident China. Moreover during the recent visit by Robert Gates to Pakistan, Pakistan military spokesperson briefed US journalists in no uncertain terms about the US request for commencing military operations in North Waziristan.

Six months to a year would be needed before Pakistan could stabilise existing gains and expand any operations. We are not in a position to get overstretched.[Indian Express]

Talks or no talks, it is amply clear that Pakistan army, by its own admission, is not going to start any new operations against the jehadis. Thus, it will not be much harder for Pakistan to use the an excuse even if, hey, “open-ended talks on all outstanding issues” are in progress.

While Obama administration has not generated much confidence with its handling of AfPak, Iran or China, it would still be erroneous to assume that Obama administration doesn’t realise that all this talk about an existential threat from India is a charade by the Pakistan army. Pakistani army is keen to hedge its options in case of a US pull out from the region and is thus disinclined to take on the friendly jehadis, its strategic assets— to be used in Afghanistan and against India. Perhaps, the US has no other leverage left over Pakistan army — having granted Pakistan a handsome aid package in form of the Kerry-Lugar Act — and this is the proverbial last throw of the dice, almost in desperation hoping that Pakistan would budge.

Pakistan though, if past history is any indicator to go by, is unlikely to change its course. Then this offer of talks by India is not going to make any difference whatsoever to the situation in Pakistan [except provide more fodder to gristmills of the TRP-hungry, sensationalist Indian media]. In fact, it actually ends up explicitly conveying India’s helplessness when it comes to dealing with Pakistan.

Bringing out India’s  helplessness in the open leaves Indian citizens more susceptible to fresh terror attacks by the jehadis. And if, God forbid, these bilateral talks do start to make some substantial progress, it would be almost imperative for the Pakistani military-jehadi complex to launch a spectacular terror strike on Indian mainland to derail the process.

But even this dark cloud has a silver lining. When that terror attack happens, India will have a ready option available to publicly retaliate against Pakistan: call off the bilateral talks. Now how would India have retaliated if there were no bilateral talks happening and a terror attack took place. Ponder!

PS — If Indian government has made this offer of talks under US pressure, it is all the more important that the Indian commentators  and political opposition convey the prevailing public opinion against such talks in no uncertain terms. This would highlight the huge political risks being taken by the government in initiating such talks. It would allow the government to extricate far more in return from the US while simultaneously providing it the leverage to call off these talks or threaten to call them off at any time. And there exists a recent precedent of such ‘planned’ opposition. Prime Minister Vajpayee had masterly done this by using the Communists when under pressure from the US to contribute troops to Iraq. Only if the current political leadership of the UPA would display such realpolitik as PM Vajpayee did.

Can we start framing similar questions in India?

From the novel A Soldier’s Duty by Thomas E. Ricks:

We as a nation have not really come to grips with what should be the proper role of uniformed officers in debates about issues that affect the armed services. It is especially problematic in an era of deference to expertise of all sorts in many areas. At a time when fewer and fewer members of government and the electorate have any military experience, how should military officers bring their expertise to public discussions of national security issues? If military officers are made to sit on the sidelines, how can the debate be truly an informed one? And how can we, in our great democracy, ask American men and women to go out and die if we haven’t held an informed debate? In this key sense, the quality of the political debate boosts our military efficiency, our promise to the troops that they will be used wisely and well.

On one hand, these can be conveniently ignored as rhetorical questions framed to stimulate the intellect of a western audience. On the other, sixty years after India became a republic,  isn’t it high time that we in India at least started framing such questions? Answers can follow later.

Two initiatives of the home ministry — monthly report card & updated Action plan — are exemplars for other ministries to emulate.

P Chidambaram has done a lot of good things since taking over as the Home Minister of this country in the aftermath of the ghastly terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008. He has spoken at length about restructuring the internal security mechanism in the country, undertaken some bold initiatives on countering the Maoists and enunciated the position of the government rather well. These initiatives, however remarkable they may be, are restricted to the domain of his ministry.

However there are two initiatives of his ministry that really stand out as exemplars which can, and should be emulated by other ministries. The first one is the monthly report card of the home ministry presented by the Union minister and the Home Secretary at the end of each month in front of the national media. It is another matter that the media is more interested in sound bytes and sensationalist stories than in analysing and disseminating the facts and figures contained in the report card.

But it is the second initiative that should be mandatory for all ministries to follow. On the website of the Home ministry, there is a page for Action Plan. This provides link to a 74-page pdf document which tabulates a time-bound action plan — Action Plan III (October 2009 to March 2010) — for all departments of the home ministry. It also lists the progress achieved on these action points. And most amazingly, hold your breath, it has been last updated on 28 January 2010.

This initiative holds much promise for developing an effective system of public accountability that will ensure that government servants and elected political leaders are responsible to the public. The proliferation of new information and communication technologies facilitates more such initiatives in governance. If the media is able to generate more awareness about these initiatives, then such systems are likely to increase the pressure for higher standards of ethics, transparency and accountability from the government.

In the usual course, this blog is very quick to pounce upon any mistakes made by the government and lambast it, especially in the field of national and internal security. But here is an exception when it is time to acknowledge that this is truly a stand-out initiative of the Home ministry. Kudos to them.

The issue of effectiveness should always trump the questions of efficiency and quantum, when it comes to defence spending.

As we look forward to the defence budget for the coming year, just consider these facts.

