- All articles

All articles

- Why India, Not China, Is The Biggest Gainer From Russia-Ukraine War

- A Matter Of Margins – Looking Back To Look At 2024 Elections

- 100 Years Of Celebrating Sharada On The Coast Of Karnataka

- Lessons From Leicester: Decoupling Indian Identity From South Asian

- Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022 — Busting Myths And Narratives Around The Major Contenders

- Gujarat Elections 2022: Pollsters Need To Up Their Game If They Are To Be Taken Seriously

- Modi Likely To Achieve What No One Before Him Has: Solve The Naga Issue And Bring Lasting Peace To North East

- Moonlighting Is Here To Stay: Big Tech Must Read The Writing On The Wall

- ONDC: Getting The First Billion Transactions

- There’s Old And Inefficient Infrastructure Across Indian Cities — Time To Rebuild That

- This Is How The Modi Government Has Enabled The Army To Gear Up For The Chinese Threat In The Eastern Sector

- What China Wanted To Achieve With The Docking Of Spy Ship In Sri Lanka

- A Modi-Hasina Pact Could Work Better Than Nehru-Liaquat; Five Agreements We Need With Bangladesh

- Interview: Mohandas Pai On Why BBMP Simply Lacks Capacity To Manage A City Of 12 Million Population And $140 billion GDP

- Instances Of Muslim Reverence To Hindu Divinity: Can Dharmic Civilisation Effect Changes On Monopolistic Religions?

- Onam Appropriation: Why It Is So Easy For The Left To Term The Festival As Secular And Un-Hindu

- Frank Drake Lives On In The Spirit Of SETI

- Kautilyanomics: New Book Underscores Arthashastra's Relevance To Modern Economic Challenges

World

Why India, Not China, Is The Biggest Gainer From Russia-Ukraine War

by R Jagannathan - Sep 20, 2022 12:42 PM +05:30 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Picture: Twitter)

Snapshot

- When the war began, China was seen as the biggest beneficiary, but now it is possible to claim that India may well be the biggest beneficiary over the medium term, as it now gets more policy leeway in geopolitics and economics.

At the recent SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) summit in Uzbekistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised Western media by taking a strongly neutral position in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Modi told Putin that “Today’s era is not an era of war,” prompting the Western media to read this as a stunning rebuke of Vladimir Putin, earlier seen as very close to India and Modi.

This contrasts with the earlier Western stance of repeatedly threatening India for its special relationship with Russia and failing to condemn Russian aggression.

For good measure, Modi thanked both Russia and Ukraine for helping India move its students studying in the latter country to safety — another signal of neutrality.

While close ties to Russia will remain, especially with India ramping up its purchases of cheaper Russian oil and gas, this nuanced position has been read as India moving away from Russia.

In reality, the Modi message on war can be seen as a silent rebuke of Chinese war-mongering, too, but the West chose to see what it did.

What this shows is a larger reality: when the war began, China was seen as the biggest beneficiary, but now it is possible to claim that India may well be the biggest beneficiary over the medium term, as it now gets more policy leeway in geopolitics and economics.

We don’t really have to choose between the Sino-Russian axis and the US-led grouping.

We have ample space to manoeuvre, and also a chance to grow bigger on the world stage.

Here’s why.

One, India has become the tilting factor in east-west Asian and Indo-Pacific geopolitics, with both the US and the Russia-China axis now realising that we need to be wooed.

As far as we are concerned, as long as we build trade and military ties to the US, we can retain our military relationship with Russia on our own terms.

We can’t tilt away from Russia, for the last thing we need is a China-Russia-Pakistan alliance ranged against us.

Russia would need us for the simple reason that it, too, cannot afford to become wholly subservient to China in the global power game. Putin would then lose all leverage.

Two, China’s global standing has, in fact, weakened, as its embrace of Russia has strengthened the US’s commitment to providing Taiwan with more military and diplomatic backing.

President Joe Biden has said, not once but twice, that the US will back Taiwan in case of a conflict.

Just a day ago, he even said that US troops would fight in Taiwan, if China attacked it. And for the last two months, senior US politicians, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have visited Taiwan in a show of support.

For India, this means two things: (a) China now has to worry about Taiwan more than its border dispute with us, and (b) given a weakening economy, it cannot lightly think of launching an offensive anywhere, least of all against India.

They know we can give them a bloody nose. Russia’s failure to march to a quick victory in Ukraine also gives it cause for pause on Taiwan.

India’s counter-punch in Ladakh after China’s 2020 provocation will prevent the Dragon from doing anything more than breathe fire.

The remaining frenemies of China in the Indo-Pacific (Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, etc) would not have failed to note that China has not managed any military success despite threatening talk.

Three, as long as we manage the Russian relationship well, our access to military hardware and cheap fuel is a useful counterweight to US pressure and West Asian oil dependence.

With Iran now leaning towards Russia, importing Russian oil and gas through Iranian ports would become an added option in due course.

Four, the new world order that will rise from the current disorder will be to India’s advantage.

After the US-led sanctions on Russia, Europe is paying the biggest economic price for it, with Russian gas gone and inflation going through the roof.

The net result of this winter’s European discontent will be a new security policy in Europe that will be less US-dependent.

France is already a nuclear power, and Germany will be spending a large amount on defence.

At some point, when the Ukraine war ends, Europe will have to mend fences with Russia too, for it is a nuclear power.

As German military power grows, western Europe would want Russia as a counter-weight to Germany too.

Europeans will realise that they need to create a European security architecture, and Russia has to be a part of it, as long as it does not threaten others.

That may take a while, but the security architecture will focus on Eurasia and not just western Europe, and this is good for India, for it will counter-balance the Chinese threat in central Asia which is land-linked to Pakistan.

Five, thanks particularly to India’s effective Covid management, especially the macroeconomy, Modi has put India in a sweet spot.

Both geopolitically and economically, India is a rising midi-power and it has options that are looking better every day.

At some point, if it, with support from France, Germany and Japan, can broker a deal to end the Ukraine war in return for Western support to rebuild the devastated country, India will be the flavour of the decade.

And yes, the G20 Summit next year, which will be presided over by India, will mark the beginning of this shift in how the world sees India.

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

Politics

A Matter Of Margins – Looking Back To Look At 2024 Elections

by Venu Gopal Narayanan - Aug 24, 2022 04:47 PM +05:30 IST

BJP and Congress flags (Representative Image) (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images and Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Snapshot

- Before 2014, anywhere between 150 to 200 Lok Sabha seats were won or lost by victory margins of around 5 per cent or less.

But since the sixteenth general election, the days of winning mandates by narrow margins are over.

Until 2014, the fate of the nation used to be largely decided by 5 per cent of the vote share. Anywhere between 150 to 200 Lok Sabha seats were won or lost by victory margins of around 5 per cent or less.

That was where the bloc identity vote would come into play, to tip the balance in favour of the secular parties.

Vote bankers would force wins by strategically employing caste in some seats, and religion in others, as a decisive trump card, even if such dedicated vote bases didn’t amount to more than 10-odd per cent in a constituency.

That’s how evenly the vote was split amongst the rest of the electorate.

But the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) majestic sweep in 2014, under Narendra Modi, established a new electoral paradigm at the national level – it made the communal vote essentially irrelevant.

Here are the victory margins of the past three general elections, by party, and tranche:

Table 1: Victory margins by tranche – BJP, Congress, and ‘Others’

The extent of shift in voting patterns becomes vividly apparent when we analyse the sharp reduction in close fights between 2009 and 2014, and the continuation of that trend into the 2019 general elections:

Table 2: Shift in tranches between general elections

The above table shows how victory margins by tranche changed between 2009 and 2014, and between 2014 and 2019. For example, in the 5-10 per cent margin, the BJP won 14 more seats in 2014 than it did in 2009.

Readers may note how the average margins shift progressively from slender to thumping ones, predominantly in favour of the BJP, and to the Congress’s detriment.

Victory margins of the past three general elections, by party, and tranche

Multiple inferences can be drawn from this analysis. They have significant implications on how the 2024 general elections may play out.

This exercise becomes all the more necessary, now that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has dumped the BJP, and is being touted by mainstream media as a magnetic centre around which a meaningful opposition might coalesce. (Why that can’t happen will be explained in a forthcoming piece.)

In 2009, 343 seats were won or lost by a margin of less than 10 per cent. In 2014, this figure fell sharply to 190, and stayed the same, at 186, in 2019.

Naturally, then, the number of big wins has gone up in the last two general elections. The principal beneficiary has been the BJP.

In 2014, their victory margin was over 20 per cent in 119 seats. This went up to 151 in 2019.

In contrast, and as a mark of just how phenomenal their 2014 surge was, the party managed a similar victory margin in only nine seats in 2009.

The ’Others’, too, have been registering a larger number of thumping wins since 2009. This segment, although comprising of non-Congress, non-BJP, regional parties in the main, also includes BJP allies.

The implications are two-fold: that regional parties have been successful in strengthening their vote bases, and that efficient vote transfer is taking place between the BJP and its allies.

But the total number is much less: it was 27 seats in 2009, 41 in 2014, and 54 in 2019.

The inference is significant: that, even if the extremely successful BJP-led coalition of 2019 comes apart at the seams by 2024 (it has, to some extent, with the departure of the Akali Dal in The Punjab, and Nitish Kumar in Bihar), the impact will be muted at the national level.

The reason is that if, on the one hand, the BJP takes multiple hits on account of fraying alliances in some states, those former allies too, would be hit, unless they are able to somehow cover up the absence of the BJP’s support by tying up with new friends.

One action negates the other to some extent.

But for the most part, this margin-analysis reveals that the BJP has won big on its own steam, at the cost of the Congress.

As a result, opposition parties will have to force a far greater vote swing away from the BJP, in anywhere between 150-200 seats (see tables), in seats where the Congress was the primary entity till as recently as 2014, if they are to try and pull the BJP below the halfway mark.

That’s a tough ask on date, since the non-Congress opposition is yet to fill the space vacated by the Congress (as seen in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh), and because the BJP is still growing in most states.

And the interesting thing is that increasing bipolarity, by increasing the index of opposition unity, would not have a major impact, since the BJP’s large number of high victory margins are independent of opposing coalitions.

A good example to dispel speculative correlations between margins and bipolarity is Karnataka 2019, where the BJP swept the state with an average win margin of 14 per cent, even though the index of opposition unity was close to 100.

Indeed, of the 25 seats they won in the state, only four were by small margins; in the rest, the average victory margin was close to 20 per cent, and over 30 per cent in some cases.

Thus, in conclusion, we see that hastily cobbling together ersatz opposition alliances would only have a limited effect at the national level, in reining in the BJP. It will not hinder the party from doing well once again in 2024.

This means that if the opposition seeks to secure a popular mandate, they will have to attract votes directly from the BJP, in bulk, in the range of 10-15 per cent, in close to a hundred seats. And the chances of that happening seem low at present.

The days of winning mandates by narrow margins are over.

Also Read: Bihar: How Chirag Paswan sank Nitish Kumar in 2020 and what that means today

Venu Gopal Narayanan is an independent upstream petroleum consultant who focuses on energy, geopolitics, current affairs and electoral arithmetic. He tweets at @ideorogue.

Culture

100 Years Of Celebrating Sharada On The Coast Of Karnataka

by Harsha Bhat - Sep 26, 2022 06:25 PM +05:30 IST

100 years of celebrating the Goddess of Wisdom

‘Bolo Bharat Mata ki Jai‘ echoed the premises of the Venkataramana temple in Mangaluru last night. Adorned in all her fineries, the life size clay idol of Goddess Saraswati was brought in with all fanfare and took her seat on the dais outside the Acharya mutt within the temple.

Carried lovingly atop shoulders by young men whose walk is dictated almost by a poetic metre so her gait looks like that of a graceful woman, her arrival this year marks 100 years of Mangaluru Saravajanika Shri Sharada Mahotsava.

The pandal with Bharat mata on top

And the entire city centre, that is called the temple square, is lit to mark a century of worshipping the Goddess in this avatar - as Sharada.

It was the first Sharada Mahotsav in the region which then inspired and has led to hundreds of such similar celebrations across the undivided district of Dakshina Kannada - including the now famous Mangaluru Dasara celebrations.

The Acharya mutt until the 1920’s did worship the Goddess like all gurukuls and centres of learning do in the season of Sharad Navaratri - by worshipping the manuscripts and ancient texts.

As the head of the mutt Narasimha Acharya, explains, the tradition of Saraswati among the various forms of the Goddess comes from the fact that the community - Gowda saraswat brahmins - trace their lineage to her namesake the Saraswati river.

“So it was natural that the primary form of the Goddess we worship too would be Saraswati. Add to it, as goes the legend, our roots belong to the land of Sharada, Kashmir,” he adds.

But this form of a community worship was necessitated by the pre-independence times where gathering was prohibited by the colonial rulers.

In a bid to bring people together, on the lines of and the intention behind Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s Ganeshotsav, the Sharada Mahotsav commenced in around 1922.

From the archives of the 100 year old Sharada Mahotsav (Mangaluru Sarvajanika Sharada Samiti)

From the archives of the 100 year old Sharada Mahotsav

Team of women who would dress up Sharade

And thus the chant of 'Bharat mata ki Jai' heralded the beginning of what was to be a whole different and extremely beautiful celebration of the ten days of the Mother Goddess’s descent on earth.

To this day, it is the portrait of Bharat Mata that adorns the top of the pandal where she sits. And her final farewell chant too has the temple tank that she is immersed in resounding with it. Until the 80s, it remained confined to the temple and the community.

