India Slipping On Hunger, Rule Of Law; Political Spin Is Harming National Security
Bhutan, China sign border MoU; Pegasus Project gets top EU press prize; sadhvi on ‘health’ bail plays kabaddi; SIT directs amateur theatricals; electrician cuts power to meet girlfriend in darkness
A newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas | Contributors: MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, Sushant Singh and Tanweer Alam | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal
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Snapshot of the day
October 15, 2021
Pratik Kanjilal
“In its rush to become a modern, digital economy, India is leaving behind those who might benefit the most,” says The Economist. The Modi government’s digital-first solutions are leaving out tens of millions — because they are poor, illiterate, disabled, lack electricity, do not possess a smartphone or cannot connect. “…tech wizards in Bangalore forget that they live in what is still in parts a very poor country. This detachment is compounded by politicians seeking quick, sexy solutions. Simpler approaches get ignored.”
The European Parliament has awarded the EU’s top journalism prize, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism, to the Pegasus Project ― 17 international media organisations including The Wire in India, led by Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories, which revealed that Israeli spyware was used by governments against dissidents, journalists and politicians.
The Indian Navy chief may have embarked on a US aircraft carrier in the Malabar exercise, but commercially, India is on board with China, with rising trade worth $90.37 billion in the first nine months of the year. Trade with the US stands at $71.8 billion.
India has accepted a Russian invitation to join the Afghanistan talks in Moscow on October 20, where it will be face to face with the Taliban. India’s ambassador to Qatar, Deepak Mittal, had hosted Taliban representatives in Doha in August, but no pictures were released. This may not be a choice in Moscow.
Tehran has lambasted Adani Port in Mundra for banning its container consignments from November 15. The Iranian embassy in Delhi said Tehran has “suffered from many trade restrictions and unjust sanctions” and is once again “being targeted unfairly through denial of trade”, in “an unprofessional and imbalanced move”. The Adani move comes after a cargo consignment from Bandar Abbas was found to contain a huge amount of narcotics.
Bhutan and China have signed an MoU on a “three-step roadmap” for solving their boundary dispute, that could include the Doklam plateau, the site of an India-China standoff in 2017. Caught in its own border crisis with China, India has responded cautiously, with the MEA spokesperson saying that “two sides have agreed to maintain communications, and to maintain stability on the ground.”
BJP and VHP leaders have attacked Bangladesh, ruled by India’s ally Sheikh Hasina, for allegedly trampling upon religious freedom of Hindus. But the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said Durga Puja celebrations have received the protection of Dhaka. India has resumed vaccine exports and sent 10 crore doses each to Nepal, Myanmar, Iran and Bangladesh.
Coal India Ltd is temporarily supplying only power plants, reports Reuters. Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi said closure of some mines and inundation of a few others in the monsoon led to the crisis, but the situation is improving.
Maharashtra Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad has been arrested for the alleged kidnapping and assault of engineer Anand Karmuse. He had posted a morphed photograph of Awhad for opposing the PM’s call to light candles for Covid workers. Awhad is out on bail.
Stillbirth rates remain “exceptionally high” for black and Asian babies in the UK. The Mbrace report found babies of mothers living in deprived areas are at higher risk.
The fugitive Nirav Modi’s sister, settlor of an offshore trust founded just before his escape, has offered to remit its holdings of Rs 275 crore in a Swiss account to the government as a condition for a pardon. The trust was outed in the Pandora Papers investigation.
A New York Times correspondent experiences India’s changing priorities and the heady infusion of religion in public life: “An undercurrent of religion is everywhere here.”
In a press conference in Rampur, UP, Union Minorities Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi applauded PM Modi and brought the house down. The roof collapsed.
India hungrier than neighbours…
The Global Hunger Index has ranked India 101 out of 116 countries. It is among 31 countries with serious hunger. It was ranked 94 among 107 countries last year. Now, it trails behind Pakistan at 92, and Nepal and Bangladesh at 76. Only 15 countries fare worse ― Papua New Guinea (102), Afghanistan (103), Nigeria (103), Congo (105), Mozambique (106), Sierra Leone (106), Timor-Leste (108), Haiti (109), Liberia (110), Madagascar (111), Democratic Republic of Congo (112), Chad (113), Central African Republic (114), Yemen (115) and Somalia (116).
Based on four indicators ― undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality ― the index determines hunger on a 100-point scale, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger). India’s score was 27.5, down from 28.8 in 2012.
…and backsliding on rule of law
India has fallen three places to 79 out of 139 countries in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index and is ranked third in South Asia, behind Nepal and Sri Lanka. The rankings are based on eight factors: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, and civil and criminal justice.
SIT directs amateur theatricals
The SIT probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence took junior home minister Ajay Mishra’s son and three others detainees to recreate the sequence of events leading to the incident on the Tikonia-Banbirpur road. Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait has trashed the probe and the “red carpet arrest” of Ashish Mishra. He said there cannot be a fair investigation if the father of the accused remains a Union minister.
