Murder of Democracy

Legend has it that Bombay was given away as dowry for a Portuguese princess when she married an English prince in 1661. Thus was Bombay or at least a part of the original seven islands that comprised the city was transferred to the English. Those were colonial days during which the Portuguese, the French and the English were vying with each other to establish empires in the East.

But, would a democracy in the first decade of the twenty first century carve out a new state as a birthday gift? It would seem to be so! Haven’t the Indians willy-nilly brought back a type of colonial rule about sixty years after establishing a republic? Isn’t it ironic that they did so, especially because the republic was established after a fight with a colonial power for about sixty years?      

Things have begun to go wrong since P. Chidambaram made the fateful announcement that ‘the process to carve out India’s 29^th state would soon begin’ on the chilly midnight of December 9, 2009. The issue had been contentious and saw see-saw battles depending on which politician was out of work, for forty years till it was renewed afresh in 2001. The demand for creating the Telangana state was only partly conceded by the Congress party just before the 2004 election when it agreed to set up a new ‘states reorganization commission’. It was a political ploy to trump the Telugu Desam. The party did nothing to keep its promise of even setting up a new ‘states reorganization commission’ for the next five years.

Chidambaram’s announcement on the chilly December midnight caught everyone by surprise. If it buoyed the spirits of the protagonists of the new state, the events that followed the announcement sent shivers down the spines of its antagonists. They too did not contend with the amount of public anger that surfaced in the thirteen Seema-Andhra districts. Some political analysts saw that there was more than meets the eye in Sonia’s ‘birthday gift’ that Chidambaram meted out. On the face of it, it was to arouse grateful feelings in the minds of the people of the new state for her forever. As a politician from a neighbouring southern state – one which competes with Andhra Pradesh for resources and in development – Chidambaram might have had more in his mind.

As things stand today, Andhra Pradesh shares the fourth spot with Bengal in the number of members it sends to parliament (after Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra) and is ahead of the other three southern states. After the division, Chidambaram’s state, Tamil Nadu, with thirty nine members packs more punch and power in the parliament. As a columnist in The Hindu opined, the group of ministers (GoM) constituted to chart a course for the division might have had the same ulterior motives to ensure it as they are from the southern states and Maharashtra which compete with Andhra Pradesh for resources and in development. They never set foot on the soil of the state nor did they deliberate much. The length of all their meetings could be measured in minutes, not even hours, let alone days! They did their job much as Cyril Radcliffe did some sixty years before, in 1946-47, chopping states to create India and Pakistan, drawing their lines on a map! The GoM did its job with appalling perfunctoriness. The entire sordid drama scripted from above and enacted by the servile GoM appears to have been done with a single objective: contriving electoral arithmetic to somehow bring back the Congress party to power and anoint the party’s Crown Prince as the King Emperor!

The principal opposition party has expressed its willingness to go along in the division of the state. It too might have had its cynical electoral calculations. The moot question is why was the Congress party in such an unseemly hurry to ramrod its way through parliament? Could it not have allayed at least some of the fears that the antagonists of the division harbour in their minds? The British drew lines in the sand (or on maps) to create several states when they abdicated their empire triggering conflicts worldwide, conflicts which are not resolved till today.

The blame for the ugly scenes that the Lok Sabha saw last Wednesday – described by the Speaker as a blot on our democracy - must fully lay with the Congress party. It was quite obvious that it was playing to a script that in the end murdered democracy in the nation’s vaunted legislative body. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath allegedly arranged about a hundred MPs who have nothing to do with Andhra Pradesh to block the protesters. Would any democratically minded government resort to such a nefarious game of fixing parliamentary proceedings? The government could have brought all stakeholders on to a common forum and fecilitated a healthy debate that would have settled the issue. But it didn’t! Instead, it reduced parliamentary proceedings to an ugly charade. 

