Without Capital Investment, Greying India will Stay Poor; By Siding with Israel, India is Jettisoning Decades of Middle East Statesmanship
India still among hungriest nations, Mirwaiz under house arrest again, Srinagar mosque closed, 2/3 of Information Commissions have not published reports, colonial famines and Type 2 diabetes in India
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal
Snapshot of the day
October 13, 2023
Pratik Kanjilal
India is ranked 111th in the 125-country Global Hunger Index 2023 ― 14th up from rock bottom, which is Burundi and South Sudan. Zambia is a little less hungry than India and Timor-Leste, a little hungrier. As in recent years, neighbours in South Asia score better than us. Predictably, the government says it’s an international plot.
The Anjuman Auqaf Jamia Masjid in Srinagar has accused the J&K administration of closing the Friday mosque for prayers and placing chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, also chairman of the Hurriyat, under house arrest yet again, for fear of pro-Palestinian protests, reports The Hindu.
Gujarat will host the India-Pakistan World Cup match tomorrow. In Surat, Hindutva thugs attacked a restaurant known for hosting food festivals for doing one with cuisine from Pakistan.
https://twitter.com/vibesofindia_/status/1712739569819640292
The Delhi High Court today dismissed pleas against the week-long police remand of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and his HR head Amit Chakraborty.
It was earlier reported that India and China made no headway in the 20th round of military talks, but Snehesh Alex Philip clarifies in The Print that the two nations have agreed to avoid offering provocation during the coming winter and work on a mutual plan to prevent a surge of men and equipment after spring.
Canada’s Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagne will not attend a two-day parliamentary speakers’ summit starting Friday in New Delhi, reports Bloomberg. Last week, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had said that she would.
Over the last four days, 3,871 people, including tourists, have been evacuated from inundated towns in north Sikkim, using ground transport and choppers.
The Supreme Court has directed the Union and Gujarat governments to submit by October 16 the original records related to the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case and the murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan reserved their order on the pleas challenging the remission granted to the convicts after hearing submissions by Bilkis Bano’s counsel and lawyers for the Centre, the Gujarat government and the PIL petitioners.
The Gujarat government owes over Rs 22 crore for hiring 35,000 state transport buses over the last three years to ferry people to events featuring Modi or the state’s chief ministers, according to data presented in the Gujarat Assembly.
(Credit: https://x.com/penpencildraw)
In Scroll, Ajay Kamalakaran says that while the Jewish Agency attracted thousands of Bene Israel Jews from India to the Promised Land in the 1950s with promises of quality jobs and a decent life, hundreds were disappointed and sought repatriation back to India through a complicated international process.
About simultaneous polls, former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi has said that a national consensus should be developed and it should not be “thrust on the people”. At the launch of his new book India’s Experiment with Democracy: The Life of a Nation Through its Elections, he also said that parties cannot be legally challenged for offering poll-linked freebies, and that electoral bonds had made poll funding completely opaque.
As 5G rolls out, most Indians remain disconnected. Mukesh Ambani is bridging the digital divide with a sound business proposition ― a $12 feature phone which streams multimedia, says the Wall Street Journal.
Fifteen people have filed police complaints of their bank accounts being drained after they registered with Aadhaar-enabled payment systems by filing their documents at the Mangaluru city sub-registrar’s office. Cyber expert G Ananth Prabhu told The Hindu that fraudsters manage to get Aadhaar and biometric details given at the time of registration of documents and SIM card activation and use them to withdraw money using AEPS.
In a much-needed series which deconstructs the ownership of India’s media houses, Newslaundry looks at Punjab Kesari.
A sepoy of the Sikh Regiment who lost an eye in the 1971 India-Pakistan war has won a 50-year struggle for a war injury pension ― posthumously. His widow is the beneficiary, reports Indian Express.
In some Indian states, hospitals are sensitising specialists like ophthalmologists to look out for physical signs of domestic violence and offer long-term support.
On IndiaSpend, Nushaiba Iqbal charts the success rate of Ayushman Bharat. It does not wholly inspire.
The Financial Times jacks into the seething resentment at the Delhi Gymkhana club, after the takeover by the BJP.
