Month: March 2013

Why Indian Foreign Policy needs to grow some balls?

Dear Rome,

 We are not Tripoli.

Thank you.

The Italian Marines case is a watershed moment for stand offish (read weak) doctrine of Indian Foreign Policy. A sovereign nation whose judicial goodwill is abused and folks who murdered our fishermen are let away with impunity as if the Nation would not be concerned about this latest ‘Italian Job’ after the Ottavio Quattrochi scandal. After severe media pressure and some last minute tough talking by our usually quiet Prime Minister has got the Italians rushing back their brethren to India. There were two sides to this crisis: violation of the faith of the Indian Judicial system which was considerate enough to let the Italian criminals out of jail for two occasions including once for Christmas (Sigh!). As if Indians who are jailed overseas are let out for Deepawali and Onam.  The second side to this story was the easy going attitude of the Italian Government, which it can get away with this nonsense. The sheer lack of respect which the Italians showed for the Indian State was jaw dropping. We are not some banana republic in Sub Saharan Africa for Christ’s Sake.

The Italian Marines issue demonstrates that the Indian State is taken lightly in international diplomatic circles. Our envoys like Pavan K Varma and Vikas Swaroop are simply busy writing books and preparing their ground to enter electoral politics post retirement. Dr. Shashi Tharoor is exempted from this charge because he was a career diplomat with the United Nations Ecosystem. He is aware of the shortcomings of the Indian Foreign Policy Establishment and has written extensively about these in his treatise on Indian Foreign Policy ‘Pax Indica’. One of the startling statistics Dr. Tharoor had stated in this book was that the Indian Foreign Service had less staffer than the Singaporean Foreign Service. Prof. Kishore Mahbubani is a fine metaphor for Singaporean Foreign Policy Excellence. The United States Desk at the Indian Foreign Ministry is a two man desk; compare this with the United States where the State Departments India Desk is manned by 30 old specialists.

We project our soft power through our diplomatic strength. Bollywood and Cricket can only go thus far. As a diaspora boy next door, I found Indian Embassies in the Persian Gulf to be lethargic where our diplomats were more interested in attending ‘Mushairahs’ or Urdu Poetry conclaves than furthering Indian Strategic Interest. Anyway Gulf Postings were considered punishment postings for seniors and the youth considered it a shade better than a posting in Africa. The position of an Ambassador to Riyadh is taken to be a political appointment for an Aligarh based Intellectual for minority appeasement purposes.  The Indian State is seen as a labor supplier to the Gulf incapable of taking a tough stand.

The South Asia Desk at South Block is served by a solitary joint secretary. No wonder, we are neither respected nor feared in our neighborhood. The Maldivians can cancel our contracts, the Bhutanese and Nepalese are welcoming Chinese Investment in their Hydel Power sector strategic to energy and water security in the Sub Continent. Even, the Bangladeshis have allowed for a swanky convention center in the heart of Dhaka City to be constructed by the Chinese.

India is being surrounded by a ‘string of pearls strategy’ of the Chinese Government from Gwadar in Pakistan to Hambantota in Sri Lanka. In the contest for natural resources, India is losing it big time in Africa where as in South Asia, the Chinese follow Cheque-Book oriented,  Value Neutral Diplomacy.

Hindus in Malaysia and Bangladesh are persecuted and the Indian State keeps mum in the name pseudo secularism. Let One Israeli be touched overseas and Mossad will hunt the perpetrators down from Buenos Aires to Beirut.  We need a muscular approach to our external affairs paradigm.  For that we need to amend rules for globally minded professionals to enter the Foreign Service laterally without the archaic UPSC exam format where the provision for a compulsory English Language proficiency paper was shot down earlier in the month by our visionary parliamentarians. Yeah, sure we will be a global power sans English knowing diplomats.

How about Arabic and a Malay speaking Indian guy who grew up in Oman interested to serve the nation in the Foreign Service express his interest to Dr. Tharoor on Twitter some months back and What does the answer come:

‘Write the UPSC Exam’

A very Imaginative answer Sir I thought in my head.

