'Peacemaker' Modi Hugs Zelenskyy But Still Can't Say Who is Aggressor, Who Is Victim; India’s Hasina Problem Won't Go Away Easily
SEBI bans Anil Ambani, 24 others from securities market for 5 years, India cleared investment proposals involving firms with China links, some castes are over-represented in India's cabinets
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sushant Singh, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Siddharth Varadarajan and Seema Chishti | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Apologies for the delay today, Substack, the platform the India Cable uses, had an outage
Snapshot of the day
August 23, 2024
Siddharth Varadarajan
It’s one thing for Narendra Modi to go to Kyiv and say that “India firmly believes peace should always prevail” and another to be taken seriously by the people of Ukraine, Europe and the world as someone who can actually make a contribution towards peace. For proof that Modi failed to live up to the pre-visit hype (and post-visit hyperboly) we need look no further than the ‘India-Ukraine Joint Statement on the Visit of Prime Minister of India to Ukraine’, a document so ridiculous it makes no reference to the fact that Ukraine was invaded two years ago yet says – apropos of nothing in particular – that “the Indian side reiterated its principled position and focus on peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy.”
One does not need a degree in diplomacy to conclude that this coyness is entirely the handiwork of India. Which raises a key question: if Modi cannot bring himself to even acknowledge that Ukraine is fighting off an invasion and an attempt at dismemberment of its territory, how on earth can anyone expect he is capable of anything other than spectatorship?
No one expects Modi to condemn Russia while in Kyiv when India has said nothing critical of Putin’s aggression to date. But if hugging Zelenskyy and observing silence at a memorial for children killed in the war is all the Prime Minister has to offer, then it is clear this visit was nothing other than a hastily arranged, poorly thought-through event designed to erase the terrible optics of his (equally poorly thought-through) Moscow visit last month.
“While Modi's visit is likely to be received well by the West — and appreciated by Ukraine — expectations for substantive outcomes are low,” wrote Nate Ostiller for the Kyiv Independent a day before the PM boarded his train for Kyiv. And how right his prediction has proved to be.
Satinder Pal Singh Raju of Sikhs for Justice, the same organisation for whom Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is general counsel, was travelling in his car near Sacramento earlier this month when it was shot at. Raju drove the car into a ditch, and he and his fellow passengers escaped the attack – which the SFJ calls an assassination attempt. Raju has helped organise ‘referendums’ for Khalistan, per media reports. He was also reportedly closely associated with Hardeep Singh Nijjar. “The day of our death is already written. I am happy to survive. But this won’t change the work that we do,” Raju was quoted as saying.
The Congress, the National Conference and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have reached a broader agreement for a pre-poll alliance in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the assembly elections, leaving the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by Mehbooba Mufti, an INDIA bloc partner, in the lurch, reports Jehangir Ali.
The home ministry is proposing the relocation of some camps housing Kuki insurgents currently governed by ‘suspension of operations’ (SoO) pacts in Manipur, Vijaita Singh reports. The proposal is to move them further away from the Meitei-dominated Imphal valley and into the state’s hills.
Even after Kolkata horror, state-run hospitals remain a treacherous terrain for female doctors, reports Samridhi Tewari.
Doctors from many states have gone back to work – after being on strike in protest against the rape and murder of a Kolkata doctor – following an appeal from the Chief Justice of India, Krishnadas Rajagopal reports. “Judges cannot give justice standing outside the court complex. Like that, doctors cannot treat patients outside their hospitals … Justice and medicine cannot go on strike,” CJI Chandrachud had said. When informed by doctors that they were apprehensive of facing legal action after resuming work, he said “we will protect you” provided they get back to work.
Manipur Tapes update: Earlier this week, the Manipur government issued a statement saying the explosive recordings from a meeting allegedly addressed by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh were “doctored”. It now emerges that his own brother, Rajendro Nongthingbam and BJP Rajya Sabha MP L. Sanajaoba, have both issued threats warning ‘the traitors’ from among the Meitei community of dire consequences for having ‘given out news to the enemy’, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty reports.
