• Home
  • About
  • Reading Lists
    • Egypt
    • Great Books
    • Iran
    • Islam
    • Israel
    • Liberalism
    • Napoleon
    • Nationalism
    • The Nuclear Age
    • Science
    • Russia
    • Turkey
  • Digital Footprint
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pocket
    • SoundCloud
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • YouTube
  • Contact
    • Email

Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Muslims

Does India Have An Israel Policy?

10 Wed Jan 2018

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Does India Have An Israel Policy?

Tags

anti-Semitism, Arab, BDS, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions, China, foreign policy, INC, India, Indian National Congress, Israel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jerusalem, Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, Kargil, Mohandas Gandhi, Muslims, Narendra Modi, Palestine, Rafael, Richard Nixon, Spike, Taiwan, Zionism

There will be nothing but bonhomie for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is expected to arrive in India in a couple of days for a three-day state visit. The Israeli delegation will begin their visit from Ahmedabad, visit Sabarmati Ashram and hold a roadshow in Gujarat, and perhaps visit Agra and Bombay. While in India’s financial capital, Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the Chabad House which was targeted by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists in a horrific attack in November 2008. The diplomatic agenda, predictably, will revolve around agriculture, water management, cyber security, innovation, and defence.

While there is no question about the Indian public’s warmth for Israel, there have been some whispers of doubt recently about its government’s intentions. Indians, by and large, admire much about the Jewish state and even those who do not are indifferent rather than hostile. Israeli diplomats do not have to waste their time countering anti-Semitism or Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions sort of political movements in the South Asian country. That said, India’s recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly essentially condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel followed by its sudden cancellation of a $500 million deal to purchase Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) from the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defence Systems has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem and among observers. The deal is apparently moving forward, according to latest media reports. Are good relations between India and Israel to be limited to Modi’s occasional charming tweets to his Israeli counterpart?

Such misgivings from Jerusalem are not only perfectly understandable but justified; yet the compulsions of India’s own domestic political chaos are also an important set of inputs to policy and must at least be understood if not tolerated for a fuller picture of the intentions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party administration.

When Modi swept into office in 2014 in an election that was just short of a landslide, policy wonks warned his euphoric supporters that the nature of government policies is continuity and incremental change rather than the desired abrupt departure from the “idea of India” espoused by the Indian National Congress. This warning has been borne out to some extent – the economy, which Modi has correctly prioritised, has seen several small yet critical positive reforms but many of the more emotive (and less dry) issues that Modi’s core supporters care about such as education and culture have so far received short shrift; other matters such as terrorism and defence have seen some movement but will take a longer time to reveal the lasting impact of the new regime in Delhi.

Foreign policy, in so far as it does not pertain to the economy, appears to have been largely relegated to the boondocks. The immediate reason for this is the global experience of democracies that there are few votes in foreign affairs. India has yet to cultivate a large and vibrant foreign policy circle as might be observed older and more developed democracies and the community as it exists now has several foci and plenty of challenges regarding access to decision makers, policy documentation, a bureaucratic hostility to transparency, career opportunities, and funds. India’s foreign ministry has rarely been blessed with the sort of polymath ideal for the job, either in its politicians or its bureaucrats, even when the portfolio has remained with the prime minister. With insufficient attention from elected officials, governance slips into maintenance mode administered by the civil service and the policies of earlier decades continue unabated.

This is visible from India’s insistence on clinging to expired motifs such as strategic autonomy, a fancy 21st century upgraded phrase for non-alignment. For example, India recently courted Australia, Japan, and the United States in a security quadrilateral (Quad) that observers understand is designed to balance an increasingly aggressive China and in the same week participated in a trilateral forum with Russia and China. Similarly, India’s approach to the Palestinian question is based on Mohandas Gandhi’s fundamental ignorance of Jewish history that was supplemented by Jawaharlal Nehru’s own political inclinations; the policy was maintained as a hagiographic monument to the two men well after it had proven to be detrimental to Indian national interests.

It is no secret that India’s foreign ministry is understaffed, and the same is true of the ruling political party when it comes to policy formulation. Besides the core issues its supporters would like addressed, foreign policy remains a step-child of the BJP’s internal thinkers. The party seems to have forgotten that to replace an ideology, an alternative is needed. In essence, the BJP has tinkered with the edifice of the Nehruvian state and such incomplete measures occasionally fall short of the hopes of not just the citizens but even the party’s own lofty rhetoric.