• In the year 1999-2000, the total defence budget of this country was Rs 48,504 crore. In 2009-10, the allocation for pay & allowances in the defence budget are Rs 52,876 crore.
• The total defence budget for 2008-09 was Rs 114,600 crore. Out of this, the money actually expended on new capital acquisitions was Rs 12,153.85 crore, a mere 10.6% of the total defence spending.
• The total allocation for defence pensions — kept outside the defence budget — for the current year, 2009-10 is Rs 21,790 crore. The total allocation for new capital acquisitions for the same year is Rs 19,118.74 crore. The former always goes up in the final analysis, while the latter invariably goes down.

There can be various interpretations of these facts. But there is one inference that needs to be noted. The debate over defence budget should not merely be about more money. It should not be restricted only to how it is spent. It should also be about how the money is allocated, where it is supposed to be spent and what does it actually do to bolster national security.

To put it simply, when it comes to defence spending, the issue of effectiveness should always trump the questions of efficiency and quantum.

An exclusive focus on legacy efforts of military modernisation has done a huge disservice to national security.

When the new defence budget is announced in a few weeks time, we will again witness — to paraphrase Richard Betts — that the sluice gates of military spending have been opened not because it is the appropriate thing to do strategically but because it is something the country can do when something has to be done. Many assume that the modernisation funds of the defence budget are being invested, whenever expended, into fulfilling the nation’s actual security needs. But this might not be entirely true.

Let us look at a few examples from the modernisation programmes of the three defence services. When it comes to the Navy, Rear Admiral (retired) Premvir Das contends that the navy must bring up the numbers of its warships, frigates and submarines by 2020 to 1971 levels. In the Indian Air Force, the debate is all about bringing up the number of fighter squadrons back up to 39.5 by replacing outdated aircrafts. The Army is pushing for its new tanks and artillery modernisation programme to replace the vintage equipment.

Most commentators lament the lack of political will to fulfil these urgent requirements and equate military modernisation with procuring equipment to retain existing capabilities. However they focus on only a part of the problem as there are four distinguishing military modernisation trends: Legacy, Transformational, Adaptive and Ad hoc.

1. Legacy efforts carry forward and seek to enhance the pivotal platforms and capabilities of the recent past.
2. Transformational efforts seek to achieve dramatic increases in effectiveness or efficiency by employing new technology, techniques and forms of organisation.
3. Adaptive efforts correspond to the perceived requirements of new security missions and circumstances.
4. Ad hoc efforts respond to unforeseen developments as they unfold – the exigencies of the moment.

Going by the evidence at hand, the debate on military modernisation in India is very sketchily defined and focused only on the Legacy efforts. Notwithstanding the enhanced allocations and outlays for capital expenditure in the defence budget, defence modernisation will always be underdone unless Transformational and Adaptive efforts are also clearly identified and fully integrated via a long-term plan. This modernisation plan will have to be then disciplined in accord with a sustainable, adaptive and cost-effective national security strategy. Given the lack of strategic guidance from the top and institutional effeteness in defence planning, such thought is, and will remain wishful thinking. Alas!

Anecdotal understanding of the Afghan attitude is misleading.

Tom Ricks, in an interview with Fareed Zakaria:

Even when I lived there, it seemed to me that guerrilla warfare was the Afghan national sport.

One of my favorite books on this region is by John Masters. It’s called “Bugles and a Tiger.” It’s a memoir of being a British officer with a Gurkha regiment in Waziristan in the 1930s. At the end of that last war that the British had there, the Afghan cousins showed up rather angrily and confronted him.

“Where are our medals,” they said.

He said, “Well, you were the enemy.”

And they said, “No, no. You gave medals to the Pashtuns on your side. We want our medals, too. You couldn’t have had a good war without us.”

This is very much the Afghan attitude. This is a kind of sporting event for them in many ways.[CNN]

Well, that’s a great story to recount over a drink. But times have certainly changed since then. The sport has now evolved into a game, a brutal game of power, fuelled by the concept of jehad and embraced by the fanatical brotherhood of jehadis worldwide.

Let not such anecdotes influence national policies on Afghanistan. The policy decisions have to be based on hard facts and dispassionate analysis, and ultimately are a matter of political judgement.

Public reactions by military veterans to Defence Minister’s advice to the Army Chief portend a dangerous course ahead. This can be reversed by having an honest debate on civil-military relations.

Well, so it turns out that the Chief of Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor — after much dithering earlier — has followed the advice of the defence minister, Mr AK Antony and initiated court-martial proceedings against a three-star general, Lt General Avadesh Prakash. To most observers, it seems to be most obvious and prudent course of action that General Kapoor — with his record of past problems with Lieutenant General Panag — could have pursued after the incessant media coverage and in keeping with the ‘advice’ of the minister. But trust our retired brass and self-styled veteran leaders to be different.

“It is the duty of the government to make lions and tigers out of soldiers, not mice,” an exasperated Major General Satbir Singh, the vice-chairman of the Ex-Servicemen’s Movement, said.

Singh wrote in a letter: “This probably is the first time ever where the defence minister has bypassed all laid-down norms of propriety and the well-tested judicial system of the defence forces. This is nothing but direct interference in the performance of duties of the COAS (Chief of Army Staff). If appropriate corrective measures are not taken, it will deter the future commanders from using their discretion and taking bold decisions which are so essential in the battlefield scenario.”

The veterans’ association leader is indignant and says the army chief should be his own person. “I would, therefore, implore the chief of army staff to kindly take action as per his own bidding which will enhance the prestige of the office he holds. The whole nation is watching him,” he wrote.[Telegraph]

Former army chief, General (retired) Ved Malik is not too far to be left far behind in his audacious suggestion to resolve the situation.