But it eventually turned into one of the most awaited celebration of devotion each year with people travelling from across the country and beyond to get a glimpse of her.

Sharada idol dressed as Kateel Durgaparameshwari in the past

The same idol transformed into Kali

As Durga on Ashtami

All set for the 'shobha yatra' (G Vaman Kamath)

No one goes collecting funds as donors, mostly common people whose bond with her over the century and for generations now has turned into a sacred one, fund various aspects of the celebrations voluntarily.

Like the unprecedented amount of offerings in grain and groceries that came pouring in to be part of the maiden ’hore kanike’ (offering) procession on Sunday.

The offerings for the 100th year celebrations ( Upendra/Fb)

When she got a gold crown - In Pic: Kashi Mutt Shri Sudhindhra Teertha Swami

Gold peacock offered to mark 100 years of Sharada Moahotsava

A curtain raiser to the grand ten days of worship, over 60 vehicles carried the various offerings led by the lead vehicle carrying the special offerings to the Goddess this year - a gold veena (with 416 gm of gold), a gold peacock, gold aarti, silver backdrop, all articles of worship in silver anew and large silver lamps.

“We have had offerings with which we can hold a feast for over a month. This is unprecedented” say the committee members, as they gear up for the sleepless eleven nights to follow.

For she sits pretty until ekadashi, while most ‘visarjans’ are held on Vijayadashami, and has a host of traditional rituals until then. The same idol transforms into various avatars in contrast to other celebrations that see different idols for different goddesses.

Certain years that the Indian calendar and rituals permit, she is transformed into Kali, in a way that makes it hard to believe.

The very next day, she gears up to turn into the ever beautiful and majestic ‘veenadhari Sharada’ with her peacock by her side and the vedas and japmala in her hands.

A special saree is woven for her each year but the one she will sport on her final procession day has made great news this year. For it is weavers from Kashi who were brought in to render special gold embroidery on the dark green and red Banarasi saree.

Costing a whopping eight lakh, the saree has a total of 2600 flowers in gold made with 88 grams of gold and 700 grams of silver. A sahasra chandika havana is being held to mark 100 years of this celebration.

The saree woven with threads of real gold costs Rs 8 lakh

Over 4000 meritorious students from the city were felicitated with a ’vidya saraswati’ recognition, along with achievers in various fields. Cultural festivals including plays and classical music concerts were held during a week long cultural festival few weeks ago. And through the ten days, various competitions around art, craft, and creativity are being conducted alongside the ritualistic celebration.

Various classical musicians will also perform this year during the next ten days. Earlier this week, 108 vaidiks from different parts of the country, took part in a special reading of the Saptashati to launch the official celebrations.

The son phool - a special hair dress using the local jasmine - exclusive to the region(SSMS)

Son-phool on the day of procession(Sharada Mahotsava Samiti)

Her hairdo is a special presentation of the jasmine flowers that is special to the region that transforms her from Saraswati to Sharada. Called the ‘son-phool’ the special arrangement is what is else worn by a bride-to-be or a mother-to-be.

No mould is used to cast her form, yet each year, she has to her kitty, the undisputed title of being the prettiest Sharada idol. Even among the 40 odd ones created by her maker Naveen Acharya, a third generation artist sculpting her out of clay.

Committee member Ganesh Baliga says the ‘artist himself says so that ’there’s no other like her’. “A lot of people also pressurise him to make their idols like ours, but he has told us all many times that it is she who decides her form and not him,“ he adds.

And as she transforms into Sharada on the final day, she has volunteers who carry her on the entire route by foot on their shoulders.

Once lifted off her dais, around 8 pm, she is out on an all night tour of the area as people wait enroute with aartis and offerings, and sits back only at day break, where she then has all those artists, tiger dance troupes, bands perform for her one last time and receive prasad.

People throng to have a glimpse of hers(G Vaman Kamath)

As Sharada leaves for procession on the final day

Visarjan images from yesteryears

100 years of celebrating Sharada

The mood begins to get somber by then. The feeling of having to bid her farewell begins to weigh heavy, even though it is now a century of doing so.

As she heads to the temple tank down the street, even those who didn't accompany her through the night make a beeline for the visarjan.

Seated on the makeshift coracle, she then is taken on an entire round in the tank. And once back in the center, the entire gathering rises to sing Vande Mataram with most eyes moist.

And as the sun joins the devotees in saying 'Bharat mata ki Jai', 'Sharadamma' leaves for the year with a promise to see all her children next sharannavaratri.

Also read:

In Pictures: How Mangaluru Celebrates Dasara with Sharada

World

Lessons From Leicester: Decoupling Indian Identity From South Asian

by Tushar Gupta - Sep 22, 2022 04:38 PM +05:30 IST

Lessons from Leicester violence. (Twitter/video screenshot)

Snapshot

- Unfortunately, what happened in Leicester is not the first or last episode.

The first step in solving the problem lies in decoupling Indian and South Asian identities.

Political and economic assertion, by Indians and for Indians must begin now.

In one of the early episodes of The West Wing, President Jed Bartlet, essayed by Martin Sheen, elaborates on ‘Civis Romanus’ before his Chief of Staff.

Bartlet, angered by the attack on the US Air Force convoy that killed a few soldiers, elaborates on how, two thousand years ago, a Roman citizen could walk anywhere in the world without the fear of being molested and was guarded by two words alone; ‘Civis Romanus’, which translated into ‘I am a Roman citizen’.

Such was the fear of the empire, and its retribution, across the world that no citizen was ever harmed.

After the Leicester episode, radical groups announced a protest in Birmingham on 20 September, calling all Muslims from all backgrounds (as the text read on the poster) to stand up against Hindus attacking innocent Muslims.

The Durga Temple had been announced as Durga BJP/RSS Hindu Centre. The poster had the flags of Turkey, Bangladesh, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Palestine. The South Asian identity, when it came to attacking a Hindu temple, had been conveniently tossed into a political dustbin.

The South Asian identity is a convenient political and cultural umbrella for many, especially those from Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan. It is not uncommon for citizens from these three countries to downplay their national identities as they move to the West, given the political baggage that comes along.

For many, this identity is a gateway to ample economic opportunities. Indians, for several reasons, have drawn comfort from this political unison, but the Leicester episode must serve as a wake-up call.

For many in the West, the Leicester arsoning and violence is merely another instance of two South Asian communities quarrelling against each other.

The western fraternity is either driven by ignorance where they choose not to acknowledge the elaborate history of persecution of the Hindus by Muslims in several parts of the subcontinent for centuries, or is driven by woke guilt that forces them to side with the radicals while labelling the likes of RSS and BJP as fascist political arms of the Indian state.

Consequently, the Indian community is relegated to a distant second priority for the governments there. The Hindus are not even on the list. Thus, irrespective of who runs the grooming gangs in the United Kingdom, it becomes a problem of South Asian men.

Also, regardless of who advocates extremism in the United States, the labelling is reserved for the entire South Asian population. For Indians, this is a double whammy. Suffer the consequences of the crimes of citizens of other countries, and recede their cultural and economic space.

The Indians must discard this South Asian tag for three reasons.

One, as a five-trillion economy in the making, the assertion of the national identity must supersede that of the subcontinent. Indians, in no manner, are obligated to give citizens from Pakistan or Bangladesh a free pass.

Two, in the west, Indians feature in the top lists of wealth creators and enjoy tremendous political and economic clout, and they must now put it to use. These two factors must give Indian citizens abroad their version of Civis Romanus.

Finally, it is all about putting the Indian, and the Hindu cause ahead, along with that of the Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, and Buddhists.

Beyond having a Citizenship Amendment Act that must allow for the right of returns to citizens of these five communities to India from anywhere in the world, the government must partner with the diaspora by backing them to ensure that the Indian doesn’t get lost in the local politics.

This is not about discriminating against a community, for the diaspora will also have Indian Muslims, but getting the larger message across.

India’s version of Civis Romanus must be about exercising economic muscle as a country on a global level and as a community on a local level. The retribution may not be as violent as those in ancient times, but it must be as visible as possible on the economic front, and this is where exercising our market strength can also help.

Being Indians, citizens abroad must call out the atrocities committed by the radical groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, to begin with and distance themselves in every way possible.

To push for India’s Civis Romanus is essential for one more reason.

While many in the West, and even in India, would want to reduce the episode in Leicester as a brawl that can be attributed to a cricket match, the Indian state and the communities there must not shy away from calling out the prevailing Hinduphobia, advocated by many citizens hailing from the three countries, who otherwise cloak themselves in the South Asian identity.

Hinduphobia is rampant in the West, and it must be called out by all stakeholders.

Unfortunately, what happened in Leicester is not the first or last episode, and there is no assured smooth sailing going forward, even if the culprits are convicted.

For the future, the first step in solving the problem lies in decoupling Indian and South Asian identities. Political and economic assertion, by Indians and for Indians must begin now.

Also Read: After Leicester, India Must Stand Up To Defend Hindu Interests Everywhere

Tushar is a senior-sub-editor at Swarajya. He tweets at @Tushar15_

Politics

Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022 — Busting Myths And Narratives Around The Major Contenders

by Venu Gopal Narayanan - Sep 18, 2022 05:40 PM +05:30 IST

BJP vs AAP vs Congress

Snapshot

- Ignoring the efforts of narrative builders, here is the actual political situation heading into the Gujarat elections.

While campaigns for the forthcoming Gujarat assembly elections have yet to start in earnest, spin doctors and narrative builders are already hard at work in trying to shift perceptions to their advantage.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi party (AAP) was in Ahmedabad this week. There was the usual promise of freebies to people who hadn’t asked for it, followed by a visit to the home of an autorickshaw driver for a meal.

It also included a mandatory, staged altercation with local police, as he attempted to breach his own security (with half a dozen cameras recording the revolutionary’s indignation in high definition, of course).

“I don’t want your security! Go give it to your CM,” Kejriwal fulminated boorishly. “You want to arrest me? BJP is going…AAP is coming.”

Now, if any other chief minister had spoken to a government servant in this deplorable manner, the press would have been calling for his resignation. But this is weary politics, Kejriwal-style, and a follow up to the media narrative that he and his party will make a splash in the Gujarat assembly elections (see here for more on such efforts).

The actual opposition in Gujarat, the Congress, is unfortunately off duty at present. Its national leaders are busy trying to corral the identity vote through a yatra in Kerala.

Plus, the availability of Jignesh Mevani, the party’s state vice president, is in doubt since he has been sentenced to six months imprisonment in a 2016 rioting case.

So, what is the ground position?

Will the AAP have a grand opening? Is it really going to replace the Congress?

Is 2022 going to be a close-run affair like 2017 when the Congress played three flagrant caste cards to give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a scare?

The truth, as our analysis reveals, is that there is a yawning gap between perception management and reality.

One, the AAP will be hard-pressed to win even a handful of seats. If on the outside chance that it actually does so, the wins will come at the cost of the Congress.

Two, the few advantages the Congress gained in 2017 have since been squandered for a variety of reasons. The momentum has swung back to the BJP. (See here for a detailed assessment of how the political situation in Gujarat has shifted to the BJP’s advantage once again.)

Three, a study of the 2017 victory margins in Gujarat shows that it was not a close-run affair. On the contrary, the Congress never had a chance of upsetting the BJP.

This is a startling insight because the popular refrain since 2017 is that the Congress might just have wrested the mandate with a little bit of luck.

Here are the results of the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections:

Table 1: Results of 2017 Gujarat assembly elections

And here’s the proof to rebut the spinmeisters’ spiel:

Chart 1: BJP-Congress win/loss by vote margin

Chart 1 segregates constituency wins by vote margin tranches. BJP wins are represented by blue bars and Congress wins by pale red.

A margin of under 5,000 votes is considered an extremely tight contest since that is less than 2-3 per cent of the total vote share. A minor swing of 1 per cent can change outcomes.

Similarly, any margin between 5,000 and 20,000 is categorised as a close contest, and anything above it as a solid win.

The win/loss margin was less than 5,000 votes in 33 of the 182 seats, meaning that the results could have gone either way. Both the Congress and the BJP shared wins equally in this tranche. The inference is that this is where the Congress’ caste ploy hurt the BJP the most.

On the other hand, we see that 77 per cent of Congress’ 77 wins were by a margin of under 20,000 votes, whereas 58 per cent of the BJP’s win margins were over 20,000.

The first inference is that while the Congress did dent the BJP in 2017, it did nothing to impact the overall outcome.

The second inference is that these Congress wins are, in fact, more tenuous than we realise.

The third inference is that if the BJP recovers even 1-2 per cent of the vote share they lost in 2017 (by this writer’s assessment, they have), then many of these Congress wins would get promptly converted into BJP wins in 2022.

Why do we say this and how can we quantify it?

Table 2 shows that, of its 77 wins in 2017, the Congress gained 35 seats and held 42 (for comparison, the BJP held 81 and gained 18 — another mark of its inherent resilience in Gujarat).

But, curiously, we see that the BJP improved its performance in 38 of the Congress’ 42 holds (positive vote swings to the BJP are shaded in green) and the Congress retained 31 of these 38 seats only by slender margins.

Table 2: Congress wins in 2017 by gains, holds, and margin tranche

Similarly, the Congress won roughly half its seats — 35 of 77 — with a margin of less than 10,000 votes. In 18 of these, which were Congress holds, the BJP is gaining on them inexorably.

In 17 seats, the BJP are just 1-2 per cent behind (0 to 5,000 tranche), and in eight of those, which are Congress gains, the BJP lost just 3 per cent vote share in 2017.

