Tag Archives: Narendra Modi

Creating an Indian Lake

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in India, South Asia

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The small, out-of-mind archipelago of Seychelles has been in the Indian news cycle an inordinate amount. Part of this is due to a prospering Indian public starting to take greater interest in the geopolitics of their region. Another reason is the recent agreement signed between India and Seychelles for the construction of a military base on Assumption Island, one of the 115 islands of the African country. Originally signed in 2015 during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country, work could not begin on the strategic asset as the deal was not ratified by the Seychelles parliament during the term of the previous president, James Michel.

Controversy was stirred recently when the present president of the South Indian Ocean country, Danny Faure, declared in 2017 that the agreement would have to be renegotiated as it did not serve the interests of the Seychellois. Then, a recent leak of the text of the newly-negotiated agreement also stoked the controversy in that it was alleged that Victoria has sold off Assumption Island to India; Faure’s administration rushed to clarify that this was not the case and stressed that India would not be developing infrastructure on Assumption for military purposes. Ostensibly, the facilities are meant to support patrolling against illegal fishing, piracy, and drug and human trafficking.

Under the agreement, India will renovate the airstrip on Assumption Island, renovate the jetty, and build living quarters for the Seychelles Coast Guard. The entire project is expected to take a quarter of the tiny island that measures barely 6.7 kms in length and 2.9 kms in width and cost approximately $550 million.

Several things were clarified and modified between the 2015 agreement and the 2018 revision. The deal was extended to 20 years from 10 years with an option to further extend the arrangement by another 10 years; it was clarified that the island was still under the sovereignty of Seychelles, meaning that Indians stationed on Assumption Island will face Seychellois justice if accused of a crime; the obligations of each party were explicitly spelled out as were technical details pertaining to the jetty and airstrip; conditions for the storage of arms have been made more stringent (military exercises, guarding the facilities, and self-defence in case of internal disturbances). As in the 2015 agreement, India has agreed not to use the base in times of war or allow vessels with nuclear weapons to use the facilities. Third parties may be allowed use of the facilities upon joint agreement by both governments.

Although Seychelles has been at pains to emphasise that the agreement with India is not military in nature, the terms indicate otherwise or at least hold open the strong potential for use for security purposes. Victoria, however, does not wish to invite Great Power rivalry – not just between India and China but potentially the United States and France as well – into its living room and has made a public relations decision to highlight the benefits it receives from the development of infrastructure on Assumption Island in the enforcement of domestic law and order.

The deal is seen as important for India because it enhances its surveillance capabilities over the Indian Ocean. In concert with a coastal surveillance radar station already operating in Seychelles, a naval base at Agalega in Mauritius, a coastal radar station in Madagascar, an array of radars in Maldives, and a strong presence in the littoral waters of Mozambique, Delhi’s acquisition of facilities on one of the 67 raised coral islands of the Aldabra group will create an impermeable surveillance net in the southwestern and central Indian Ocean. Assumption Island’s position dominating the Mozambique channel, a key sea lane for merchant ships, adds to India’s kitty a second potential choke point after the Strait of Malacca; the latter is dominated by India’s augmented presence in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands chain as well as with naval agreements with Vietnam and Singapore.

India’s strategic assets in its ocean, important as they are on their own, have an added multiplier effect: Delhi has recently signed a Logistics Support Agreement with the United States and France, allowing the navies of those countries to share naval facilities with the Indian Navy. This extends India’s reach even further from the French base at Reunion – perhaps even Paris’ services in Djibouti – and the US base at Diego Garcia. Together, it is possible for the three countries to establish a Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) line array to closely monitor the movement of all ships and submarines through the region. It is rumoured that India is seeking Japanese assistance in setting up a similar surveillance line from Indira Point to Sumatra, which will then connect with a similar existing US-Japanese network in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean Rim. Between these two arrays, Delhi’s knowledge of movement in the Indian Ocean will see a marked increase and make its naval deployments more efficient.

An agreement with Australia for access to its Indian Ocean Territories, Cocos Islands and Christmas, is tempting but the geography and size of the islands is not an insignificant obstacle to overcome.