It is often argued that India’s policy towards Israel must be tempered by the strategic considerations of its relations with other countries that may be hostile to the Jewish state. Domestic calculations regarding India’s large Muslim minority must also influence how close India can drift towards Israel. The problem with this argument is two-fold: first, it implicitly suspects all Indian Muslims of treason in that they would put the well-being of Palestine and Islam above Indian interests. Second, it cannot explain the tacit Arab acceptance of not just Israel in the face of a rising Iranian threat but even Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state: there were few protests in Arab streets after Donald Trump’s recognition of the Holy City as the capital of Israel. This flimsy argument, in addition to the bogey of seven million Indians returning from the Persian Gulf and the loss of $35 billion in remittances as Arab retaliation against India’s warming ties with Israel, are unfortunately treated as gospel by an intellectually anaemic coterie in the BJP and outside. While India may not strive to become Israel’s closest ally, there is plenty of room for it to move closer to the Middle Eastern democracy if it so wishes.

To repeat dozens of articles already, there are plenty of reasons for Delhi to desire closer ties. Beyond transactional considerations of trade and security, it is also important to remember that the tiny country has been among the more reliable suppliers of know-how and equipment. After the nuclear tests at Pokhran II when no one was willing to supply arms to India, Israel remained one of the very few markets still open. Similarly, the important role Israel played during Kargil is also undisputed.

Optimistic assessments of India’s recent uptick in relations with Israel opine that a change in policy cannot be abrupt, especially when drastic. This is simply not true: in one of the greatest about-turns in recent diplomatic history, the United States de-recognised Taiwan and recognised Communist China in its stead in 1979. The entire process took seven years from Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972 until the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations in January 1979. Such events are admittedly rare and challenging but pursuing a wrong policy for the sake of continuity is insanity. As mentioned earlier, the lack of political interest or vision within the BJP coupled with an understaffed foreign service does not allow for a nimble policy environment capable of quickly and thoroughly assessing the ramification of ideas on allies, security, economics, and international obligations.

A clear-eyed view of friends, enemies, and interests has the immediate benefit of signalling to partners that you are worth investing in; a bonus is that it gives others confidence in your national purpose and dependability in forging trade and security alliances. India’s waffling – sorry, strategic autonomy – will only ensure that it trails behind its rivals and fights its battles alone. France, despite being a member of NATO, has a far better track record of strategic autonomy than India ever had as a perennial “leading member” of the have-nots.

Nowadays, scholars hesitate to describe foreign systems or people as irrational. This is partly to avoid imposing the observer’s perspective and values on the subject and to allow for a potential alien framework in which things might make perfect sense. However, Indian foreign policy has long veered dangerously towards that word which must not be spoken. American leadership is defined in schools of thought – Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian; in India, there is only the cult of Congress and no opposition party, despite the political cacophony, has come remotely close to offering a complete and alternate weltanshauung comprising economic, security, social, and cultural programmes. Diplomacy suffers the same fate. The real question is not if India has an Israel policy but if the BJP actually has a foreign policy.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Sociological Narendra Modi

12 Thu Apr 2012

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

capuchin monkeys, Godhra, Gulberg Society, India, inequity aversion, MF Hussain, Muslims, Narendra Modi, Salman Rushdie, secularism, Shah Bano, SIT, Taslima Nasrin

On April 10, 2012, the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court revealed the findings of the report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Supreme Court of India. The report stated that the SIT had found no evidence to prosecute Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, for the post-Godhra Gulberg Society massacre in 2002.

Predictably, the announcement has been met by gnashing of teeth and hair pulling, by sighs of relief and celebrations. No doubt, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) political strategists are already busy calculating Modi’s acceptability and chances for success as a potential prime ministerial candidate. Simultaneously, the activists have declared that their fight against the Gujarat CM is not over, and dispersed to strategise on whether to sabotage Modi’s chances at the voting booth or drag him back to a court of law all over. Clearly, this is a very emotive issue for many in India (and their supporters abroad).

