Modi waves the flag
In a masterly monograph entitled “India and the Indian Ocean: An essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History,” written way back in 1945,the historian and diplomat K.M. Panikkar questioned the centrality of Ahimsa in Hindu thought. Pacifism, he averred, was essentially a Buddhist and Jain heresy. He writes: Once we are free from the effects of this idea, and are thus enabled to look facts in the face, it will be clear that Indian freedom can be upheld only by firmly deciding to shoulder our share at all costs in the active defence of the areas necessary for our security. To the Indian Ocean we shall then have to turn, as our ancestors did…..”
This famous passage gives Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent tour of Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka its appropriate context. Surrounded on three sides by a vast maritime expanse, India’s economic well-being, dependant as it is on trade with countries near and far, is the bedrock of Indian security. Naval strength and outreach is thus vital to India’s defence. Mr Modi’s visit to Seychelles was a success, more so was his next stop Mauritius, whose people are largely of Indian descent. The country’s transformation from a sugar plantation economy to a robust services, with flourishing tourism and banking have led to an exponential improvement in living standards.
In the mid-1970s, a coup in the country engineered by outside forces hostile to India, prompted India’s then Iron lady, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to take swift action. An Indian naval taskforce was dispatched to the Mauritian capital, Port Louis, and the democratically elected prime minister restored to office. Indo-Mauritian ties are now especially close. Mauritius was invited to join SAARC leaders at Mr Modi’s inauguration as prime minister. Prime Minister Modi gifted his hosts a patrol ship, the “Barracuda, ” built at the Garden Reach shipyard in Kolkata, with a promise of a second to follow. Standing on the deck of the Barracuda, Mr Modi said: “Today, proudly flying the flag of Mauritius, she will sail as a symbol of our partnership.” He also announced an Indian aid package to Mauritius worth $500 million. From Mauritius, PM Modi flew to Sri Lanka for a keenly awaited three-day visit that has restored the relationship with India to its previous level of trust and cordiality. Addressing Parliament in Colombo, Mr Modi spoke firmly and honestly of the need to fully implement the country’s 13th Amendment on devolution for the Tamil populated area of Jaffna and its surrounds. He also appealed to Tamil leaders to give the central government more time in bringing about the desired changes since it, too, had Sinhalese community concerns to address. Indian Oil Corporation will service Colombo’s fuel requirements. Also, India has been entrusted with infrastructure projects in the strategic eastern port city of Trincomalee, which has a direct approach to the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, where India has a significantly large naval and air base. Investment, enhanced trade, close security cooperation, easier two-way travel were the staple in talks between Mr Modi and President Sirisena. Indian aid for reconstruction and rehabilitation in Sri Lanka’s war-torn Jaffna area is set to grow.
Summing up, India’s diplomatic exercise in western and eastern perimeters of the Indian Ocean, from the Straits of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca, are conjoined in a strategic and commercial arc. The Andaman and Nicobar island chain gives India a footprint in South East Asia. Here, territorial disputes between China and Vietnam, and China and the Philippines have muddied the waters. India’s presence in the region has a visible military dimension driven by geostrategic compulsions.
Audit of women’s progress
Gender bias in India has been much in the news of late. The recent BBC documentary film, “India’s Daughter,” highlighting the deep male prejudice refracted through the unrepentant attitude of Mukesh Singh, one of the accused in the horrific gang rape case in Delhi in December 2012, and the equally truculent attitude of his two lawyers, sent shock waves across the country. As the International Women’s Day, a fortnight ago, showed, with its wealth of data, gender bias, from the workplace to the family home, is a deeply ingrained phenomenon spread across continents. Statistics reveal that India, China and Japan (in that order) have the lowest incidence of rapes. An audit of the progress women have made in all walks of Indian life is well worth close, critical scrutiny. Air India captain Nivedita Bhasin created history on Women’s Day, when she took command of a Dreamliner jumbo jet on the Delhi-Australia route with an all-women crew. Thirty years ago, she was a co-pilot on an Indian Airlines domestic flight. Captain Bhasin is the world’s first woman commercial airline commander. She first piloted a Boeing aircraft in 1990, aged 26.
Tenali, a town in Andhra Pradesh, recently hosted a stellar event – the annual Nayudamma Memorial award lecture. Two outstanding women scientists were recipients of the award: they were Tessy Thomas, the head of India’s Agni IV missile team, and Geeta Varadhan, who belongs to the civilian space sector. The award was presented by Shantha Sinha, a former chairperson of the National Commission on Women and Child Welfare, who said, “It’s a remarkable achievement for the two scientists to overcome several challenges in both professional and personal lives and contribute significantly to the advancement of science and its application to the benefit of the common man.” Geeta Varadan, Outstanding Scientist, Data Processing Research Institute, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), showed images of Tenali to illustrate how image processing techniques had improved clarity, accuracy and precision of satellite images. ISRO now has a constellation of 11satellites in orbit sending to various earth stations information with myriad applications in agriculture, environment, forests, water resources, urban and rural development.
Speaking on ‘Make in India’ – Defence Applications,” Tessy Thomas, Director, Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad, illustrated Agni missiles on a screen as an example of India’s near-total indigenization in missile systems in the face of the technology denial of the NATO-led Western powers in the early stages of its development by India, a lesson well learned.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Indra Nooyi, are distinguished CEOs of thriving companies. Some of India’s leading banks, including the State Bank of India’s Arundhati Bhattacharya, are headed by women. In software engineering, medicine, academia, media, government, civil services and the armed forces, women are playing an increasingly visible role. Away from the public eye, quietly and effectively, large numbers of Indian fathers are determined to see their daughters enjoy the same education, the same family privileges accorded their male siblings. A newspaper tells how a farmer father sold his small plot of land to enable his promising and talented daughter fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor and blazing a trail for her younger brothers. There are examples of such enlightened parenting across the country, more so in some parts than in others. Despite the glacis and fortresses of gender prejudice, seen most clearly in India’s male-female ratio, progress in women’s emancipation has been, and is being, made. The traction grows steadily. The road is still long and hard, but what has been achieved should serve as a beacon to future generations of Indians.
Bullies, bigots called to order
Bullying at the State and central levels of government and intimidation by religious bigots have received a fitting response from the judiciary and public spirited organizations. Several years ago, Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra drew an unflattering cartoon of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who duly went ballistic. The professor was arrested, then released, as public anger mounted. The West Bengal Human Rights Commission took the State government court. The Calcutta High Court upheld the Commission’s compensation to Professor Mahapatra of Rs 50,000 plus legal costs, to be paid within a month of the judgment.
A naval officer was sacked by the Indian Navy on the plea of his extra-marital affair with the wife of a fellow officer. The Supreme Court of India, in a withering judgment, ordered the officer’s immediate reinstatement, saying that a consensual relationship was none of Navy’s business, its primary task being the protection of India’s maritime security, not playing the moral police. Finally, a Tamil television channel was attacked and vandalized by an extremist group calling itself Hindu Munani, on the ground that one of its programmes allegedly offended Hindu sentiment. Hindu women who had suffered abuse had appeared on the show, just as Muslim women had done earlier. The channel in question refused to bow to such intimidation. Three resounding cheers for its chairman.