Just like it did last week in the Kolkata case, the Supreme Court also took suo motu cognisance of the stripping and assault of two Kuki women in Manipur last year. It went on to order investigations into other cases of sexual assault from the strife-torn state. Did it do any good to the victims in these cases? Rokibuz Zaman speaks to the lawyers representing the women and their families and finds that there has been little in the way of progress. The lawyer representing the two Kuki women, for instance, said the trial hasn’t begun because there has been no hearing on where it must take place.
India’s troubles in Bangladesh are a manifestation of Modi’s domestic politics — authoritarian, populist and Hindu nationalist. This has been the cause of much trouble in India’s neighbourhood since 2014, writes Sushant Singh on Modi’s Dhaka disaster. “India’s over-securitized approach to neighbourhood diplomacy—reflected in its unconditional support of Hasina—goes against the grain of historical, cultural, ethnic, geographic, and economic ties that India has throughout South Asia. New Delhi has missed opportunities to gain the confidence of its neighbours, in effect breeding insecurity in these countries. It has become out of touch with larger public sentiment in the region, burning bridges with the political opposition, including in conditions of democratic backsliding.” [See Long Cable]
The Delhi High Court ordered one Jagdish Singh to post an apology on his X handle for calling fact-checker and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair a “jihadi”, Bar and Bench reports. While observing that people should be temperate on the social media and apologise if they get “carried away”, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani directed the user to publish his apology on his handle on X, in one week while “giving context of the offensive tweet”.
Even as New Delhi denied that the opening of Tripura’s Dumbur dam was behind the floods in Bangladesh, students from various colleges in that country held demonstrations against the Indian government yesterday, the Daily Star reports. Among the slogans heard at a Dhaka University torch procession was: “People, stand against Indian aggression”.
Tripura is also reeling from the floods. Umanand Jaiswal reports that 14 people have died and that 65,400 are taking shelter in relief camps. The state’s power minister told BBC Bangla that while Tripura expected to receive 214 millimetres of rain in the first 21 days of August, it actually received 538.7 millimetres this year.
Supreme Court lawyer S Selvakumari saw insult added to her injury when, upon being bitten in her thigh by a monkey within the court premises, she found there was no way to obtain medicines there. The dispensary was being renovated and the doctors at a polyclinic said they were out of stock. She was only able to get a tetanus injection at the Delhi high court dispensary, Debayan Roy reports.
There has been an over-sevenfold increase in the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August compared to the same time last year, as airlines have found it more safe to fly over the country than in airspace between Iran and Israel, Joanna Plucinska and Lisa Barrington report citing data from FlightRadar and accounts from pilots. This increase – which is despite air traffic control services not having resumed in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover – began when Iran and Israel exchanged missiles in April but escalated after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran last month.
LGBT Indians are demanding an end to the country’s discriminatory ban on blood donations by transgender people and gay and bisexual men, reports BBC. This is despite India’s top court legalising same sex in a landmark ruling. While many nations across the world have lifted similar restrictions, India’s policy remains, prompting accusations of outdated and unjust discrimination. Activists argue that the ban, based on misconceptions rather than scientific evidence, perpetuates stigma and denies LGBT individuals the right to contribute to public health. With growing support from civil society and some lawmakers, there is increasing pressure on the government to align with global practices and lift the ban.
India cleared investment proposals involving firms with China links
The Economic Times reports, citing internal sources, that the government has cleared some electronics manufacturing investment proposals involving Chinese companies or companies with links to China. The move, if true, signifies a loosening of what the Modi-led government had claimed would be a strict policy around Chinese products and Chinese involvement in the Indian economy. The government banned over 200 Chinese apps in the aftermath of deadly border clashes between the two countries in 2020 in which 20 soldiers died. New Delhi also said that India would not allow Chinese companies to participate in highway projects, including through joint ventures.
According to the report, an inter-ministerial panel has now approved “five to six” proposals including from Apple vendor and Chinese electronics major Luxshare, and a joint venture between Bhagwati Products (Micromax) and Huaqin Technology, in which the Chinese company will own a minority stake. Other proposals cleared include some Taiwan-based firms listed in Hong Kong or having investments from there, the report says. “Some are Taiwanese companies which have one beneficial owner who has some interest in Hong Kong or is listed on the Hong Kong exchange while a few are genuine Chinese firms,” an anonymous official is quoted by ET as having said. The report notes that there is pressure from the electronics manufacturing industry to approve investments with Chinese links as well.
