Sorry Rajnath Singh ji, India’s Security Challenges Need Competence, Not Luck; Prison Manuals Amended Finally to Prohibit Caste Discrimination in Jails
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Snapshot of the day
January 2, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
Three days have gone by and the police in Moradabad have yet to arrest anyone for the lynching of 37-year-old Mohammad Shahidin Qureshi on cow slaughter allegations, report Neetika Jha and Manish Sahu. They have, however, arrested his brother Adnan, who along with Qureshi is accused of killing an ox early on Monday. The police were cited as claiming that Adnan fled the scene after locals saw them killing the ox and saying that Qureshi succumbed to his injuries later on Monday. Some reports have alleged the involvement of the Bajrang Dal in the incident.
Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, the Hindu monk accused of ‘sedition’ in Bangladesh, was again denied bail by a Chattogram court today. The prosecutor argued that granting him bail “could create anarchy, as we saw in the past that he triggered violence on the court premises” when he was last denied bail. One lawyer was earlier killed in a scuffle involving security personnel and the monk’s supporters. There was tight security at the court premises today, Alam reports.
Former Maharajganj district magistrate Amar Nath Upadhyay is among 26 people whom local police have named in a criminal case relating to the demolition of the ancestral home of journalist Manoj Tibrewal in 2019. The administration had cited road widening works as the reason for the demolition then, but Tibrewal had claimed that it was prompted by a grudge Upadhyay developed after Tibrewal’s father alleged irregularities in the construction of a highway. The Supreme Court in November ordered that accountability be fixed for the unlawful demolition and that Tibrewal be compensated with Rs 25 lakh. “Bulldozer justice is simply unacceptable under the rule of law,” it had said.
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan of the Supreme Court asked the Union government today, in light of the deteriorating health of fasting farmer leader Jagjit Dallewal, why it could not issue a statement saying it would “consider the genuine grievances of the farmers” and that its “doors are open” to them. To this, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said the government was “concerned with each and every farmer”, writes Krishnadas Rajagopal. Justice Surya Kant, also sitting with Justice Bhuyan on the bench, accused the Punjab government as well as farmer leaders of “trying to create an impression that there is a persuasion by the court to [Dallewal] to break [his] fast”, as per the Indian Express.
Over 400 senior Christian leaders and 30 church groups have issued an urgent appeal to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for immediate action to address the surge in violence against Christians. The appeal comes after at least 14 incidents of violence, threats, and disruptions targeted Christian gatherings across the country during the Christmas season, the leaders and church groups wrote in a press release. They pointed to troubling statistics, including over 720 incidents of violence targeting Christians reported to the Evangelical Fellowship of India and 760 cases recorded by the United Christian Forum between January and November 2024. The appeal highlights systemic concerns, including the misuse of anti-conversion laws, growing threats to religious freedoms, escalating hate speech, and exclusionary policies denying Dalit Christians Scheduled Caste status.
What they want is action, not a convenient ‘apology’…
While Ladakhi leaders have criticised the army’s decision to erect a Shivaji statue at the Pangong lake – given that the 17th-century Maratha warrior-king did not have anything to do with Ladakh – some army veterans too are unhappy with the decision and have publicly or anonymously voiced their criticism. However, some ex-servicemen have supported the decision as well, saying it will help lift troop morale, Rahul Bedi reports. He notes that even as there are controversial decisions taking place within the armed forces, vets who express dissent are ultimately contacted by serving colleagues or the defence ministry, who “[convey] undisguised disapproval” of their remarks. “In almost all instances this was warning enough to spook the veteran from ever interacting with the media again,” Bedi writes.
The Modi government has reportedly shortlisted two sites along the Yamuna in Delhi – Ekta Sthal (the resting place of Zail Singh) and Vijay Ghat (where Lal Bahadur Shastri was creamted) as the site for a memorial to Manmohan Singh.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday claimed there has been a “massive increase” in attempts at undocumented immigration into the state following the political crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh. At a press briefing, Sarma linked the increase in attempts at undocumented immigration to the troubles faced by Bangladesh’s textile industry. Sarma claimed that unemployed textile workers are trying to cross the border and that several factory owners in India “are incentivising this, giving a good amount of money for importing cheap labour illegally”. He said: “Once there was unrest in Bangladesh, the economy collapsed. Obviously, the majority community is affected more than the minority community in Bangladesh. In the textile industry too, most of the labourers were from the majority community.”