For want of 20 minutes, SC adjourns Khalid bail plea
The Supreme Court has again adjourned the hearing on the bail plea of activist Umar Khalid in the 2020 Delhi riots ‘larger conspiracy’ case, in which he has been incarcerated since September 2020. Justices Bela M Trivedi and Dipankar Datta posted the case for hearing on November 1, complaining of a lack of time. Khalid has been in jail as an undertrial since September 2020 and this is the sixth adjournment by the apex court. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal said he could demonstrate the absence of a case in 20 minutes. “There’s no chance of framing charges yet, how long will you keep him there?” he asked. “He has never done any overt act, they have admitted to it. The only thing is there is some conspiracy they are talking about, conspiracy for what? None of the sections apply.”
Without capital investment, a greying India will stay poor
The female fertility rate in India has dropped below the replacement level sooner than in many developed countries, and the UN estimates 41% growth in the elderly population in 2021-2031. By 2046, the number of elderly citizens is projected to surpass the number of children. The economic implications are substantial, with an older population depending on a dwindling working-age cohort. “The trend makes it imperative that India grows its economy rapidly or it runs the risk of getting caught in the middle-income trap,” says The Hindu.
Literacy increasing awareness of climate risk
A recent survey indicates that 62% of Indians see climate change as a threat, and 37% see it as a “very serious” concern over the next two decades. However, perceptions vary by region. In vulnerable Kerala, 92% view it as a significant threat. In Assam and Madhya Pradesh, there’s less anxiety. The level of education in a state matters, and climate concerns will grow with literacy. However, a large majority of Indians are happy with state efforts to preserve the environment, finds Gallup.
(Source: https://www.gallup.com/home.aspx)
Odisha amendment sidesteps social impact assessment
A Bill to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLAR&R) Act was tabled in the Odisha Assembly in March, withdrawn within days after a backlash and then passed in September. It does away with Social Impact Assessment (SIA) studies for crucial projects. “Any project should require Palli Sabha approval and a public hearing. These amendments will deprive people of their rights. This is a clear case of the government seeking corporate funding,” says environmental activist Prafulla Samantara to Down To Earth. Anti-mining protesters and activists are facing a crackdown by the state. While SIAs were never taken seriously, “this amendment will affect organised groups who have fought with support of the law. But they should still continue to work on their assessments and present their case,” says Sudhir Pattnaik, a journalist.
The Long Cable
By siding with Israel, India is jettisoning decades of Middle East statesmanship
Rohit Khanna
Five days into the bloody situation in Israel and Gaza, the Indian government’s only response was one tweet from PM Narendra Modi. Put out on October 7, it has over 27 million views and was lacking in nuance – describing the attacks by Hamas as “terrorist attacks”, and expressing solidarity with Israel. The Foreign Ministry and EAM S Jaishanker had simply retweeted the PM’s tweet and left it at that.
Now, six days into the conflict, we have finally heard from the EAM spokesperson. But yet again, there is no direct re-assertion of India’s support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The statement makes no mention of the loss of Palestinian lives in the ongoing conflict. Without naming Israel, it just talks about the “obligation to observe international humanitarian law”. The only attempt at striking a balance comes from mentioning the need to resume talks to establish a “viable State of Palestine”.
And even this statement, that offers little to the Palestinian people, seems to be consciously delayed. It’s the immediate solidarity shown with Israel, by way of the tweet and the phone call made by PM Modi to Benjamin Netanyahu, which again emphasised that “India stands firmly with Israel”, that has registered as India’s essential response.
The fear is that this lack of nuance may have been intended, and that the Indian government may have erred in doing so.
Certainly, Hamas’s use of violence needs condemnation. But equally well documented is the violence of the Israeli state against Palestinians. So whenever such violence has broken out, the approach of the Indian government, even the Modi government, has invariably been to also underline the other side’s track record of violence, and also add the context of the Palestinians being denied their legitimate political rights by Israel. This time, the PM’s tweet left that out, and the EAM statement has barely mentioned it.