General Malik wondered if there was a quieter way to resolve the dispute after a court of inquiry in Calcutta indicted the military secretary and three other generals. He recalled that in one instance, a lieutenant general was confronted with evidence of wrongdoing by his superiors and told to either resign or face disciplinary action. The lieutenant general resigned and is now abroad.[Telegraph]

Till a few weeks back, it was obligatory for most uniformed commentators to pronounce — albeit wrongly as this old blogpost brings out — that civil control of the military meant exclusive control by the political executive which should be free of any ‘interference’ by the civil bureaucracy. This view was emboldened by the role of Mr Antony during the pay commission controversy— which Shekhar Gupta memorably described as akin to that of a trade union leader of the services — and has since led to a lot of belligerence on part of the veterans, who somehow claim to also voice the opinion of the serving members of the armed forces. It is interesting to note that the principle of civil control, as enunciated by the veterans then, has also been dispensed as soon as the defence minister’s advice to the army chief has not been to their liking.

These latest reactions are actually just a step-up from the tirade launched against the media and the nation by many ex-military officers-turned-commentators. However, to dismiss these tendentious remarks as immature and made by veterans out of a sense of corporate loyalty for the implicated officers is to overlook the larger question that has raised its head time and again since the pay commission fracas broke out. What is the place of Indian defence services in the Indian Republic? What is the defining feature of civil-military relations in this country?

These questions can no longer be brushed under the carpet or answered by platitudes. They deserve answers which are relevant to today’s India. These answers can only come from engaging all the stakeholders, and not by shouting at each other. This controversy, in fact, provides a great opportunity to initiate an honest debate on the state of civil-military relations in this country. A great place to begin the debate is by having a look at the ideal state of civil-military relations.

British have made the mistake of paying the enemy earlier and still not learned their lessons.

From the At War blog of the New York Times:

There is talk of paying Afghan tribes to give up violence and stop fighting the American-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

This brings to mind a poem by Rudyard Kipling about the Danegeld, a levy paid in Anglo-Saxon England in an attempt to buy off Danish invaders who were prone to raiding the coasts.

The verses were written a century ago, about a protection racket that was being run a millennium ago. Although – some progress in 1,000 years – the Danes and British are actually on the same side this time, in Afghanistan.

“It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation
To puff and look important and to say: -
‘Though we know we should defeat you
We have not the time to meet you
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.’

“And that is called paying the Dane-geld
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.”

–School History, Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016), 1911, Rudyard Kipling, coauthored with C. R. L. Fletcher.

What was it about those forgetting history being condemned to repeat it.

An image from the past.

Courtesy — Beyond belief: India and the politics of postcolonial nationalism By Srirupa Roy

Islamist foreign fighters didn’t start the jehad in Kashmir. They came to support and fight the jehad in Kashmir.

Mint has been and remains this blogger’s favourite newspaper. But when the wonderful editorial team at that newspaper errs in its assessment, the discrepancies have to be pointed out. On the twentieth anniversary of the mass exodus of Hindus from the Kashmir Valley, Mint — and it is not the only one holding this fallacious belief — blames this  movement of Hindus on the foreign jehadis who were pushed across the Line of Control by Pakistan.

Since 1994 at least, Pakistan has purposely injected hardline, jihadi, elements in the insurgency in the state. These foreign mercenaries are the ones who control the levers of violence in J&K. In contrast to the home-grown militants, these foreign jihadis are alien to Kashmiri ethos and toleration. Their presence and utility to the secessionist leadership in the state has made the return of Pandits impossible. So, in public all secessionists want the Pandits to return, their political choices make this impossible.[Mint]

Only if the editors at Mint had read one book on Kashmir which has been so strongly recommended by my fellow blogger The Acorn — or even his blogpost recommending the book — they would not have made this mistake of believing that Islamist jehad in Kashmir started in 1990. The book is India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The covert war in Kashmir, 1947-2004 by Praveen Swami.

This book explores the history of Jihadist groups in Jammu and Kashmir, documenting the course of their activities and their changing character from 1947 to 2004. Drawing on new material, including classified Indian intelligence dossiers and records, Praveen Swami shows that Jihadist violence was not, as is widely assumed, a phenomenon that manifested itself in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir only after 1988. Rather, a welter of jihadist groups waged a sustained campaign against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir from the outset, after the Partition of India. This book first analyses the ideology and practice of Islamist terrorism as it changed and evolved from 1947-1948 onwards. It subsequently discusses the impact of the secret jihad on Indian policy making on Jammu and Kashmir, as well as its influence on political life within the state. Finally, looking at some of the reasons why the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir acquired such intensity in 1990, the author suggests that the answers lie in the transfiguration of the strategic environment in South Asia by the nuclear weapons programme of India and Pakistan. As such, the book argues, the violent conflict which exploded in these two regions after 1990 was not a historical discontinuity: it was, instead, an escalated form of what was by then a five-decade old secret war.[Link]

Praveen Swami clearly brings out that Kashmiriyat — the syncretic tradition of Kashmir — which existed in some measure in rural Kashmir till the nineteenth century has been increasingly marginalised over the past century. Instead, a neo-conservative Islam shaped by West-Asian petro-dollars, often channelled through Pakistani agencies, has acquired primacy in Kashmir since 1948. You can also check out Ayesha Siddiqa’s review of Swami’s book here.