These statistics underscore the actual, subliminal fragility of the Congress’ mixed performance in 2017 and indicate that it was a one-off affair, with an extremely low probability of a repeat in 2022 — not least because the three caste factors which the Congress employed in 2017 have been sequentially neutralised by the BJP.

Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakore, who created a flutter among the Patels and the other backward classes (OBCs), have joined the BJP. And the unpopularity of Mevani, who was deployed by the Congress to stoke discord among the Dalits, is now at Medha Patkar depths in Gujarat after his active, open involvement with Naxals during the 2018 violence at Bhima Koregaon, Maharashtra.

Now, what would be the effect if the AAP were to enter this scenario?

It is axiomatic that the first votes to go to the AAP would be from the Congress since that is where the anti-BJP vote rests in bulk.

If that happens, the inherent brittleness of the Congress will be exposed because even a 1-2 per cent shift of votes from them to the AAP would hand a number of seats to the BJP.

On the other hand, even if the AAP cuts into the BJP’s vote base, and by far more than it manages with the Congress, the impact on outcomes would still be muted since that bulk of the BJP’s victories are solid which can withstand significant erosions.

Thus, in conclusion, and ignoring the efforts of narrative builders, this is the situation in Gujarat today:

The BJP is poised to do much better than it did in 2017 and its performance will only improve with each vote that the AAP cuts.

Either way, it is the Congress which will have to bear the brunt of this inevitable reality.

Venu Gopal Narayanan is an independent upstream petroleum consultant who focuses on energy, geopolitics, current affairs and electoral arithmetic. He tweets at @ideorogue.

Politics

Gujarat Elections 2022: Pollsters Need To Up Their Game If They Are To Be Taken Seriously

by Venu Gopal Narayanan - Sep 3, 2022 03:43 PM +05:30 IST

BJP vs AAP vs Congress

Snapshot

- Two surveys predict that the BJP will return for yet another term with an enhanced mandate in Gujarat assembly elections.

But, there are issues with these surveys which merit discussion.

The build-up of the Gujarat assembly elections, slated for early December, is finally on. Perception management is in full swing, narratives are under construction, and early opinion polls have started appearing in the media.

Two surveys appear to ostensibly match a baseline study conducted by Swarajya in July 2022, which predicts that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will return for yet another term with an enhanced mandate.

But, as we shall see, there are issues with these surveys which merit discussion. This is necessary because if the validity of a survey isn’t vetted, we would blindly buy into its findings without question, and that can be misleading.

Just to recap, the BJP swept the state in 2012, but was given a bit of a scare in 2017 by the Congress. This hiccup was the result of a three-pronged caste card which was played by the Congress.

These are the results of the past two assembly elections, after the delimitation of 2009:

(Click on the image to enlarge)

This is the 2012 results map:

This is what happened in 2017:

And these are the changes between 2012 and 2017.

Readers may note that the bulk of the Congress gains in 2017 were primarily in Saurashtra, and in ‘demographically-advantageous’ pockets.

Now, coming to the surveys

The first is by India TV, dated 31 July 2022, and its findings are placed in a table below, along with the results of 2012 and 2017:

India TV Survey

The survey predicts that:

- The BJP gains nine seats from 2017 while losing 1 per cent vote share.

- The Congress loses 22 seats and a debilitating 8.4 per cent vote share.

- The ‘Others’ lose two-third of their vote but gain six seats.

- The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) makes a decent debut in Gujarat, winning eight seats with 16 per cent vote share.

This poll makes no sense, even if we are gracious and accept the BJP numbers for argument’s sake (we mustn’t, but leave it be!).

One, are we to seriously believe, that a Congress which gained 16 seats in 2017, with a vote swing of less than 1 per cent (all from the BJP), will lose ‘only’ 22 seats with a negative swing of over 8 per cent directly from them to the AAP?

The ground reality is that if non-BJP votes are split between the Congress and the AAP, the benefit goes to the BJP, but apparently, the pollsters don’t seem to have kept this truth in mind while making their vote-to-seat conversions.

Two, the ‘Others’ vote share drops from 9.5 to 3 per cent, but its seat share nearly doubles from 6 to 11.

How is this ever possible, when the ‘Others vote has never dropped this low in recorded history – not even in general elections, when the BJP’s sweep is stupendous? And, further, who are these eleven phantom independents, and where exactly are they supposed to win from?

This is just not how Gujarat votes. Agreed, 12 independents won in 1998, but the bulk of them were rebels who won in the wake of the confusion created by Shankar Singh Vaghela’s rebellion within the BJP, and defection to the Congress.

But that is not what the India TV survey says; here, the projected wins are on account of vote swings away from ‘Others’ to the AAP, and not from the BJP.

For the sake of brevity and sanity, it behoves us to conclude here that this survey is non-representative. The AAP may win eight seats, but not like this.

A second survey was released by Times Now on 28 August 2022. Here are the findings:

Times Now Survey

For reasons unknown, vote shares are not provided, so we have no way of knowing how these seat shares were arrived at.

All we are told is that the Congress gets decimated, with its lost seats getting divided between the BJP and the AAP. In the absence of vote shares, it is impossible to make a meaningful analysis of this survey. For the same reason, this survey cannot be taken as representative.

Some element of quality control has to be enforced on surveys, at least in the form of caveats, if they are to be accepted. Seasoned pollsters should know that.

Remember how some surveys projected massive vote swings in favour of the AAP in Goa and Uttarakhand earlier this year?

In Goa, the AAP was expected to get over 20 per cent of the popular vote according to some surveys, which in fact, they got less that 7 per cent. Similarly in Uttarakhand, while some surveys said that the AAP would get over 15 per cent of the vote, they got only 3 per cent.

Such wide margins of error are both impossible and unacceptable in India, because of historical voting patterns and trends identified by ground reports.

These are aspects that media houses and polling agencies should bear in mind as the elections grow closer. Surveys are a vital tool to gauge the mood of the electorate, but their findings must be transparent and logical if they are to be taken seriously.

If not, people might end up thinking that flutter was being sought to be created around the AAP, and that does a survey’s credibility no good. Perception management is not psephology.

(All electoral data from Election Commission of India website)

Also Read: Gujarat, 1975 — The Assembly Elections That Triggered The Emergency

Venu Gopal Narayanan is an independent upstream petroleum consultant who focuses on energy, geopolitics, current affairs and electoral arithmetic. He tweets at @ideorogue.

Politics

Modi Likely To Achieve What No One Before Him Has: Solve The Naga Issue And Bring Lasting Peace To North East

by Jaideep Mazumdar - Sep 12, 2022 05:30 PM +05:30 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Thuingaleng Muivah of NSCN (Muivah).

Snapshot

- The resolution of Naga issue, which is holding up the dawn of peace and progress in the North East, will be a landmark achievement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to remove the foremost hurdle to lasting peace in North East India by mentoring a final solution to the long-vexed Naga issue.

According to top officials from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a breakthrough in the deadlocked talks with the primary Naga insurgent group — the Thuingaleng Muivah-led faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) — is likely very soon.

The NSCN (Muivah), considered to be the ‘mother of insurgencies’ in the once-restive region (read this), had ceased hostilities after a ceasefire agreement with the government of India in 1997.

Since then, endless rounds of talks have been held with the insurgent outfit but a final solution has eluded both the negotiators and interlocutors.

The Issues That Caused The Deadlock

The negotiations have been deadlocked over two core issues: a separate constitution — which the NSCN terms as ‘Yehzabo’ — and a separate flag for the Nagas.

Muivah has been insisting on these, but the Union government has consistently turned down these two demands.

The government of India’s position has been that the Indian Constitution does not have any provision for a state having a separate flag or constitution. And if such a demand were to be conceded, some other states or ethnic groups could also make similar demands.

The possibility of a separate constitution and flag for the Nagas was also made untenable after the abrogation of articles 370 and 35(A) that conferred special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

There was no way the Modi government could be seen as giving to the Nagas what it took away from the Kashmiris.

The Union government has made it clear in no uncertain terms to the NSCN that there cannot be two flags and two constitutions in the country.

A couple of top bureaucrats in the MHA who spoke to Swarajya said that a way out of the imbroglio has been found now.

The Proposed Solution

The Union government has suggested a novel solution to the deadlock over the ‘Naga constitution’.

“The ‘Naga constitution’ that Muivah wants for Nagaland can be incorporated in the Indian Constitution through a bill passed by Parliament. The salient features of the ‘Naga constitution’ are focused on a separate identity, customary laws and autonomy to the Nagas to manage their own affairs. Most of that is already provided for by Article 371(A) of the Indian Constitution which pertains to Nagaland. A few more provisions of the ‘Naga constitution’ relating to protection of cultural, social and other rights of the Nagas can be incorporated in this or a separate Article,” said the joint secretary-level bureaucrat in the MHA.

The Union government has proposed the formation of a committee of legal and constitutional experts to examine the ‘Naga constitution’ and suggest the provisions which can be incorporated in the Indian Constitution.

“Of course, no provision of the ‘Yehzabo’ which militates against the unity and integrity of the country will be considered for incorporation,” the senior bureaucrat added.

As for the demand for a separate flag, the Union government has conceded that such a Naga flag can be used in social and cultural functions, but not in government offices or functions.

No flag in the country can be above, or replace, the tricolour, the Union government’s representatives made it clear to Muivah and his emissaries.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and senior ministers as well as Naga civil society leaders met with the Union government’s interlocutor for Naga talks, A K Mishra, in New Delhi last week.

Mishra, former special director in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), has been handling talks with the Nagas and is special adviser to the MHA. Mishra discussed the contours of the proposed ‘final agreement’ with the Naga political and civil society leaders.

The Naga delegation, it is learnt, has supported the Union government’s proposal. They have also resolved to bring Muivah on board.

Demand For ‘Greater Nagaland’

Another contentious demand by Muivah — that of integrating the Naga-inhabited areas of the neighbouring states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh with Nagaland — had been firmly turned down by the Union government.

Muivah has, for long, advocated the creation of ‘Nagalim’ or ‘greater Nagaland’ by incorporating not only the Naga-inhabited areas of the three neighbouring states, but also Myanmar, with Nagaland.

“It was made clear to Muivah and the NSCN delegates a long time ago that this demand cannot be met since the three states will not agree to it. And they (the NSCN negotiators) were also told that if Muivah could convince the three states to part with the Naga-inhabited areas of their states, the Union government would not have any objection. Muivah ultimately understood the futility of pursuing this untenable demand,” said another MHA bureaucrat in the ministry’s North East Division.

Prime Minister Modi, it is learnt, is keen on resolving the Naga issue and arriving at a final solution by the end of this year.

Dispute Over Interpretation Of ‘Framework Agreement’

Modi had overseen the signing of a ‘framework agreement’ (read this) between the Union government representatives and the NSCN’s Muivah and then chairman (late) Isak Chisi Swu.

But this agreement or contrasting interpretations of it by the NSCN and the Union government caused a lot of disagreements and disputes between the two sides.

One sentence of the agreement spoke of “sharing sovereign power”, and the NSCN interpreted it as the Union government’s commitment to granting a fair degree of sovereignty to the Nagas.

But, according to New Delhi, “sharing sovereign power” meant “providing a reasonable degree of autonomy” to the Nagas to manage their own social and cultural affairs and safeguarding their identity.

This contrasting interpretation of the contentious phrase was set to rest earlier this year with the Union government stating unequivocally that granting any degree of ‘sovereignty’ was simply out of the question.

New Delhi made it clear that no sovereign country can or will grant even token sovereignty to a portion or ethnic group within the country.

Why Resolving The Naga Issue Is Important

The importance of a final solution to the Naga issue transcends the political boundaries of Nagaland and holds immense importance for the entire North East.

That’s because the NSCN, which has been waging war against the Indian state since 1956, is considered to have spawned insurgency in other parts of the region by other ethnic groups of the region.

The NSCN, which had received shelter, training, military hardware and support from China and Pakistan, had also helped other insurgent groups in the region with training and arms. The NSCN and Muivah provided inspiration to these outfits, especially in Assam and Manipur.

Though insurgency is now mostly a thing of the past in the North East, its last vestiges can be eliminated once a final solution to the Naga issue happens.

The unresolved Naga issue is also a roadblock in the realisation of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Act East’ policy and his vision to transform the region into a manufacturing and logistics hub and a gateway to Southeast Asia.

The resolution of this issue, which is holding up the dawn of peace and progress in the North East, will be a landmark achievement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

For More On The Naga Issue Read here, here and here.

Jaideep Mazumdar is an associate editor at Swarajya.

Ideas

Moonlighting Is Here To Stay: Big Tech Must Read The Writing On The Wall

by R Jagannathan - Sep 26, 2022 12:12 PM +05:30 IST

Moonlighting will soon become the norm.

Snapshot

- Moonlighting will be the norm, especially if the coding and other skillsets learnt on the job work just as well for startups.

What you cannot change, you must embrace and manage. The challenge is to make moonlighting work for you.

It is surprising that even as India is rapidly heading towards a gig economy, where jobs are temporary and often contractual in nature, a massive debate has broken out in the software services sector over “moonlighting”, or the pursuit of a second job even while holding a full-time job in the organised sector.

Wipro has sacked 300 moonlighters, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys have called moonlighting unethical. They have warned employees who indulge in it that they could face the sack.

The Minister of State for Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has weighed in on the side of moonlighters, saying the services sector must adjust to this new reality, given the lure of startups and high attrition rates.

