The Mumbai Eye Opener-I

The terrorist attacks of November 26 are, above all, a scathing indictment of the Indian people, our attitude and our state. They are a slap on the face of everything that India stands for and everything, that we, as the citizens of of the same democratic nation must accept blame for. If the flames on the Mumbai skyline will not open our eyes, what will? It is time to deliberate on where we stand as a nation, ask the toughest questions and accept that many of those questions will have dark answers. In this first part, the Oracle speaks about the role of the people in the aftermath of this tragedy; in a later part, we will discuss what the state should do in response.

The attacks of 26/11 are distinct from any other terrorist attack in recent history; they are an attack not on the people per se, but on the glittering symbols of Indian success and pride.

1. Stop blaming the politicians: One of the knee jerk responses that the Indian people have come up with in wake of the tragedy and one that the usually partisan English language media has declared as "safe and civilized" is an all out anger against politicians. Our politicians are a reflection of our own people. The politicians don't think about the big issues because we don't.

Politicians are not trying to divide us, it is we the people who are divided. Politicians have their finger on the pulse of the people; they know the fissures in society that exist and they act accordingly. Take for instance the events of the last few months: The despicable Gujjar-Meena conflict kicked off again in the summer in Rajasthan, leading to mindless violence. Overnight, India had some new politicians and political formations: Col. Bhaisla, the two new factions of the Gujjar Mahasabha and so on, while other diminuitive characters such as Kirori Lal Meena assumed immense importance overnight. None of this would have ever come about if the Gujjars and Meenas had seen themselves as anything more than Gujjars and Meenas respectively. In Rajasthan, the Congress fears to name Ashok Gehlot as the formal CM candidate: why? Because the Jats do not like Gehlot!

On the flip side, take note of the recent row in Mumbai over the "influx" of "North Indians" (quotes intended to emphasize the dubious use of words such as "North Indian" and "influx"). This is not the first time this row has been raised and each time it has failed to evoke a real public response. That is the main reason the Shiv Sena, despite having covert sympathies with the Marathi Manoos line, by and large, kept out of the recent agitation. The anti-North Indian stance cannot be translated into votes, because the people of Mumbai, by and large, reject this proposition. Politicians cannot divide the people if they do not choose to be.

Or, consider the time when Ram Vilas Paswan, buoyed by a windfall in Bihar in early 2005, decided to approach the election that November with the issue of having a Muslim CM. His efforts came a cropper, because the people of Bihar are not sufficiently divided on communal lines to warm up to his cause. Similarly, when the BJP carried out a viciously divisive campaign in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh in 2007, they were roundly thrashed because the "Ram Lahar" that the party had ridden to power in the 90's was nowhere to be seen. Instead the sands had shifted and people wanted to be divided with Brahmin and Dalit on one side and Muslims and Yadavs on the other. It is noteworthy that in the same election, the incumbent Mulayam Singh suffered only a marginal drop in vote share, while the opposition BJP lost comprehensively. And again, when Sonia Gandhi tried to revive the KHAM (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim) in Gujarat in December 2002, the Congress was wiped out.

Lesson Number One: It is the people who are polarized and it is people who must take the blame.

2. Tough questions to ask:

Why did it take an attack of this magnitude to wake up the nation to the reality of terror?

Calling the Mumbai attack India's 9/11 is the most shameful indictment of India that is ever possible. The 9/11 attack on the USA has two distinct aspects (a) It was the first ever major terrorist attack on US soil (the WTC had been attacked before, but the magnitude was never big enough) (b) It pushed the American public to take vigorous steps to ensure that something like that would never happen again. The Mumbai terror attack does not fit under part (a) and whether it can be filed under part(b) remains to be seen.

The question is why the people of India did not read the threat when the streets of Jaipur, or Ahmedabad and even Delhi were bespattered with blood? Why did the threat have to be spelt out in fire on the Mumbai night sky? Despite the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur, caste was the number one issue in the Rajasthan polls until December, not terrorism.

Are we a nation that thinks only about the small issues?