The presiding officer has an onerous responsibility now to restore at least a part of the dignity that the parliament shed, by instituting an impartial enquiry, to identify the culprits who reduced proceedings of the nation’s highest legislative body to a gangland brawl, and punish them. Speakers (or presiding officers) of legislative bodies in evolved democracies renounce allegiance to the parties to which they belong, on election to the great office. They never take sides. One hopes India as a ‘vibrant democracy’ – as it is often described - will not find itself wanting in such high values. Fortunately the job of the Speaker or any committee she constitutes is made simpler by modern technology. The proceedings of the house are reportedly monitored by twelve movie cameras. All that is needed to be done is to review their footage – impartially ­- and make the report public. That alone is the test of a mature democracy. Will India stand it?   

Rahul Gandhi, Arnab Goswami & The Big Grapefruit Interview

About half of the journalists who cover the White House in Washington DC are from the American media. There is a belief that each one of them gets up every morning with the conviction that the government was going to lie to them before sundown. The American media is relatively independent and objective because its members cultivate two important traits: a measure of healthy scepticism and irreverence towards people in authority.

However there is another aspect to American journalism. It is the planted question, and its cousin, the grapefruit. As an aside, a planted question asked in a parliamentary debate in Australia is called a Dorothy Dixer.

In American media parlance, a grapefruit is a seemingly tough question (a journalist asks during the course of an interview) but is in fact a scripted favour to the politician being interviewed. It is like a slow ball bowled in a cricket match which lands near the batsman’s feet. He can simply smash it beyond the ropes.

The planted question, the Dorothy Dixer or the grapefruit serves the same purpose: promoting one’s party’s policies and programmes and criticizing the opposition. Although George Bush, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been known to have used the ‘planted question’ technique in their campaigns, there is a perception in the West that it is more common in India. Bhagyashree Garekar of the Singapore Straits Times told John Dickerson, it was a common practice in India. See the penultimate paragraph of this article: HillaryClinton gets snared by a planted question

But the devices are usually employed as a small component – usually one or two questions in the question and answer session at the end of a speech or in a parliamentary debate or one question in an impromptu interview with a politician. Can you imagine a whole interview being stage-managed; or to put it simply the whole interview being a grapefruit? But that was what exactly Arnab Goswamy’s interview with Rahul Gandhi was! See its full text here: Rahul Gandhi'sfirst interview: Full text

Max Atkinson, a UK based communications expert says that ‘news interviewers are paid to be neutral’. He goes on to say that ‘appearing to take sides can get them into serious trouble’. It sounds surprising, doesn’t it? But Atkinson is talking about the media in Britain, not India. Atkinson suggests that the solution to compel evasive politicians answer difficult questions is to conduct the interview in front of an audience. If only Atkinson knew how the Barkha Dutts, Rajdeep Sardesais and Sagarika Ghoses conduct their interviews in front of studio audiences!

One expected Arnab Goswami who breathes fire, screams and shrieks, on his primetime show to be persistent with his questions, to pin down Rahul to take positions and at least seek to answer some pertinent questions. Instead Arnab served Rahul the biggest grapefruit that one can imagine, by querying about Narendra Modi and flogging the dead horse of Gujarat 2002. Atkinson would be surprised to know that Indian news interviewers who would be neutral on the subject of Narendra Modi are a rarity. Here is how Rahul’s view of the Sikh genocide of 1984 in which his father had a hand compares with the communal riots of 2002:

In 1984, RahulG was 13. Yet, he knew that ‘the government was trying to stop the riots’. In 2002, he was 31 but he heard that ‘the government in Gujarat was actually abetting and pushing the riots further’.

Rahul Gandhi’s inability to frame his replies in grammatically correct English, though he was presumably educated in England, is not a major issue:

‘I like difficult to tough issues. I like dealing with them.’

‘Yes, we will be specific but if I would like to sort of explain things in a broader fashion, I think that will okay with you.’

‘I think probably the Sikhs are one of the industrious people in this country.’

What is surprising is his mendacity about the process of electing a prime minister, especially by the Congress party. By the by, Rahul utters the word ‘process’ 29 times in the interview; ‘issue’ 47 times, ‘RTI’ 71 times and ‘system’ 74 times!

Rahul of course doesn’t want to lose an opportunity to plug in his family history, especially the poignant aspects of it (‘as a child, he saw his grandmother jailed and later assassinated; and his father assassinated’). Then there is the invocation of Arjuna (‘he only sees one thing, he does not see anything else’)!