There has been some opposition to India’s presence in the archipelago that range from geopolitical to economic and environmental. However, with approximately 10% of the population tracing its roots back to India, there is, so far, general good will towards India. Unlike its larger northeastern neighbour China, India has avoided giving hard loans or flooding client states with Indian labour and instead preferred joint development. India’s previous assistance to the archipelago also puts it in good standing with the Seychellois. In June and September 1986, India helped suppress two coups in the country, the first by deploying the INS Vindhyagiri (which, to be fair, was already on its way to the island on a routine visit) and the second by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi loaning Air India One to Seychelles president France-Albert René. India has also helped Seychelles patrol its Exclusive Economic Zone and provided equipment such as Dornier Do 228s and Chetak helicopters to meet the security needs of the island chain. The Indian Navy has frequently assisted Seychelles in anti-piracy operations in the past decade. and Delhi has also helped train the Seychellois own armed forces.

At present, India is economically and militarily incapable of facing Chinese encroachment into the Indian Ocean. Beijing has been candid about its String of Pearls for over a decade and yet little was done to augment India’s ability to respond to the threat, either diplomatically or otherwise. Despite its jarring paeans to non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and other such dated misadventures, Delhi has recently made a sound move by agreeing to work in tandem with similarly-minded powers to protect the Indian Ocean. The acquisition of its own assets in the Indian Ocean Region is a bonus and will retain some autonomy for India.

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Does India Have An Israel Policy?

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

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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.

Heartburn over Hugs and Hummus

10 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in India, Israel, Middle East, Opinion and Response, South Asia

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Indo-Israeli relations have been all hugs and hummus of late, a point that neither Jerusalem nor Delhi seem to be tired of reiterating. Narendra Modi’s trip to Israel without even a perfunctory drop-in at Ramallah has been portrayed as historic by most observers, although there have been some doubts about how much of a departure this really is from India’s previous policy given the three-day visit by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just a couple of weeks earlier.

Whether there really is a shift in Indian policy or not, the perception certainly exists that there has been one and this has caused much heartburn among the ossified grand daddies of entrenched interests. The crux of a string of critiques that have appeared in the Indian press is that the Modi government has made the morally odious choice of abandoning Palestine and in doing so descended into the realm of ordinary states, and that this desertion is but another manifestation of the prime minister’s anti-Muslim Hindu nationalism that has found resonance in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s equally anti-Islamic Zionism.

In Foreign Affairs, Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch and Manjari Chatterjee Miller argue that “India’s and Israel’s historic perceptions of colonial ideology and religious nationalism are at the root of their longstanding divergence.” According to them, India’s experience as a colony and of bloody Partition created in Indian leaders an aversion to colonialism and religious nationalism; Jewish ambitions in the Levant was, therefore, anathema to them on both counts.

Although Hirsch and Miller are correct in how the Congress leadership viewed Israel and this view did shape Indian policy towards the Jewish state for decades, their article does not grapple with the fact that this was a highly ignorant and erroneous held by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. To denounce Zionism as a “child of British imperialism” as Nehru did is laughable, and Gandhi admitted to some of his interlocutors sent by the Jewish Agency to inform and persuade the Indian leader of their worthiness of their cause that he did not know enough about Jewish history. Gandhi thought that Israel was being created “under the shadow of the British gun,” a sentiment difficult to arrive at despite the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917. His simplification of “Palestine for the Arabs” also indicates a severe lack of understanding of the convoluted history of the Levant.

Today, whatever else may motivate the Bharatiya Janata Party’s course correction, it also reflects an acknowledgement of these mistaken views. Old dilemmata over identity will not, contrary to what the article argues, hinder relations but more mundane aspects of economics, regulations, and logistics take time to be streamlined. Additionally, the focus on non-defence matters was a deliberate move by both governments to highlight the civilisation-to-civilisation connections being fostered rather than a purely transactional one – which has been blooming on the sidelines, too.