Hindustan Times quotes him thus: “Moonlighting represents two very significant phenomena. One, the entrepreneurial bug that has bitten every techie. Two, the talent deficit or demand for talent. For a company to forbid a young engineer from dabbling in a startup… they (companies) do not understand the change in model.”

Is there a middle ground between what the industry thinks of as unethical and what the minister thinks of something that’s only to be expected?

There are three broad cases in which companies would be right to think of moonlighting as unethical.

First, it would be unethical if any employee of the Big Four tech firms were to use technology developed for a client, and probably involving IPRs, for doing their side-jobs.

Companies are right to worry about what clients would think of this when they have already outsourced or offshored critical parts of their own work to the tech services industry. The least they would expect is confidentiality.

Second, it would also be unethical if the employee uses work-time given to the company — whether from home or office — to do his private second job.

Third, it would be most unethical if the employee were to continue doing this without informing his employer, especially if his gig is focused on the same broad area of coding.

After all, we are not talking about an Infosys employee driving Uber taxi to earn more after work hours.

If he is doing coding work, which may or may not be similar to what he has learnt or developed at work, the least one would expect from him or her is to inform his company about what it is, and obtain formal sanction for it.

On the other hand, it makes no sense for companies to treat moonlighting as something unusual and unfair to them. Most employees tend to use their work skills to earn more or even launch their own companies.

Journalists, advertising professionals, beauticians, carpenters, car and appliance mechanics, all use the skills they have learnt while working for a company or enterprise to start their own side gigs, where they get to keep all their earnings.

Drivers with ride-hailing services invariably offer their services outside the app to customers, and sometimes companies lose customers to their own employees or contractors.

It works for both the contractor and the customer. Both the beautician who comes home to cut or style your hair and you know that if you deal directly with each other, one earns more and you spend less.

The only logical thing for companies to do is to tell employees what is acceptable, what is not, and create an atmosphere of trust where they can voluntarily declare any conflict of interest between their day jobs and moonlighting ones.

Enlightened companies should, in fact, offer additional incentives to employees to do extra work for the company instead of moonlighting, since this is anyway a situation of talent shortage in some sectors.

This strategy won’t work if the employee is ultimately planning on joining a startup, and the side job is only about preparing himself or herself for a splash in the uncertain world of startups, where salaries and incomes may not be guaranteed for long.

The question of ethics can be over-stretched in a situation where non-unionised employees or contract workers in the private sector have no job guarantees even while the employer seeks total commitment from them. The commitment has to work both ways.

That said, not just IT services, but all employers must know that in a situation where good quality jobs based on easily learnable skills are shrinking, many will indeed take on gigs to supplement incomes.

In fact, I am surprised that the issue did not come up earlier, when clandestine second jobs were the norm for middle and lower-income groups.

In the late seventies, when I had first joined journalism as a sub-editor, doing a second job on the sly was the norm. Many sub-editors were working part-time for industry and trade publications, and reporters were quietly working for international and domestic magazines, supplying them with information and data that they could only have acquired in their day-jobs.

One guy even crossed over towards unethical work when he started stealing news agency copy at the newspaper and using them in his industry magazine. This was discovered when an important news break was missed by his newspaper and carried instead in his gig publication. But he wasn’t sacked. He was only warned not to steal agency copy paid for by the newspaper for its own needs.

Another guy was into trading in iron and steel utensils, and we came to know about this only when he brought some of his inventory to the office and was detained by the security staff when leaving after night work.

Reason: apparently, some of the wares he was trading included knives. The security staff were okay with pots and pans getting into the office, but not knives.

In Kolkata (then Calcutta), where I worked for some time in the eighties, state government employees were widely reported to be working to earn a second income even during office hours.

The norm among many lower-level staff, I was told by reporters who covered the government beats, was for them to come to office on time and leave their jackets draped over their chairs.

This way, any supervisor who needed him (it was usually a him not a her) would assume that he was at work. Word that the “boss” wanted him would quietly be passed on to the delinquent so that he could quickly report for work and give a plausible excuse for his absence.

Since it was almost impossible to dismiss unionised government employees, this kind of “day-lighting”, doing the second job while pretending to be present for the primary job, never got addressed at that time in the 1980s. I don’t know if things have changed since then.

These anecdotes apart, the broader point is that multiple jobs will soon be the norm as full-time quality work continues to elude middle and lower-middle class workers, with technology gradually performing jobs in the middle skill ranges.

Aspirations have risen, and people are no longer satisfied with a regular job and regular incomes. They want more. Yeh dil maange more. Employers ought to work with this assumption as hordes of millennials and Gen Z have joined the workforce. Their loyalties are not what you might have taken for granted with their parents or grandparents.

So, Infy, Wipro and TCS need to see the message on the billboard. Moonlighting will be the norm, especially if the coding and other skillsets learnt on the job work just as well for startups. What you cannot change, you must embrace and manage. The challenge is to make moonlighting work for you.

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

Technology

ONDC: Getting The First Billion Transactions

by Tushar Gupta - Sep 10, 2022 02:49 PM +05:30 IST

Challenges against ONDC

Snapshot

- In October 2019, UPI had its first month with a billion transactions.

What would it take for ONDC to get to that threshold?

From the key ministers in the government to the technocrats, everyone is hyped about the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), and rightfully so.

Eager to roll out the service in several cities, starting with Bengaluru later this month, the challenges against ONDC must not remain unaddressed.

Concerns around delivery times, refunds and replacements, value-added services, logistics partners, product quality, and payments remain and will linger on for the near future.

However, from a long-term perspective, ONDC is the best bet to onboard millions of MSMEs as the economy moves towards digitisation.

Within ONDC, sellers, buyers, and other service providers (logistics, etc.) will be participants in a plug-and-play network, unlike the current closed-door system where a single platform is responsible for all possible dispute resolutions, logistics, and seller and buyer onboarding.

The open network gives the sellers more leverage with commissions, most importantly.

With online trade and commerce, the most significant factor is trust, enabling consumers to sign up on a platform, engage with sellers they do not know, and make payments in advance.

Thus, with ONDC, the question is of getting the first month with a billion transactions, for that threshold is the most difficult to achieve, as the success story of UPI tells us.

Who would drive the first month with a billion transactions on ONDC, where can they come from, and what are the low-hanging fruits that can be utilised to achieve the benchmark?

To begin with, ONDC must be imagined as a case study that would yield different results and insights from region to region and city to city.

Thus, the results from Bengaluru or Pune would differ from Noida or Gurugram, and similarly for Mumbai and Delhi.

Hoping to be proven wrong, the author would assume that the success of ONDC in second and third-tier cities would not be instantaneous and would need long-term adoption and tweaking. So, where to ideally begin?

One, the focus should be on restaurants and eateries for two reasons:

- They have the greatest recall value when it comes to customer satisfaction and trust.

- They are the ones most pained by the current platform model, where they lose a large chunk of their profits to hefty commissions.

Onboarding restaurants would do ONDC what onboarding local retailers and mom-and-pop stores did for UPI, encouraging consumer adoption.

The logistics of the eateries are restricted to a few kilometres, so the chances of disputes would be lower. Also, most eateries are accustomed to the online model, thus negating concerns about quality and service delivery.

From a pricing perspective, platforms engaged in food delivery would be without much leverage to compete with ONDC, unlike online retail, where the likes of Amazon, Tata, and Reliance can offer steep discounts.

Discounting the delivery partner fee, both the buyers and sellers could get a better deal within the ONDC network when it comes to food deliveries.

Two, the local kirana stores. UPI’s adoption success story began in India’s kirana stores, where ONDC will also find its footing. The key challenge here would be to ensure the steady stock and availability of all items.

Unlike the big retailers, local kirana stores have a routine customer base, and thus the trust and routine adoption part is taken care of.

Three, there are plenty of local businesses beyond the purview of Amazon, Reliance, or even UrbanClap. For long, for cost reasons, they have not invested in the online model.

Thus, the ONDC must encompass such businesses (local bakeries, boutiques, individual service providers, mechanics, and so forth).

Platform-centric, the perspectives on e-commerce have been mainly restricted to either FMCG products or whatever Amazon sells. However, several businesses can now go online and cater to a vast customer case through the ONDC.

Eventually, these businesses can go intra-state, between cities, inter-state, and international but with value-added service partners.

Four, the local delivery partners. Within the ONDC ecosystem, logistics enterprises have great potential to shine. Zomato and Swiggy have demonstrated the economic feasibility of local deliveries and their business models.

In ONDC, where buyers and sellers can select their delivery partners for several services, logistics partners, even restricted to an area within the city or a few sectors can succeed.

The backbone of ONDC would be the VAS partners, where logistics becomes essential. For restaurants, for instance, employing their delivery fleet may make economic sense. For some, a hybrid model.

But five-ten years down the line, innovation in logistics, with respect to time of delivery, type (inter-city, inter-state), and trust, would guide the ONDC ecosystem.

Five, the ONDC can explore the possibility of having enterprises that connect buyers and sellers and aid dispute resolution. The seller apps may want to employ their fleet of customer service executives.

However, in the future, in the ONDC ecosystem, dispute resolution would have to be instant, as with platforms today, and that would warrant a thriving network of enterprises engaged in connecting buyers, sellers, and VAS partners (handshake mechanism, as they call it).

UPI took close to three years to hit a billion transactions per month and then three more to hit close to six billion transactions per month.

With ONDC, given the multiple stakeholders, a billion transactions or orders will take a while to complete, but it is that benchmark that the planners must aim for beyond that, it is an ecosystem that will learn from itself, improvise itself, and only excel.

Also Read: ONDC Is The Future, But Will Need Time To Flourish

Tushar is a senior-sub-editor at Swarajya. He tweets at @Tushar15_

Infrastructure

There’s Old And Inefficient Infrastructure Across Indian Cities — Time To Rebuild That

by Pratim Ranjan Bose - Sep 12, 2022 01:38 PM +05:30 IST

Infrastructure across Indian cities needs urgent revamp.

Snapshot

- Cities are engines of growth and the princely states in India often had a sharp focus on making them efficient.

But Independent India didn’t care for such details. The result is catastrophic.

Globally, infrastructure projects are used to make a statement about national ambition. The construction of tall to taller towers in Shanghai over the last few decades also reflects China’s ambition to dominate global finance.

India’s spending on infrastructure has gone up dramatically in the recent past. The country spent $1.1 trillion on infrastructure in the last decade. Another $1.5 trillion will be invested by financial year 2025 (FY25) to make the country a $5 trillion economy.

From modern expressways to swanky airports, nationwide gas grid, dedicated freight corridors, and high-speed and semi-highspeed rail — the hectic activity to change the ‘poor’ face of India is visible everywhere.

The Central Vista project, parts of which were unveiled by the Prime Minister recently, had gone a few steps ahead in this direction. Apart from making a statement it also highlighted the need to replace old, inefficient infrastructure.

A Huge Statement

It’s not every day that a democracy rebuilds its Parliament complex. And, when the world’s largest democracy rebuilds the corridors of power — once designed and occupied by colonial rulers — it makes a huge statement.

Placing a grand statue of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose in the same India Gate complex where once stood the statue of the British king, will go a long way in revisiting India’s freedom struggle.

Bose was the first prime minister of the Azad Hind government-in-exile. His Azad Hind Fauj (INA) launched a military attack on British India and declared parts of the country liberated, way before 15 August 1947.

Behind these optics, there was the need to establish the capability and vision of a new India. A bigger Parliament, with more seats, will pave the way for the delimitation of constituencies to accommodate the rising aspirations of an increasing population.

India has been a global example in reaching this far through universal suffrage. Western Europe, the US and Japan gave the universal franchise a chance after hitting a minimum of $2,500 per-capita income (‘Development with Dignity’, Amit Bhaduri). India’s per capita was way below $100 in 1947.

The 75th year of Independence was the perfect time to set the ‘Amrit Kaal’ goals to make India richer, better and more efficient in the next 25 years. A lot of it, however, will depend on infrastructure — both social and physical.

During the closed-economy era, India had set the goals of ensuring “roti, kapda and makan” (food, clothing and shelter) for all, and failed to achieve those targets miserably.

Things changed dramatically post-liberalisation. According to the World Bank, from 47 per cent in 1993, the share of the population living below the internal extreme poverty line of $1.90 per person per day was down to 22 percent in 2011.

In a recent publication, Brookings argued that absolute poverty was down to nearly 1 per cent in 2019 — due to huge food subsidies to the poor — and India should raise the bar to a 'relative poverty' line of $3.20 per person per day.

Considering its huge population, India did extremely well in providing food and shelter to the poor. Almost every village now has schools, electricity and telecommunication coverage.

Nearly 36 per cent of people are covered under the affordable healthcare scheme. Piped drinking water has reached 50 per cent of rural homes. The rest will be covered by 2024.

The next level of the challenge lies in improving the quality of services. The United Payment Interface (UPI) and Jan Dhan together ensured the financial inclusion of the poor. In the next stage, they should be duly integrated with the country’s financial product market.

Considering the declining total fertility rate, we may not need more schools but we surely need better schools. The recently announced PM SHRI (Schools for Rising India) programme to upgrade 14,500 schools with eight lakh students is the right step in this direction.

The scope and coverage of the programme should keep rising with time to meet the growing need for better-quality manpower that can optimise the benefits of Industry4.0. The world is changing fast. To ensure higher income, we have to change faster.

Time To Rebuild Old Infrastructure

That brings the focus to the increasing need to rebuild old infrastructure. In 2016, S&P Global identified wide gaps in infrastructure status between India and China in almost every head — roads, ports, electricity supply, railways etc.