The question of existence as a nation dwarfs the issues of daily life, the so called "Bijli-Pani-Sadak". It is true that India has a lot of poverty and that life is difficult for many Indians, but are we so caught up with these petty struggles that we cannot spare a moment to think about the nation? Two generations ago, the people of India lived in even greater poverty and despair; yet they had the zeal in them that got this country free. Today, when Indians can see for themselves that India can become a world power in this very generation, do we not have the courage, the strength to think beyond the bread and butter issues?

Do we need to rethink secularism?

The purpose of this question is to countenance the practice of "political secularism" that is stifling the country. Secularism, by definition, means that the state does not adopt the practice of any religion in public life, an ideal that is eminently laudable, a jewel of democracy. But can religion be used as an excuse for deviating from national interest?

It is interesting to reflect on the true underpinnings of the idea of secularism. Religion gives laws for people to live by and different religions give different laws; and yet the secular state stands apart from religion and enacts laws that are based on common sense and humanism rather than superstition. Secularism, therefore, does not mean "equal respect for all religions"; rather it means "equal contempt for all religions".

So, why is it that in India we have different standards for different religions? Why does the Indian state allow certain religions and Islam in particular to have special status? Why does India not have a common civil code? Does the Indian constitution still, consciously or unconsciously, promote Dr. Iqbals' "two nation theory"? Should the modern Indian state pander to the caprices of a desert religion that has not moved forward in thirteen hundred years? Should the Indian state, for instance, tolerate barbaric practices such as "triple talaq", discriminatory inheritance laws and even disgraces such as polygamy all in the name of respecting religion? Does it not make the Muslims feel like they are a law unto themselves and suggest to them that their fraternal bond with Muslims from Pakistan to Sudan is actually stronger than their roots in India?

In order to purge India of its weaknesses, we the people must confront our failings first. Our state, our police, our judiciary reflect badly on us. We have become all too used to paying our respects to martyrs and singing patriotic songs in their honour and of course, blaming the politicians for everything. People have the power to change even as they sit in their homes or go about their daily business; the change lies in the attitude, the desire to succeed and the aptitude for enterprise. For many, Narendrabhai Modi of Gujarat is a symbol of communal hatred, yet the same hawk of Hindutva turned comprehensively to development and economic growth in 2007. This change was brought about by the attitude of the people of Gujarat, who wanted progress in the long run, not riots.

But we need more change. We need to change attitude. The Mumbai terror attack has shown us that if we are divided, or too absorbed in just getting by our daily routine, we will soon have no nation left. We need to demand more of life, more of our democracy and more of ourselves. Do you have a friend, a relative, an uncle perhaps who ever said something that belittled a person based merely on his/her caste/religion/gender? Have you confronted him/her with the accusation that his/her remarks are anti-national? Have you ever been too absorbed in sounding like the nice guy? When someone makes a remark like "every religion teaches peace"; have you demanded that he/she prove his assertion? Let us never believe anything without proof, without reason or rationale. It would give us the moral courage and moral authority to see through the barbarism of crazy violent "religious activities" and the smokescreen of political correctness.

Stop thinking, start dreaming?

"How do you think the world would be different under Barack Obama?" was a question that Prannoy Roy recently posed while interviewing the formidable Henry Kissinger. In many ways it is a telling statement. As he spoke, Prannoy's face was radiant as that of a little child on a Christmas morning. The choice of words was also interesting: "the world under Barack Obama".

Prannoy's servility to Obama is symptomatic of what his media brethren have been doing across the world. For several months now, the media in most countries of the world have been drilling into the national psyche of their respective countries that Obama is some kind of messiah who is about to heal the world. Now avid reporting of an event so important as the US Presidential Election is understandable; but as the media began bleating for Obama, pleading with people as far as Agra to carry Obama-Biden stickers, the sense was more of nausea. The rest of the world does not vote in the Presidential election, neither should it; and hence it is important that the world media maintain a respectful distance from the process, refusing to take sides and dealing with the candidates strictly as they would deal with foreign leaders/heads of state.

Instead, the media from the rest of the world and the Indian media for the first time, barged into our living rooms, drumming into our people how important it was to "support" Obama. Now, what exactly does it mean for an Indian to "support" Obama? The US election is not a game of cricket (literally and figuratively!) that people can just choose to support a team. It is a democratic exercise meant exclusively for Americans. Instead, the media streamed in from various reaches of the American empire, pleading and begging for Obama. The independent foreign policy that was so zealously upheld through the last four years of nuclear diplomacy was undermined by the ready media campaign to sell to the Indian people the idea of being a US client state.