SEBI bans Anil Ambani, 24 others from securities market for 5 years
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has barred industrialist Anil Ambani and 24 other entities, including former key officials of Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RHFL), from the securities market for five years for diversion of funds from the company. Further, it imposed a penalty of Rs 25 crore on Ambani and restrained him from being associated with the securities market including as a director or Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) in any listed company, or any intermediary registered with the market regulator, for a period of five years. The total penalty on Ambani and other 24 entities works out to over Rs 625 crore. Shares of Anil Ambani group companies plunged on the stock exchanges after SEBI issued the order. Reliance Power fell by 5%, Reliance Infra by 10.4% and RHFL 4.90%.
“Investigation in the matter has concluded that the Noticees were involved in perpetrating a fraudulent scheme by disbursing general purpose working capital (GPC) loans resulting in erosion of the company’s finances due to such loans eventually being declared NPA,” the order said. SEBI concluded that these entities were involved in siphoning off money, leading to a violation of the securities laws and a breach of investor trust.
Sri Lankan court blasts president for local election delays
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court in Sri Lanka has ruled that President Ranil Wickremesinghe violated the fundamental rights of voters by postponing local elections scheduled for March last year. A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya said the president, in his capacity as the country’s finance minister, the attorney general and members of the Elections Commission at the time, were guilty of the violation. The court found Wickremesinghe guilty of “arbitrary and unlawful” conduct in the postponement and told his administration to hold the polls as soon as possible and rejected the government’s claim of insufficient funds. The ruling came ahead of presidential elections due September 21. Wickremesinghe, contesting as an independent candidate, is facing a challenge from Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s nephew Namal, among others.
The Long Cable
India’s ‘Sheikh Hasina Problem’ is Not Going Away Easily
Ahmede Hussain
For one and a half decades, India unabashedly supported Sheikh Hasina’s brutal and dictatorial regime. The 20-day-long violent uprising that forced her to flee to India in a military cargo plane, witnessed the death of 542 people in 20 days. Year after year, South Block turned a blind eye to Hasina’s kleptocratic government that helped its cronies syphon an estimated $150 billion out of the country. The amount is double the size of Bangladesh’s national budget.
India refused to hedge its bets in Bangladesh even after repeated requests, especially over the past several years. During Sheikh Hasina’s rule, the Narendra Modi government never tried to make friends with Bangladesh or its people; rather it was ready to risk India’s goodwill and enlightened national interest for the sake of Hasina and the Awami League. When the United States tried to punish human rights violators in Bangladesh, Indian lobbied withWashington so that the US gave Hasina some breathing space— Delhi told the US that it “…can’t take us (India) as a strategic partner unless we (India and the US) have some kind of strategic consensus.”
On July 19, the day 75 people died mostly in police fire, Dr S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of the world’s largest democracy, called it “Bangladesh’s internal matter”. The day after Hasina’s fall in a mass upsurge that Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus called Bangladesh’s Second Independence, Jaishankar, in his speech to parliament, failed to see why the people of India’s next door neighbour had risen in unison against India’s closest ally in South Asia.
Instead of soul searching, some in the Indian media found the usual suspects behind Hasina’s fall— Pakistan, China and the US. It is indeed ironic that China and the US, both rivals in the formation of Cold War 2.0 in the Pacific, are seen as an ally in tiny Bangladesh. The involvement of Pakistan is also ludicrous. Last December Bangladesh edged past both Pakistan and India in per capita GDP, and the country’s median age is 26. Members of the Gen Z who spearheaded Sheikh Hasina’s ouster don’t have 1971 and the Independence War in their collective memory— India and Pakistan, to them, are just two countries, about whom an array of memes are usually made.
Some in the Indian media even exaggerated the scale of attacks on Hindus in post-Awami League Bangladesh to serve their own agenda. Coverage like this trivialises the bigger issue of the oppression of the minorities in the sub-continent as a whole.
Like its media, the Indian establishment is also failing to see why keeping Hasina in Delhi is a burden. The deposed dictator faces a slew of charges. According to Unicef 32 children were killed in the protests: the youngest child killed had yet to turn five. Of them, Riya Gop, whose parents were Hindu, was shot in the head by a stray bullet while she was playing on a rooftop. It is impossible to defend and give shelter to a person whose command responsibility in these inhuman acts is undeniable.