Interestingly, the quality of Chinese infrastructure is not seamless. The vast hinterlands in the west suffer from connectivity issues. However, when it comes to the manufacturing hubs closer to the coast in the East, China has a robust infrastructure to fuel growth.

In comparison, India has sea on three sides and the production centres are located both near the coasts as well as in the hinterlands. According to S&P, “the key urban centres and manufacturing hubs in India often struggle with capacity constraints.”

The Narendra Modi government has been working overtime in meeting those gaps both by building new infrastructure and taking an integrated approach through the PM Gati Shakti programme. However, a lot is yet to be done, particularly in urban infrastructure.

The problem is visible to the naked eye. Any city or town in South East Asia looks distinctly better than the comparable Indian towns and cities. Even poor Myanmar or Vietnam ramped up urban infrastructure to appreciable levels in the quickest possible time.

Cities are engines of growth and the princely states in India often had a sharp focus on making them efficient. The small town of Cooch Behar, in West Bengal, had an enviable urban infrastructure. But Independent India didn’t care for such details. The result is catastrophic.

Barely any Indian city made provisions for smooth entry and exit of cargo. Trucks keep waiting at the border of Mumbai which has India’s largest port.

In Kolkata, the traffic restrictions on a small stretch of road, affect port operations. The flyovers were built with a passenger focus.

The problem doesn’t end with cities. The low height of old rail over-bridges is a crucial hurdle in the double-stacking of containers. A low bridge on Ganga, in Bihar, questions the viability of cargo movement along the river in the monsoon.

There are numerous dilapidated and/or narrow culverts which are making a significant contribution to India’s high logistics-cost-to-GDP-ratio. These legacies of the past must be replaced in a time-bound manner.

Defence

This Is How The Modi Government Has Enabled The Army To Gear Up For The Chinese Threat In The Eastern Sector

by Jaideep Mazumdar - Sep 24, 2022 04:34 PM +05:30 IST

An Indian Army soldier keeps a vigil at the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh. (BIJU BORO/AFP/GettyImages)

Snapshot

- Till very recently, most units under the Army’s Eastern Command had a dual role-counter insurgency/counter terror operations and guarding the LAC.

But now, all the four Corps under the Eastern Command-the 17 Corps, the 33 Corps, 4 Corps and 3 Corps-are focused completely on the LAC.

For the first time in more than six decades, the Indian Army is now completely focused on meeting the Chinese threat across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

Till very recently, most units under the Army’s Eastern Command had a dual role--counter-insurgency and counter-terror (CI/CT) operations as well as guarding the LAC.

But now, save for just one brigade and a couple of smaller units, the entire eastern Army has been reoriented to meet the threat from across the international border.

The Army, a senior officer of the Kolkata-headquartered Eastern Command told Swarajya, has ultimately returned to its core responsibility: guarding against and meeting external threats.

This has been made possible by a series of major steps undertaken by the Modi government over the last seven years. The primary among them has been to root out insurgency from the region and stitch peace deals with the militant groups to usher in lasting peace in the region.

The other steps included strengthening the police forces of the northeastern states as well as the central armed police forces (CAPFs), handing over primary responsibility for CI/CT operations in the region to the Assam Rifles and reorienting the Army to meet the challenge across the LAC.

Till recently, the Dimapur-headquartered 3 Corps shouldered the major burden of CI/CT operations in the region. The 3 Corps also had two entire divisions of the Assam Rifles under its command for carrying out these operations.

But the 3 Corps was also tasked with guarding the LAC in eastern Arunachal, and that placed a huge burden on the formation.

“This dual tasking obviously affects combat readiness and in the event of an outbreak of hostilities along the LAC, swift deployment of units engaged in CI/CT operations in the hinterland would have been impossible.

Hence, it was felt that the Army should be returned to its primary responsibility of guarding the LAC and meeting threats from across it,” said a top staff officer of Eastern Command.

Apart from the 3 Corps, some units and reserves of the Sukhna (North Bengal) headquartered 33 Corps and Tezpur (Assam) headquartered 4 Corps were also deployed for CI/CT operations.

After the reorientation of the Army units in eastern India to focus on the LAC and deployment of many units to the forward and rear areas, only one Brigade--the 73 Mountain Brigade based at Laipuli in Upper Assam--and a few smaller units are tasked with carrying out counter-insurgency operations in the region.

“The area of CI/CT operations has now shrunk to only a small part of Upper Assam, southeastern Arunachal Pradesh and northern Nagaland,” a Major General who commands a division under 3 Corps told Swarajya.

Two more special units--the 12 and 21 Para Special Forces--stationed in the region also have the dual task of carrying out specialised operations to meet both external and internal threats.

The need to wean off the Army from CI/CT operations was felt very acutely during the standoff at Doklam between Indian and Chinese troops in mid-2017.

“Had the situation escalated, we would have been hard-pressed to swiftly move a large number of troops and equipment to the forward areas,” said the Eastern Command staff officer.

It was then decided at the highest to take the additional burden of CI/CT operations off the Army’s back and reorient it to fulfil its primary mandate to meet external threats.

But that was easier said than done. A senior official in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) told Swarajya that in a series of top-level meetings held immediately after the Doklam standoff, a multi-pronged strategy to achieve this was finalised.

Prime Minister Modi chaired most of these meetings. The primary aspects of this strategy were:

Strike peace deals with rebel groups of the Northeast: Union Home Minister Amit Shah played a key role in the success of this.

He got the governments of the insurgency-affected states on board and deployed intermediaries to reach out to the rebel groups and bring them to the negotiating table.

The first step was to negotiate ceasefire deals with the groups and then sign peace treaties with them. Attractive rehabilitation packages were framed and rolled out.

The insurgency has thus been rooted out from most parts of the region save a few pockets contiguous to each other in the three states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. This has resulted in a very sharp decline in insurgency-related incidents and casualties.

According to this annual report (2020-21) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), insurgency-related incidents reduced by 80 per cent in the last eight years, while casualties suffered by security forces and civilians went down by 75 per cent and 99 per cent respectively during the same period.

This has led to the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from most areas of the region. AFSPA’s withdrawal has also led to the simultaneous withdrawal of the Army from CI/CT operations, said the MoD official.

Strengthening police forces and CAPF: Budgetary allocation for modernisation of the police forces of the Northeastern states, providing them better equipment and facilities, upgrading their weapons and infrastructure, and providing better training to deal with militants formed another key part of the strategy.

The states of the region were urged to set up special units within their police forces to carry out special operations against militants and terrorists. These special units in the police forces of the states were given specialised training, sophisticated arms and other facilities.

“Today, these special police units in the states are well-geared and oriented to tackle insurgents and terrorists on their own,” said an MHA official.

The same approach was adopted towards CAPF units deployed in the region for law and order duties. The CAPFs, primarily the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), were reoriented towards CI/CT operations rather than merely tackling rioters, arsonists and unlawful elements.

“CRPF units were provided specialised training to tackle and neutralise insurgents and terrorists, and they were equipped with sophisticated arms and special gear. These units have been deployed in many parts of the region now,” said the MHA officer.

Handing over primary responsibility for CI/CT Ops to Assam Rifles: The Assam Rifles--the force came into being in 1835 as ‘Cachar Levy’, a militia to protect British tea gardens from raids by tribals--has been engaged in CI/CT operations in the region, but under the command of the Army.

The Assam Rifles--a huge force of 46 battalions with more than 65,000 men--is now tasked to carry out CI/CT operations independently. That involved a fair bit of reorientation of the force that is commanded by officers on deputation from the Army.

The Assam Rifles is now the first responder in the region to tackle internal disturbances. “The Assam Rifles is now fulfilling the role that has been mandated in its charter,” said the MHA official.

The Assam Rifles has been reoriented to carry out operations on its own and not as an auxiliary of the Army.

Reorienting the Army to guard the LAC and deal with Chinese: A number of army units, before being inducted into the Northeast, used to undergo training in CI operations, mostly at the Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vairengte in Mizoram.

But that is no longer the case, and all army units are now oriented toward guarding the LAC and meeting the threat from across the border.

“We are no longer distracted by CI/CT operations and are now reoriented completely towards our primary mandate of meeting external threats. So all units being inducted to the region are also being trained accordingly,” said the Eastern Command officer.

The Army’s withdrawal from CI/CT operations has also enabled it to concentrate on training and maintaining a high level of combat readiness.

“CI/CT duties were a huge distraction and placed a big burden on the Army. It eroded the Army’s combat readiness, affected its ability to quickly deploy to the forward areas in case of emergency and took a big toll on our soldiers,” said a senior officer of the rank of Lieutenant General who had commanded a Corps in the Northeast.

Building and improving border infrastructure: Over the past eight years, top priority has been accorded to building roads and bridges to the forward areas and along the LAC and also upgrading military infrastructure in those areas.

All these infrastructure upgrades and construction are being implemented under strict timelines. Special attention is being paid to surveillance and monitoring stations along the LAC and installation of the latest electronic snooping equipment.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been deployed, helipads are being constructed, and many measures are being taken to equip the Army to meet the Chinese threat.

At the same time, 990 villages along the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh are being developed under the ‘vibrant village programme’. The villages are being connected with all-weather roads, electricity connections and other facilities while the houses are being made into RCC structures.

Villagers are being trained and provided with livelihood-generation projects to enhance their incomes.

Tourist inflows into many of these areas are also being encouraged in order to boost the local economy.

“The whole idea is to discourage migration of local people from those remote areas along the LAC and encourage them to stay in their villages. The local people are our eyes and ears and have often provided very timely warnings about intrusions by Chinese into our side,” said an officer of a Mountain Brigade deployed in eastern Arunachal Pradesh.

The senior staff officer in Eastern Command said that for the first time since 1954, no major army unit is stationed in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya for CI/CT operations. Only the 73 Mountain Brigade in Assam is tasked with such operations now.

While attention is focused on Ladakh, readiness to meet the Chinese challenge in the eastern sector has been bolstered.

For the first time in more than six decades, all the four Corps under the Eastern Command--the 17 Corps (strike Corps) at Panagarh, the 33 Corps, 4 Corps and 3 Corps--are focused completely on the LAC.

“This represents a paradigm shift and has enhanced manifold our ability to not only meet and deter, but also destroy any threats from across the LAC. And it has only been possible due to the Army’s withdrawal from counter-insurgency and counter-terror operations,” said the officer.

Also Read: Explained: Why The Crisis In Ladakh Is Far From Over

Jaideep Mazumdar is an associate editor at Swarajya.

News Brief

What China Wanted To Achieve With The Docking Of Spy Ship In Sri Lanka

by Prakhar Gupta - Sep 13, 2022 05:08 PM +05:30 IST

Chinese Spy Ship Yuan Wang 5.

Snapshot

- The deployment of the spy ship must be seen in the context of China's Indian Ocean strategy and its actions in the region in recent years.

Last month, the docking of Chinese intelligence-gathering vessel Yuan Wang-5 in Sri Lanka caused much disquiet in India.

However, the debate this episode sparked, both in popular media and strategic circles, was largely limited to what it means for India-Sri Lanka ties, how Colombo has "betrayed" New Delhi and why India must rethink its economic assistance to an “ungrateful" Sri Lanka.

A dispassionate debate on how this episode must shape India's response to the crisis in Sri Lanka going forward will be useful. But it won't answer a critical question — what was China trying to achieve or signal with the docking of the spy ship at Humbantota.

For this, the deployment of the ship must be seen in the context of China's Indian Ocean strategy and its actions in the region in recent years.

Over the last decade, China's massive investments in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) have enabled it to expand its presence in littoral states.

It has created stakes with investments in ports and other infrastructure in the region, from Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the west to Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique in the east, and in the many islands dotting the vast ocean between.

In East Africa, where it also launched its first foreign military base in Djaboti in 2017, China has investments in at least 17 ports, giving it a robust presence in the western Indian Ocean.

Similarly, closer to India, China has invested in infrastructure, including ports in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Myanmar, and has taken over on lease the ones it has built in the first two. It is currently building a base in Cambodia, on the edge of eastern Indian Ocean, and the likelihood of another base on the eastern coast of Africa in the next five to 10 years can't be ruled out.

In the process, China has created dependency and has shown the willingness to weaponise it, as seen in the case of Sri Lanka most recently, but also in the Maldives in the recent past.

With relentless expansion of its presence, China has built considerable political influence and economic leverage in the region. This has shrunk India's space for manoeuvre and intensified the tug of war for influence, visible not just in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, but also elsewhere in the region — most recently in Mauritius.

As demonstrated by the docking of Yuan Wang-5 in Sri Lanka despite India's concerns, Beijing now has the ability, even if limited, to push for outcomes it desires.

The increase in the presence of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the IOR has kept pace with China's growing investments and influence.

China first started sending anti-piracy missions to the Indian Ocean in 2008. Since 2013, the PLAN's forays have grown to include deployment of submarines, and a Chinese submarine accompanied by escort ships is deployed to the Indian Ocean twice a year.

It was no surprise that a Yuan-class diesel electric boat of the PLAN was in the region at the peak of the standoff with India in Bhutan's Doklam in 2017. PLAN submarines, including nuclear-powered boats or SSNs, have docked in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in recent years.

Moreover, recent developments at China's base in Djibouti suggest that the facility is being prepared to dock submarines and aircraft carriers.