Barack Obama is perhaps the first politician who has been judged entirely by his campaign and not his actions. Now it is true that Obama represents a turnaround in the racial history of the US and his rise from a backwater to Harvard to the White House is a glowing tribute to the somewhat sullied notion of the American Dream. Yet, Obama is still a symbol, a man ushered in by the American people as an act of despair, a man who is as far removed from George Bush as could be. In the last two years, whiny Americans went from blaming everything, from the Shia Sunni conflict in Iraq to Hurricane Katrina on the policies of President Bush. What they failed to understand is that the US President does not act in isolation and there are events beyond his control. The Iraq war is a perfect example of American smugness; the American people were all for the war as long as it meant the US Marines pummelling an obviously much weaker nation to pieces. The war became unpopular only when fighting broke out in the alleys of Tikrit and Baghdad, killing Americans in large numbers. Instead of perceiving this as a challenge to their honour, most Americans advocated a speedy exit from the rough zone. It shows an allegiance not to the sense of purpose, neither to honour and diginity, but to convenience.

There has never been a perfect war. Things in the Iraq war went out of control for some time, and all that while, the worst inconvenience that Americans faced as their nation fought a war was high petrol prices! If Americans want to hold on to their numero uno status, they have to stop behaving like the fairy tale princess who felt the one pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds.

It is particularly telling that the event that ultimately tipped the scales decisively in favour of Obama was the economic crash of October 2008. It just had to be Bush's fault. The fact that the endless, thoughtless spending by the American people, the tendency to buy everything... from houses to cars to clothes.... on easy credit rather than honest money has made middle class Americans as complicit in the crash as the executives on Wall Street, was wilfully ignored. Naturally, no candidate had the courage to tell the voting public that they had only themselves to blame for their miseries. For most of the population that was not otherwise obsessed with religion and the Bible, it was much easier to eject the Republicans and dope themselves with a dose of Obama. When you have whittled away your own riches and indeed those of your fathers owing to your whims, self deception is always the answer; just as the gambler who has just ruined himself will often take to drink.

In truth, Obama is still unknown and unproven, more like the new credit card everyone is excited about. "Live now, pay later" was a life philosophy that got Americans into a mess in which they lost their homes, their jobs and possibly their crown as the No.1 nation in the world. "Vote now, think later" is a policy that they might live to regret. As serious, professedly prestigious critical publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune debate among themselves which of the world's problems Obama will solve first, one can only beg the American public for a wee bit of sanity.

There are many wonderful things about Obama; he is as brilliant as can be, a powerful speaker and a plucky man who began as the less fancied candidate and then trumped the Clinton machine. His world view is also more inclusive than that of President Bush and his election can be taken as a net gain for racial equality across the world. If it were a perfect world, everyone should have voted for him.

But there are savages, in the Middle East and elsewhere, who see Obama's more civilized approach as an exploitable opportunity. It is up to Americans to make sure that their new President remembers that he is a partisan, a representative of America and its interests, rather than a man whose coming fulfils a prophecy. If Obama assumes office believing that he will be on the cover of every history textbook ever written, chances are he will leave the world worse than it is.

(The Oracle expects to come back to Obama, this time discussing more specifically, his position on India and Kashmir.)

The path to power- I : A fiery new dawn for India

(Evaluating India's military and technological prowess today and in the days to come)


This week India became the fourth nation to plant its colours on the moon, behind the United States, Russia and Japan. On this momentous occasion, the Oracle starts a round up of the nation's defences, prospects and prowess.

1. First, with Chandrayaan: With the success of Chandrayaan-I, India has shown that it is capable of "getting it right the first time", which, indeed is a rare feat, even for the handful of nations that have access to the moon.