A churlish piece by Manini Chatterjee in The Telegraph betrays ignorance of Israeli culture as well as any deep engagement with European history or political philosophy. Playing on the tired trope of ethnonationalism, Chatterjee wants to draw attention to the “fusion of religious and cultural identity with a ‘holy’ geographical entity common to both Hindutva and Zionism.” This has, in fact, spared the world of the limitless expansion of more universalist (imperialist) creeds. Chatterjee also takes a swipe at MS Golwalkar for his racial weltanshauung. However, it bears note that Golwalker’s understanding of race was substantially different from the European definition and that Zionism did grow as a response to the liberal European project that sought to dilute and destroy Jewish identity. Instead, Chatterjee prefers to further the myth – as the Dreyfus Affair proved – of civic nationalism.

Rajeesh Kumar’s plea that foreign policy be based on principles rather than on interests (though he sees the two as coterminous) in Outlook is naive at best. His attempt to rescue Nehruvian thinking on Israel, however, is an exceptional attempt at fiction writing. His claim that “India’s support to the Palestinian cause was not determined by the policy of appeasing the Muslim minority population at home” falls flat simply by virtue of Nehru’s own words to the effect that he did not wish to vex Indian Muslims so soon after Partition by cosying up to the Jewish state. Kumar does not explain how Indian policy was pragmatic and not idealistic as he claims but goes on to make another incredulous argument that Israel must be seen as India’s junior partner because of its desire to help the South Asian nation despite being rebuked so often. While Kumar’s point raises an interesting point for further research into Israeli attitudes and thinking towards India, the casting of the receiver of aid as the senior partner is bewildering.

There is no denying of the benefits of better relations with Israel for Kumar, though he warns that this should not mean that India should give Tel Aviv (?) a blank cheque. Kumar’s solution is to extract benefits from Israel via trade and scientific cooperation yet continue to condemn it as has been India’s hypocritical custom in the past. Given Indo-Israeli history, Kumar’s suggestion might work but it will not foster warmer relations.

Finally, he appeals to dharma as a guiding principle of Indian culture and policy. That dharma is not constant but depends on place, time, and situation is entirely lost on Kumar. In a specific circumstance, Krishna advises the Pandavas to go to war even against their own kith and kin. Additionally, Kumar’s appeal to ethics, while noble, has served no purpose in the past. India’s bid to join the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as a country with one of the highest Muslim populations was rejected and Arab states have historically sided with Pakistan politically as well as economically and militarily in its conflict with India.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi tries to resurrect the flawed Indian historical understanding of yesteryear in his article in The Wire. Amusingly, he states that “India’s position has been appreciated, respected by all for its honesty and integrity,” probably referring to only Arab states and the coterie of non-aligned irrelevants. He clings to the old custom of Indian prime ministers abstaining from visiting Israel on principle without addressing the errors of the past or the changes since in the geopolitical climate. Ignoring his preposterous claims of a Palestinian genocide in 1948 for the moment, Gandhi fails to explain why Palestine ought to matter more to Delhi than its own interests. In his selective history, he omits the Egyptian wall along its border with Gaza or the Jordanian action against Palestinians during Black September, not to mention the occupation of “Palestine” by Jordan and Egypt prior to the stunning Israeli victory in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Modi’s visit, according Gandhi, gives legitimacy to the “occupation and brutal suppression” of Palestinians by Israel. This conveniently overlooks the Indian statement of support for the Palestinian cause just two weeks ahead of Modi’s trip to Israel. Gandhi goes on to argue that India’s policy now is “wholly political, ideological,” implying, one only assumes from the tone, what his cohort has expressed more explicitly about the BJP being anti-Muslim. This ever-ready, lazy label may have some superficial truth to it but ignores a strong undercurrent of historical grievances and political minoritarian discrimination that has now run its fuse.

It is not so much that the caviling is premised on faulty understandings of Hindutva, Zionism, and the Palestinian Question – sometimes by Gandhi or Nehru – but its ornery nature that makes any genuine debate moot. Nehru’s fundamental failure was that he, as a modern Liberal, approached society – India – as tabula rasa upon which he could put down his doodles. Communities, however, do not work like that – they are a brown field project with all its attendant baggage. More importantly, the debate never moves forward because opponents of Israel in India never tire of repeating their worn out and fallacious mantras rather than responding to a counter that has been put forward decades ago. In this climate, there is no argument – only an attempt to overpower the public sphere by sheer volume.