Across the Aisle: Revisiting Jammu and Kashmir
“Cannot allow yourselves to be caught between a hard place and a hard place”. That is P Chidambaram’s unique take on the Kashmir issue in his column for the Indian Express. The former finance minister believes that the situation in Kashmir has been fractious particularly because different people believe there are different solutions to the problem. While the BJP government votes for a hard, muscular. ‘militaristic’ approach, the Hurriyat has been advocating secession from the Indian Union.
This columnist believes that the problem lies in our present government not actively working to find a solution. ‘No talks’ cannot be a legitimate policy and one needs to invite all stakeholders to talks.
Wisdom lies in actively working to find a political solution to the issue of J&K. Both Mr A B Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh will be remembered for their diligent efforts to find a solution to the issue. On several occasions, a solution seemed to be within our grasp, but the solution — if there was one — slipped out of our hands. The fault of the present government is that it does not seem to want a solution; it is not making a diligent effort to seek a solution; and by shutting the door on talks with all the stakeholders, it has foreclosed a solution in the near future.
Fifth Column: Lies and Deceit
Tavleen Singh. in her column for the Indian Express, deliberates on the ‘lies and deceit’ that India has been given whenever it comes to interactions with Pakistan. She draws on her own experience first, when many years ago, she watched as then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee got on a bus and drove across the Wagah border in a concerted peace effort.
In a moving and beautiful ceremony its arrival was preceded by a man walking across the border with a basket of sweets on his head and Punjabi women dancing behind him in silk skirts that shone in the afternoon light. Pakistani journalists who sat among a huge contingent of us Indians gasped and said it was the first time they had seen women dance in public since Zia-ul-Haq imposed Islamism and began the ‘deceit and lies’ saga.
However, “even as Nawaz Sharif welcomed Vajpayee to Lahore, Musharraf was plotting his Kargil misadventure”. Despite all this, Vajpayee continued to bring up Kashmir in all his talks with Pakistan - something that Tavleen Singh thinks we should stop doing.
Can we hope that in 2018 India shows not just that it has a spine but that it has no intention of discussing Kashmir with Pakistan ever.
Out of My Mind: The Battle Begins
Meghnad Desai, in his Sunday column for the Indian Express, foretells what 2019 will look like for the government and the Opposition: where the Congress will paint the BJP as an anti-Dalit party, making its case around the Rohith Vermula suicide and other incidents. Desai recalls the explosion last week following the bicentenary celebrations of the Bhima Koregaon battle. What can be seen now, he believes, is the struggle over the Dalit vote bank.
Mayawati has lost her prominent position. Narendra Modi realised the importance of the Dalit vote bank and convinced his Hindu orthodox party to become inclusive. The UP elections showed the results. Even so, the BJP hardcore has no love for Dalits and are readily drawn into violence against them. Hence Una and the Dalit anger. The new generation of young leaders of Dalits flexed their muscles in Gujarat and they are now moving on to the national stage.
How the Land of a Thousand Clashes Conjures Social Stability
Swaminathan Aiyar, in his column ‘Swaminomics’ for the Times of India, comes up with a rather interesting twist to the clashes and divides that have pretty much defined the last few months of our political scenario. He talks about ‘coalitions’ being formed out of the very divides that India sees everyday. As he recalls the clashes over the Bhima Koregaon battle in Maharashtra, he marvels at the “sheer multiplicity of clashes” that has managed to produce “an unexpected equilibrium”. People who are against each other on one clash seem to unite on another issue, making India a country of constantly changing social coalitions.
In fact, Aiyar points at how our political parties are based on these very divides and shifting coalitions!
In the first decade of independence, the main political parties aimed to attract voters across all divides—Congress, the Socialist Parties, the Communist parties, and the Swatantra Party. But these could not paper over the immense number of social divisions, which gradually created parties based on caste (RJD, SP, the two anti-Brahmin DMKs), region (TDP, BJD, TRS, Trinamool Congress, AGP, INLD, PDP et al), and religion (Akali Dal, Shiv Sena). Many parties span more than one divide.
Writing About Truly Indian Matters
Tabish Khair’s column for The Hindu this Sunday is a particularly poignant one, putting forth a well-known but not-oft-remembered thought: that what matters is not where things are from, but what they become with us.
He reaches this conclusion as he flinches from the idea of writing about Christmas and New Years Eve, believing that he will be trolled by many for talking about “un-Indian” issues. Therefore, he vows almost comically to talk of things that are intrinsically “Indian”. However, he seems to keep hitting a wall every time he talks of clothes: while the sari and dhoti are lovely large pieces of unstitched clothing, they’ve never been restricted to India (Greeks, Persians, Romans have used such unstitched clothing too). He hits a wall with talking of an Indian new year too, since there are so many!