For a better historical understanding of the Kashmiri identity, to go along with Praveen Swami’s book, one must read Languages of belonging: Islam, regional identity, and the making of Kashmir by Chitralekha Zutshi. Here is an extract from the Book Overview at Google Books:

The few works of history and politics that have appeared on this region, moreover, insist on defining Kashmiri culture, history, and identity in terms of the ahistorical concept of Kashmiriyat, or a uniquely Kashmiri cultural identity. This book, in contrast, questions the notion of any transcendent cultural uniqueness and Kashmiriyat by returning Kashmir to the mainstream of South Asian historiography. It examines the hundred-year impact of indirect colonial rule on Kashmirs class formation. It studies the uses (and abuses) made of Kashmirs political elites by the state. It looks at the responses of Kashmirs society to social and economic restructuring. It shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the Kashmir Valley, there is nothing very inevitable or quite definite about the ‘political regionalism’ and ‘Islamic particularism’ of this area.[Link]

Kashmiriyat is today, at best, a convenient political slogan used by parties like National Conference to maintain their acceptability to Indians outside Jammu & Kashmir, while allowing it to simultaneously pander to the parochial political considerations in Kashmir. Kashmiriyat was dead long ago. It is a ghost that needs to be quickly buried so that well-meaning folks, like the editorial team at Mint, do not repeat this mistake — of believing that jehad started in Kashmir with the arrival of Islamist foreign fighters.

There is an urgent need to take steps to have a better ratio of capital to revenue expenditure in the defence budget.

For the current financial year (2009-10), the capital expenditure as a percentage of the defence budget is planned to be a rather modest 39 percent, the balance 61 percent being earmarked for revenue expenditure. But going by past experience, that figure is likely to be far lower than 39 percent when the budget year ends in a couple of months time. Last year (2008-09), the planned capital expenditure figure was 45.46 percent but it actually turned out to be 35.78 percent when the books were balanced at the end of the year.

Analysing the defence budget last year, former Navy chief Admiral(retd) Arun Prakash had flagged this issue as being critical to the issue of defence expenditure and national security. As the budget formulation process for the coming year is currently in progress at the North Block, it is instructive to revisit those thoughts now.

Since revenue expenditure is devoted mainly to support services which may or may not contribute to combat effectiveness, one of the more adverse effects of our inability to get the capital/revenue equation right is the skewing of the teeth-to-tail ratio of the armed forces.

There is world-wide recognition that the single most expensive item in defence budgets is manpower, with its ‘cradle to grave’ liability. While they eagerly bid for funds to acquire high-technology force-multipliers, our Services have remained unwilling or unable to either downsize force-levels, or create joint-service synergies as a quid pro quo.

While one Service stubbornly insists that there is no substitute for ‘boots on the ground’, another says that ‘technology is nice to have, but numbers have their own logic’. Obviously, everyone wants to eat their cake and have it too. Unfortunately, there is no one with the knowledge or authority in the national security structure to crack the whip and shatter this paradigm.

By their proclivity for adding numbers, and resistance to Jointmanship, the Services boost revenue spending on the ‘tail’ (items like rations, housing, pay and pensions) when they should be adding ‘teeth’ via capital acquisition of modern hardware.[Force]

Not that one expects things to change this year. The opportunity to make amends is there even today but the government will not act unless there is a crisis.

The difference between a crisis and an opportunity is when you learn of it. ~Alan M. Webber

Let us stop this jamboree of a Republic Day Parade.

Even if there is no fog on this 26th January, Delhi will still come to a standstill. Blame it on the Republic Day celebrations. As this news report suggests, the state seems to be taking a kind of perverse pride in converting the national capital into a fortress that day — multi-layered security, anti-aircraft guns, helicopter surveillance, close circuit cameras, snipers on high-rise buildings, additional security force deployments, closure of state borders, disruption of public transport services and many other ‘intensive’ measures have been put in place.

Because Republic Day is a scheduled event with a standard programme, it provides a very attractive target for the terrorists trying to score a publicity victory over the Indian state. Now, the terrorists are not waiting for the D-day itself but looking at innovative ways to perpetuate their heinous terror acts. Some would say that for reasons of security and inconvenience to the public of Delhi alone, the concept of Republic Day parade, as we know it today, must be done away with. The counter-argument is that a nation can not be cowed down by the terrorists and “the show must go on”. Some commentators have tried to resolve the dilemma by suggesting a reduction in the frequency of organising the parade — maybe every three or five years.

Is it then merely a question of cost-benefit analysis or are there larger questions  about the need to have a Republic Day parade after six decades of being a Republic?

Republic Day parade is a throwback to the idea of a Nehruvian nation-state, where it was part of an attempt by the government to transform the colonial subjects into citizens of a modern state. It was portrayed as a ‘national’ festival — in tune with Nehruvian beliefs — which unlike any other festival in the country, was free of any religious or regional influences.

Since its inception, the Republic Day parade has had two components: the military parade and the cultural pageant. The Indian state took a deliberate decision in 1951 to incorporate these two elements in the parade.

Whereas other countries, on similar occasions, hold impressive military parades which are calculated to give the world an idea of the armed might of the country, we have combined the ceremonial military parade with the cultural pageant, which signifies  that this young Republic values cultural progress no less than military strength. [Statement by the then Joint Secretary of the Department of Education]

Now Indian culture was something very close to Nehru’s heart and he used the cultural idiom to transmit his own idea of India to citizens of a free Republic. In 1952, Nehru wrote to the Chief Ministers articulating his vision of the cultural pageant.

Thus the procession would be a moving pageant of India in its rich diversity. … I would love to see in our procession people from various parts of India including our tribal people, the Nagas from the North East, the Bhils from Central India, the Santals and others showing that they are also full partners in this great enterprise of India going ahead.[Link]

So long before Hillary Clinton made Smart Power famous as a phrase, Nehru and his acolytes were actually implementing the principle of combining Hard and Soft power of the state. Unfortunately, the target of this power game of the Indian government were not other countries of the world, but the citizens of the Indian state. What’s worse is — going by the opening sentence of a recent press release — that the narrative of the state hasn’t changed a bit in the last six decades: …the forthcoming Republic Day Parade – 2010 where India will showcase its varied cultural diversity, development in Science and Technology, military might and economic strength.