What does one make of this sentence: ‘I am here basically for one thing, I see tremendous energy in this country, I see more energy in this country than any other country, I see billions of youngsters and I see this energy is trapped’?

Here is a gem: because the judiciary and the press are not under the RTI, political parties should not be brought under the RTI as that ‘changes the balance of power’! He is however candid about one thing: in our parliamentary system as it stands today ‘an MLA or an MP does not make laws. He merely presses buttons.’

This is how Rahul perceives how the economy works: ‘We are working on prices, as I said we have spoken to our Chief Ministers and we have reduced prices in states where we are in power.’

The nation certainly wants to know what Rahul proposes to do to grapple with the myriad problems the nation faces: spiraling inflation, unemployment, billowing current account deficit et al. The nation would want to know how he would deal with hostile neighbours like Pakistan and China; how he would tackle terrorism and what he intends doing to resolve a number of other problems that befuddle the nation. Sadly the net take away from the interview was that it veered our national political debate away from these questions and bringing Gujarat 2002 back to the centre stage. And that was the grapefruit that Arnab gifted to Rahul!

Formation of Telangana, Claims & Counterclaims

The principal bone of contention between the protagonists of the division of Andhra Pradesh and the votaries of a united state is unarguably Hyderabad. For the people of Seema-Andhra, Hyderabad city as it stands today is the fruit of the combined efforts of the people of all regions over a period of sixty years. They have therefore an emotional attachment to it and are quite appropriately chagrined when asked to give it all up and walk away. The protagonists of Telangana however argue that the city already had educational institutions, hospitals and infrastructure facilities for housing various administrative offices of the government even at the time of the formation of the state in 1956. By implication they wish to state that the role of the Seema-Andhra people in the development of the city, as claimed by them is a myth.

In the debate for and against bifurcation of the state, an argument put forth is about the

Courtesy Indicus Analytics

cultural discrimination of the people of the Telangana region allegedly at the hands of the Seema-Andhra People. The depiction of characters with a Telangana accent in Telugu movies is cited as an example of Seema-Andhra superciliousness, presumably because the Telugu film industry is largely owned by the Seema-Andhra people. Surprisingly members of the national media have swallowed this specious argument without verification.

Let us first examine the case of educational and research institutions and central Public Sector Undertakings in Hyderabad and the rest of Andhra Pradesh. Yes, Hyderabad is a four hundred year old city. Yes, it has plenty of land, monuments like the Char Minar and the Golconda Fort and some buildings for housing offices of the state administration, an example being the state Assembly building. What of the educational institutions which the protagonists claim pre-existed at the time of the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956. Here is a list of educational and research institutes with the dates of their establishment as far as they could be ascertained from an internet search. The lists may not be exhaustive. Corrections if any are welcome.

CENTRAL EDUCATIONAL / RESEARCH INSTITUTES – HYDERABAD

1.    Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (1964)

2.    Administrative Staff College of India (1956)

3.    Advanced Numerical Research and Analysis Group (1988)

4.    Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (1948)

5.    C-DAC Hyderabad (1988)

[Established in Pune.  Hyderabad Centre later established as an offshoot.]

6.    Central Food Technological Research Institute (1950)

7.    Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad (1967)

8.    Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (1959)

9.    Central Power Research Institute (1978)

10. Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (1985)

11. Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology – CCMB (1977)

12. Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (1990)

13. Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad (1980)

14. CR Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science (2007)

15. Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (1961)

16. Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (1963)

17. Directorate of Rice Research (1965)

18. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University (1982)

19. DuPont Central Research (1957)

20. English and Foreign Languages University (1958)

21. Environmental Protection Training and Research Institute (1992)

22. Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology IDRBT (1996)

23. Indian Geophysical Union (1964)

24. Indian Immunologicals Limited (1983)

25. Indian Institute of Chemical Technology – IICT (1983)

26. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (1998)

27. Institute of Public Enterprise (1964)

28. Indian Institute of Technology – IIT (2008)

29. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (1972)