Self-taught student tops exam
Greeshma Nayak, a Class 10 student from Karnataka’s Tumakuru district, made headlines for scoring 95.8%, the highest in supplementary exams in the state. It is particularly stirring because her school threw her out as her parents couldn’t pay the fees at her private school. She studied on her own, with the help of her elder sister, a BSc student.
The Long Cable
When military defends the political narrative, nation must pay the price
Sushant Singh
A couple of days before the 13th round of Ladakh border talks between senior military commanders of India and China, Chinese social media platform Weibo had images of Indian soldiers taken captive after the deadly clash at Galwan on June 15 last year. Yesterday, they released a video too. In that clash, 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers were killed, the first instance of loss of lives on the Sino-Indian border in Ladakh since 1962. The inscription on the war memorial in Ladakh and the citation of the gallantry award offer slightly varying official versions of the incident.
The images are both disturbing and clarifying. Disturbing for the ferocity of violence, severe injuries and the dishevelled state of Indian soldiers in captivity – for someone like me, who served in uniform for two decades, it is particularly painful and distressing to see our officers and men in this state. But these images were clarifying in equal measure because they confirmed what has been hidden from the public by the proverbial ‘conspiracy of silence’.
It is believed that a few score Indian soldiers were taken captive after the clashes at the Y-nala near PP14 on the night of June 15/16. The images clearly show that the Chinese were in possession of the Y-nala the next morning, with Indian soldiers in their custody yards away from that site. You can even see Indian INSAS rifles laid on the ground by the Chinese soldiers, which means that some of the captured soldiers were armed but did not fire even as their comrades were battered or pushed to their death. It is believed that most of the captive soldiers were returned by the Chinese in the next 24-36 hours but for the last 10, including four officers, whom they wanted to hand over at Moldo. Three rounds of talks between major generals on June 16, 17 and 18 led to their eventual release at Galwan itself on June 18.
The Hindu was the only national daily that prominently reported the release on its front page on June 19, and almost every other newspaper, television channel and web portal remained silent till then. Prior to that, journalists asking the Army for information on soldiers taken captive were stonewalled and asked to abstain from reporting. The journalists complied, most out of habit and a few others presumed this concession was to prevent harm to Indian soldiers in captivity. I wrote about the media coverage of the Ladakh crisis in The Caravan in December 2020.
On June 17, the New York Times reported that dozens of Indian troops had been captured by the Chinese. The Army PRO issued a statement over 24 hours later, after the last lot had been released: “It is clarified that there are no Indian Troops Missing in Action.” Since the New York Times had never claimed that the troops were missing, but had reported that they had been captured by the PLA, the Army PRO’s clarification was misleading, though technically correct.
But an unofficial embargo on reporting even after their release made no sense. As there has been no official statement from the Army or the government till date acknowledging the soldiers’ captivity and release, the reason for non-reportage had little to do with concerns for the soldiers’ safety and was more about keeping the public in the dark. Only a day later, on June 19, PM Narendra Modi had loudly claimed that “Na koi wahan hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai, na hi koi ghusa hua hai, na hi hamari koi post kisi dusre ke kabze mein hain.” The official Prime Minister’s Office video recording of his remarks then excised this line. Cover-up of a cover-up.
The reasons for the cover-up were clearly political, to protect the image of a ‘56-inch’ Prime Minister. The Army benefitted, too, as it helped shield its public image and retain the public trust after a military setback. The political narrative was defended, even if Indian territory wasn’t. Whatever be the reasons, it reminds one of the narrative dominance exercised by the Pakistan army ― in the 1965 War, 1971 War, Kargil War and Abbottabad operations ― where military setbacks were not allowed to be reported.
Unfortunately, Galwan is not an exception. We saw the same phenomenon during the Balakot air strikes and the aerial clash that followed. That Indian missiles overshot the target to hit the trees on the ridgeline and that an F-16 was not shot down by Wing Commander Abhinandan was soon evident, but the IAF kept promoting a misleading narrative. It concealed the fact that it had shot down its own Mi-17 helicopter until the parliamentary election results were declared. The ‘friendly fire’ incident was reported by Ajai Shukla, and rankled the IAF.
The situation was no better after the overhyped surgical strikes of 2016. The truth was far from the outlandish claims fed to the media, which gladly ran with wild stories. In Doklam as well, the Chinese withdrew barely 150 yards from the faceoff site after disengagement, and have now undertaken massive infrastructure construction and military deployment in the area. The road to Jampheri ridge from an alternate route is also nearing completion.
The lesson is clear. Keeping the public in the dark has its consequences. Decision-makers are denied a vital feedback loop which keeps democracies going. It helps those in power to not only gauge sentiment but keeps them rooted and calibrates their moves. Else, eventually, those in government end up buying their own spin. Believing their own mythology is dangerous because when reality hits, it all crumbles. No transparency means no feedback, no room for course-correction and that ultimately triggers collapse. In matters of national security, no temporary relief by hiding the truth via misleading PR is worth this cost. As the couplet goes, “Ye jabr bhi dekha hai taarikh ki nazron ne, lamhon ne khata ki thi sadiyon ne saza payi.” ('History has seen this before, how the mistake of a moment led to a millennia of suffering')
Reportedly
At an SCO seminar, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat waxed eloquent about how there is now full parity between men and women in the armed forces. “The notion of gender gap is passé,” he said. But when he was Army chief, at his annual press conference in January 2019, he had loudly defended the Army’s retrograde position on adultery, arguing aggressively that the armed forces should be an exception to the Supreme Court’s progressive reading that it is not a criminal offence. He also said the Army was “conservative” and could not tolerate Section 377 being struck down. You can see the regressive views of the Modi government’s favoured general in even sharper detail in this interview.