Now the military parade part. At a very basic level, military parades are meant to demonstrate Indian state’s ability to defend itself and its citizens from any foreign aggression. The aim of the military display is to drive home the message to potential aggressors that if attacked, India would rebuff and defeat them. The parade also boosts the national pride of the general public by evoking a feeling of awe for the armed forces. At a subliminal level, it is a warning to separatists that they are fighting a losing battle against the might of the Indian state.

In the aftermath of the humiliating loss to China, the military part of the parade was not held for the first time in 1963. After that, as India fought two wars with Pakistan in quick succession, the imagery and rhetoric of the parade turned more militaristic. Although the importance of military might as an element of ‘comprehensive national power’ has diminished in last two decades — with economic weight and political and social stability of the nation gaining greater importance — the parade hasn’t reflected these changes in its design and conduct.

This dissonance lies at the heart of the problem, manifested in an increasing irrelevance of the Republic Day parade to the nation and the average Indian. A young nation, and its first Prime Minister, used the event to convey the idea of a nation to its citizens who had been colonial subjects till a few years back. In the last six decades, the idea of India has firmed and taken deep roots in the country.  In fact, this idea of India as a liberal, secular, democratic Republic is almost inviolable in every Indian’s mind. It doesn’t need any further validation by way of pageants or military parades.

As far as the import of military parade is concerned, there is certainly a need to celebrate the Indian armed forces and provide opportunities for them to connect with the larger society. The right occasion to do so, though, is not the Republic Day but the day the nation celebrates the most comprehensive military victory of the Indian Republic — Vijay Diwas. Even there, the military parade should be a mix of the formal and the informal, allowing for greater interaction between the citizen and the military. And perhaps, the really grand military parades could be held on every fifth anniversary of the 1971 victory to commemorate the occasion. As the thirtieth anniversary of that victory falls in 2011, it is an opportune time to undertake this rescheduling exercise.

In the last decade, India has — in practice — already jettisoned most of the distinctive Nehruvian ideas, whether it be non-alignment or a centrally planned economy. It is not a comment on the quality of Nehru’s ideas or their importance to the nation during his lifetime. It is about their relevance to a twenty-first century India. The Republic Day parade, though a rather insignificant event in comparison to the big Nehruvian ideas of non-alignment and centrally planned economy, perhaps falls in the same league.

It is nigh time the government did to the Republic Day parade on the Republic’s sixtieth birthday in 2010 what it does to its own employees on their sixtieth birthday — retire it.  To paraphrase Victor Hugo, you can not hold to an idea whose time has gone. And Republic Day parade is one such idea.

Update: Outlook magazine asks the question — Is the Republic Day parade conceptually too frozen in the ’50s?

The decision to revoke the ban on pre-paid mobile telephones is a welcome one.

Thank God, the ban on pre-paid mobiles in Jammu & Kashmir has finally been revoked. The manner in which the ban was imposed — it wasn’t even publicised that the telecom department had also imposed a penalty of Rs 7.38 crore on the six service providers operating in the state from 2008 to November 2009 — from November last year was a policy decision befitting the communist China more than a democratic republic like India. The ban was challenged in the Supreme Court by Bhim Singh of the J&K Panthers Party and the reasoning proffered by the government of India was unitary — national security.

“The Central government had received intelligence inputs that proper verification of the identity and address of the subscriber was not being done as per the directions of the government while providing pre-paid mobile connections by the service providers.”

It said: “Use of fake documents/identity numbers was also prevalent particularly in the case of pre-paid connections. The misuse of SIM cards by militants was noticed in 2007 by the J&K police which found that a SIM card used to trigger a landmine targeting an Army convoy was registered in a fake name.”

The Centre said that after the imposition of the ban, the government had received reports that it had a significant impact on the communication networks of terrorist and anti-national elements, who were previously using fraudulently obtained pre-paid connections. “An executive decision in the interest of national security cannot be subjected to judicial review,” it said and sought dismissal of the petition.[Hindu]

More interestingly, there was a categorical declaration by the Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium in the Supreme Court on 8 January:

We cannot revoke the ban. It is due to the security reasons the ban on pre-paid mobile services has been imposed.[Rediff]

The next hearing was scheduled for 25 January and four days before that hearing, the Indian government does a complete turn-around and suddenly lifts the ban. The solution offered — of stringent security verifications[pdf] on par with post-paid connections — is something that could have been explored much earlier. So what triggered this sudden turn-around by the government?

The official version is that “the ban was lifted because all the service providers now had a “reliable and stringent” system to verify all customers”. If that sounds incredulous, then it is probably so.

A politically beleaguered J&K Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah would have certainly liked to take the credit for revoking the ban to boost his own ratings. But when the centre announced the decision on its own without involving him, Mr Abdullah had no choice but to welcome the decision.

“The decision of lifting the ban has come as a relief to tens of thousands of subscribers” and “also thousands of young people who are engaged with this activity”[AFP]

However, it seems that the government’s hand was forced by the decision of the Supreme Court to hear the case on 25 January. Centre had perhaps realised that it was on a weak footing and thus pre-empted the decision of the Supreme Court. Besides saving the government the embarrassment of seeing its ban being over-turned by judicial intervention, the centre must also have been worried about being forced to revert to old security verification guidelines for pre-paid connections by the court diktat.