30. International Institute of Information Technology – IIIT (1998)

31. Moulana Azad National Urdu University (1998)

32. NALSAR University of Law (1998)

33. National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (1976)

34. National Animal Resource Facility for Biomedical Research (2008)

35. National Balloon Facility (1961)

36. National Geophysical Research Institute (1961)

37. National Institute of Fashion Technology (1986)

38. National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises -  - NIMSME (1960)

39. National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad NIN (1958)

40. National Institute of Rural Development  - NIRD (?)

41. National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education & Research NIPER (2007)

42. Nuclear Fuel Complex (1971)

43. Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (2004)

44. Potti Sriramulu Telugu Universtity (1985)

45. Small Industries Development Bank of India - SIDBI (1990)

46. South Central Railway HQ

47. Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Parasitology (1955)

48. National Small Industries Corporation (1955)

49. University of Hyderabad (1974)

50. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (2010)

CENTRAL EDUCATIONAL / RESEARCH INSTITUTES – Outside HYDERABAD

51. National Institute of Technology NIT Warangal (1959)

CENTRAL EDUCATIONAL / RESEARCH INSTITUTES – Rest of AP

1.    Kendriya Samskrut Vidya Peeth – Tirupathi

2.    Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswa Vidyalaya – Tirupathi

The list does not include universities like the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University which has campuses in all the three regions. As may be seen from the Hyderabad list only two of the fifty institutes predate 1956.

Here is a list of central Public Sector Undertakings. The lists may not be exhaustive. Corrections if any are welcome.

PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS – Hyderabad

1.    Andhra Bank Ltd.

2.    Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (1970)

3.    Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (1964)

4.    Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (1967)

5.    HMT Bearings Ltd. (1981)

6.    Hindustan Fluorocarbons Ltd. (1983)

7.    Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (1961)

8.    Misra Dhatu Nigam Ltd.

9.    National Mineral Development Corporation Ltd.

10. Praga Tools Ltd.

11. Sponge Iron India Ltd.

12. State Bank of Hyderabad (1941)

PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS – Rest of AP

1.    Bharat Heavy Plates & Vessels (1966) – Visakhapatnam

2.    Dredging Corporation of India Ltd.

3.    Hindustan Shipyard Ltd. (1952) – Visakhapatnam

4.    Hindustan Zinc Ltd. – Visakhapatnam [Disinvested in 2002.]

5.    Visakhapatnam Steel Plant Ltd. (1973) – Visakhapatnam

The lists do not include regional offices of central institutes or public sector undertakings located in the state.

The educational institutes and public sector undertakings are located in Hyderabad primarily because it is the state capital and are expectated provide opportunities for people all across the state.

In the early 1980s the PSU, Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (IDPL) became sick. Some scientists who worked in IDPL joined hands with some entrepreneurs, and founded companies like Standard Organics Ltd. (which later became SOL Pharmaceuticals Ltd.) The success of SOLPL and its splinter DRL spawned the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in Hyderabad. Today there are more than 250 bulk drug units making Hyderabad the largest producer of bulk drugs in the country. Most of the Pharma entrepreneurs, as in the case of the Telugu film industry which shifted from Madras to Hyderabad in the seventies, are from the Seema-Andhra region. However an interesting feature of the two industries is that over 70% of the workforce is drawn from the Telangana region.

The misconception about the cultural discrimination in Telugu films will be dealt with in the concluding part of this article.

Telangana And Political Ploys

For nearly ten years Congress, the ruling party at the centre brushed aside demands for a separate Telangana state. This is the fourth time that the issue has become a national political issue since the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956. Political leaders and parties either raised the demand for a separate state or supported agitations purely based on electoral considerations. Marri Chenna Reddy’s somersaults on the issue are a case in point. In 1956 he was for a united Andhra Pradesh. He later changed his stance and became a votary of a separate Telangana state. In 1968 the AP High Court annulled his election to the state assembly and debarred him from contesting elections for six years. ‘Vandemataram’ Ramachandra Rao of the Arya Samaj (and later the BJP) challenged Chenna Reddy’s election on the grounds that he appealed to the religious sentiments of the Muslims. (See Election Law Reports Volume XXXVII p 269 - 349). The judgement was upheld by the Supreme Court. Forced out of electoral politics he floated the Telangana Praja Samithi (TPS) to remain relevant in politics. His TPS won 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 1971 general election. After his return to electoral politics and after being suitably rewarded by the Congress party he merged his TPS with the Congress.