Although India reaching for the moon by itself can be compared to reinventing the wheel, one should not ignore that the mission has important scientific objectives, such as mapping the lunar poles and searching for Helium-3. By carrying instruments from NASA, ESA and the Bulgarian Space Agency along with instruments of its own, ISRO has shown that the spirit of national pride can be carried alongside the quest for scientific delights. In contrast, China's space programme has the sole objective of intimidating possible adversaries, a menacing aspect that debauches the spirit of science. The ISRO should be proud of having achieved this major distinction, which has underscored the moral superiority of democracy. Of course, the fact that the jealous Chinese questioned the success of the mission using familiar "reality control" techniques has been one of the most satisfying aspects of Chandrayaan.

2) Other space projects: With the success of Chandrayaan, the ISRO has suddenly found itself to be much fancied by the media and the youth. With the launch of Astrosat next year, India will have the largest fleet of civilian satellites. Next year, the ISRO also plans to launch "Bhuvan", India's very own version of Google Earth, except that Bhuvan is reported to have much greater capabilities, such as resolution as high as 10m (compared to 200m from Google Earth and 50m from Wikimapia) and the listing of mineral components at various layers of the earth. Now that ISRO has raised expectations, it will be hard to satisfy zealous young Indians unless the Government generously expands ISRO's budget.

And then there are other projects that are still on the drawing board: the building of the astronaut training centre at Devanhalli near Bangalore, the construction of the solar probe Aditya and shaping Chandrayaan-II. The ISRO needs to tread carefully with Chandrayaan-II, since the lunar rover for the mission is due to be supplied by the Russians, who have, of late proved to be capricious and unreliable allies.

3) Aerospace command: The long standing need for a separate Aerospace Command has been scuttled for far too long. Ironically, it is not an enemy, nor a lcak of money, nor a lack of planning that has kept us from accomplishing this. The issue comes down to petty rivalries between the three existing arms of the military. The other two wings of the military suspect that the Air Force will exert the most influence over the Aerospace command. It is pathetic that such a small issue can make such a difference to national security.

Despite having a huge civilian satellite system, and indeed the world's largest, India's military surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities are not significant, although the existing CARTOSAT-2A is believed to have some military uses. With the launch of Bhuvan next year, ISRO is expected to take another step towards building a remote navigation system that parallels the GPS used by NATO countries. So far, Indian efforts to build such a system jointly with the Russia, named the GLONASS, seem to be headed down a dead alley. The Russians have missed every single deadline on launching GLONASS satellites and the wait has been frustrating for India. Moreover, it is not advisable for India to have a remote navigation system jointly with Russia, since it compromises national security to the same extent as joining the GPS club with NATO would.

An aerospace command would bring projects such as remote navigation, spy satellites, etc. right to the fore. The competition has just been taken to a new level, since China has now demonstrated that it is capable of knocking satellites out of orbit. Stung by the Chinese leap, the US scrambled to put together its own system, which it finally test fired in Fenbruary this year. Currently, only the US, China and Russia possess an anti satellite weapon. India is behind. Although there have been efforts by all civilized nations to impose a moratorium on miltarization of space, given the human nature, militarization of space is an inevitability. India cannot ignore this reality.

4) The Air Force: Of late, the concerns about the state of the Air Force have become so severe that they have spilled out of the domain of geeky news gatherers into the consciousness of the general public. Although India's Air Force is sizeable and easily one of the most powerful in the world, the Air Force suffers from a lack of modern machines and from bureaucratic lethargy. There have been delays in ordering new planes when needed, although the government seems to have finally moved its rear end on this issue (but the Congress has still outperformed the BJP; the BJP could not even make sure the entire military budget was spent in 2002-2003).

India has made noises about acquiring more Russian aircraft, some of the Swedish Gripens and even the still somewhat mythical "Eurofighter" that is under construction. At the core of the problem is that India's plane manufacture capabilities are still nascent, a pity considering the fact that even the motley Swedes have the technology to make the versatile Gripen fighter.

Of late, however, India's technological establishment has seen a rise in prestige, which is, of course, contingent upon some success. The HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is almost ready to be commissioned, since both the technology demonstrators seem to have performed successfully. The HAL Light Combat Helicopter is also due to be delivered in March 2009, a delay of three months from the target date of Dec, 2008. India is also rumoured to be close to completing the "Medium Combat Fighter" that will significantly increase India's strike capabilities.