As recently as May 2021, while responding to a cycle of violence between Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces that had left over 200 people dead, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti made a clearly more nuanced statement. He condemned the “indiscriminate” rocket attacks by Hamas, described Israeli strikes as “retaliatory”, and at the same time underlined India’s “unwavering” commitment to the two-State solution. In 2014 too, even as India moved towards better relations with Israel, the then External Affairs Minister, the late Sushma Swaraj had said that “we fully support the Palestinian cause”.
India’s relations with Israel are very close today, an almost total inversion of the days when Indira Gandhi was one of PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s biggest supporters. India is now one of Israel’s biggest arms customers, and also of advanced and sensitive defence (and surveillance!) systems. This also underlines that it’s a ‘friendship’ that has the blessings of the US. But even as India walks into the embrace of the US-Israel defence complex, one is not sure it cannot afford to ignore the sentiments of its Arab friends about Palestine, in the manner that the US and Israel tend to do.
It must also be noted that in Indira’s days, Hamas did not exist. Arafat’s PLO and Fatah were linked to a lower degree of violence, and showed a frequent readiness to be at the negotiation table, and so were easier to support against a continually belligerent Israel. In fact, in 1994, on the back of the 1993 Oslo Accords, that saw Arafat and the PLO historically recognizing Israel, and also the creation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), as the de facto ‘Palestinian government’ – Arafat and two former Israeli prime ministers, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But in the years that followed, the situation has worsened. Hardliners have a far greater say on both sides – Hamas, which practically controls Gaza, on one side, and a steady shift towards strongly right-wing governments in Israel, on the other side. Hamas and the IDF have been unrelenting in their violence. But even in this deteriorating climate, and despite a definite shift towards Israel by successive Indian governments, India has tried to walk a diplomatic tightrope. In May 2017, PM Modi played host to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and visited Israel two months later, the first Indian PM to do so. He followed that up by inviting Abbas to India in 2018.
But since then to now, one senses India’s increasing readiness to shrug off that fine balance. Partly because Hamas is now facing criticism from some Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are also India’s biggest trade partners in the Middle East. Both countries are also central to the recently announced ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), along with Israel and Jordan. The feeling seems to be that India can now dispense with the nuance of empathising with the Palestinians, and still maintain ties with the Saudis and the UAE and other Arab nations.
However, we may have ignored some serious imponderables. The biggest is the dangerous appetite that both Israel and Hamas have for violence. Both Iran-backed Hamas and US-backed Israel have the funding, the logistics, the arms and the motivation to be at war for a long time. Extended conflict would derail the IMEC indefinitely. Continued violence would also strain Saudi-Israeli ties which are only in their infancy.
So, even thinking just selfishly, India must realise that it has a stake in peace in the region, and push hard for it. There is also the small matter of oil prices, that tend to spiral each time violence spirals in the middle-east. Rising oil prices have an inflationary impact on domestic prices, which the BJP would not want just a few weeks from key state assembly elections and just months away from a general election.
That apart, the historical fact is that India does have a special relationship with the Palestinians. It was the first non-Arab nation to recognize the PLO, and supported their cause for decades. And as mentioned earlier, even the present government has a rapport with the Palestinian leadership, even if not with Hamas. It is therefore in the unique position of having a robust relationship with both sides of the current conflict, something that almost none of the major players can claim. So, at a time like this, Instead of picking only Israel, it would serve India to be a vocal peacemaker.
It would also look good on the Vishwaguru’s CV.
So, what fully explains the PM’s partisan tweet and the cagey EAM statement?
One would suggest that there is also a domestic aspect to India’s choice of dropping the Palestinian cause. Over the years, protesters against Indian authorities in the Kashmir Valley have repeatedly claimed to have been inspired by the protests in Palestine against Israeli forces, even equating protests in Srinagar with the Palestinian ‘intifada’ of 1987, and their subsequent struggle over the years. This has been a sticking point with the mandarins in Delhi, particularly the BJP.
But there’s more. On 9th October, 4 students of Aligarh Muslim University had an FIR filed against them just for raising slogans in support of Palestine, and against Israel. In addition, the incident allowed the Uttar Pradesh Labor Minister, the BJP’s Dr Raghuraj Singh, to describe AMU as a ‘hub of terrorists’, a charge that’s often been flung at the institution in recent years.