The most interesting aspect of this ban and its revocation is the nature of decision-making in the government. The ban on pre-paid mobile connections was a political decision directed by security considerations. Now, the decision to revoke that ban is again a political decision pre-empted by judicial considerations. The conflation of politics, security and judiciary in governance leads to the right decision. Eventually. All’s well that ends well.

One quote from the Indian Foreign Secretary says it all.

Political power flows from the barrel of a gun.~Mao

Here is Nirupama Rao’s answer to the sudden surge in media pieces asking India to resume talks with Pakistan.

Karan Thapar: What about the opinion expressed by some analysts that if India were to resume the dialogue process, it might strengthen Islamabad’s hand in delivering on terror?

Nirupama Rao: I know the school of thought and it I think especially has gained some currency in Pakistan in recent months. But let us look at it this way. Terrorism is not a tap you turn on and off because of the absence of or prevalence of dialogue. Dialogue does not flow from the barrel of the gun, Karan.[IBN]

Dialogue does not flow from the barrel of the gun… Well said, Ms. Rao. Take a bow.

The calls for recommencing talks with Pakistan do not stand to logic and are not grounded in reality.

There are periods in history in which it isn’t enough to say you’ve done your best, when the only test is whether you have done what is necessary.~Churchill

It seems that the wonderfully efficient marketing machinery at an Indian newspaper has been able to achieve what even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh couldn’t achieve after Sharm-el-Sheikh — convince the Indian mainstream media commentators that India had no option but to resume peace talks with Pakistan. The usual candle-lighting suspects have persevered at this for years — in locations as diverse as Delhi, Singapore, Dubai and Kabul. Now it is the turn of  journalists like Suhasini Haider and Maya Mirchandani to advocate resumption of Indo-Pak talks. Supporting voices have come in from certain unexpected quarters, including a strident ex-General whose views about Pakistan have suddenly gone soft; now he wants India to extend the hand of friendship towards Pakistan.

Let us look at the broad arguments being proffered by these commentators. A caveat, though may be in order. While the nuances of the arguments may vary from one commentator to other, the essence of their arguments remains unaltered.

First and foremost, all the commentators display a clear sign of fatigue with the current state of affairs. Their premise: how long can we in India continue with this stalemate? They perhaps forget that old cliché: all movement is not progress. Furthermore, it seems that in the eyes of these commentators,  the onus is solely on India to initiate recommencement of talks. Pakistan wants India to start the talks status quo ante; India wants Pakistan to show some substantive progress on the trials of those accused of plotting the Mumbai terror attack of November 2008 before starting talks. In fact, it is natural that both the sides should be willing to move  some way forward before such proposals can be considered seriously.

A related argument is that the Law of Diminishing Returns for this coercive Indian diplomacy of past one year has already set in. A continuation of the same wouldn’t achieve more from Pakistan and thus TINA — there is no alternative — but to talk to Pakistan. Firstly, process by itself is not a substitute for substance. Secondly, there could be alternatives, only if we were willing to look at them. Seriously debating the merits of other alternatives — a greater Indian military presence in Afghanistan for one — could be the way ahead. If coercive diplomacy [although it is hard to classify Indian stance as coercive in the first place] is not paying dividends now and status quo is not acceptable, the coercion need not necessarily be scaled down. It could even be scaled up to achieve Indian long-term strategic goals.

Then there is the laundry list of usual arguments about strengthening democracy and engaging the moderate civil society in Pakistan. It is a fanciful notion that has been proved wrong time and again over the last six decades. Needless to add, history has shown that actors and institutions deriving their strength from a radicalised society and a powerful military in Pakistan will always prevail over the so-called moderates when it comes to national security, an euphemism for India-centric policies. Such people-to-people contact, in fact, tends to camouflage the sinister designs of the Pakistani military-jehadi establishment by providing a soft sheen of normalcy. The lack of such “friendly people-to-people” activity, though unpleasant, helps the nation and the international community in sustaining its focus on the doings of the Pakistani military-jehadi complex.

As for the saintly argument that India — being a liberal and democratic society besides being the larger country — must display its commitment to humanity by talking to Pakistan, there is no answer. Because such blithe concern can lead India to transfer Jammu & Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh to Pakistan even now.

There is a common thread running through all these exhortations for recommencing peace talks with Pakistan. It is a false premise that underpins the arguments: equating talks with peace. The road of Indo-Pak peace talks, traversed in the past, is littered with the debris of Kargil, Kandahar hijacking, Parliament attack, Kaluchak massacre, Hyderabad blasts, Mumbai train blasts, Jaipur blasts, Delhi blasts and finally the spectacular Mumbai terror attack of November 2008. India, with a combination of fortuity and enhanced internal security measures, has had no major jehadi terror attack — bar a few in Jammu & Kashmir — after November 2008, a peaceful span co-terminus with the No Talks period of Indo-Pak relations. If the proof is in the pudding, then talks do not mean peace. Peace for Indian citizens that is.

Meanwhile the status quo on ceasefire on the Line of Control or annual exchange of list of nuclear installations has been maintained between the two countries even in the absence of any peace talks.

Perhaps this kind of containment and tactical deterrence can ensure peace for Indian citizens from Pakistan only in the short-term and it may give away soon. As the Reaganites are fond of saying, “True peace is not the absence of war, it is the absence of evil.” For a permanent peace between India and Pakistan, which is in the interest of ‘humanity’ of South Asia and the world at large, there is thus no option but to destroy Pakistan’s military-jehadi complex.