Trucks carried 377 tons of toxic waste from the fateful and now-closed Union Carbide factory in Bhopal to Pithampur, located 250 kilometres away, in the intervening night between yesterday and today. The plan, PTI says, is for the waste to be burnt, the resulting smoke to be directed through four layers of filter and the leftover ash buried under two layers of protective membrane once they are found to have no harmful elements. But local activists have alleged that a trial burning of the toxic waste conducted in 2015 polluted the environment around Pithampur; they also held a demonstration over the weekend to protest the disposal of the waste in their town.
An important factor behind the pendency of cases in our constitutional courts is large delays created by the Union and state governments in filing counter-affidavits in cases where they are litigants, observes Vineet Bhalla. This is the case despite adverse pronouncements from the courts. Bhalla writes that a reason for the state’s complacency in this regard could be the courts’ not exercising their contempt powers enough – often they simply impose trivial fines on the state for their inaction.
Nigerians made up the largest group of those deported by Foreigners’ Regional Registration Officers between April 2023 and March 2024, with 1,470 nationals of the country made to leave India out of a total of 2,331 foreigners, Vijaita Singh cites the Union home ministry’s annual report as saying. Next came Bangladeshis and Ugandans.
The annual report also said that the ministry and state governments have roped in 54,833 people as cyber volunteers to report illegal content on the Internet, preach cyber hygiene and work as ‘cyber experts’ to help law enforcement. Vijaita Singh recalls that the Internet Freedom Foundation has previously criticised the ‘cyber volunteer framework’ that these enrolments are part of as potentially fomenting a “culture of surveillance and constant suspicion in society creating potential social distrust”.
Earlier this week the home ministry issued a notification that will require chartered accountants who file audit returns for NGOs to declare whether the said organisations have complied with the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. Speaking to The Hindu, a member of a voluntary organisation said: “Even if you find an FCRA donor, CAs will be scared to prepare certificates on the behalf of NGOs who are perceived to be not in the good books of the government.”
Students from as many as 150 schools in and around Kannur in Kerala have said they will collect money to help an indigent woman in Uttar Pradesh pay for the education of her three daughters after press reports that the women was willing to sell a kidney to cover the cost. In 2017, a senior BJP leader in Kerala wanted Kannur placed under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
Individuals “will no longer necessarily need to clear the National Eligibility Test (NET) or hold a PhD to teach at a university”, according to changes being mooted by M Jagadish Kumar, head of the University Grants Commission.
Centre amends prison manuals to prohibit caste discrimination in jails
The Union home ministry has revised the prison manual rules to check discrimination, classification and segregation of jail inmates on the basis of caste. In a letter to chief secretaries of states and Union Territories on Monday, the home ministry said, “It shall be strictly ensured that there is no discrimination/classification/segregation of prisoners on the basis of their caste.” The letter also noted that there should be no discrimination in allotment of any duty/work to prison inmates on the basis of their caste.
The changes came more than two months after the Supreme Court on October 3 struck down the prison manual rules, saying that they promoted caste discrimination in jails by allocating prisoners from oppressed communities to carry out menial jobs in jails. The October 3 order came on a petition filed by journalist Sukanya Shantha, following her investigative reporting series in The Wire on caste-based discrimination and segregation in jails.
India’s car sales growth slows to 4-year low at 5% in 2024
Car sales growth slowed down to around 5% in 2024 highlighting the pressures companies are facing in urban markets. This marks the slowest growth in four years, compared to 8.3% in 2023, 23% in 2022, and a staggering 30% in 2021. According to early estimates, the industry closed 2024 with sales of around 43 lakh units, against 41.1 lakh units in 2023, largely fuelled by SUVs that contributed 54% of the sales.