Hyderabad ‘encounter’ busted
The Justice Sirpurkar Commission, appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate the killing of four persons accused of rape and murder in November 2019, has torn apart the Hyderabad Police’s ‘encounter’ story. The commission – retired judges Justices VS Sirpurkar and Rekha Sondur Baldota, and former CBI director DR Karthikeyan – have also questioned other encounter killings in the state. The commission has revealed how the four accused met their end on an “evidence collection drive” to the outskirts of Hyderabad, on December 6, 2019.
Prime number: $22.59 bn
India’s
trade deficit in September has widened sharply to $22.59 billion
, as against $2.96 billion in the same month last year, according to government data.
Sadhvi out on medical bail plays kabaddi, dances Garba
Godse-hailing BJP leader and Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur, who was supposedly confined to a wheelchair for a long time and had obtained bail in the 2008 Malegaon blast case on medical grounds, is purportedly seen playing kabaddi in a viral video. Earlier, a video of her taking part in a Garba dance had also emerged. Meanwhile, her party colleague and UP CM Adityanath has urged people to view women as manifestations of the Goddess to curb crime against them.
Deep Dive
Restofworld.org shows how social media accounts mark out minorities, sometimes with deadly consequences. For communities that are maliciously hounded, like the Ahmadis in Pakistan, the personal and group identity that Facebook creates can expose connections they would rather keep hidden.
More soldiers killed in Kashmir
Two Army personnel were killed yesterday in an encounter with militants at Bhata Dhurian in Jammu and Kashmir’s Mendhar tehsil of Poonch district. This follows another encounter in the forests around the adjoining Dehra Ki Gali area on October 11, that left a JCO and four jawans dead.
Op-Eds you don’t want to miss
In the absence of certainty that the major powers will act on Afghanistan, India must follow an independent policy and send a small diplomatic team to Kabul, writes Vivek Katju.
Victor Mallet writes that the weakening and possible collapse of Indian democracy is lamented by Shashi Tharoor in The Struggle for India’s Soul, and forensically analysed by Christophe Jaffrelot in Modi’s India.
The need for public schools has become more acute since the pandemic has affected livelihoods. Our public school system needs massive expansion, write Aditi Singhal, Divya Gupta and Sonal Dua.
Julio Ribeiro writes that the involvement of a BJP ‘karyakarta’ in the Aryan Khan case leads him to suspect a concerted attempt by the BJP, to make Bollywood fall in line with its grand design of media control.
Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee write that this year’s economics Nobel laureates have freed the discipline from limiting bonds of theory, ensuring that natural experiments are the best way to make causal claims in social sciences.
Wasi Manazir writes that Aryan Khan isn’t alone. He joins Muslims from disparate educational, social, and financial backgrounds, who are lodged in jail irrespective of their power, privilege and education, or lack thereof.
Withholding compassion from certain categories of human beings has become a hallmark of majoritarian nationalism, write Manoj Kumar Jha and Ghazala Jamil.
Umang Poddar writes that Modi’s idea of linking rights to duties goes against the Constitution because duties do not take primacy over rights. Rather, rights exist without corresponding duties.
The format of WTO negotiations will push India’s MSMEs into a corner as they will face similar commercial rules as bigger firms, write Murali Kallummal and Simran Khosla.
Torture and rape at the hands of the enemy has been a concern of the public, media and military fraternity regarding women in the armed forces. Lt Gen HS Panag (retd) writes that the bigger problem is how to safeguard their bodies and minds from superiors, colleagues and subordinates.
Indian Innings, edited by Ayaz Memon, is a compendium that maps the highs and lows of cricket in the country since 1947, writes Uday Bhatia.
Listen Up
The Election Commission has revived a proposal to link Aadhaar numbers with voter IDs. Srinivas Kodali tells Sidharth Bhatia, a contributor to The India Cable, that this will “disenfranchise a lot of people”. Eventually, the idea is to link all the databases: “Aadhaar is just the beginning.” It will mean loss of sovereignty of the people.
Watch Out
The most-watched Bangla song on Youtube is a song from Bangladesh, Oporadhi, featuring Ankur Mahamud. It is sung by Arman Alif.
Over and Out
A virtual play, The Sitayana, questions traditional gender roles, providing a fresh view on chastity, commitment and femininity by reframing the Ramayana to tell Sita's story.
See the Kallakurichi wood carvings, a unique form from Tamil Nadu. Recently, they received the geographical indication (GI) tag.
An electrician in Bihar’s Purnia district was beaten, tonsured and paraded after he was found frequently cutting power supply to a village to meet his girlfriend under cover of darkness. The villagers then got him to marry her.
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