There are certainly some people who hope that things might be different this time and thus we must talk to Pakistan now. But then hope cannot be a substitute for policy.

Finally, if all the experts — or an overwhelming majority of them — are publicly suggesting that India should initiate peace talks with Pakistan, then the Indian leadership has to heed and follow their advice. Or maybe it will instead pay heed to Henry Kissinger’s word of advice:

It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

P.S. — It seems that Indian media and experts are perhaps tired of having nothing new to report on on the Indo-Pak impasse. Another big Indo-Pak peace talks drama means more photo-ops, more chatter, more drafting of joint statements, more backroom gossip passed as authentic information attributed to ’sources’, dollops of controversy — all that the Indian mainstream media currently thrives on. Maybe the marketing managers of a particular Indian newspaper can then even claim bonuses from their own employers (and other media houses) for a successful marketing campaign to boost circulation (and TRPs)!

Leave alone the video or the audio file, even the transcript of army chief’s annual press conference is not available at any government website.

If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.~Groucho Marx

General Deepak Kapoor, Indian Army Chief held the traditional press conference on the eve of the Army Day yesterday which was widely reported upon by the print and electronic media. Going by various press reports, it is evident that he held forth on a gamut of subjects: among them, the Sukhna Land scam, review of the Indian army strategic doctrine, night-blindness of the Indian army, decline in applications for premature retirements by officers, increase in infiltration across the LoC in Jammu & Kashmir, reports of encroachment over Indian landmass by China and modernisation plans of the Indian army.

In fact, a cursory search on Google News will give you over 200 results in the english language media for the press conference of the army chief. But if you were looking for a complete coverage — including a video, audio and transcript — of the statement by the army chief, and questions and answers session at the press conference, you are liable to be disappointed. The Chief of the Army Staff page on the official Indian Army website has no mention of the press conference while the Press Release page of the Ministry of Defence website mainly stocks invitations for journalists to various official ministry events.

Anyone trying to make sense of the complete event based on reading of several sketchy media reports is likely to meet the fate of the Raja in the Buddhist parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant. Pragmatic Euphony had flagged this issue earlier when the army chief’s statement on infiltration across the LoC was interpreted differently by various media houses.

The very basic tenet of public diplomacy demands transparency and accuracy of all information issued by the government. This can be best done by ensuring that the original transcript of all statements made by senior military functionaries — which can act as an authenticated primary source of information — are placed in the public domain by the government. The Pentagon website, which contains all the statements made by the Defense Secretary and the Chairman Joint Chiefs, among others, is an example that can be emulated by the websites of army headquarters and the ministry of defence in India.

While leveraging the power of blogs, facebook and twitter might be too much to ask of India’s generals and bureaucrats, uploading the complete transcripts of any media interaction by them on MoD websites should not be a big deal in today’s times. Can we start with meeting the very basic minimum requirements of public diplomacy in this country?[PE]

Omar Abdullah has to focus on a long-term plan to revive state capacity in J&K, rather than be dependent on the Centre for administering development schemes in his state.

While the outlays of the state of Jammu & Kashmir — most of it as dole by the Centre — receive a lot of publicity, the poor outcomes and high percentages of unutilised expenditure receive scant attention in the national media. The details of proposed outlays and actual usage for last year are liable to catch most readers by surprise.

It is no secret that only twenty percent of the funds received by the State under Prime Ministers Reconstruction Program [PMRP] were utilized till the program expired in March 2009. Out of Rupees 30,000 Cr received under PMRP by the state, it had utilized only Rupees 6,000 Crores. The program that had been initiated with high promises of changing economic landscape some five years back with great fanfare and publicity was defeated. The figures made available to the Assembly had indicated that only Rs 2,789 crores out of Rs 6,052 crores had been spent by the state under the state sector projects to be implemented by JK Government while Rs 734 crores out of Rs 4,751 crores had been spent under the central sector projects to be implemented by the state government. Under central sector projects to be implemented by the central agencies, the expenditure on different projects has been lowest with only Rs 2,814 crores out of Rs 18,455 crores.[GK]

PMRP was announced by PM Manmohan Singh in November 2004 and was supposed to last up till 2008, with a total outlay of  Rs 24,000 crore. The track-record has been very poor so far with only 22 out of 67 projects taken in hand five years ago completed so far. In all likelihood, conceding the request of the J&K CM, Centre will extend the PMRP till the end of Eleventh Plan in 2011-12. However, there have been two significant changes in centre’s approach towards PMRP after the UPA government returned to power last year.

Firstly, the centre has deputed union secretaries to directly monitor the progress of PMRP projects in the state. After one such visit in October last year, the next visit of union secretaries is planned for February this year. Secondly, the Delivery Monitoring Unit[DMU] under the PMO also took stock of the PMRP earlier this month after DMU’s charter was reduced from 101 items in UPA1.0 to only 18 projects in UPA2.0.

It can thus be reasonably expected that the unexpended outlays under the PMRP in J&K will come down significantly this year. But this is a cause for no rejoice as the enhanced central role in executing these projects is itself a vindication of the long-held belief that the J&K state apparatus is defunct with little capacity to govern and administer development projects. Unless Mr Abdullah can work steadfastly towards regenerating that state capacity using these PMRP projects as a launch pad for administrative reform, he will not be able to sustain — let alone, build upon — these achievements. In any case, he already has enough political battles at hand — with the separatists, PDP and even some members of his ruling coalition partner, the Congress party arrayed against him — to go along with these astronomical administrative challenges.