China's upcoming base in Cambodia will enable the PLAN to maintain greater presence in the eastern Indian Ocean, including India's near-seas — the Bay of Bengal, the only part of the Indian Ocean from where an Indian ballistic missile submarine or SSBN can currently launch a nuclear strike against China, and the adjoining Andaman Sea.

At the same time, China has consistently deployed survey or research vessels capable of bathymetric studies — mapping the depth of the ocean floors, studying the ocean environment and collecting hydrological data.

For instance, in January 2021, two Chinese survey vessels were spotted in the Indian Ocean, south of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, surveying large swaths of the ocean around the Ninety East Ridge in a lawnmower pattern.

This uninterrupted stretch of relatively shallow water, where submarines are prone to detection, is close to the Indian Ocean chokepoints such as the Sunda and Lombok straits, which Chinese warships and submarines use to enter the Indian Ocean.

In September 2019, India had spotted a Chinese research vessel in its exclusive economic zone around the islands, just west of Port Blair, operating without permission, and expelled it.

While there are no restrictions on conducting marine scientific research in international waters under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, states are required to seek permission at least six months in advance for marine scientific research in another country’s EEZ or continental shelf.

In 2017, Admiral Sunil Lamba, the Chief of the Naval Staff at the time, had said that there about six to eight "PLA Navy ships" in the Indian Ocean at any given time, including three to four "survey and satellite control ships."

Since 2020, the Indian Navy has "monitored" at least 53 "satellite and ballistic missile tracking vessels" in the Indian Ocean.

The data collected by China's research vessels in the Indian Ocean can be used for both operating submarines in the region and detecting enemy undersea platforms deployed in these waters.

By investing in port infrastructure, building economic leverage and influence, deploying warships to the region and collecting bathymetric data, China is trying to put in place the pieces necessary for an increased PLAN presence in the Indian Ocean over the next decade.

Investing in ports across the region aids in the creation of facilities that the PLAN could use in the future. Not all of China's investments will translate into basing arrangements, but even a small number of such facilities would significantly enhance China's ability to project power.

It will allow PLAN to sustain deployments in the IOR, not just during peacetime but also, to a limited degree, during times of heightened tensions or conflict.

Deploying naval platforms, including nuclear-powered submarines, gives the PLAN the experience of operating in areas far from home waters. The survey of the seabed supplies the data critical for undersea operations, including the deployment of submarines in India's near-seas.

Looked at in this context, the docking of Yuan Wang-5 at Hambantota, which Beijing has taken over from Colombo under a 99-year lease, appears to be an attempt to set a precedent as China tries to carve out, incrementally, more space for itself in the Indian Ocean Region.

Also Read: How India’s Military Base On Mauritius’ Agalega Island, Shrouded In Secrecy, Is Taking Shape

Prakhar Gupta is a senior editor at Swarajya. He tweets @prakharkgupta.

World

A Modi-Hasina Pact Could Work Better Than Nehru-Liaquat; Five Agreements We Need With Bangladesh

by R Jagannathan - Sep 7, 2022 11:23 AM +05:30 IST

A Modi-Hasina pact could work better than Nehru-Liaquat pact.

Snapshot

- A Modi-Hasina pact should have a better chance of success, provided there is political will on Bangladesh’s side.

The seven pacts signed by India and Bangladesh yesterday (6 September) during Sheikh Hasina’s four-day visit is a sign that bilateral relations are back on track after the chill induced by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The act, still to be implemented, prioritises faster citizenship to persecuted minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bangladesh did not take kindly to the insinuation that it does not protect its minorities — though that is the reality.

The seven agreements include deals to increase cooperation in trade, energy, connectivity, water resources, security and defence.

A long-term comprehensive economic partnership agreement is also to be negotiated. These are essential for bilateral ties, where China is trying to queer the pitch for India.

However, the light of friendship needs to be refracted into two separate rays: one is the Bangladeshi government and the other is its Islamising society.

The government of Sheikh Hasina is a friend of India, but the nature of Islamism is such that extreme groups (and even mainstream opposition politicians) are able to enforce steady demographic change and Islamisation whether the “secular” government in Dhaka likes it or not.

If this wasn’t the case, the Bangladeshi Hindu population would not have dwindled from over 21 per cent in 1951 to less than 9 per cent now.

A Dhaka University professor, Abul Barkat, has gone on record to say that Hindus continue to leave Bangladesh even today at the rate of over 630 daily — at which rate no Hindu will be left in that country after 30 years.

This indicates that the underlying nature of Indo-Bangladeshi friendship will be impacted negatively by Islamists — and this is the area where the two countries need to focus, never mind the bonhomie in other areas.

India needs five agreements or political understanding in the following areas.

First, there must be an ability to share citizenship and electoral rolls data at the government-to-government level, so that the same person enrolled as a voter in both countries can be struck off the rolls in India and repatriated to Bangladesh, if both countries agree.

Both citizenship data and electoral data should be shareable.

Second, to enable this information exchange, India could offer to share Aadhaar biometric technology for free.

In case Bangladesh wants to check out other technology options for the same, the crucial requirement should be that the two digital databases can talk to one another and identify duplicate identities.

Third, to sweeten this information sharing agreement, and ensure a buy-in from Bangladesh on cleaning up citizenship data on both sides, India can offer not to repatriate any Bangladeshi citizen and deny him his current livelihood in India.

This can happen provided there is an explicit understanding that he or she will not be given citizenship, and must return to Bangladesh when the work permit period ends.

They can return, but with new work and temporary residency permits. The arrangement can be reciprocal, with Indian citizens too being allowed to work in Bangladesh.

This will happen at high skill levels, for many Indian companies use Bangladesh as textile or manufacturing bases for export, including exports to India.

Fourth, we need a formal pact for mutual help in natural disasters, which are likely to get worse and may even force many Bangladeshis to move to India if their places get inundated by rising sea levels or river overflows.

There is, in fact, a long-term chance that climate change will force many Bangladeshis to move to India. The pact must offer temporary shelter to citizens of both countries, with provisions to repatriate when things settle.

A joint fund to operate such disaster-management and rehab programmes will be good for both.

Fifth, since demographic change is not completely stoppable or reversible when countries have porous borders, India must get Bangladesh to agree to a new pact where the latter agrees to specifically protect Hindus in its territory.

A Nehru-Liaquat pact was agreed after Independence to protect minorities in both countries after Partition, but Pakistan never kept its part of the bargain — nor intended to.

A Modi-Hasina pact should have a better chance of success, provided there is political will on Bangladesh’s side.

We could for example, agree to give Bangladesh access to check how Bengali Muslims are faring in Assam or Bangladesh, and the latter could do the same for Hindus in its territory.

India can offer to help Bangladesh with internal security issues on this front.

We cannot forever live with the assumption that Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan have nowhere to go but India. One-sided ethnic cleansing is no longer acceptable.

The pact should provide for reciprocal repatriation of Bengali Muslims from India — something that B R Ambedkar wanted during partition — if Hindus continue to leave Bangladesh.

A Modi-Hasina pact would be as useless as Nehru-Liaquat if it is one-sided.

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

Infrastructure

Interview: Mohandas Pai On Why BBMP Simply Lacks Capacity To Manage A City Of 12 Million Population And $140 billion GDP

by Sharan K A - Sep 8, 2022 06:42 PM +05:30 IST

Mohandas Pai

Shri Mohandas Pai is among Bengaluru's foremost business leaders and a public-spirted citizen of the city. He has worked closely with local state and union government in various public initiatives. He has articulated key urbanisation challenges and infrastructure woes of the city over the years

In a free-wheeling discussion with Swarajya's Associate Editor Sharan Setty, the former Infosys executive not only highlights the governance deficit, execution inefficiency and funding inadequacies plaguing the city administration but also suggests a possible roadmap to ensure that 'Brand Bengaluru' remains intact

Q 1: The last few days have been an eye-opener for everyone residing in the city. What do you attribute to the growing infrastructure woes of the city, especially the eastern part?

A: There are mainly three reasons why Bengaluru's infrastructure is a mess:

Lack of good governance: Our city corporation (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has become highly corrupt. There's no accountability one can expect from the BBMP. They lack the capacity to manage a city with a GDP of $140 billion, a population of about 12 million people, and 10 million vehicles. The corruption exists because they don't hire people directly; instead, they get them on deputation, and no action is taken against them.

The apathy of the state government in Karnataka: Every Chief Minister of Karnataka wants to improve Bengaluru. They never said no to us for two decades now. I've met the last five CMs myself. Even the senior bureaucrats understand the importance of Bengaluru, but the lower-rung officials respect them or fulfil their duties. I'm shocked that they don't do any work, indulge in corrupt activities and get away with it.

Lack of urban reforms: If you don't have proper urban reforms, empowerment of the city, a full-time Mayor, and smaller corporations, it will not work. I remember Bangalore University (BU) had 880 affiliated colleges under the umbrella at one point! It's ridiculous. We spoke to the government and asked them to divide it into 3-4 parts for smoother governance. They did a decent job, not an entirely satisfactory one. Scale - that's the problem today.

A country like Singapore today, with about 50-60 lakh people, has a prime minister, an army, a cabinet, a bureaucracy and a city with double the population like Bangalore has nothing! How can it run? Bangalore, which contributes 60% of Karnataka's GDP and has 20% of its population, has nothing - just one commissioner.

Bengaluru is the wealthiest city in India today. It has a per capita income of about $10-11,000. It receives one of the lowest investments for its governance. We are the country's second-largest payer of income tax, third-largest deposit base for any city, and fourth-largest in lending. But then, what do we get for all our taxes? Peanuts!

We have only 26-28 seats in the legislature out of 228 seats. We have a political class which rules Bangalore, takes all our tax money, puts it in the rural areas, gets the votes and comes back to show us the finger.

Q 2: Will creating micro-corporations within the city help the city with better governance and more transparency?

A: Bengaluru Mayors have a term similar to the Institute of Chartered Accountants president! I've seen many presidents spend half their term doing felicitations around the country. By the time they get to work, their term is over. What can they possibly achieve in such a short period? We need a full-time mayor elected directly by the city's people. We need small corporations simply because one single corporation for 800 square kilometres and 12 million people is simply too much.

It's important to recast governance in a manageable manner. The BS Patil Committee recommended five corporations for the city with five Mayors and proposed a unified Bangalore Metropolitan Authority headed by the Chief Minister to ensure that the common mobility, transportation and water can be done together.

BBMP has had so many commissioners in the past. Tell me if a single one of them has visited all the wards in the city. Outer Ring Road has some of the biggest companies in the world. It probably employs close to ten lakh people. Any sensible government in the world would focus on such corridors and provide them with good infrastructure. What has our government done? This is the result of benign neglect. They simply don't care.

CM Bommai is an engineer himself. Hopefully, he'll act very soon and show us some good results in the months ahead. Officials must fear action being taken against them. Sack some of them, and set an example. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sacked at least 500 people in the last 6-7 years because of corruption, inefficiency etc. Why can't the government do this here? Show them you mean business.

Q 3: Has the city reached a point where you cannot accommodate more than a million people? It was originally planned that way. Maybe that's the reason?

A: That's an old attitude reflected by some urban planners and experts today. I disagree with them. It's no longer a 'pensioner's paradise. Tokyo is a city of 30 million people, and Beijing has 25 million people. The growth is happening on the outskirts of the city. London, today, has become a big agglomerate. We need good jobs and a sustainable way of life. It requires good public transport. You have only 6,000 BMTC buses since the last ten years. Your metro is behind schedule by 4-5 years. No one knows when that's going to happen.

Below the metro lines, life is horrible. The roads are dirty. There's dust and debris everywhere. When they built the metro, the roads were all made up in Delhi. Traffic moves smoothly, but here it doesn't. Simply cleaning up the place requires a minister or a big budget for it? Why can't we even clean up the place, for God'sGod's sake? People in the city must be able to walk on footpaths easily. Everyone pulls out their car to travel even a kilometre or less.

Q 4:Would you say that the political class has failed us completely? There's no electoral punishment, perhaps?

A: The Parliament of India, around 1975-76, passed a law freezing certain seats for Bangalore for a period of 30-40 years or something. That's why Modi is also building a Parliament building that can accommodate nearly 800-odd MPs. South India is going to get affected by this. We have done exceptionally well. We controlled our population. We did economically well. We have become more prosperous today. The same applies to the city too.

We are not empowered enough in our cities vis-a-vis political representation. Delimitation doesn't mean increasing the wards from 200 to 243 wards. It means nothing.

Q 5: Will investments be affected? Will companies move out?

A: Some may, but people are waiting to see what the government will do about all the problems. If they improve the infrastructure, public transport etc, the damage will be very minimal.

Q 6: But only parts of East Bengaluru are primarily affected by floods and infra woes. Why is that?

A: That area had intense rainfall in a short period of time. It's a one-off event, not a recurring one. Water accumulated and did not get absorbed into the ground. Drains are all blocked and choked. On paper, don't be surprised if you see the contractors billing the corporation for cleaning the drains. It's only on paper. Rajakaluves have been covered up. Outlets have either been blocked or accumulated. They were the main drainage.

There are rare occurrences of heavy rainfall, which usually creates water channels in any geographical area if you learn from history. It doesn't get created by normal to scanty rainfall. You saw what happened when Bombay's sea level rose and the streets flooded? That's what happens. Clean the drains first.

Q 7: Have we become overdependent on Cauvery for our water requirements? Today water supply is affected even if we receive ample rainfall! Lakes were the primary source of water for the city.