Notwithstanding these gains, there remain even larger concerns over the availability and manufacture of the "less glorious" but essential units of the Air Force, such as training aircraft and heavy carriers. Currently, Lockheed Martin is building six C-130 Hercules planes to be delivered to India, as part of a $596 million deal. Once again, the key requirement of self sufficiency has not been met.

5) The Missile Programme: India's missile programme has registered some success in recent years, thus redeeming to the DRDO to some extent. After the embarrassing initial failure of Agni-III, the DRDO has successfully retested this missile, an act that has caused some heartburn in China. Nevertheless, the missile has not been inducted into the military as yet and hence most of the Chinese mainland is still out of reach for India. However, the stratagem of focussing on larger payload and lesser range has been a partial success, since India's potential enemies are located around its own borders, while the Chinese have had to strain themselves with building missiles that can fly all the way to the United States. This is in line with India's initial aim of establishing itself in Asia and then planning for worldwide power projection.

It is for this moment that India must prepare. Although government officials are yet to confirm its existence, India has been working on an ICBM for a while now, since 1991, according to some reports. The ICBMs Surya-I (and II) are expected to use India's GSLV rockets and Surya-I should be on display in a couple of years. The truly magnificient Surya-II, with its truly massive payload that will make it the most devastating in the world, is not due for a few years.

For now, India has to be satisfied with its Inter Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM). A nuclear arsenal is almost a white elephant unless a country possesses the requisite delivery system. India cannot rely on planes to deliver its nuclear bombs. The Agni missile is fully capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but the missile itself must undergo more tests before it can be pronounced fully reliable.

No assessment of India's military capabilites is complete without the mention of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile. The missile has helped India's reputation grow manifold. Apart from this, India has readied the nuclear capable K-15 Sagarika submarine launched ballistic missile that is expected to be fitted onto the nuclear submarines (ATVs) when they enter service at the end of the next year.

(To be continued... focussing on the Army and the Navy in the next part)

Nitish, Laloo and Paswan start a childish game in Bihar

The recent events in Bihar and Maharashtra have started a kangaroo game in both states as have exposed the compulsions of national parties. Pictured above are Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, with Sushil Modi cut off on the left, which is a metaphor for how the BJP has been feeling in Bihar. The recent slanging match between the regional leaders of Bihar and Maharashtra have resulted in a crisis of credibility in both states. The Oracle looks at how each of the major players in Bihar has maintained ship in the political storm.

1. The JD(U): To his credit, the Bihar Chief Minister has tried his best to keep his stand consistent. As in the recent crisis with alliance partner BJP, the Kosi barrage disaster, the Chief Minister has proved to be a deft political player in the furore over Raj Thackeray's actions. In the three years he has been in power, Nitish Kumar has consistently worked to maintain the separate identity of the JD(U) within the NDA and has easily shrugged off the "communal forces" tag. He has actually kept the BJP at arm's length from getting a real say in government. His excellent relations with the Dy. CM Sushil Modi have helped him pull off political moves that are manifestly to the BJP's disadvantage. During the Kosi Barrage disaster, when the Bihar government faced serious allegations of negligence, Nitish Kumar kept a straight face, warded off Lalu and Paswan's criticism and maintained that all he wanted to address was the issues of the people rather than the mudslinging of mean minded political enemies.

The approach has worked for him this time as well. The Chief Minister stoutly refused to share a dias with the Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray at the NDA "Sankalp rally" in Sonepat (as did Uddhav); and asked his five Bihar MPs to quit. He did not pressure his ally BJP to follow suit and refused to give much reaction to Laloo Yadav's demand that the Chief Minister himself, along with his MLAs, quit the Bihar Assembly in order to put up a united face. Even when Laloo followed this up with a personal attack on the Chief Minister, calling him a "kursi chipku", Nitish Kumar calmly suggested that the Railway Minister should resign if he indeed felt so strongly about the situation in Mumbai. The RJD supremo refused to make his own MPs quit and did not quit himself. In the end, Laloo Yadav's attack was too personal, too hypocritical to make an impact and it fizzled out. Nitish Kumar wins again.

2. The BJP: The BJP is the second largest party in the state, a fact that almost everyone, and most often the BJP High Command, seems to forget. Granted that the BJP was in an unenviable situation on the Raj Thackeray issue, but there was no reason for the party to take itself out of the picture. There was no reason for the BJP not to make itself heard as a voice of sanity and national unity. Perhaps the BJP did not lose points by keeping mum, but it does not augur well for the organization.