Environmental Governance as inclusive Developmental Architecture: Time for action

There are a few issues with the public discourse on Environmental issues.  Environment matters are essentially political as they are backward integrated in to public values. Environmental issues are livelihood concerns for native communities off the economic grid. The retinue of ‘Quality of Life’ Indicators is contingent upon the environment. Free Market Capitalism and Environmentalism since the days of Rachel Carson,  are always at odds. As the pioneering Environmental economist Herman Daly once quipped that what will a saw mill be worth without a forest captures the paradox of the relationship between the scent of money and the fresh breeze of the forest.  Robert Costanza’s 1997 paper on Valuation of Ecological Services was a watershed moment, in academic circles but incorporating these lessons in mainstream policy frameworks is all together a different cuppa. Valuing and taxing Greenhouse gases through CDM and other market oriented vehicles have resulted in a mixed bag. These instruments have been appropriated by neo-liberal forces to extract money out of multi-lateral institutions rather than catalyze foundational transformations which take longer timelines. My environmental policy professor at grad policy school at the National University of Singapore was right when he meant that it is only money that prompts people towards normative ends and not good intentions alone.

The real issues regarding the metastructure of Environmental Governance get drowned in the cacophony of the rhetoric between Growth Fundamentalists and Ecological Activists. The price here at stake is usually quite basic; clean air and water. Investment Bankers drinking beer on a Friday evening at a South Bombay Pub will like to breathe cleaner air, as a person cannot buy clean air in a can. The Bottom-line matters but the biosphere does count slightly too.

This seems very simple but political will backed by resources along with active community engagement is the key. I can visualize another pitfall. The policy community is good at theorizing problems, but activating those ideas in to concrete action is the chink in the Developmental Architecture.   There is a slip between the cup and the lip. Civil Society, Industry and Government all have their own agenda and there is no synergy in thought processes for concrete action.

The National Advisory Council of celebrity academics and activists are bent towards entitlement welfare legislations. Environmental and Social Justice go hand in hand, and the writer of this post would suggest the esteemed body to focus on incorporating Environmental issues while designing welfare mandates. The Environment Ministry has been tainted with the tag of being the fore-bearer of a new Green Tape License Raj regime. While the perception exists, statistically it’s in correct.

Our focus ultimately needs to be re-calibrated to solve real issues, and embedding environmental drivers in to policy design is a good way ahead.

Post Shahbhag Bangladesh: what’s next?

Bangladesh is currently undergoing a churning unprecedented in its recent modern history, in terms of the ideological struggle for identity at stake. The Shahbhag Square phenomenon has catalyzed the youth untouched by the politics of the ‘Mukti Juddho’ or the Liberation War of 1971, to carve a new discourse concerning where can Bangladesh head in the forthcoming time. An independent movement fermented by bloggers by channelizing popular unrest regarding the lack of punishment for the ‘razakars’ or the war criminals of the independence era  has been kidnapped by the very divisive forces that it is trying to counter. A clean ‘snatch and jerk’ break with the past does have to overcome the historical inertia of the prevalent status quo of the decadent political system. 

Initially, the youthful exuberance of the Shahbhag movement was appropriated by the governing regime of the Awami League to impose its will as far as the sentences to the convicted Jamaat leader’s matters. The loud cries of ‘Phashi Chai’ or we want hanging from the youth of the Dhaka Art College at Shahbhag added to the feel of the revolution. With leading Bangladeshi music bands and poets entertaining the protestors with tracks; it seemed that it was the epitome of cultural ethos which Bangladesh stood for. Even Kolkata artists such as MP Kabir Suman joined in the festival atmosphere of the protests.

Most Bangladeshis adhere to a secular, inclusive version of Cultural Islam which is tolerant of other faiths. I grew up in Muscat where my household cook was from Dhaka and we had friends from both sides of the Padma River, with whom we discussed Nazrul Geeti and other forms of culture. Sadly in Bangladesh currently the Shahbhag agitation has been tainted with a ‘clash of civilizations’ color; a western secular school of thought versus an orientalist Islamic vision of the nation. The Jamaat, being pushed in to a corner has racked up the perennial issue of the religion being under threat, is in sighting violence against minorities and others whom it feels is not Islamic enough.

The entire agitation has been diverted from a secular movement asking for punishment for the war criminals to a violent political project with various parties seeking to extract its pound of flesh from it.  Whichever way this agitation is heading, is immaterial as it has sowed the seeds for a more egalitarian Bangladesh.

Why Brand Modi needs to be Team Modi in order to win?