Bangladesh revises history books
In a significant change to the nation’s educational curriculum, Bangladesh has introduced new textbooks that credit Ziaur Rahman with declaring the country’s independence in 1971, replacing the previous version that credited founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The new textbooks, set for the 2025 academic year, feature a series of revisions, including the removal of the title ‘Father of the Nation’ from Mujibur Rahman. According to a report by The Daily Star, the new textbooks for primary and secondary school students now state that “on March 26, 1971, Ziaur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh, and on March 27, he made another declaration of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu.”
Writer and researcher Rakhal Raha, who was involved in the process of making changes in the textbooks, said they tried to free the textbooks from "exaggerated, imposed history".
"Those who revised the textbooks found that it wasn't a fact-based information that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman sent the wireless message [declaring independence] while being arrested by the Pakistani army, and so they decided to remove it."
The Long Cable
Sorry Rajnath Singh ji, India’s security challenges need competence and not luck
Manoj Joshi
Last week, speaking in Mhow cantonment, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that “Bharat is not a very lucky country” in terms of security”. He pointed out that India’s “northern and western borders continuously face challenges” and went on to add, “We also face challenges on the internal front.”
It’s remarkable that 77 years after independence, India’s defence minister is putting India’s security scenario down to Lady Luck. It shows that our political class is ever ready to find excuses for our predicament and refuses to acknowledge their own culpability in the situation.
There is no doubt that malign forces, external and internal, have played a role at various points in time in undermining our security. But surely a balanced appraisal would suggest that errors of omission and commission on the part of the Union government, which is wholly responsible for national security, have played a significant role as well.
Take the case of China. As the historian A.S. Bhasin has noted, “Nehru did not realise that international borders are not settled unilaterally but in consultation with the other stakeholder.” Nehru unilaterally declared Indian borders and made them non-negotiable and even altered them and expected the Chinese and the international community to fall in line. The Chinese took full advantage of the situation and played India to the point where it led to a war which went badly for India and has left a border situation which Nehru’s successors have had to deal with.
As for the western border, most of it is demarcated, the problem being Kashmir. India could have done little about it given the Pakistani obsession with it. But there was an opportunity to settle it during the talks after the 1971 war and the opportunity was missed, not because of luck, but the incompetence of Indira Gandhi’s advisers.
Both the China and Pakistan problems go back a long time. But opportunities to resolve them have come and gone without any gain. In the case of China, till 1985 Beijing was willing to give up its claim to Arunachal Pradesh, in exchange for India recognizing their claim on Aksai Chin. But New Delhi rejected the offer demanding that Aksai Chin be returned to India.
In the case of Pakistan, the best opportunity was in the 2004-2007 period when a four-point formula was being negotiated, and there, it is true that luck played a role in preventing it from fructifying. A variety of developments, unconnected to the India-Pakistan situation laid our Pakistani interlocutor, President General Pervez Musharraf low.
As for internal challenges, it is true that New Delhi could have done little to check the rise of Islamism around the world, or effectively deal with Pakistan’s use of jihadi elements to stiffen the Kashmiri separatist movement short of fighting a war. But surely, it needs to be recognized that the militancy in Punjab which so roiled the situation in northern India, and took the life of a prime minister, was the outcome of political strategies that went out of control.
India has also perceived security challenges from its smaller neighbours—Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh and even little Maldives. Dig deeper in Sri Lanka and you will find the remains of a wayward policy that sought to undermine the Sri Lankan government by training and arming the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). As for Bangladesh, India’s great success was in its creation. But in recent decades, poor policy choices led to our unqualified support to Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian regime whose overthrow could lead to the emergence of a new security challenge now.
We have been lucky, and we say this with some deliberation, that despite two bouts of blockades of the country on the part of India, Nepal is not hostile territory for India. There are of course situations, such as in Myanmar which we cannot influence.
Recent moves in Sri Lanka and Maldives indicate that good policy can have benign results. By backing Colombo and Male in 2022 and 2024 to overcome their respective economic crises, New Delhi has managed to alter the anti-Indian trajectory of these two island countries.