The principal offender here is Dy. CM Sushil Modi. Time and again, he has faced charges from party workers in Bihar that he has allowed the JD(U) too much leeway. There was a time when the BJP was seen as an "aggressive ally", one that could wean away your support base by joining hands with you. Then the party adopted "coalition dharma" and everything changed. The BJP, which holds fort in large swathes of rural Vidharbha, Marathwada allows the Shiv Sena to walk all over it, even though the latter is essentially limited to Mumbai and Konkan. In Bihar, the BJP has chosen to be submissive once again. It was Arun Jaitley who had strung together the alliance of independents that led to the Bihar Governor Buta Singh dissolving the Bihar Assembly. Even Laloo Yadav charged, shortly after, that these independents were about to join the BJP (of course, independents are forbidden by anti-defection laws from joining political parties, but since when does the RJD care about laws?). When it came to the election however, the independents were subsumed largely into JD(U), further shrinking the BJP's space in the state. The man who smiles and waves as these things happen is Sushil Modi. There is little anyone can do to prevent Sushil Modi from doing to the Bihar BJP what Lalji Tandon did to the party in Uttar Pradesh during Mayawati's tenure.

In summary, the BJP has missed a major opportunity to flaunt its "India-first" credentials. The party had a chance to pressurize both JD(U) and Shiv Sena into a solution that would effectively have isolated Raj Thackeray, or better still, tossed him into the Congress-RJD court. Instead, the party isolated itself, mentioned that it was neutral towards regional interests and waited for the fires to die down.

3) The RJD : Following his rejection by the people, Bihar's mascot of backwardness has sought to reinvent himself as star Railway Minister. Laloo Yadav is a lucky man. After a 15 year term in Bihar, he has had a life extension as Cabinet Minister. But even the best of times come to an end. Even if the UPA returns somehow, Laloo Yadav will have nowhere near the strength he had in the outgoing Lok Sabha.

Laloo Yadav knows this and he is desperate. "Bihari pride" has been an issue he has always wanted to harness, but has never been able to quite turn into votes. Some years ago, Yadav showed up defiantly at the India Today Conclave where Bihar was to receive the dubious distinction of being the most backward state and delivered a scathing speech wherein he blamed the backwardness of Bihar not on himself but on the rest of the country! He has even tried to play up a chance remark of Atalji : "Main Atal hoon magar Bihari nahin hoon". However, the ploy has never really worked for him, perhaps because people tend to take pride only in development and not in backwardness.

On the Raj Thackeray issue, Laloo has been upstaged by Nitish. The Bihar Chief Minister has stayed consistent and pulled out his MPs to build up pressure on the Centre. The onus is now on Laloo to make sure that the Congress and the NCP, his friends in the UPA who run the show in Maharashtra act against Raj Thackeray and indeed, in the interests of the country.

The students who attacked railway property in Barh were venting their ire against the Railway Minister who couldn't protect the interests of Biharis. It does not augur well for the RJD. Laloo Yadav tried to be too dramatic and failed.

4. The LJP: Ram Vilas Paswan has been looking for a perch in politics ever since he was rejected by all kinds of people in Bihar. His demand for a Muslim CM in the last election was far too obviously opportunistic to win him many votes. With Laloo Yadav forced to shift base to Delhi from Patna, there was little left for Paswan to do. It would be far too embarrassing to return to the NDA fold and sour relations with Laloo do not help. Therefore, Paswan's objective here is to mend fences with Laloo and, by sharing the spotlight with JD(U), RJD and BJP, give the impression that his party is on an equal footing with the bigger three. With Mayawati determined to seize a chunk of his core voters in the next election, there is little else for Paswan to do.

Even though Paswan had embarked on a strident "oust Laloo" campaign in 2005, he will now rely on the Congress to make sure he has a share in the UPA camp in Bihar in 2009. Fortunately, the UPA is on very slippery ground in Bihar and needs every last vote, so he will probably be offered some kind of arrangement. For now, the LJP wants to hang around Laloo Yadav, agreeing with him as much as possible.