In 2001 Chandra Babu Naidu walked into a trap cunningly laid by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. CBN had a problem in that he had too many claimants from the Velama community and too few cabinet berths. But those were heady days for him. The blemish of back-stabbing his father-in-law was behind him and he returned to power for a second time in 1999, riding on the coat tails of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Confident he would be able to contain the fallout he relegated K. Chandrasekhara Rao to the post of Deputy Speaker.

With a deft Machiavellian stroke YSR inveigled KCR to come out of the TDP and form a new party. Thus was the TRS born. YSR aligned with the TRS just before the 2004 general election, with a promise to help the formation of the Telangana state, a promise which he had no intention of keeping. During his tenure (and life) he had repeatedly proved that the demand for Telangana did not enjoy popular support. The TRS’ tally in the state assembly and local bodies had continually declined.

In 2009 CBN wanted to do a YSR but he lacked the latter’s deft touch and perhaps his finesse. After tasting power and been in office for nine years Chandra Babu Naidu could not stomach the 2004 defeat. He should have taken it in his stride. A good leader does not sacrifice his core beliefs for temporary gains. But that was what CBN did. By 2009 CBN was ready to walk up a wall if it would make him 'CEO' again. Seeking to make substantial inroads into Telangana and probably misled by the overconfidence of his own regional leaders he blundered into an alliance with the TRS. However, during the closing phases of the election campaign KCR deserted CBN and walked into the NDA camp but that was a different matter. At this time, the TDP gave its consent for the formation of the Telangana state.

It was CBN’s somersault that breathed new life into the Telangana agitation, which was getting nowhere, and forced the Congress party’s hand. It also brought matters to a head from which there was no return. Therefore the people of Seema-Andhra will have to thank CBN for the bifurcation of the state. Till then, YSR’s view on the issue prevailed and the Congress was against the formation of the new state. It did not have to pronounce its stand, the excuse being the state’s principal opposition party was opposed to the formation of the Telangana state.

CBN’s consent for Telangana and YSR’s death in September 2009 changed the political dynamics and in a way foreclosed the issue. K. Rosaiah who succeeded YSR as the interim Chief Minister could not withstand the political turmoil caused by KCR’s fast unto death on the one hand and YSR’s son’s revolt within the party on the other. Based on his recommendation the centre was forced to concede the demand for the new state. The ‘victory’ made KCR a hero in Telangana. For the centre, there was no going back and it was only a matter of time before a decision had to be taken. 

The stand of the CPM on the Telangana issue was true to its character, Janus-faced. The party could always reconcile diametrically opposite views. While as a principle it opposed formation of new states, it would not oppose the formation of Telangana if the centre wished to do so.      

Just before the 2009 election, the wily YSR struck with another of his machinations. This time he contrived the formation of Chiranjivi’s PRP. Had he been alive the merger of the PRP with the Congress would have been sooner. But his calculation was right. The PRP splintered anti-Congress votes and Congress was returned to power.

When in alliance with the TDP, the BJP stoutly argued against the bifurcation of the state. After the TDP severed its ties with the BJP, ostensibly because it lacked secular credentials (which the TDP seems to have suddenly discovered!) the BJP reverted to its advocacy of smaller states. Both the parties now find themselves in a quandary in the Seema-Andhra region and do not know how to come out of it.

Why did the Congress party which has been dillydallying on Telangana for more than four decades suddenly awake to the need for decisive action? It doesn’t require great intelligence to find an answer. As many political analysts opined, it is based on electoral calculations for 2014. However it is the behavior of its Seema-Andhra leaders that is far from exemplary. They knew for quite some time that the decision to split the state was in the offing. Yet, lured by the crumbs of power thrown at them, they pretended that it was not happening and fooled their constituents. They have underestimated the emotional attachment their constituents have with Hyderabad (it is all about Hyderabad!). ‘You cannot fool all the people all the time’, might be a cliché but it is nevertheless true. 

