The troubled states of India!

India is a union of 28 fairly independent states governed by elected state legislators and a Chief Minister. In the initial stages of our republic, Nehru and Indira Gandhi used to treat the States as their personal fiefdom but for the past two decades, the Central Government has kept its hands off the administration of ‘Indian States’. This is the constitutional way of center-state relationship. Having said that, some ‘State Governments’ have been acting rather unilaterally and high-handedly. Punjab and Tamil Nadu are on top of my mind at this point followed by West Bengal, Kashmir and Gujarat. All five States are prone to regional jingoism, not to forget the goonda Raj in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The minorities in these states are always on the edge!

Once again Punjab is on fire and the State Government is probably playing politics. In such circumstances, it should be incumbent on the federal government to intervene and protect the life and the, property of the citizens. In any case, the Akalis have been in power for too long and the rot has set in. Unfortunately, the Congress leadership in Punjab is worst. It is time Rahul Gandhi starts building the youth cadre in all 20 districts of Punjab. We do not know too much about Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab and the son of Prakash Singh Badal, the current CM of Punjab. We only hope he is a little more enlightened and secular compared to his predecessors! Punjab remains a sensitive border state and a national concern.

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part X

There has been enough material available on India’s foreign policy but most of it has been published by local experts. Some of us who have been based in the United States for the last 20 years see the evolution of India’s foreign policy little differently. I have quoted Aneek Chatterjee of Presidency College, Kolkata in my post yesterday and have read experts like C Raja Mohan, Stephen Cohen and Dennis Kux extensively. The first 45 years of India’s foreign policy have been documented as either pro-Nehru or anti-Nehru but very little objective narrative. The most credible author appears to be Dennis Kux. The post cold war analysis has major flaws as the experts in India seem to have taken a very serious view of India’s role in the global affairs. The view from this side of the world appears to be very different. People around the world had contempt for India notwithstanding all the economic reforms etc. Here in America, there was no mention of India ever, nobody cared. Things changed on May 11, 1998. India conducted two sets of underground nuclear tests, breaking a de facto global moratorium on testing that had prevailed since the CTBT was opened for signatures in 1996. Like it or not, India arrived on the world stage on that day!

Going back to the chronology of events, Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral in the summer of 1997 was hanging by the wire domestically. The constituents of his own United Front were anything but united. Lalu Prasad Yadav walked out of the Janata Dal (a part of United Front) with 17 MPs and formed his own Rashtriya Janata Dal on July 3, 1997. Gujral survived but soon got involved in another controversy in Uttar Pradesh. This was followed by yet another uproar over the involvement of DMK (Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam) for tacitly supporting LTTE which was responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. DMK was also part of Gujral government’s United Front. The Congress Party finally withdrew support from his government on November 28, 1997. Gujral had no alternative but to call for mid-term elections. The elections were held in February-March 1998. The outcome of the new elections was also indecisive, with no party or alliance able to create a strong majority. Although Atal Bihari Vajpayee of BJP was able to form a coalition government with 286 seats in the 12th Lok Sabha, the government collapsed again in late 1998 when the AIADMK withdrew their support, leading to another mid-term election in 1999. This was shameful!

Interestingly, while the Vajpayee government lasted for only 13 months (March 19, 1998 – April 15, 1999), it brought the biggest changes in India’s foreign policy since independence. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorized the 5 nuclear tests on May 11, 1998 (Buddha Jayanti Day), thereby declaring India a full nuclear state. This caught the United States and other OECD countries by surprise, especially considering that the government had been in power for only a month.. Two weeks later, Pakistan responded with its own nuclear weapon tests, making it the newest nation with nuclear weapons. President Bill Clinton was livid with anger and so were the Indians (sell-outs) in America. Some of them lectured us that a poor country like India should stick to “Roti, Kapda aur Makaan” and not try to monkey the “West’. Needless to say I threw them out of my house. Clinton had assumed that he was too slick to bother about countries like India. He couldn’t find time to visit the largest democracy on the face of this earth in the first five and a half years of his presidency. Once Clinton and his poodles in the west and Japan had put sanctions against India, he appointed Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (a Clinton confidant) to engage India in a bilateral dialog. This engagement with Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh started in June 1998 and continued through September 2000. Strobe Talbott and Jaswant Singh met 14 times in seven countries on three continents.