As it is, India’s relationship with Bangladesh doesn’t look good. Thanks to its years of support for Sheikh Hasina, ordinary Bangladeshis are finding it difficult to separate India from the Awami League; hours after Hasina’s fall, the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in downtown Dhaka was torched. Only last week, the Indian visa application centre in Dhaka resumed limited operations.
Letting Hasina stay in India for an indefinite period can indeed strain its relationship with Bangladesh further. When charges of crimes against humanity against Hasina are finalised, the new Bangladesh government can seek her extradition. India and Bangladesh have an extradition treaty, under whose provisions Bangladesh may want her back to face a slew of cases she’s facing, of which 27 are for murder. To make matters worse, Bangladesh government has revoked Hasina’s passport, the one she used while fleeing to India, making her stay in Delhi more complicated.
Then there is the risk of alienating Bangladesh’s youth by harbouring her in India and pushing hundreds and thousands of young Bangladeshis towards China. This is a mess that evidently India’s inefficient and lethargic bureaucracy has brought upon itself.
One big step towards solving a problem is accepting the fact that there’s a problem. It’s high time India engages with the people of Bangladesh and stops ‘leasing it out’ to its old chums. South Block has to find new friends in Bangladesh, and it has to realise that its old policy has failed and its old friends in Bangladesh are despised by the public.
The country also needs to change the way it sees Bangladesh. India’s help during Bangladesh’s independence war is a part of our shared history. But the help given 54 years ago isn’t enough to make Bangladesh feel indebted forerer. The US liberated half of Europe, but the EU isn’t the US’s colony, neither does Washington try to throttle democracy in France or Italy or Germany. If India wants to become a regional superpower, its foreign policy actors have to work like one.
Ordinary Bangladeshis aren’t India’s enemy. The problem is the Indian establishment.
(Ahmede Hussain is a Bangladeshi writer and journalist. He’s the editor of the anthology ‘The New Anthem: the Subcontinent in its own Words’ (Tranquebar; Delhi). He has just finished writing his first novel. His X handle is @ahmedehussain.)
Reportedly
A Trinamool Congress leader, distraught over the events in Kolkata over the past week, has been telling friends it is impossible to fight “Modi’s corrupt authoritarian aggressive Hindutva rule with Mamata’s corrupt authoritarian rule” and that one would have to “soon take a call on whether to go it alone and fight both”.
Deep dive
A power-drunk vision of development threatens to annihilate Great Nicobar Island’s fragile ecosystem, its Indigenous population, and its rich biodiversity. The $9-billion project to build a massive transshipment terminal, described as the “new Hong Kong,” will destroy over a million rainforest trees, devastate a pristine biosphere reserve, and endanger an indigenous tribe. Madhusree Mukherjee on how a reckless ambition prioritises economic gain over the irreversible loss of cultural heritage and natural beauty.
Prime number: 14 caste groups, 70% of ministerships
Fourteen caste groups account for close to three-quarters (nearly 70%) of representation in the Union council of ministers from 1952 to the present, Nishant Ranjan finds in this analysis. While ‘other’ jati groups when counted together are most represented in the cabinet at 22.4%, Brahmins come next at 22.2%. Rajputs and ‘Muslims’ are next at 7.7% and 6.5% respectively.
The 71 ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's current council comprise 21 from the ‘upper’ castes (30%), 27 from the Other Backward Classes (38%), 10 Dalits (14%), five from tribal groups (7%) and two Sikhs, two Buddhists and a Christian (i.e. 7% representing religious minorities). But there are no Muslims. 
Opeds you don’t want to miss
“Every time a woman is assaulted or murdered, the narrative still turns to what she was wearing, why she was out, who she was with. But women are not the problem. Rebuild existing workplace structures and make them work for every gender.” Nilanjana Bhowmick sums up the frustrations of being a working woman and just existing as a woman/girl in 2024 in modern India with important statistics.
Hoping that Hindenburg’s allegations against Madhabi Puri Buch, head of India’s market watchdog, will simply go away is a dangerous mistake, writes Andy Mukherjee.