Narendra Bhai Modi has already started his campaign towards 7, RCR. He has lead Gujarat with a confidence rarely seen on the Indian political canvas. Excellent Orator, a macho image and a development czar almost in the mold of the initial years of Lee Kuan Yew, all make him a hit ticket entity for the urban youth. The recent fracas with the Wharton School withdrawing an invite, has transformed him into a sociological totem of nationalist prestige. Whenever we watch Narendra Modi, we feel the strong leadership we have missed with our current technocratic Prime Minister. He seems connected with the pulse of the nation, unlike a NGO leadership style-esque of Team Rahul. May be the National Advisory Council bug seems to have inflicted the mainstream congress too. ‘Five Star Activists’ do not win elections. Kejriwal is understanding the difference only too well.

But unfortunately for Modi Bhai, India is a parliamentary democracy unlike the United States where he is denied a visa. APCO Worldwide PR Strategy is effective but he needs more regional leaders and grassroots Sangh Parivar cadre to spread the word in Rural India. Modi needs to be a consensus man, get more allies on board apart from the Akalis and the Sena twins. Selvi Jaya Madam is sitting on the fence, characteristic of the national game plan of Dravidian parties. Nitish is blowing his own developmental trumpet with a trip to Pakistan to spruce up his minority credentials. Indian Politics is all about tokenism. That is the problem with it.

Modi needs a Shivraj Singh Chauhan and a Manohar Parrikar in his team to win comprehensively. A Rahul has a Diggi Raja and Jairam with a ‘PC’ as his henchmen. A leader from the South would help Modi.

Electoral Politics in Coalition Politics is a team sport. It is time that a ‘Team Modi’ complements the brand. Even Atal ji had a LK Advani and Jawant Singh to supplement his leadership. History holds important pointers. 

Is Cosmopolitan, a ‘new’ identity for India?

The Cosmopolitan I am referring to in my post title is not of the international fashion magazine, but something far deeper and emotional. We are an emotional polity so anything remotely emotional borders on the political. A few months back a municipal school teacher on behalf of the National Sample Survey Organization knocked on my door for some data collection for the local body. Being a person trained in social research methods, I was enthusiastic to pitch in and participate as I then just relocated back to Mumbai. The survey administrator started off the brief survey by starting off in the local state language Marathi. Although I am fluent in Marathi, I opted to reply in Hindi for fear of making embarrassing grammatical errors in front of a native speaker.

The questions were fairly routine in nature which ranged from age to family income to education. The aspect which got me very uncomfortable and irritated was the questions regarding caste and religion. Those questions got me thinking about the fractured nature of India’s politics where the individual does not matter. He is nomenclaturized into narrow and disturbing sub divisions of caste, religion, and ethnicity. In the end, I am just a statistic for the State.  

Prof. Amartya Sen’s theory of ‘Plural Identities’ implies that one can be  culturally Bengali,  half Bihari by birth and a Christian by Faith along with being  Indian by political representation  all at the same time sans any contradictions. I am a product of a mixed marriage- My Dad is an ethnic Bihari born and bred in West Bengal and my Mum is an ethnic Bengali based in Mumbai. My Father speaks fluent Bengali and my Mum speaks fluent Marathi.  I was bred in the polarized Mumbai of the 90′s.  With stints of my childhood in Muscat, Oman, where my Father is an expat educator- grew up listening to Khaled and Cheb Mami along with Euphoria and Lucky Ali songs.

With traditional Rabindra Sangeet playing all day at home (With me listening to Bhoomi and Nachiketa-contemporary Bengali music), my parents tried their best to make me Bengali’ Bangali! Still I am labeled a Bihari many times around!

The Nation State has been poor to catch up with the blurring boundaries regarding cultural identities. People inter-marry between castes & languages and more commonly between faiths and hence their next generations do not have straight laced identities. Globalization and migration leads to love & relationships being fermented in an ‘out-of-the-box’ fashion. Purity of ‘Gotra’ is something Khap Panchayats will find hard to enforce as times move along. The Coercive influence of blatant brute force has its limits.  Arjun Appadurai in the book ‘Fear of Small Numbers’ elucidates the notion that minorities are manufactured as a totem for the majority community to feel good. Ethnocides are not organic, they are engineered.  A Hutu vs Tutsi Battle in Rwanda or a conflict in the Balkans are a classic example. People are not straight laced to be reduced to mere terms for analysts to play with.