A: Cauvery supplies 500 million litres of water every single day. There's enough water for everyone. We must create local storage capacity and recycle the water for domestic use. Very little water is actually recycled. Why can't we aim for a 100% recycling rate where we use the water for gardening, cleaning etc.? Use water efficiently. We must also deepen the lakes so that the groundwater levels increase. I also like the idea of a 'pensioner's paradise. I'm nearly a pensioner now. But what about young people like you? You deserve good jobs. For that, we need good infrastructure in the city.

Cities will naturally grow. India's population at the time of our Independence was 33 crore. Today we are touching a billion and a half people. We still have the same landmass. We need good infrastructure, clean air and water.

Q 8: We've been defeatist in our attitude? Maybe futuristic planning is necessary as far as urban governance is concerned?

A: I remember going to an NDTV debate a long time ago. Many environmentalists were talking about saving trees. Ironically, someone pointed out that the location where the NDTV headquarters is situated had a lot of trees. We may have to chop a few trees, but we need to make sure that we compensate for it by planting more trees in and around the city. Lung spaces are very important, but it's almost impossible to undertake any project without the felling of a few trees. Bangalore has 30 lakh trees. In critical junctures, just work it out! Everyone wants to see someone else suffer. We can't do that, right?

Nostalgia won't help with anything. You have to be forward-looking, futuristic, and plan for our future.

Sharan Setty (Sharan K A) is an Associate Editor at Swarajya. He tweets at @sharansetty2.

Culture

Instances Of Muslim Reverence To Hindu Divinity: Can Dharmic Civilisation Effect Changes On Monopolistic Religions?

by Aravindan Neelakandan - Sep 5, 2022 01:39 PM +05:30 IST

Muslim woman with her son dressed as Krishna (Rajtilak Naik/Flickr)

Snapshot

- Even an exclusivist, expansionist, monopolistic religion, given a long period of time, gets transformed in its core for the better and for the betterment of its own adherents.

When Gandhi asked Hindus and Muslims to sing Ishwar Allah Tere Naam, he was trying to accelerate this civilisational process.

Come Ganesh Chaturthi, and we have pictures posted on social media handles of prominent Muslims — particularly from Bollywood —worshipping Ganapati, performing aarti etc.

Come Krishna Janmashtami, and we see photos of veil-clad Muslim women with their children dressed up as little Krishna circulating on social media.

Some discredit the whole exercise as a sham — a kind of Gandhian opiate to keep gullible Hindus blinded from the real danger of radical jihadism.

Of course, the violent and murderous attacks on Hindus have increased.

Individual executions and terror killings seem to be the favoured ways of the Islamic radical groups now.

Obviously, Hindus being the last standing pagan people in the world cannot let their guard down.

But it will be unfair to dismiss the entire phenomenon as a sham. There is a genuine civilisational process happening here, and it is important we acknowledge and understand it.

It is undeniable that monopolistic, exclusivist and expansionist religions have an agenda of conversions. A significant section of them are involved in a concerted campaign to convert Hindus.

The conversion happens through coercion or fraudulent means or through supremacist propaganda that devalues one religion and elevates another.

Conversion is based on violence, as famously said by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, echoing the thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi, who too considered conversion against the principle of both 'ahimsa' and 'swadeshi'.

Conversion involves money power, political power, insinuations and perpetuating stereotypes and prejudices against another religion. It starts with psychological violence and ends with genocidal violence.

And importantly, its results are fast and hence dangerous.

As against this, deeply spiritual, civilisational Dharmic religions transform. They transform every religion that comes into contact with the family of Dharmic religions.

Even an exclusivist, expansionist, monopolistic religion, given a long period of time, gets transformed in its core for the better and for the betterment of its own adherents.

- An Abdul Kalam exhorts students of a university to sing Saraswati Vandana. He did not leave Islam. He was a Muslim who performed namaz five times a day till the end of his life.

- A Bismillah Khan becomes the face of the spiritual music of Kashi. He had the darshan of Krishna Himself and played shehnai for the deities of Kashi. He did not leave Islam. He was a devout Muslim all his life.

- Begum Parveen Sultana sings heartfully and movingly for Durga, the goddess. She is a Muslim.

- A Sheikh Chinna Maulana (1924-1999), verily a South Indian counterpart of Bismillah Khan so immersed in the bhakti of Sri Ranghanatha that he anchored his essence in the sacred town of Sri Rangam and established Sarada Nagaswara Sangeeta Ashram in Sri Rangam. He also became the Asthana Vidhwan of both Tirupati and Sri Rangam devasthanams. He did not leave Islam.

But they transformed the nature of Islam. Parveen Sultana shows the world that one can sing beautiful bhajans to goddesses and still be a Muslim.

Abdul Kalam showed the world that a very devout Muslim who performed his namaz five times a day could also lead the university students to sing Saraswati Vandana.

The recent pictures on social media of prominent Bollywood personalities, though not in the least in this league, still represent, for sham or out of sincerity, this civilisational transformation.

They are telling the world that a Muslim can install the idol of Ganesh in their house and worship him.

One should remember that this did not happen even with Christianity, with which Islam shares a memetic kernel to a significant extent.

A Muslim has never seen Jesus as the earthly descent of Allah — at best he is a messenger. But Ganesh when worshipped is always worshipped as the manifestation of the highest divine.

And in India, even prominent Muslims in public life show, that they can worship such a form of the highest divine and yet they can also be Muslims, devout good Muslims.

This is Islam transforming. This is silent and steady. This is not fast and flashy. But this happens.

When Gandhi asked Hindus and Muslims to sing Ishwar Allah Tere Naam, he was trying to accelerate this civilisational process.

When a person belonging to an expansionist exclusivist monopolistic religion sings this line, it is an acknowledgement of the validity of theo-diversity.

Perhaps, one person who understood this aspect of Gandhi more than many Hindus was Jinnah. With his characteristic notoriety, when he said that ultimately the aim of Hindu Maha Sabha and that of Gandhi were the same — he, in a way, meant this.

That this transformational process is happening does not in any way obliterate the dangers of the war of proselytisation waged on the Dharmic family of religions in India.

It is very much there and is also increasing disproportionately to the transformation that is happening.

But we have to understand this strength of India — the civilisational and spiritual change that it is effecting on monopolistic religions by appealing to the spontaneous spiritual goodness of human hearts. We need to fortify that. We need to create an environment which can facilitate that change naturally faster.

Politics

Onam Appropriation: Why It Is So Easy For The Left To Term The Festival As Secular And Un-Hindu

by Venu Gopal Narayanan - Sep 5, 2022 01:15 PM +05:30 IST

Onam celebrations. (Photo by Jinufilmmaker)

Snapshot

- The absence of overt, in-your-face Hindu symbolism is why it was so easy for the Left to audaciously appropriate an entire festival, and not just brand it as secular, but to term it un-Hindu as well.

Kerala’s harvest festival of Onam is based on the legend of the asura King Mahabali.

He returns from the universal ether every year to greet his subjects, in the land hewn by Parashurama’s axe, after having been granted eternal salvation by Vamana, the fifth avatar of Lord Vishnu.

By tradition, Malayalees congregate at ancestral homes to celebrate the return of their king with a royal feast.

The Mahabali legend has three principal narrative strands.

The first is from the Valmiki Ramayana.

In this, sage Vishwamitra tells Lord Rama the story of Mahabali, while pointing out the grove near the sage’s ashram where Vamana was born (Chapter 12, Balakanda).

It is a brief passage.

By it, Mahabali was a virtuous king whose talents and ambitions were so boundless that he accumulated enough power to conduct a Vedic sacrifice of conquest, to seize the abode of the gods.

This was unacceptable to Indra, the lord of the gods, since it went against the principle of live and let live, and because no one man should become so powerful as to own the known worlds.

In desperation, Indra approached Lord Vishnu, who took the form of the Brahmin dwarf Vamana.

The young Brahmin interrupted Mahabali’s yagna to ask for three paces of land.

The king consented.

At that, Vamana reverted to his celestial form (note that in this version he doesn’t grow into a giant), took the earth with one step, and the heavens with the next.

For the third pace, the king gladly offered his head, saying, "My yagna is fulfilled, since Vishnu himself has appeared in his celestial form to bless me".

This episode is intended as a lesson in humility, and the ‘learning outcome’ is that we should temper our ambitions within limits, lest they inadvertently turn into avarice.

(Valmiki also uses the legend to explain the concept of Siddhashrama – literally a beautiful, divine place; and metaphorically, a spiritual destination to be reached by right thought, right action, and perseverance).

The second strand is from the Srimad Bhagavatam (also known as the Bhagavata Purana).

It is a far, far more elaborate account, and the structuring is different.

In this, the Vamana episode is actually a second act set in the aftermath of the ‘churning’ — the story of the second avatar of Vishnu, when the devas and the asuras, who are ever at loggerheads, temporarily join hands to churn the galactic ocean of milk for amrit — the nectar of immortality.

The overriding theme here is of deceit, distrust and dejection, with not just the devas and the asuras, but the celestial bodies, and gods like Brahma and Vishnu, too, not pleased with the way in which the treasures of the churning were shared.

Both sides accuse the other of seizing disproportionate shares (the amrit went to the gods, and that rankled the asuras to no end).

In the end, an aggrieved Mahabali decides to get his own back by conquering the heavens and rendering Indra homeless. That is when Indra is forced to approach Vishnu for help.

Nonetheless, there are no binary classifications of 'goodies' and baddies, of anyone on any side.

If Indra is cast as furtive, then Mahabali, too, is portrayed as over-ambitious.

It is in this backdrop that the Srimad Bhagavatam tells the story of the Brahmin dwarf and his demand for three paces of land.

As an aside, we also learn that Vamana’s given name is actually Upendra.

There is a clear moral aspect to the Vamana-Mahabali episode in this retelling too.

As Vamana says, just before he places his foot on Mahabali’s head, “if a man has not conquered desire, all the desirable things in the worlds will not be enough to satisfy him”.

The third narrative is a modern one, propagated by the communists, and that is where the problem starts.

It completely ignores the moral lessons of the sacred texts, and, instead, treats the account as a perfect example of how Brahminical patriarchy exploits the downtrodden lower castes, crushes them, and cheats them of their riches through deceit.

In this interpretation, the Vamana-Mahabali story becomes a secular Marxian fable of class exploitation; how the proletariat are robbed of their rights by the bourgeoisie.

It makes two points.

First, Vamana is a cheat (and by extrapolation, so are all ‘caste’ Hindus).

Second, Onam is not a Hindu festival.

In the process, both Mahabali’s Brahmin identity, and the fact that the original texts make zero reference to caste distinctions, are conveniently redacted from the legend.

A perfect example of how this lunatic interpretation is applied in practice (and sadly bought by so many without question), was provided by former Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac, in his repulsive Onam tweet of 2020.

Happy Onam! We celebrate Mahabali who did not discriminate by caste or creed , not Vamana who cheated him.This edition of harvest festival has something to celebrate. Kerala has announced floor prices for 14 types of vegetables in its drive for self sufficiency in vegetables.

— Thomas Isaac (@drthomasisaac) August 31, 2020

Only in Kerala can a politician not just get away with such an egregious comment, but be lauded for it as well.

That is why these people have managed to ruthlessly distort a morality tale from a sacred text, and turn it into exactly what it isn’t — an example of evil upper caste discrimination mandated by religious, scriptural sanction.

This is what postmodernism and dialectical materialism are capable of —they can take a point out of context and warp its original meaning so completely, that black becomes white, up becomes down, and right becomes wrong.

It was a brilliant move, because in one fell swoop, they could now further caste divides by demonstrating that prejudice was intrinsic to Hindu texts, guilt-trip the upper castes into shamed silence, and prove that religion was indeed the opium of the masses.

If this was Hinduism, then who needed it? Who was Vamana the cheater compared to Marx the emancipator? Das Kapital trumped the Ramayana any day, and the Vamana-Mahabali episode was the proof. Vote for the Left.

The Congress didn’t contest this abominable distortion because they were simply too heavily dependent on the Christian and Muslim vote.

If someone painted the Hindu as a fiend, that was fine, because it tied in neatly with their own secular narrative of a fascist, majoritarian, Hindutva threat, and the attendant alarmism they could whip up for rich electoral profit.

So what if it was at the cost of Hindu sentiments, the heaping of insults upon a god, or the institutionalised vilification of the so-called upper castes?

A Brahmin was a villain, Hinduism discriminated against the ‘lower castes’, and they had the sacred texts to prove it.

But they are wrong.

If our Marxist comrades are to be believed, that there’s nothing Hindu about Onam, that is, in fact, the best descriptor possible, of the actual, ‘secular’ nature of Hinduism.

That is because there is hardly any overt religious iconography or symbolism on display in the conduct of this festival.

But then, that is also true for most ‘Hindu’ rituals in Kerala (dating back to well before communist thinking came to dominate the state’s socio-cultural-religious discourse).

Take Nair weddings, for example: there is no ‘homam’, no pundit, no elaborate rituals or chanting of sacred shlokas, no idols in attendance, and the ceremony gets over in a flash.

The mangalsutra is tied, flowers and coloured rice are thrown at the pandal by the guests, rings, garlands, and flower bouquets are exchanged by bride and groom, both walk seven times around a lamp, touch their elders’ feet, and that’s that.

By this yardstick, our Left Liberal jamaat could just as easily classify Hindu Malayalee weddings as non-Hindu, or even irreligious.

This utter absurdity, which they have so successfully applied to Onam, stems from two flaws and two duplicitously expedient moves:

One, they forget that the taali — the tiny, heart-shaped pendant on the mangalsutra — is mandatorily taken to a temple to be blessed in the sanctum sanctorum prior to the wedding.