T.C.A. Raghavan lists three conversations in India about China that are taking place in an isolated fashion and hence pose difficulties for decision makers – among think-tankers and the strategic community (which focuses on the risks and dangers from Beijing), among the business community (which focuses on the trade, investment and technology opportunities) and among economists and public policy wallahs who are interested in what India can learn from China.
“It is the Bangladeshi people with whom India needs to forge a relationship and not one deeply unpopular and discredited political party,” writes Zafar Sobhan, editor of the Dhaka Tribune on 10 things India needs to know about Bangladesh.
Lt Gen H S Panag (retd) says that regaining the confidence of Bangladeshis is key to safeguarding India’s national security. “Make protection of minorities a red line for Bangladesh. On our part, ideology must not override national interests. Unless India is a role model, how can it expect an Islamic-majority nation to practise secularism?” he asks.
“If the kind of reporting that has been done out of Dhaka over the past fortnight by Indian media was done in the fortnight preceding Sheikh Hasina’s exit, many Indian firms, as well as the government in Delhi, would have been better prepared to deal with the sudden turn of events there”, writes Sanjaya Baru on the need for political risk management.
Building a cohesive South Asia is hard. But India mustn’t stop articulating its vision for doing so anyway, Sharat Sabharwal writes, arguing that “the absence of a pan-South Asia vision in our policy conveys to our neighbours the impression of an India unwilling or incapable of leading the region towards a brighter future, and of being excessively dependent on its superior power to manage it”.
Ankur Bisen has an idea or two for how Indian cities can move on from the harmful practice of dumping trash in open landfills – “if local bodies are not tasked to generate their own electricity, they should not be expected to dispose collected waste”, he says, adding that cities would be better off with state-level boards mediating between municipalities and waste-processing firms.
Anilkumar Payyappilly Vijayan has a brilliant essay, ‘Cockroaches to Constitution’, on the resilience of casteism in India, which riffs off a short story by Brazilian writer Luis Fernando Verissimo to examine the ‘creamy layer’ conceit of India’s incestuous judiciary.
The Island in Colombo has a strong editorial – headlined ‘Lajja’!’, or shame – criticising South Asian University in Delhi for ousting a Sri Lankan scholar, Sasanka Perera. His crime: passing a PhD proposal which included a line from Noam Chomsky that criticised Narendra Modi!
Listen up
Does India need a Central law for protection of healthcare professionals? In this episode of The Hindu’s parley podcast, R.V. Asokan and Shanthi Ravindranath discusses the question with C. Maya.
Watch out
In a world often divided by faith, Together We Sing captures a remarkable tradition in rural Karnataka, where the Islamic observance of Muharram transcends religious boundaries. This documentary by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed for Frontline magazine showcases a community united – Hindu farmers and Muslim shopkeepers carrying sacred symbols together, children learning songs that blend Islamic and Hindu stories, and villagers adopting each other’s customs in a powerful display of interfaith respect.
Over and out
Across the Himalaya, and beyond, new clues are emerging about the region’s pre-Buddhist past. Amish Raj Mulmi on how Mustang’s deep past is being lost just as it is being found.
A restored print of Peter Brook’s landmark Mahabharata from the 1980s was shown recently at the Venice Film Festival. The legendary theatre and film director’s son speaks to the Guardian about the spectacular work.
Taking the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris, the first-ever Indian-American and the first-ever Black woman nominated on a major presidential ticket in the US, paid tribute to her Indian mother Shyamala Gopalan and shared her personal story as the child of a single working mother:
“My mother was a brilliant, five foot tall, brown woman with an accent, and as the eldest child I saw how the world would treat her but she never lost her cool. She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for women’s health, and she taught Maya and me a lesson that Michelle mentioned the other night. My mother taught Maya and me to never complain about injustice, but do something about it. She also taught us to never do anything half-baked.”
Listen to her entire speech.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.
Siddharth Varadrajan's coverage of Modi's Ukraine visit finally prompts me to get off my chair and tell you how biased I find your treatment of all things Russian. Varadrajan chides Modi for not naming "the aggressor." Hello! Wasn't Ukraine being weaponized against Russia since 2014? Weren't more than 13,000 people killed in Donetsk and Donbas by Ukrainian army and militias?
Outpointing the ‘buit’ typo in your subscription post