A small anecdote from the Tiny Red Dot. The Singaporean Government’s efforts at maintaining effective multi-racial public policy efforts (such as an efficient HDB Allocation Policy) is made harder with greater number of mixed race couples earmarking their children as mixed race although the child has an option to re-categorize him/herself as Chinese, Indian, Malay or Eurasian later on in life. Arranged Marriages in the past have been a powerful social instrument of enforcing a pure blood line in the past. This social Institution is slowly withering away as well. Although there are websites such as community matrimony dot com to maintain the status quo. Films such as Vivaah and the Barjatya genre of films reinforce stereotypes too of caste in the grab of traditional values.

I have felt as much a Bengali in Kolkata as I have felt as a Mumbaikar in Mumbai and in the same breath felt as much at home in Muscat and Singapore where I have lived half my life.  But never felt at home or at ease with this politico-social construct of an ‘Identity’. It is a fluid mosaic with is dependent on the ‘Man in the Head’ in the words of Pico Iyer and not so much on biology or geography. In this age of globalization, we have fluid identities- every place that we live in, contributes a spec in to our soul and we transmit a vector of our emotions in to the place as well.

I would define myself as cosmopolitan rather.

From Cutting Chai to Chai Latte: Cafes as metaphor for globalization in urban India

Globalization as the term Sustainability has been liberally sprinkled in our so called ‘global’ conversation in enunciating (more in terms of drawing a generalization) the social phenomena entailing the web of paradoxes embedding our urban landscapes.  With Social Media & MTV Culture becoming main stream, cafes too are flooding in to have a sip of the growing coffee chain market pie.  We have our home grown Café Coffee Day or commonly known in our lexicon with an outlet at every corner here in Mumbai. The penetration is so ethereal, that I drink CCD espresso at Office as well opposite my apartment block in suburban spheres. I have a Costa Coffee within driving distance and global major Starbucks is growing its footprint at rapid pace too with 4 outlets in Mumbai alone.

India traditionally has been a tea drinking nation apart from a few pockets of coffee lovers down south in Coorg and in the Nilgiris. CCD is run by SM Krishna’s Son in Law and he sources his coffee beans from Coorg itself (the political pocket burrow of the Krishna family). CCD is an apt analogy for entrepreneurial creativity as well as crony capitalism. CCD concentrates on tapping in its target youthful, college going demographic with an emphasis on ice based formulations and sandwiches/samosas for the desi palate. Even Starbucks offers a tandoori sandwich and parathas in its extended food menu for the Indian Consumer with an elaborate tea offering as well. The recent communication by CCD speaks aloud for the brand, which it is trying to position CCD as a social meeting ground for friends to create new value.  This is the essence of a changing Urban India.

Cafes are now a setting for connecting, discussing, flirting and are legitimate hang-out joints for young people to engage on both business which is both personal and professional. The buzz of a café is insatiable. The demographic bulge which India has grappling with is on full display in these youthful spaces. The aspirations and inhibitions of the youth are on vivid display as corporate executives typing away in their PowerPoint’s on one side and one also gets to see public display of ‘emotions’ unusual until a decade back.  The café scene and its skyrocketing growth is an indicator of disposal incomes as a result of IT and BPO sector employment opportunities. Post liberalization jobs canvas as a direct outcome of globalization has driven a need for spaces outside the traditional family type Udupi Hotel for the youth to meet!  The Café Culture has the Cool Factor, which the youth like to get associated with.  A hot chocolate brownie with ice-cream has replaced shrikhand as the preferred desert as a result of places serving the delicious edible.

Cafes in my perspective have played a vital part in bridging the chasm between ‘Bharat’ & ‘India’. Most of the service staff with basic education till high school and basic understanding of English. I am very sure that very few of them had ever entered a café on their own prior to getting employed with the coffee chains. This is the power of globalization in full glory. It is a new platform for jobs via retail and coffee beans for Starbucks being sourced from farms in India which is good news for our farmers. Cafes are slowly becoming a day to day feature of our urban landscape.