Was The Bombay Plan ill conceived?

Probably! First of all, how many people in India are aware of ‘The Bombay Plan’? It was published in January 1944 and was the brain-child of JRD Tata (Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata). The presumption was that the Indian economy could not grow without government intervention and regulation. The Bombay Plan had the underlying assumption that the fledgling Indian industries would not be able to compete in a free-market economy. Tata passionately believed that future Indian government must protect indigenous industries against any foreign competition.

In this endeavor, JRD Tata was able to enlist the support of GD Birla (Ghanshyam Das Birla), Lala Shri Ram of DCM (Delhi Cloth Mills), Kasturbhai Lalbhai (Lalbhai Group) and the likes of Ardeshir Dalal (of Tatas & Viceroy’s Council), Ardeshir Darabshaw Shroff (Tatas Financial Adviser) and John Mathai (India’s first Railway Minister). The Plan had the blessings of Viceroy Lord Wavell and therefore the British Government. The First Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not officially accept the plan. The Bombay Plan had the Russian flavor.

Notwithstanding stout denials by the bureaucrats of that time, the Bombay Plan had a profound impact on India’s National Industrial Policy. Although not sounding socialist, the plan led to the first “Five Year Plan” in 1950. The principle flaw in the plan originated from the fact that the promoters were a small group of industrialists who not only had self-interest at the core, but had limited knowledge about the rest of India. During the first fifty years of the 20th century, India had upward of 100 major industrial houses, spread across the length and breadth of the country. No one was consulted by this group. The problem was not the fear of foreign competition, but the tendency to impose high-taxes on business. It was not just Nehru and his advisers, but the Tatas and the Birlas who stunted the growth of Indian industry.

The Legacy of John Adams lives on…

Last night I and my family finished watching the 7 part, HBO miniseries, on John Adams (second President of The United States) biography and realized that the contradictions that existed in 1772 still linger. It is a fascinating account of the political theater that unfolded in the late eighteenth century in The United States of America. The HBO mini series is an absolute delight for people like me who crave for some authentic historical narrative. The sophistication of the dialog between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was definitely riveting.

The type of democracy that evolved out of the American Revolution is rare. To the best of my knowledge, American Democracy is the only three legged democracy in the world. The three legs being: The Executive, The Legislature and The Judiciary. Rest of the world has only two legged democracy i.e. The Parliament and The Judiciary. The Parliament appoints the leader of the executive. The problem in this system is that there is no check on the Executive Power as long as the ruling party has the majority. In America the Executive could be with one party but the Legislature could be with the opposition as is the case today, since 2006.

The American Constitution is another piece of American ingenuity that has served this country well. It is short and reasonably clear. There have been Constitutional amendments from time to time but that is normal for an evolving democracy. In many ways, it is the people’s democracy. When people talk of Great Powers, these are the three pillars of a world power, a written Constitution, Multi Party Democracy and The Rule of Law and Justice (Judiciary). China does not have either. How can it ever hope to be a Great Power, leave alone becoming a Super Power. This is only the beginning. There is a lot more to it, besides money and manufacturing.

America started creating an Educational Infrastructure, even before the American Revolution. Harvard College was founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature, 140 years before the American Independence. Since then The United States has created the biggest and the most respected Higher Education infrastructure, perhaps surpassing even European Union. China, India, Japan and the rest of Asia put together can not even dream of the length and breath of American educational enterprise. Higher Education is the crucible of a Great Civilization. Nehru called these centers of higher learning “The Temples of Democracy”.