The more I searched, the more I realised that just as India has penetrated the world — for instance, with its numerals — the world has penetrated India.Perhaps what matters is not where things are from, but what they have become with us: the potato, after all, is cooked in distinctive ways in Brazil, England and India. Surely, what is true of the potato must be true of people and festivals too? Hence, I wrote of Christmas and New Year’s Eve after all.
Inside Track: Beginning His Reign
Coomi Kapoor, in her column for the Indian Express today, aims to break down the rationale behind Rahul Gandhi’s coming out in support of the Dalits in the recent clashes in Maharashtra over the Bhima Koregaon battle. In a highly political decision, and less than 24 hours after the incident, Gandhi tweeted in favour of the Dalit agitation and accused the BJP-RSS for harbouring a fascist vision. This was unexpected for the state Congress, as it had already decided that the wisest course would be not to take sides.
However, the consensus within party lines was that Rahul Gandhi may have been influenced by new Independent MLA Jignesh Mewani who is proud of “displaying the many WhatsApp messages he exchanges” with the Congress president.
Congress leaders in Maharashtra and Gujarat apprehend that Rahul was egged on by the newly elected Independent MLA Jignesh Mewani, who is fond of displaying the many WhatsApp messages he exchanges with the Congress president. Mewani’s impulsiveness is worrying for state Congress leaders, who apprehend the undue influence of outsiders in the party. Alpesh Thakor, a newcomer to the Congress and also a WhatsApp friend of Rahul Gandhi’s, was persuaded by his new party colleagues to tweet that Mewani should consider before he speaks.
The Battle of Koregaon is Still Being Fought in Maharashtra
The Bhima Koregaon battle and the clashes over caste that it has influenced 200 years after it ended is understandably the core focus of most Sunday analyses today. Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph marvels at how the clashes have brought out a different side of each political party. He wonders first at hardliner Hindu group leaders such as Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote, both of whose ‘histories’ he is quick to document (one led an anti-Jodha Akbar protest, while the other has a dozen cases of rioting against him). Both of these men, charged with inciting violence against Dalits, have vehemently denied all charges - while even the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis, an admirer of Bhide, has vowed to arrest culprits without actually charging Bhide or Ekbote.
There is, however, a difference in the attitude of Hindutva leaders towards violence against Dalits and violence against Muslims. It is essential for politicians of the Hindu Right to be able to claim Dalits as their constituents if they are to make good their claim to an akhand Hindu rashtra. This concern, not to be seen as hostile to Dalits, to refuse ownership of the violence, is evident in Bhide’s and Ekbote’s denials, in Fadnavis’s promises to act against the culprits and his attempt to reach out to Ambedkar’s political heirs in Maharashtra.
How India Lost Its Neighbourhood
Manish Tewari, in his column for the Asian Age, has tolled warning bells for India in terms of its relationships with its neighbours. Things are not looking good when it comes to China where the stand-off at Doklam, far from being resolved, is only getting perpetuated. The only silver lining to the acrimony has been that bilateral trade between the two has been growing, with China being India’s largest trading partner.
Nepal, meanwhile, is still suffering from the economic blockade of 2015, while things with Sri Lanka aren’t great either. Tewari also ruminates on Trump’s diatribe against Pakistan which would “push Pakistan into the welcoming embrace of China while Russia would be all too happy that a nation that bled them during the Afghan occupation bled the US equally through its chicanery and double dealing”.
For serious students of India’s strategic interests, the question is how did we skid down this un-slippery slope so rapidly?
Lack of Trust Shouldn’t Stall Indo-Pak Talks
A G Noorani speaks of ‘trust’ as a factor that shouldn’t entirely determine the talks between India and Pakistan, in his column for the Asian Age this Sunday. Noorani reflects on how things stand now: where India’s minister for external affairs has firmly ruled out reviving cricket matches between the two countries, and where India has decided to fully tap the Indus River’s waters under the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960: reportedly to “strike back at Pakistan”. The excuse given for Indo-Pak’s failed relationship is the “lack of trust”. But Noorani believes this should hardly be a determinant for talks.
Several false notions underlie India’s present policy towards Pakistan. One is the “absence of trust” — as if one should only talk to those with whom one’s relations are close enough to inspire trust. This is as unrealistic in personal relations as it is in relations between states. International politics expert Yan Xuetong holds that existence of trust is not a precondition to talks. It is foolish to think otherwise. (Undoubtedly, some equally false notions warp Pakistan’s policy too.)
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