Clearly, it suits the BJP to conflate the rampant anti-Muslim climate that it is creating in India with the portrayal of the latest conflict in Gaza as Hamas’ handiwork. This, while fully deleting the context of the violence that ordinary Palestinians have also faced at the hands of Israeli forces over the decades. Picking Israel over Palestine just for this, would undo years of empathetic and non-partisan statesmanship that India has demonstrated in one of the world’s most divided, most volatile conflict zones.
(Rohit Khanna is a journalist and video storyteller. He has been managing editor of The Quint, and is a two-time Ramnath Goenka Award winner.)
Reportedly
The most anticipated India-Pakistan World Cup match will be played tomorrow in Ahmedabad. To liven it up even more, a musical ceremony will precede the game. There are reports that some golden ticket holders will also attend. Lots of fanfare for a group stage game, but there was nothing when the World Cup actually began.
Prime Number: 66% of Information Commissions have not published reports At least four of India’s 29 information commissions are completely defunct, says a report of the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS). The report says that “the commissions did not impose penalties in 91% of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable.” Besides, it is mandatory to table an annual report in Parliament. The report says that 19 out of 29 information commissions, or 66%, have not published their annual report for 2021-22. This is part of efforts to “crush the citizen’s fundamental right to information”, say many activists.
Deep Dive
For several hours on the day of the Sikkim flood, government, media and disaster agencies referred to the incident as a “cloudburst”, indicating a lack of clarity and accurate communications. In Scroll, Himanshu Upadhyay does the post mortem, pointing out that the government covered up the severity of the Teesta floods by blaming them on a ‘cloudburst’ and that utter confusion prevailed on October 4. The disaster was huge: a glacial lake in Sikkim had burst its banks, and surging waters had washed away dams in the Teesta basin.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
“No matter what one thinks of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the way populism corroded the Israeli state should serve as a warning to other democracies all over the world,” says Yuval Noah Harari. The people of South Asia, especially India, should pay heed.
By rejecting the petition seeking the removal of the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura, the Allahabad High Court has put up a brave defence of the Constitution, writes Nandini Sundar.
“We are in a nightmare...Who will we be when we rise from the ashes?” A moving essay by the Israeli author David Grossman in the Financial Times.
Kanak Mani Dixit has an evolved idea of South Asia, in which devolution of power to provinces and states makes people on the periphery audible to national governments. He says that “centralism, ultranationalism in Pakistan and India are not helping people.”
If the Indian Armed Forces want to stem cases of fratricide – soldiers killing their colleagues – it needs to formalise and step up efforts to ensure the psychological wellbeing of personnel, writes Lt Gen HS Panag (Retd).
Telling the tale of two Pakistani men – one a cabbie in England in the ’90s, the other a lone fan attending tomorrow’s game – Pradeep Magazine charts how India-Pakistan cricket has changed over the years.
Listen up
On Grand Tamasha, the historian Aditya Balasubramanian discusses his new book on the Swatantra Party and the history of conservative economics in India with political scientist Milan Vaishnav. They also discuss the legacy of the Swatantra Party several decades after its collapse and the death of its key figures — and what lessons it might hold for India’s present Opposition.
Watch out
Ahmer Naqvi aka ‘Karachi Khatmal’ speaks with Sharda Ugra on all that is India-Pakistan and all that is cricket ― or not. Hear it straight from them on the big match between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad tomorrow. Shah Rukh Khan gets an honourable mention.
Over and out
Arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj kept a diary of prison life. Released in 2021, she writes about her experience at Yerawada jail. “I saw brutality, but also solidarity,” says Sudha Bharadwaj in an interview with The Hindu. “Since our Constitution protects freedom of speech, association and assembly, the only way to justify such crackdowns is to conflate dissent with criminal or terrorist activity… if one wishes to dissent, they have to be ready to brave such attacks.”
Today, people of South Asian descent face a significantly higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes ― four to six times higher than that of white people. Recent investigations expose the enduring consequences of famines under British colonial rule for the genetic profile of South Asians, says The Guardian.
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.