For a case in which emotions run so deep and for a person who induces such strong antipathy, what does Modi represent to India? Not the politician, or the man, but the idea…what chord resonates with the idea of Modi? The Chief Minister’s advocates point to a glowing report card in terms of economic development and governance in Gujarat, while his detractors froth at the mouth as they describe the communal violence that rocked Gujarat ten years ago. But both miss the deeper point – the defenders must realise that while Gujarat has done well, other states such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Maharashtra have not lagged too far behind, while those against Modi must concede that the Chief Minister is not, despite the activists lavishing their attention on him, the only or most (allegedly) communal man in India. Ayodhya (1992) comes to mind, as does Bombay (1993). What is key about these incidents is not that they are examples of anti-Muslim violence – there are plenty of examples of anti-Hindu and anti-Christian violence too – but that unlike Nazi Germany’s targetted Endlösung or the Kosovo of Slobodan Milošević, these were instances of unorganised mob violence. Whether the violence arises from organised or unorganised action may seem trivial to ideologues (and is irrelevant to victims). However, if the violence is unorganised in nature, it exposes a critical trend in Indian society – of a seething resentment against leaders making a Potemkin attempt at running the country.

Lost in our own passions and social circles, it may seem to us that everyone must have a position on the issues we care about. Yet most people are more concerned with gathering their daily bread; work, transportation, inflation, providing an education for their children, planning for their retirement, and if finances allow it, rest and recreation, necessarily take precedence over politics, philosophy, and sometimes, even principles. What possibly could be the source of so strong a bitterness, rancour, or acrimony that would make common people abandon their necessary duties for the sort of wanton destruction after Godhra?

Modern crowd psychology has moved past theories of deindividuation put forward by late 19th and early 20th century thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Gustave Le Bon, and the present consensus argues that a crowd itself does not generate violence; rather, it amplifies a latent dissatisfaction among the people. In a 2005 publication, “The Madding Crowd Goes to School,” sociologists David Schweingruber and Ronald Wohlstein countered the seven most prominent myths about crowds. arguing that they are not spontaneous, suggestible, irrational, emotional, destructive, unanimous, or anonymous. In other words, not only is crowd behaviour not irrational but it is the surfacing of widely suppressed feelings. Connecting the dots, it does not take superhuman intelligence to realise that the root of antipathy is a seething yet restrained anti-Muslim sentiment.

Much of the anti-Muslim feelings are due to, as common wisdom has it, the decades-long soft and preferential treatment of the Muslim community. As true heirs to the British policy of ‘divide and rule,’ successive Indian governments have, in an effort to cultivate vote banks, created a monstrous edifice of inequality in law, from quotas, subsidies and other payouts to separate jurisdictions. All this is ostensibly to ameliorate Muslim “backwardness.” But no matter how many inquiry reports (such as the Sachar Committee report) conclude that Muslims are a backward community, even were the veracity of the findings to be conceded, the common man is neither interested nor inclined to pore over academic debates conducted in ivory towers and moved by what he sees on the street. The complaints are many and well known, and the issue is not even about whether they are legitimate or not but the perception of repeated slights against the Hindu majority. This view needed a political outlet, which the non-Right parties were unwilling to espouse. Hence, the aggrieved segment of society veered towards the Right, as is evident from the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its non-political satellites. Labelled as hindutva, the BJP has espoused, at least ideologically, the idea of Hindu rights. To the outsider, it would be puzzling to see a political party campaigning on a platform of rights for the majority!

In the modern era, humans have become very sensitive to inequality. It is easier to take away their money and even their civil rights than their sense of equality. The famous capuchin monkey experiment conducted in 2003 by Franz de Waals and Sarah Brosnan illustrates this point very well. In the experiment, capuchin monkeys were trained to collect pebbles in exchange for cucumbers. Very quickly, an economic system arose – as they became hungry, the monkeys collected pebbles and turned them in in exchange for cucumbers. Some collected more pebbles and were given more cucumbers. Trouble started when some monkeys were given grapes instead of cucumbers for their effort (a previous experiment had shown that grapes were a higher prized commodity among the capuchins). In response, the monkeys rewarded with cucumbers went on strike; some even started throwing their cucumbers at the scientists, and the vast majority refused to collect any more pebbles. The scientists concluded, “People judge fairness based both on the distribution of gains and on the possible alternatives to a given outcome…They respond negatively to previously acceptable rewards if a partner gets a better deal.” Similarly, in a democratic society, people may “hold emotionally charged expectations about reward distribution and social exchange.” As many have noticed, the problem was not unequal pay for unequal work but differentiated rewards for the same work – it was the arbitrariness and injustice that roused the monkeys. The monkeys’ strike and disruption of work is explained by Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt, who argued in their 1999 paper on inequity aversion that the “willingness to sacrifice potential gain to block another individual from receiving a superior reward” is surprisingly strong.