An Agenda For Cleansing Our Political System

Here is an e-mail I have received from Mr. K. Gopal, a former colleague. (To be frank, he did not claim authorship. He has probably received it in what the mainstream media pejoratively likes to call a 'chain-mail'.) I have tweeted the points mentioned in it twice, the whole message in the Twitlonger format a few days ago and as individual tweets yesterday. Mr. Rajendra Shukla, a friend on Twitter, suggested that it is worth sharing with all. I am therefore reproducing it here with slight editing.

Winds of Change.... 

If you agree with this please pass it on. If you are RIGHT don't GIVE Up... 

Please share it with a minimum of twenty people among your contacts and in turn request each of them to do likewise.

In three days, most people in India will have this message. 

This is one idea that really should be passed on.

REFORM ACT 2013

NO TENURE / NO PENSION Parliamentarians collect a salary while in office but should not receive any pay when they're out of office.

NO RETIREMENT PLAN Parliamentarians should purchase their own retirement plans, just as all Indians do.

NO RIGHT TO VOTE PAY RAISE Parliamentarians should no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Their pay should be linked to the CPI or 3%, whichever is lower.

NO SPECIAL HEALTHCARE Parliamentarians should lose their current health care system and participate in the same health care system as the Indian people.

NO LEGAL IMMUNITY Parliamentarians MUST also abide by all laws they impose on the Indian people.

ANNUL CONTRACTS All contracts with past and present Parliamentarians should be void effective 1/1/13. 

NO DYNASTIC / FAMILIAL SUCCESSION Total ban for five years of any family members of elected members of Parliament / Legislature becoming members of Parliament and state Legislature during and for 3 years after cessation of membership. Any violation will attract penalty of withdrawal of recognition of party / right to stand for election of the individuals!

The Indian people did not make this contract with them.  Parliamentarians made all these contracts for themselves. 

Serving in Parliament is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person who receives this message contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people in India to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?

If you agree with this, please pass it on. 

What is Salman Khurshid Up To?

The aphorism ‘No nation has friends, only interests’ and its variations were attributed to the former French President, Charles de Gaulle and the English Statesman Lord Palmerston. Some believe it predates even these politicians. An article in Time Magazine (May 9, 1955) obliquely attributes it to the English Statesman. For now the authorship of the aphorism is not the issue but whether Indian politicians were / are wise enough to pursue the course defined by it. Surprisingly, India’s foreign policy from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru has functioned at complete variance from the wisdom the aphorism advocates. Another interesting feature is that although Indian Prime Ministers in general seem to have a penchant for the foreign ministry, probably because it helps them to frequently fly abroad and rub shoulders with other world leaders, Nehru never let go of the foreign affairs portfolio. He was his Foreign Minister throughout his tenure as Prime Minster from September 2 1946. He relinquished both the posts only when he died on May 27 1964. The following article was originally published in South Asian Idea (SAISA), the official website of the South Asian Institute of Strategic Affairs as, ‘What is Foreign Office Up To?’

Does the Indian government have a strategy to counter the latest Chinese incursion deep into Indian territory on April 15? If it does, it is shrouded in mystery and obfuscation. The first reports indicated that the Chinese penetrated ten kilometres inside from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and pitched tents. The government finally admitted that they intruded nineteen kilometres. (Dr.!) Salman Khurshid, the dermatologist heading the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) described it as a spot of acne on the India-China relations! Such expressions appear colourful in sophomore essays or university debates. However Khurshid is neither a sophomore nor was he writing an essay for a college magazine.

The recent incursion is not the first (more than 200 Chinese incursions into Indian territory have been reported since 2008) but what made it disturbing was, this time around the Chinese did not indulge in a niggling in-and-out inroad but seemed to have come to stay put. Equally disturbing is the Indian response which seems to be following the disastrous course of the 1962 script.

One would like to forget what happened in 1962 but for the indelible scar that the humiliating defeat left on India’s collective psyche. There were varying versions of what went wrong. There was an extreme view projected by the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) which overtly functioned as the Chinese fifth column. The left wing Chinese sympathizers in the academia and their fellow travellers in the media did their bit to cloud the picture. Several generals of the defeated army added to the cacophony by offering self-serving apologias.