All hope is not lost for the young CM though. A supportive centre, declining violence levels in the state, his own clean and youthful image coupled with no electoral battles in the state for another five years theoretically gives Mr Abdullah enough leeway to undertake some bold and imaginative steps in the state. It would be perfectly acceptable for Mr Abdullah to be consummated in fire-fighting — jumping from one crisis to another — as all his predecessors have done in the last two decades. But it is the more difficult alternative — of focusing on a long-term plan to revive the state — that will help him rewrite history; in a state that has so far remained a prisoner to its own tumultuous history.

Varying reactions — balanced, confused and ridiculous — from ex-military officers to the army corruption debacle.

The action initiated by the army chief against the four generals, who were indicted by the Court of Inquiry in the Sukhna land scam, was unsurprising and on predictable lines. Incessant media spotlight on the troubling issue has elicited a reaction from some ex-army officers turned strategic commentators.

Ajai Shukla, writing in Business Standard, while arguing vehemently for protecting the honour of the institution of the Chief of Army Staff concedes that this should not take away from an unsparing investigation in all the incidents involving General Deepak Kapoor.

Close to the end of his tenure, General Kapoor is under a cloud after failing to act decisively in a succession of scandals: from dubious procurements during his command in Udhampur, to the recent land scam allegedly involving his close affiliate. While investigating those unsparingly, the MoD owes support to a respected institution — the Chief of Army Staff — when it is under gratuitous media attack.[Broadsword]

Next in queue is the former army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury in The Asian Age. Displaying a rather muddled and convoluted chain of thought, he pleads for a cautious approach — euphemism for bureaucratic due diligence — before initiating any strict action against the supposed wrongdoers.

But the understandable urge for damage control on a crash action basis must not be allowed to short-circuit the due process of military procedure and law. Even under these unpropitious circumstances, the Army and its commanders must stand their ground against political and bureaucratic heckling and avoid precipitate actions of kangaroo court justice.[The Asian Age]

But what takes the cake in this game of varying degrees of justification is the urge to protect one of their own contained in the argument proffered by Colonel (retd) Anil Bhat in The Asian Age.

Many do feel that dismissal of any of the officers is certainly not warranted. If the Army Chief orders dismissal, the officers in question will almost certainly go to a civil court, which is extremely likely to overturn it.[The Asian Age]

Well, the presence of an oxymoron like “almost certainly” and adjective laden predictions of a court judgement — extremely likely to overturn it — in a single sentence is a give away to the flimsiness of the argument. And this one is no different. For applying the same yardstick to other people in public life — the more-despised politicians and cops — Mr. N.D. Tiwari would still be an occupant of the Hyderabad Raj Bhawan and ex-DGP Rathore would be smirking after a favourable court decision. Should top military brass not be wished to be judged by the same yardstick now?

Finally, as far as the comment by ex-army officer goes, the best one so far has been from Major General (Retired) Afsir Karim. He summed it up rather well for what it is: a systemic failure.

These officers don’t become corrupt when they become senior officers. They must be corrupt throughout their services and that corruption must either have been undiscovered or been ignored. Either way it’s a failure of the system.[Tehelka]

As the CDS example shows, there is a case for fresh review of national security now.

Most commentators on defence matters in India — especially the ex-military officers — lament the lack of a Chief of Defence Staff [CDS] in India, after it was first proposed by the Group of Ministers in 2001 [see this post to understand the subject]. In its second report[pdf] to the new Lok Sabha, the Parliamentary standing committee on defence has again taken the defence ministry to task for failing to create the CDS till now.

In India, there have been strong reservations among the sister services of the army — the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy — against the institution of a CDS because of the fears of the army dominating them [see these posts]. Others have also made a cogent case against the appointment of a CDS in India. Their hands are likely to be strengthened by the recent noises from the UK, where the current CDS may be forced to step down early — in favour of an army general — because he is from the air force.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, is expected to be asked to retire earlier than planned to allow one of the two most senior army commanders to take over the role of principal military adviser to the Government.

There is a growing view in Whitehall that a soldier, rather than an airman, should run the Armed Forces up to 2014 — a period when the Army will absorb an increasing amount of the MoD’s resources because of its leading role in the Afghan land war.

…The possibility of a change at the top is leading to tensions at the highest level in the Ministry of Defence. The chiefs of the Royal Navy and RAF are understood to be particularly concerned about the prospect of further cuts to their services.[Times]

It has been nearly nine years since the last review of National Security was carried out in India by the Group of Ministers. As noted by the Parliamentary standing committee, many of its recommendations remain unimplemented and those which have been implemented have been done only in letter, but not in spirit. For many defence analysts in the country, these recommendations constitutes an unfinished agenda that ought to be pursued with a missionary zeal. Blinded by their ardent fervour, they tend to overlook the rapid strides made by Indian economy since the last review — and the ensuant developments in polity, society, technology and geopolitics — which underpins the case for initiating a new agenda for reforming and restructuring national security. Moreover, many recommendations in that review are either extraneous to the current security environment or lack requisite political backing and consensus for implementation — the CDS case being a prime example. A fresh review, while culling the extraneous demands, will incorporate the relevant demands from the previous report and bolster the chances of their implementation by providing a new impetus.

Finally, K Subrahmanyam had chaired the Kargil Review Committee which asked for a GoM to review national security in the aftermath of the Kargil conflict. His sensible advise was heeded by the political dispensation at Delhi then. The venerable Mr Subrahmanyam has been at the forefront of those asking for a new Blue Ribbon Commission for Defence now. It is time the present political dispensation at Delhi heeded his clarion call.

And if the government is going to heed this much, it could also listen to The Acorn and request Mr Arun Singh to come down from the hills and take this onerous responsibility. Please.