Indeed, some families follow the practice of the groom tying the mangalsutra around the bride’s neck at a temple (usually near the marriage hall), and then making separate entrances into the auditorium.

Two, the Kerala way has always been one of severe minimalism. People dress simply, usually in white, ostentation is frowned upon, and religious icons are mainly found in the puja room.

Traditional home decor usually consists of brass lamps, mirrors, Rama Varma prints, an apsara in a tribhanga pose, intricate woodwork, and the ubiquitous grandfather clock.

Indeed, the most hallowed spot of any old home, where the evening lamp is lit, is a simple tulsi shrub growing in the courtyard.

This absence of overt, in-your-face Hindu symbolism is why it was so easy for the Left to audaciously appropriate an entire festival, and not just brand it as secular, but to term it un-Hindu as well.

Three, making Onam irreligious, or un-Hindu, allows our Marxist brethren to participate in Onam festivities without being accused of having committed the ultimate Marxian sin — the ideological deviancy of approving, or legitimising, meaningless, superstitious practices.

Four, distorting the true meaning of Onam and the Mahabali legend, also serves a convenient socio-political purpose, because now, this festival can be employed as the perfect binding agent to link communities culturally.

A Malayalee festival with a novel Malayalee legend for all Malayalees to joyously celebrate, without the deterring stigma of a pagan faith, while simultaneously reinforcing the evil nature of the upper castes, is also extremely useful in fashioning a secular, ‘progressive’ Malayalee identity.

This is how, and why, our traditions were attacked and successfully eroded; and we didn’t even realise what was happening.

Yet, the serial mangling of Onam is only a metaphor for the battering which our customs and practices suffered in the rest of the subcontinent as well, because the modus operandi is always the same, everywhere.

Thus, in essence, interpreting Karva Chauth as a repugnant, patriarchal practice, or viewing Holi as nothing more than an excuse for men to molest women, is part of the same strategy.

India has, of course, now woken up, and these malign efforts are fiercely contested as the subcontinent reclaims its civilisational ethos, but there is a long way to go before the damage is fully undone.

In that interim, we can but imagine how deludingly satisfying it must be to the children of Marx and Nietzsche, to think that god is dead in god’s own country.

Happy Onam.

Venu Gopal Narayanan is an independent upstream petroleum consultant who focuses on energy, geopolitics, current affairs and electoral arithmetic. He tweets at @ideorogue.

Science

Frank Drake Lives On In The Spirit Of SETI

by Aravindan Neelakandan - Sep 8, 2022 05:08 PM +05:30 IST

Astronomer Frank Drake speaking at Cornell University in Schwartz Auditorium, 19 October 2017 (Photo: Amalex5/Wikimedia Commons)

Snapshot

- The astronomer's equation helped the international scientific community to launch a coordinated human search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Drake passed away aged 92 on 2 September 2022.

Looking up at the stars in the cloudless night sky is an experience that combines awe with a sense of cosmic loneliness.

Humanity has yearned to establish contact with beings from beyond, perhaps since the very dawn of human self-awareness.

With the arrival of telescopes and revelation of worlds beyond our own Earth, the imaginative quest that earlier gave shape to mythological beings in the sky began offering shape to extraterrestrial (ET), intelligent beings from other planets.

Imagined sometimes as god-like and many more times as malign invaders, beings from outer space started populating the newly developed genre of science fiction, and soon enough, real science began its search too.

From Martian canals, speculated as signs of engineering by Percival Lowell in 1894, to the ‘Wow’ signal discovered by the ‘Big Ear’ radio telescope of Ohio State University in 1976, many alarms have been raised — most of them false and a few still being explored.

In the current century, astronomer Jason Wright of Pennsylvania State University proposed in 2015 that the dimming of light from a star spotted 1,480 light years away could have been a result of Dyson spheres-like super-structures built by an ET civilisation.

But, within a year, this hypothesis made way for a more natural cause, such as that it originated "from a large number of comet- or planetesimal-mass bodies."

More recently, Abraham "Avi" Loeb, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University, put forth a formidable hypothesis that Oumuamua, the interstellar object we discovered in 2017, could have been an artefact of an advanced civilisation.

Behind all such lines of thought is an equation, sometimes considered obsolete, yet one that provided a mighty scientific push to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — the Drake Equation.

On 1 November 1961, in an informal conference on the theme "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)," astronomer Francis Drake offered a formalist framework for facilitating the search of ET with respect to our galaxy.

Today, this is famous as the "Drake Equation". It reads thus:

Image: SETI Institute

Let us look at each of the terms:

– N represents the number of possible ET civilisations

– R is the rate of star formation in the Milky Way galaxy

– fp is the fraction of those stars with planetary systems

– ne is the number of planets in a particular zone around the star, a zone with conditions that favour the evolution of life, in the fraction of stars harbouring planets

– fl is the fraction of planets in which life actually evolves or has evolved

– fi is the fraction of planets among those in which intelligent life evolves

– fc is the fraction of planets even among those planets with intelligent life in which a technological civilisation has the capability to send and receive signals from other such planets or has evolved other ‘contact’ technologies

– L is the longevity of such a civilised intelligent life form

This equation is more of a framework than a formal equation to be solved.

R, or the rate of star formation, has been changed to N* ,where it represents the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomer and educator Carl Sagan wrote about the scope of this equation:

One of the great virtues of this equation, due originally to Frank Drake of Cornell, is that it involves subjects ranging from stellar and planetary astronomy to organic chemistry, evolutionary biology, history, politics and abnormal psychology. Much of the Cosmos is in the span of the Drake equation.

Carl Sagan, 'Cosmos'

Based on the scientific data available then, Drake in 1961 estimated N to be 10.

Five years later, Sagan made a calculation based on the basic Drake equation, with some modifications. He came to the conclusion that for the Milky Way galaxy, the number of possible ET civilisations is one million.

Many numbers have since been suggested that lie between the estimates of an overoptimistic Sagan and Drake.

The Drake Equation also has an existential lesson for us — a possibly relatively young technological civilisation in the galaxy.

The term L points out that a technological civilisation can bring itself to extinction. There is longevity associated with life.

For Earth during the time of Drake and Sagan, there was, for instance, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust as a result of the Cold War.

At present, nuclear holocaust is still a possibility on account of a fanatical rogue regime using a nuclear weapon, but now we also have to contend with an ecological doomsday scenario.

When we receive a signal from a civilisation thousands of light years away, there exists a distinct possibility that the civilisation might have become extinct by the time we received the signal.

The Drake Equation has its critics as well.

Professor Loeb, for example, in his latest book Extraterrestrial (2021), points out issues with the very basis of the equation's framework:

… Drake’s equation focuses solely on the transmission of communication signals; he limited his aspirations to finding N and from it the number of interstellar communications that would establish the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. This exclusive interest in communication predicts the equation’s second limitation, epitomized by its variable L, which represents the length of time an intelligent species would be able to produce such signals.

Avi Loeb, 'Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth'

According to Loeb, the equation's constraint comes from its focus on the electromagnetic signal than on what he calls the ‘technosignatures’ of possible ET civilisations.

All said, as Drake passed into eternity just days ago, on 2 September 2022, the equation he authored helped the international scientific community to launch a coordinated human search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The equation — whatever its critics may say, and even accounting for the possibility that it may have become irrelevant — makes us ponder deeply about our place in the cosmic canvas.

It dissolves our artificial boundaries and offers the realisation both of our prime importance and utter insignificance. It is both a humbling and elevating experience, in the vein of all sublime spiritual experiences.

Frank Drake lives in every attempt we make for contact. He will become quite an interplanetary hero if and when we do make that contact.

Aravindan is a contributing editor at Swarajya.

Books

Kautilyanomics: New Book Underscores Arthashastra's Relevance To Modern Economic Challenges

by R Jagannathan - Sep 9, 2022 12:16 PM +05:30 IST

The cover of Sriram Balasubramanian’s book 'Kautilyanomics for Modern Times'.

Snapshot

- Balasubramanian’s book offers good insights on Kautilyan ideas that have found resonance in today’s world, where we can see deteriorating governance across geographies.

Kautilyanomics for Modern Times. Sriram Balasubramanian. Bloomsbury. 2022. Rs 599. Pages 266.

Ever since Rudrapatna Shamasastry discovered an old manuscript of Kautilya’s Arthashastra in the library of the Mysuru State Oriental Research Institute, the man and his work have fascinated many.

For Indians, our special interest flows partially from the fact that long before Adam Smith, Karl Marx or Niccolo Machiavelli, someone from our part of the world had written a deep tract on statecraft, governance, wealth creation and rule of law in which economics plays a key part.

So, it is no surprise that Sriram Balasubramanian, an economist and author working with one of the global financial institutions, should rediscover an urge to write on this timeless classic titled Kautilyanomics for Modern Times.

The book is a worthy read for those who want to see which parts of the Arthashastra are eternally relevant, for Kautilya — a.k.a. Chanakya — lived at the times of Chandragupta Maurya and is widely credited with being his mentor and adviser in the establishment of what was India’s largest empire before the Common Era.

At its peak, the Mauryan empire was larger geographically than the Mughal one that came nearly two millennia later.

A caveat is in order here.

Even though the Arthashastra has been written or compiled by Kautilya, it would be wrong to attribute the entire text to one person, just as it would be the case with any voluminous sacred or ancient text, whether it be the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, or the Dharmashastras.

The Arthashastra itself, as Balasubramanian points out in his introductory chapter, makes references to two earlier works by authors called Brihaspati and Ushanas, though these earlier works have been lost to us.

In fact, governance and statecraft are essential components of every one of our epics and the Dharmashastras.

In the Ramayana, governance and public welfare are topics Sri Rama discusses with his brother Bharata before leaving for his 14-year exile, and in the Mahabharata, the dying Bhishma gives advice on statecraft to the grieving Yudhishtira.

At the outset, it is worth mentioning that the Arthashastra is more about an approach to statecraft and governance, and not just economics.

One sutra attributed to Chanakya but not part of the Arthashastra, starts like this…

Sukhasya moolam Dharmah, Dharmasya moolam Arthah, Arthasya moolam Rajyam…”

The meaning: the basis of happiness is Dharma (right conduct, or doing one’s duty), the basis of Dharma is Artha (wealth), and the basis of Artha is Rajyam (ie, the state).

The close linkage between individual happiness, individual responsibilities, and the existence of a just and efficient state is key to welfare and good governance. If one goes out of the window, the whole balance of conflicting objectives collapses.

In the Kautilyan view, and which is increasingly being accepted by many modern thinkers, the goal is human fulfilment and happiness, for which supportive institutions like an enabling state, and related machinery to uphold the law, are vital.

Equally important, as Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, notes in his foreword, the reference to “We, the People” mentioned in the Constitution’s preamble implies that “the responsibility for ensuring good governance, however defined, is not that of the government alone.”

Hence, the addition to Narendra Modi’s governance slogan of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas — which is Sabka Prayas (everyone’s efforts). The nation cannot progress, unless every shoulder is behind the wheel.

Debroy adds: “In that day and age (ie, the Kautilyan age), “the king’s role was limited — ensuring external and internal security, ensuring an efficient dispute settlement mechanism, punishing the wicked and protecting the virtuous. The rest of governance was ensured by individuals and the community.”

This, in fact, is what has gone wrong with the “liberal” state, where individual rights are emphasised excessively, and the state has emerged with overwhelming power as the guarantor of those rights.

The liberal state has effectively delegitimised all other informal and social institutions — family, tribe, caste, etc — and citizenship has been reduced to an endless claim of rights and whining about what is wrong without any reference to duties.

Balasubramanian’s book offers good insights on Kautilyan ideas that have found resonance in today’s world, where we can see deteriorating governance across geographies.

Kautilya did not have all the answers, but he had some insights and approaches that remain valid despite the progress of time.

The three most important chapters to read are Debroy’s foreword, which offers insights that go beyond the book, the author’s own introductory chapter, and the chapter on “An overview of the Arthashastra”, which is written in question-and-answer form, and thus easily digestible.

In this chapter, Balasubramanian answers questions on the Arthashastra’s complexity, on whether Kautilya had all the answers to political and economic issues for all time (no, not quite), and what his legacy was compared to later political thinkers and the ideas they brought to the fore.

The author leaves no one in any doubt that Kautilya was ahead of his time.

In my view, the book is divided into five broad segments.

The first segment is the Debroy foreword, the author’s introduction and the Arthashastra overview, which together give you a great preview into what is coming.

The next four core chapters form another composite, covering Dharmic capitalism and its components, wealth creation, sustainable growth and welfare, and the rule of law.

The last part holds two chapters, linking Kautilya’s ideas to a post-pandemic world, and a summary.

Only a few scholars will have the time and resources (intellectual, time and material) to plough through Kautilya’s original works, for which some knowledge of Sanskrit is essential.

For the remaining 99 per cent of people interested in the Arthashastra, Sriram Balasubramanian’s book is a great introduction.

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

Table of Contents

Swarajya

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Interview: Mohandas Pai On Why BBMP Simply Lacks Capacity To Manage A City Of 12 Million Population And $140 billion GDP

Instances Of Muslim Reverence To Hindu Divinity: Can Dharmic Civilisation Effect Changes On Monopolistic Religions?

Onam Appropriation: Why It Is So Easy For The Left To Term The Festival As Secular And Un-Hindu

Frank Drake Lives On In The Spirit Of SETI

Kautilyanomics: New Book Underscores Arthashastra's Relevance To Modern Economic Challenges