Then there are accounts of foreign journalists like Neville Maxwell (1970. India’s China War). An Australian national born in London and educated in Canada, Maxwell was The Times’ foreign correspondent in Washington for three years, before being posted to New Delhi as the paper’s South Asia correspondent. Though extensively researched, the book appears to have been written to absolve Britain of any responsibility for the mess it left behind. In an article he wrote for Rediff in 2002, Maxwell observed that ‘[t]hrough the early 1950’s Nehru’s covertly expansionist policy had been implemented by armed border police…’ (Rememberinga War).

Even his worst enemies would not have credited Nehru with an expansionist mindset. Quite the reverse; he was hugely enamoured of China and its culture and wanted its friendship not enmity. (The CIA documents mentioned below confirm this.) He meekly acquiesced when the Chinese usurped Tibet, although Sardar Patel warned him years earlier, about Chinese ambitions over it. Patel foresaw that the disappearance of a buffer state between India and China would only fuel the latter’s expansionist ambitions further. The Chinese proved Patel right. In 1956-57 they quietly built a road to Aksai Chin and occupied it. It was a monumental failure of the Indian intelligence but the Indian government came to know of it only in 1958 according to secret CIA documents declassified in 2007.

Isn’t 2013 a poignant parallel? With all the technology and spy satellites that are available to them, the Indian intelligence agencies (again) failed to notice the Chinese creeping in till they pitched their tents nineteen kilometres inside India. That is not all. There are ground reports that the Chinese have been nibbling at Indian territories for years and altering the contours of the borders. 

Nehru first denied the Chinese incursions into Indian territories (as Khurshid now seeks to minimize it) and when it was no longer tenable to do so informed parliament that the Indian army was asked to ‘throw the Chinese out’. The Chinese fifth column in the Indian polity latched on to that phrase and claimed that it hurt the Chinese pride and in a way triggered the war. After the war, the Indians were left with only shame, not pride! There is no dearth of Chinese sympathizers even today. Academics of the JNU variety argue in television debates that the incursions occur because of differing perceptions about the border. They never pause to ponder why, because of similar differing perceptions Indian troops do not wander into China? Isn’t it precisely because, it is not a settled and demarcated border it is called the ‘Line of Actual Control’ and not an international border?

Maxwell had access to the ‘Henderson Brookes-Bhagat Report’, an Operations Review of the debacle, commissioned by Gen. J. N. Chaudhuri, who became the army Chief after the war. The report is still classified and not available to the Indian public. Nehru revealed more about the Indian army’s capabilities to the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai (trained in military and intelligence matters) by taking him on a conducted tour of Indian ordnance factories than the Henderson Brookes-Bhagat report conceals from the Indian public.   

Maxwell and others opine that the Indian army was forced to take on a more superior army in terms of training and equipment. But the war was probably lost in the minds of the generals much before it was on the ground. There is the old saying that ‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton!’ (It may be an uncorroborated version but a veteran of the war whom this writer met in a train journey said that the Chinese were not as well equipped as it was made out to be. They carried one rifle for four to six soldiers.) The generals hoped till the end that Nehru would somehow find a diplomatic solution to the vexed border problem. He failed them and they failed him.

Haven’t the Americans met their Waterloo in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan in spite of their vastly superior arms and equipment? Therefore the inferior quality of arms and equipment was not a valid argument for the defeat in 1962. Similarly, China’s numerical superiority of arms and equipment is not a valid argument for inaction in 2013. The rule is to be able to stare the enemy in the face. As an emerging economy and aspiring world power, China has as much at stake as India. 

There was a view that Nehru’s overweening ambition to win a Nobel peace prize was at the back many of his political decisions which resulted in disastrous consequences. One hopes the present leadership would not consider trading off national interests for some elusive personal monument for itself! The nation will not approve it. Therefore Salman Khurshid should keep the nation informed about his game plan for securing the safety and integrity of the nation. More importantly the nation would like to have an assurance from the Defence Minister that his armed forces are fully capable of securing the nation’s safety, security and integrity.