Now I can just hope that the guy at CCD next door understands an Americano is a double shot of espresso with hot water as the guy at the Starbucks at Fort, may be globalization fueled competition can make it grow too. Time for a Cutting Chai now at the roadside stall aka tapri in Mumbai lingo at one tenth the price at the cafe 🙂

 

The ‘Identity Project’:Shahbhag and the Politics of Faith in Bangladesh

Bangla is one of the major languages spoken in Asia, and in terms of sheer numbers it is probably the 5th or 6th most widely conversed lingo internationally.  The united Bengal region has been historically under Muslim rule and was the first region to come under British Rule in South Asia.  In 1905, Bengal was split on religious lines under the British ‘Divide & Rule’ policy into East and West Bengal.  The East being dominated by Muslims and West being dominated by the Hindu community. In 1947, under a colonial deal, the Muslim majority areas were carved out of British India into a Muslim majority state of Pakistan with Urdu as its National Language although Bangla was language spoken by the majority.  On February 21st, 1952 students at Dhaka University were shot at brutally for protesting the imposition of Urdu on Bangla speaking East Pakistan. This day is marked as the International Mother Tongue Day. The inflection point in the two state theory emerged in 1969 when Bengali dominated Awami League lead by ‘Banga Bandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rehman won the Pakistan National Polls by a landslide in East Pakistan and was not allowed to form the Government by the Punjabi dominated Military.  The Bengali officers in the united Pakistani Army fought the Indians valiantly in the 1965 war.

The Pakistani Army along with East Pakistani accomplices i.e. the razakars (mainly the Jamaat) led a campaign to exterminate opposition especially the Hindu community and the progressive intellectuals who were vehemently in favor of Independence. Genocide of a mind boggling magnitude took place. The Pakistani Army’s agenda was a Bengal without Hindus and a subdued Bengali population to control. There are some counter theorists too. Sarmila Bose, author of ‘Dead Reckoning’ has painted a more realistic portrait of the magnitude of the war crimes episode. The current War Crimes Trial of the Razakars is an evocative issue driving the nation into a more secular language oriented identity driven polity and another perspective which wants a region driven agenda.

10 million Bengalis especially Hindus crossed over in to India to escape persecution from the hands of the Pakistan Army. East Pakistan had a 22% Hindu population in 1947 which is in single digits today.

Whenever a non Awami League administration comes in to power with the Jamaat on board, there has been a systemic persecution of the Hindu community. May be in the words of Social Thinker Arjun Appadurai: it is the ‘Fear of Small Numbers’ which drives the right to marginalize the minority to establish its footing as a force with a voice. The Jamaat has only 4% of the National vote but wields disproportionate power due to its social initiatives and corporate financial muscle. The Islamic Chatra Shibir (Jamaat’s Youth Wing) is known to recruit youth in to its fold by offering scholarships for Higher Education to young bright minds from poor households, in turn indoctrinating them in its narrow world view. Political Islam has always lent grass roots support globally from Hamas to Hezbollah in order, to cultivate a buy in for its thought processes. Political Islam Jamaat style is not popular in a country which prides itself on Language and does not extract its religious affiliations as its only source of Identity.

In 1971, BangaBandhu Sheikh Mujibur lead the Mukti Bahini to create the People’s Republic of Bangladesh supported by Indian Army.  These historic events lead to the death of the original two nation theory and a creation of a Bengali speaking nation on India’s eastern borders (midwived in a way by Indira Gandhi). Originally conceptualized as a secular state, this noble idea died as Sheikh Mujib and his Family was massacred in 1975, allowing the Bangladesh Army to come back to power reinstating the Jamaat as its ban was over turned and gradually was able to come to the national centre stage.

The current Shahbhag phenomenon is Bangladesh’s Nuremburg and Maidan Al Tahrir combined with tens of thousands particularly the youth joining in, who have not been tainted with the experience (either ways) of the independence struggle. The killing of Rajib, the blogger and the counter persecution of the Shahbhag activists with the taint of being ‘Anti-Islamic’ and Atheist is probably the last card in the pack of the Jamaat, everytime it has been pushed to a corner. The Government is playing to the gallery to be fair by supporting the death sentence of the convicted razakars as it wishes to throttle political opposition and return to power via next year’s polls.

This episode is slowly taking on a violent shade of color with the crisis spiraling out of control with multitudes dead in clashes between the government and the activists of the Jamaat.  Hindu Temples and the minority Hindu Community are the scapegoat of choice for the Jamaat , everytime it is attacked. But times are changing; this Shahbhag Square is anti political Islam unlike Tahrir Square which was pro Muslim Brotherhood and pro involvement of Faith in politics.

Whichever side emerges victories, will shape Bangladesh’s identity for the Future. Whether to become a progressive Turkey or a Malaysia or head down its ‘Aager Desher’ (Previous Nation aka Pakistan) path is Bangladesh’s choice.

As a Bangla speaking person I shout a loud ‘Joy Bangla’ in support of my cultural cousins at Shahbhag.