Handling the security of a large and diverse nation like India can never be an easy process, but it should not be dependent on luck. What is needed today first of all, is some introspection over the manner we have handled our security challenges in the past. This is likely to reveal the need for competence and realism and a choice of instruments that go beyond just the mantra of security.
(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.)
Reportedly
Hindutva handles are agog with excitement at the prospect of Kashmir being renamed ‘Kashyap’. Speaking at a book launch today, Home Minister Amit Shah made many claims – that the abrogation of Article 370 has solved the terrorism problem, and that Kashmir likely got its name from Sage Kashyap. The etymology of ‘Kashmir’ is not a settled issue and it is not clear what its relevance is. What is indisputable, however, is that the name Kashmir has been used from the 5th century onwards, by Panini, and of course by Kalhana in the Rajatarangini. In any event, Shah did not moot a change of name. But that has not stopped online news platforms and some channels from speaking of the minister’s ‘big statement’.
Deep dive
The Archaeological Survey of India was always imagined as a neutral body with technical expertise, where archaeologists conducted excavations, analysed their findings, published research papers and added to the academic understanding of ancient India. Its mandate is neutrality – it is expected to stand above religion and politics, and rely only on verifiable, archaeological evidence, in order to provide a true picture of the subcontinent’s history. This, however, has not always been the case. The ASI’s history includes archaeologists who have been accused of partisanship, serving the BJP’s political projects or acting in their own interests. BR Mani, a former ADG who had led a survey at the Babri Masjid site, was one. His report on Ayodhya had invited criticism from historians such as Irfan Habib, who noted that the ASI had been less than careful with animal remains at the Ayodhya site, which could have ruled out the existence of a temple. Read this cover story in Caravan by Eram Agha on how the Archaeological Survey of India fortifies Hindutva History. [Paywalled link]
Prime number: 1 crore
The total enrolment of students has dropped by over a crore in 2023-24 as compared to the previous years, shows the latest data released by the Ministry of Education (MoE). A total of 24.8 crore students enrolled in the academic year 2023-24, Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report released by the Ministry said. Over the last four years, the enrollment data has hovered around 26 crore.Opeds you don’t want to miss
The breakdown of the relationship between the government and the opposition in parliament; MPs being elected not for their parliamentary performance but for unrelated reasons; the government’s treating parliament as a “notice board” and “rubber stamp” for its plans: Shashi Tharoor decries the “sorry state” of our parliament today.
Instead of scoring brownie points with the political leadership by erecting statues of Shivaji and portraits of Chanakya, writes Praveen Sawhney, the Indian armed forces need to be study the Chinese PLA in detail: “decide on technologies to be built indigenously and those to be procured from friendly nations; create new virtual war domains; decide war concepts; and finally, do manpower structural reforms.”
Raghav Bahl has nine resolutions to resuscitate Indian democracy in 2025.
Ayesha Siddiqa looks at the latest US sanctions against Pakistani entitities, including the National Development Complex, for their role in the country’s ballistic missile programme. She says that the sanctions are not surprising given that Pakistan is developing missiles that can reach the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which she describes as “part of the strategic buildup against China”.
By misusing ‘quality control orders’ against foreign imports, India is shooting itself in the foot on trade issues write Mihir Sharma.
India stands to benefit from tourism, but of late we have been of the view that “if foreign travellers do not want to come, we don’t really care”, writes Vir Sanghvi. He argues that ultimately it is up to our country’s politicians to turn around our declining tourism figures.
Listen up
From The Economist’s Christmas Special: Inside the RSS, the world’s most powerful volunteer group.
Watch out
Sudipto Mondal sits down with comedian and filmmaker Manjeet Sarkar to talk about Sarkar’s experiences as a Dalit performer, how Ambedkar has inspired him and the role of comedy in addressing social justice.
Over and out
Roughly 93 years after Bhagat Singh was tried in Poonch House in Lahore, a gallery has been opened at the premises by the Pakistani Punjab government where memorabilia related to the revolutionary will be put on display. Reporting from Lahore, PTI says that among the historical documents at the gallery are “pictures, letters, newspapers” and “details of [Singh’s] trial”.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you tomorrow, 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.