US Secretary of State John Kerry went to New Delhi for talks with India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to review the state of Indo-US relations and discuss ways and means to take them forward. Much progress has been made in this regard in recent years, most notably the accord on the export of US nuclear power technology to India and a waiver for India not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which had been a sticking point for many decades.
The second factor that released the relationship from its previous constraints has been the ongoing liberalization of the Indian economy, making the Indian market an attractive proposition for US exports and investments. Bilateral trade and investment have risen exponentially, with the goal of $500 billion an eminently reachable proposition sooner rather than later. Mr Kerry issued a robust call to Pakistan to curb its jihadi terrorists and bring those responsible for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 and more recently on the Indian Air Force base at Pathancot, to justice. However, he tempered the call shortly afterwards by pointing to the depredations of jihadi groups in Pakistan itself, a point which the Pakistan establishment puts forward tirelessly in its own defence. Mr Kerry advised Pakistan not to make any distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists, but since this has long been a US practice in Syria and elsewhere, Islamabad is likely to take his words with nothing more than the proverbial pinch of salt.
However more teeth was put into the Indo-US relationship with the concurrent visit to Washington by Defence Secretary Manohar Parrikar, who signed up to the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) following talks with US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.
Congress party spokesman Randeep Surjewala asked for its contents to be placed in the public domain, with a discussion to follow with the Opposition, to see that the architecture of India’s foreign policy remained in place. Relations with Russia should not be compromised, he said.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) criticized the document for having ‘compromised Indian sovereignty and surrendered India’s strategic autonomy.’ This might have been true if the partner had been China, but as this is not the case, such concern can be dismissed as customary communist ritual.
Mr Parrikar took pains to explain that the agreement was confined to logistics cooperation between the two sides. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with setting up of a base. It’s basically logistics support to each other’s fleet like supply of fuel, of many other things which are required for joint operations, humanitarian assistance and other relief operations.’
A joint statement by Mr Parrikar and his US counterpart Ashton Carter said they ‘discussed India’s defence requirements for advanced technologirs and trade cooperation.’ To this end, the ‘United States has agreed to elevate defence and technology sharing with India to a level commensurate with its closest allies and partners.’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeated many times over that India’s ‘time-tested’ relationship with Russia is independent of its ties with third countries, and is based on trust and consultation at every level. Russia, with its long experience of diplomatic complexities in a changing and fluid international scenario well understands this. Relations with India are as important to Moscow as they are to New Delhi. Their fundamental national interests converged in the past and do so now, hence each side can be expected to take developments concerning third party relationships in its stride, as mature partners are accustomed to do through long experience. Rest assured that confidential assurances and explanation are part of the traffic of diplomatic discourse, they do not have to be made public at every twist and turn.
China issues veiled threats on Balochistan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statement on Balochistan, which was strongly endorsed by Bangladesh and by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and exiled Baloch leaders in Germany and elsewhere, has run afoul of Chinese members of Beijing’s South Asian think-tanks who can be trusted to parrot their government’s line, as and when required.
These ‘scholars’ say they are deeply worried by the Indian Premier’s words and have issued a veiled threat that, ‘if India creates tension in Balochistan trouble can be expected.’.
One expert told the Press Trust of India Correspondent in Beijing that ‘if China or Pakistan found an Indian factor disrupting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in which the Chinese government has invested some $48 billion, the ‘expert,’ Hu Shisheng, warned ‘China and Pakistan would have no other way but take united steps. I want to say that it will become a disturbance in India-China relations and India-Pakistan relations, that the Pakistan factor could surge again to become a factor in China-India relations, even more important than Tibet, border and trade.’ Despite the somewhat convoluted language the sense of what the ‘expert’ said was clear enough.
For a start, the China-Pakistan cooperation in the export of jihadi terrorism across the Indian border is well understood by everybody in India except the community of the desperately naïve and foolish. That, indeed, is the cornerstone of their ‘all-weather friendship’.
China has been supplying Pakistan nuclear weapon technology from the 1960s and 70s and handed over a readymade bomb to Islamabad in May 1990. The web of rogue scientist A.Q.Khan’s nuclear and missile proliferation activities had at its heart a conniving Chinese spider, so what’s new in Hu Shisheng’s words? Nothing that was not known already.Two books, one by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, entitled ‘Deception’ has supplied chapter and verse on Sino-Pakistan transactions, their findings confirmed by a subsequent work by Andrew Small called ‘The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics’.
Following Hu Shisheng’s words of warning came a report in a Pakistani newspaper that Chinese engineers working on a project in the Pakistan city of Multan had clashed with the local police, with several engineers injured.
It would strain credulity to ascribe this episode to an Indian hidden hand. Truth is that in attempting to be too clever by half, the Chinese authorities are discovering, somewhat painfully, that their country has walked into a snake pit in Pakistan, the vipers and their deadly poison all homegrown. Period.
Supreme Court returns Singur land to farmers
The Supreme Court of India judgment returning land in Singur to the farmers who owned it, has put the cat among the pigeons. Before the land transfer to Tata Motors for its intended site for the manufacture of the Nano car, by then Communist-led Left Front government of West Bengal aroused much controversy at the time. Mamata Banerjee, the Opposition leader in the State led a movement against the project on the ground that farmers had been wrongly deprived of their land. In the face of this agitation, Tata Motors withdrew and took the project to business-friendly Gujarat, where the car is now manufactured.
The Supreme Court judged that the acquisition of the 1000 acres land in 2006 had been a ‘farce.’
The issue at stake was procedura : Was the land acquired legally under due process. It was not, pronounced the Supreme Court, reversing the ruling of the Calcutta High Court. Its resolution in favour of the farmers and of the Mamata Banerjee dispensation was a signal triumph for the present Chief Minister of West Bengal. While the Communist Party leadership sees this as a disaster for investment in the State, industrialists, who had packed their bags and left in the face of constant Left Front strikes and disruption, have welcomed the Supreme Court ruling because it wipes the slate clean, permitting the Mamata Banerjee government to establish its credentials as investor-friendly and able and willing to aid the industrialization which West Bengal badly needs.
The lesson for India is that industrial enterprise must abide by the rule of law. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a statement said: ‘Any industrial activity must be in sync with the laws of the land The judgment shows a direction.’
The Merchant Chamber of Commerce President Manish Goenka said he was pleased by the turn of events, and that he ‘saluted Mamata Banerjee for her defence of the rights of farmers. At the same time the State is in need of investments and we hope that that the government of West Bengal will devise a way to attract investments in Singur.’
Chief Minister Banerjee’s visits to Germany and Italy will be a challenge to convince investors there that West Bengal is welcoming and open for business. All power to the Banerjee elbow.