Critics jump to point out that humans are not the same as monkeys, and while this point may be hesitantly surrendered, we should remember that as children, a common complaint to teachers and parents was, “It’s not fair!” A convincing case is yet to be made that the Godhra carnage required more media attention than the anti-Sikh riots or the eviction of Hindus from Kashmir between 1985 and 1995; a genuine argument is still lacking on why the state can seize control of temple earnings but not of mosques or churches; and no answer has been given on why the Rajiv Gandhi government changed the constitution of the land, despite its adverse effects on women’s rights, to influence the verdict in the Shah Bano case. The Indian government’s pusillanimity over the Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin cases was not evident when it came to defending the freedom of expression of MF Hussain, who, by any stretch of imagination, had “hurt the sentiments” of Hindus just as much as the previous two artists had the Muslims. It is such double standards that have served to enhance the resentment against the government and its unwitting Muslim beneficiaries.

So where should the damage control begin? Every community is responsible for its own actions, and it falls to the secular-minded moderates and liberals within the Muslim community to come forward and make their voices heard. Sensible voices should make a sustained and strong argument to the government for better modern educational facilities and opportunities in place of paternalistic government handouts and lip sympathies which have so far only kept the community behind. There is some good news on this front: in the recent Uttar Pradesh state Assembly elections, the Muslim community did not buy the tall promises offered it by some of the contesting parties.

Violence is unfortunate, and must be avoided as much as possible. But when the laws fail to protect, when the system seems to discriminate, people have historically taken to arms. The Modi phenomenon cannot be swept under the carpet as politicians, the media, and the ‘intelligentsia’ have tried. It cannot be pinned onto some imaginary bigotry of the Indian Right or the Indian uneducated, for Buddhists, Jains, Jews, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians have never generated the same anger among Hindus. The Modi case is neither important nor relevant except in the sense that justice must be done; even if Modi is taken to court and convicted, there will be many others waiting to step into the breach as long as Hindus perceive themselves as receiving a step-motherly treatment from the government. If anyone is genuinely interested in tackling communalism in India, perhaps they should stop working themselves into a murderous frenzy at the mention of Modi or the BJP and stop to listen.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Chirps

  • French nuclear slump comes at a wrong geopolitical time: bloom.bg/3wR9MLA | Build more reactors, maintain ex… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 6 hours ago
  • Japan to enable fighter jet and missile exports to 12 nations: s.nikkei.com/3MWyIXL | India, Australia, Vietnam,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 6 hours ago
  • Scientists can now grow wood in a lab without cutting a single tree: bit.ly/3LWV89Y | How long to scale it? 6 hours ago
  • Samoa signs bilateral pact with China: bit.ly/3MYBTOq | You'd think they had learned from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc 10 hours ago
  • RT @elderofziyon: Here is a summary of what @bellingcat and @CNN got wrong with Shireen Abu Akleh's death: The only way they have any clue… 10 hours ago
Follow @orsoraggiante

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 225 other followers

Follow through RSS

  • RSS - Posts

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

  • The Mysterious Case of India’s Jews
  • Polarised Electorates
  • The Election Season
  • Does Narendra Modi Have A Foreign Policy?
  • India and the Bomb
  • Nationalism Restored
  • Jews and Israel, Nation and State
  • The Asian in Europe
  • Modern Political Shibboleths
  • The Death of Civilisation
  • Hope on the Korean Peninsula
  • Diminishing the Heathens
  • The Writing on the Minority Wall
  • Mischief in Gaza
  • Politics of Spite
  • Thoughts on Nationalism
  • Never Again (As Long As It Is Convenient)
  • Earning the Dragon’s Respect
  • Creating an Indian Lake
  • Does India Have An Israel Policy?
  • Reclaiming David’s Kingdom
  • Not a Mahatma, Just Mohandas
  • How To Read
  • India’s Jerusalem Misstep
  • A Rebirth of American Power

Management

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com
Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Chaturanga
    • Join 225 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Chaturanga
    • Customise
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: