Shah rides on Modi wave

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 23 October 2014 under the headline Shah rides on Modi wave

Riding on the crest of a wave that catapulted the BJP to an unprecedented win in the May Lok Sabha election, the party swept to power in Haryana and came tantalisingly close to forming a government on its own in Maharashtra — two states that had been ruled by the Congress (along with its allies) for 10 and 15 years, respectively.

Although the BJP’s gamble of going it alone paid off (it won an absolute majority in Haryana and emerged as the single largest party in Maharashtra), it was not enough to push it over the finish line in Maharashtra. By some BJP leaders’ own admission, the tally could have been higher if the BJP-Shiv Sena Mahayuti (or grand coalition) had not broken.

The fact that the Modi juggernaut stopped short of a simple majority of 145 MLAs in the 288-member Legislative Assembly means that the BJP could be forced to cohabit with its estranged ally, the Shiv Sena. Unless, of course, as is being advocated by a section of the BJP’s unit in Maharashtra, the party deems it politically expedient to form a minority government a la Narasimha Rao in 1991 in the belief (hope?) that neither the Shiv Sena nor the NCP would precipitate a crisis at the time of the government seeking a confidence vote.

The NCP’s unilateral decision to offer unconditional, outside support to a BJP government in Maharashtra could come in handy — a scenario that the BJP would have factored in when its 25-year-old alliance with the Shiv Sena was called off on 25 September and, as if on cue, the NCP-Congress split within hours the same day.

The option of forming a minority government is being seen either as a BJP ploy to forestall hard bargaining by Shiv Sena or to avoid the albatross of coalition compulsions, a phrase that Manmohan Singh in New Delhi and Prithviraj Chavan in Mumbai conveniently cited to explain away their inability to call the shots, but which is an anathema to some in the BJP. However, how stable such a government would be is anybody’s guess as the index of Opposition unity will determine how long it lasts.

At the time of writing, the BJP camp was sanguine about forming a government, with or without the Shiv Sena. That Anant Geete of the Shiv Sena attended a dinner that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted on 20 October for his council of ministers and that the BJP’s support to the Sena continued in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) suggested that the doors were open for talks.

On balance, while the BJP achieved one of its objectives in Maharashtra, that of maximising its tally of seats, it could well end up with something it wanted to avoid — a coalition of compulsion. The Congress, on the other hand, has been relegated to the third position in both states and it is barely struggling to stay relevant in the national polity, losing more states than it gains. Therefore, to that extent, the Maharashtra results are sobering for the BJP just as they are sombre for the Congress.

In the midst of all the hectic political activity in Maharashtra, Haryana is the lesser-known success story of the BJP where its turnaround is nothing short of spectacular. In a state where the BJP bagged only four seats in 2009, two in 2005 and six in 2000 and where it was fighting on 74 seats for the first time, the party won a record 47 seats. However, unlike Haryana, which contributes only 10 Lok Sabha seats and five Rajya Sabha seats, Maharashtra sends 48 MPs to the Lok Sabha and 19 to the Rajya Sabha. That should explain the disproportionate focus on Maharashtra as opposed to Haryana.

As the results show, the BJP won 122 seats in Maharashtra as compared to 46 in 2009; its vote share rose from 14 percent in 2009 to 28 percent in 2014. After 1990, this is the first time a party has won 100 or more seats in the Maharashtra Assembly. In the 1990 Assembly polls, the Congress had secured 141 seats. Not only has the BJP nearly trebled its tally but it has also appreciably increased its strike rate (ratio or percentage of seats won against contested) and its vote-share and swing. This, when the BJP had never contested more than 119 seats (in 2009) in the state.

Not only did BJP president Amit Shah have to build the party organisation from the ground up in 150-odd constituencies but he also had to find suitable candidates on most of those seats. The BJP coopted some defectors from rival parties, mainly from the NCP and the Congress. However, only about 20 out of the 50-odd turncoats managed to win on a BJP ticket. Compounding matters for the BJP, only one of its allies, the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, won a lone seat.

Man of the match

A triumphant Shah says the BJP has created history in Maharashtra and Haryana by not only positioning itself to form its own government there but by ensuring that the Congress would not even get the post of the Leader of Opposition in those Assemblies. “We have moved two more steps towards a Congress-Mukt Bharat (Congress-free India),” he says.

Shah feels that the results establish beyond any doubt that the programmes, policies and performance of the Modi government have found universal acceptance among the voters of the two states. He blames “circumstances” for the BJP going it alone in Haryana and Maharashtra.

Apparently, one of those circumstances was the BJP’s urge to capitalise on its performance in the Lok Sabha election by contesting more seats on its own in both the states, which was resisted by the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in Haryana and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Doing so would not only have given BJP a better chance at increasing its tally, it would also have helped to strengthen its organisation in those states. An added incentive was to increase its footprint nationally.

While Shah was quick to rebuff the HJC’s suggestion of a 50:50 division of the seats (90 in all), the seat-sharing talks in Maharashtra went down to the wire although a week before the nominations closed on 27 September, it was already being talked about that the two parties can be expected to go their separate ways.

The Shraadh period (8-23 September), which is considered inauspicious for starting anything new, added to the anxieties as four days were lost to it. (The nominations opened on 20 September.) Yet, ironically, the BJP-Shiv Sena split was announced on a day when, as per the Hindu calendar, the Navratris began.

Shah, for one, was confident of a creditable performance by the BJP but chose to play along as he did not want to be seen as a deal-breaker; instead, he waited for the Shiv Sena to make a false move before making the split official. He insists that the decision to go it alone was the Shiv Sena’s, not the BJP’s.

“Neither did we try to break our relations with the Shiv Sena nor did we break it,” he told a news conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi. At the same time, Shah, whom Modi called the man of the match for the BJP’s win in the Lok Sabha election, maintains that the alliance could not have been saved at the expense of, or by sacrificing, the BJP karyakarta (worker.)

Ekla Cholo strategy

As a TEHELKA report (Will Modi’s Big Gamble Pay Off? 18 October) pointed out, a creditable performance by the BJP in Maharashtra and Haryana would come as a shot in the arm for the Modi-Shah duo and re-establish their pre-eminence in the party and beyond.

In Modi and Shah, the BJP has a formidable duo that can lead the party into unchartered territories based on a combination of the former’s administrative skills and the latter’s organisational acumen. It is Shah who devised the party’s strategy of consolidating the non-Maratha and the non-Jat votes in Maharashtra and Haryana, respectively, while projecting Modi’s development agenda to beat the caste and regional arithmetic.

Shah is the perfect foil to a Modi who thrives on challenges and the results have disproved some sceptics who had begun to wonder whether the results of the bypolls in 54 Assembly constituencies across 14 states (Uttarakhand in July; Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka in August; and Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Sikkim in September) since the BJP-led NDA came to power on 26 May were indicative of the waning of the Modi magic. (The BJP and its NDA allies had held 36 of those 54 seats but they managed to retain only 20 of them.)

Predictably, Shah could hardly conceal a chuckle when he told the news conference, “Some people rejected the Modi wave after the bypoll results but I want to tell them that the Modi wave is intact and the tsunami is still capable of vanquishing all opponents.” (However, an editorial in the Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana dismissed the wave as “nothing more than froth that receded before it reached the shores”.)

Shah asserts that “people have accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the undisputed leader”. Modi had addressed 27 rallies in Maharashtra and 11 in Haryana while Shah had addressed 17 rallies in Maharashtra and 22 in Haryana. (In comparison, Congress president Sonia Gandhi addressed only four rallies in Maharashtra and three in Haryana while her son and vice-president of the party Rahul Gandhi addressed six rallies in Maharashtra and four in Haryana.)

It was anticipated that a BJP win in Maharashtra and Haryana would impart a greater momentum to the government’s promise of a fast-track development agenda in general and economic reforms and foreign and security policies, in particular. It could also nudge Modi to effect a reshuffle of his council of ministers.

Therefore, it did not come as a surprise when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley acknowledged on 20 October that the BJP forming governments in Haryana and Maharashtra will be a big plus for the Centre’s reforms push. Jaitley addressed a press conference in which he announced coal sector reforms; on the same day, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman said in Bengaluru that the government is closer to finding a solution to approve a legislative scheme that enables the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST). On 18 October, the government announced oil sector reforms, including deregulating diesel prices.

While the results of the Assembly elections may not have an immediate bearing on the composition of the Rajya Sabha (where the BJP has 43 members and the Congress 68), but going forward, it could impact the elections to fill up the vacancies that will arise in the upper House of Parliament. The Rajya Sabha would become even more important when the government seeks to push through legislations.

Marathi Manoos and Asmita

Uddhav Thackeray, who led the Shiv Sena into the first electoral battle after the demise of his father Bal Thackeray in November 2012, acquitted himself better than his cousin Raj Thackeray, chief of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. While Shiv Sena increased its tally from 44 seats in 2009 to 63 this year (the highest number of seats it won was 73 in 1995), the MNS could win only one seat, down from the 13 it won in 2009.

The MNS’ rout has taken the sheen off its slogan of Marathi asmita (pride) just as the BJP’s development agenda has posed a challenge to the Shiv Sena’s and the MNS’ Marathi ‘manoos’ ideology. In contrast, the Hyderabad-based Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) won two seats in the Marathwada region.

Where Uddhav erred was in not reconciling to the new ground realities and insisting on a 151-119 seatsharing arrangement with the BJP, which the latter could accept only at its own peril. Unlike the relationship that existed between the late Thackeray, the late Pramod Mahajan and the late Gopinath Munde, the new men at the helm of the BJP today, Modi and Shah, do not have any affinity towards Uddhav.

Shah was clear from the word go that the BJP, having tasted blood in the Lok Sabha election, would go for broke in Maharashtra. That meant contesting on more seats than the BJP ever has but the Shiv Sena’s reluctance to accommodate what it saw as a junior partner’s excessive demands coupled with Uddhav’s claim to the post of chief minister should the Mahayuti win, unravelled the negotiations.

As the Maharashtra election results poured in, Shah had the last laugh. The BJP had not only won more seats than the Shiv Sena was willing to offer it, the hitherto junior partner in the Mahayuti had become the single largest party in the Assembly. “The results have proved who was correct,” Shah was heard telling reporters afterwards. “The BJP will be forming the government in Maharashtra.”

After an initial burst of bravado, when he asked the BJP to make the first move (“I am sitting at my home peacefully, if somebody thinks our support is needed, they can approach us”), a chastised Uddhav called up Shah and Modi to break the ice. A Saamana editorial sought to strike a conciliatory tone by indicating its willingness to let bygones be bygones.

However, the BJP seems to be in no hurry to reciprocate although the RSS and veteran BJP leader LK Advani made it known that they would like the BJP and Shiv Sena to come together again. A section of the BJP, which feels that Uddhav has earned his spurs in this election, sees it as an ideological necessity to align with the Shiv Sena.

Even before Rajnath Singh and JP Nadda were to fly to Mumbai, the BJP led by Nitin Gadkari had opened informal talks with the Shiv Sena on the possibility of a rapprochement and what it will entail. For one, the Shiv Sena favours a united Maharashtra; it is opposed to the carving out of a separate Vidarbha state. Meatier portfolios in Maharashtra and at the Centre are another bone of contention. For its part, the BJP will have its way on its choice for the post of chief minister.

 

         

 Implications for regional parties

The BJP win in Haryana can be attributed to the BJP strategy of consolidating the non-Jat vote while at the same time ensuring that the Jat vote split between the INLD and the Congress. The fact that an overwhelming majority of the BJP’s MLAs are non-Jats explains the party’s decision to project Manohar Lal Khattar as its chief minister-designate.

The Haryana results are particularly significant for the Janata Parivar as the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Janata Dal (Secular) had sought to come together on a common platform with the INLD to take on the BJP. However, the BJP did one better than them at social engineering and weaned the BJP and Dalit votes away from them, as the election results bear out.

Going forward, an assertive BJP not only poses a threat to regional parties in the states where elections are due in the next year or two but also runs the risk of cannibalising some of its own allies, existing and potential. (Elections are soon due in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand. Bihar in 2015, West Bengal in 2016 and Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in 2017 would be a few of the elections to watch out for.) For its part, the BJP wants to position itself as the default ruling party in key states.

The results of the Maharashtra and Haryana elections have come as an advance warning for the Congress and some regional parties. From a BJP standpoint, they seem to herald a unipolar moment in the Indian political landscape, which its rivals can ignore at their own peril.

Tharoor, Interrupted

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 16 October 2014 under the headline Tharoor, Interrupted

Shashi Tharoor, like Manmohan Singh before him, knows only too well the fate that would befall Congress loyalists if they even as much as, by your leave, demur. Manmohan learnt it the hard way when the Gandhi scion and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi famously remarked, “My personal opinion about the ordinance on convicted lawmakers is that it is complete nonsense, it should be torn and thrown away,” leaving the then prime minister red-faced.

Manmohan understood the Congress dynamic (in his book The Accidental Prime Minister, Sanjaya Baru quotes him as saying that “I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power”) but what has confounded some in the party is how Tharoor could end up committing the same mistake twice, that of taking on the sacred cows dear to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and her team of hand-picked advisers.

This when Tharoor himself is no stranger to party politics, having got his fingers burnt a few years ago, when he mixed up his idioms to explain flying economy (“in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!” he had tweeted.) In Tharoor’s defence, he had clarified that by the words “holy cows” he was not referring to any individuals. “Holy cows (sic) are not individuals but sacrosanct issues or principles that no one dares challenge. Wish critics would look it up,” he had said, explaining himself.

If Tharoor’s savvy for Twitter made him controversial then, it has come to haunt him again. His tryst with the latest controversy has as much to do with his celebrity status on Twitter as with his unconventional approach to politics. On 2 October, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw Tharoor a curve by inviting him and eight others — Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, yoga guru Baba Ramdev, industrialist Anil Ambani, actors Kamal Haasan, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra and the cast of Hindi TV comedy serial Tarak Mehta Ka Ulta Chashma — to join him in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign).

Modi was inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral on social media in August, to promote awareness of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) disease. (The activity involved pouring a bucket of ice-cold water on one’s head and inviting others to do the same.) The idea, as Modi was to explain, was that “they (the nine nominated by Modi) will nominate nine people each, and this chain will continue through social media. When you upload a video of cleaning, nominate nine others to do the same.”

Tharoor, who was on his way to Romania when the prime minister made the announcement, reacted upon landing there but by then politics had taken over. To be fair to him, he would have been damned if he did and damned if he did not accept the prime minister’s invitation. Tharoor’s explanation as to why he accepted the invitation was lost on some of his colleagues.

In a signed article Tharoor wrote for the NDTV website a few days later, he said: “Which Indian worthy of the name would not be humbled to be tapped by his prime minister for a national cause? … (His) invitation to nine people who are not part of his government helped portray it as a people’s movement rather than a government drive. Who would be churlish enough to refuse an offer to participate in a people’s movement, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, that would improve the lives of all Indians?”

Probably sensing a barrage of criticism that could come his way, Tharoor qualified it by saying: “At the same time, as I also said in accepting his invitation, I am not a fan of tokenism, and I was worried the campaign would descend to symbolic photo opportunities for grandees who would never touch a broom again after 2 October.”

On 8 October, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) met in Thiruvananthapuram to discuss the fallout of Tharoor’s alleged misdemeanours. “Tharoor has hurt the sentiments of the party workers and it should have been avoided. The KPCC will submit a report to the AICC (All India Congress Committee) leadership, which will talk in detail of the sentiments of party workers in the state on this issue. This should not be repeated again,” KPCC president VM Sudheeran told reporters after the meeting.

As Tharoor is an AICC member, the KPCC could only recommend the party leadership to take appropriate action against him. By 13 October, the Congress had issued a terse press statement announcing Tharoor’s sacking from the post of a spokesperson of the party. “Congress president Sonia Gandhi has accepted the recommendation of the AICC disciplinary committee to remove Shashi Tharoor from the list of spokespersons of the AICC with immediate effect,” it read.

Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said that the AICC disciplinary action committee took the decision based on a “complaint” submitted to it by the KPCC. The three-member committee comprised Motilal Vora, AK Antony and Sushil Kumar Shinde.

According to Congress sources, the KPCC felt that Tharoor’s conciliatory statements about Modi would do more harm than good to the party in Kerala. Sudheeran promptly welcomed the action against Tharoor, saying it was an “appropriate decision”.

For his part, Tharoor sought to draw a line under the episode by saying that “as a loyal worker of the Congress party, (I) accept the decision of the party president to relieve me of my responsibilities as a spokesman” though with a caveat that: “While I have not yet seen the KPCC complaint referred to, and while I would have welcomed an opportunity to respond to it and draw the attention of the AICC leadership to the full range of my statements and writings on contemporary political issues, I am now treating this matter as closed and have no further comment to make.”

Factional feud

The controversy surrounding the death of Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar added grist to the political rumour mills. A postmortem report did not rule out “poisoning” as the cause of her death. Sunanda was found dead in mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in New Delhi on 17 January. (The party has since iterated that the decision to sack Tharoor as a spokesperson should not be linked to the controversy surrounding the post-mortem examination of his wife.)

However, the report came in handy for Tharoor’s detractors in the party, particularly those hailing from Kerala, who see him as an outsider and resent his growing profile in the party and outside.

Some former ministers in the UPA government such as Mullapally Ramachandran and Vayalar Ravi have been more than forthcoming in sharing the contents of the report with the media in the state and in the national capital in a bid to fix Tharoor. They see Tharoor, a suave and sophisticated politician with a big fan following on social media, as a threat to their preeminence.

Needless to say, there is no love lost between them. Tharoor’s retort that his Kerala colleagues should at least read his articles and comments before preparing their report for the AICC did not help matters either.

Compounding matters for Tharoor, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy further distanced himself from an already isolated Tharoor by saying that a “series” of issues involving the MP had hurt the sentiments of the party leaders in the state.

Among the many other indiscretions that were cited against Tharoor were:

• Tharoor’s article published by The Huffington Post, a US-based online news site, in June in which he said, “For an Opposition Member of Parliament like myself, it would be churlish not to acknowledge Modi 2.0’s inclusive outreach and to welcome his more conciliatory statements and actions. The moment he says or does something divisive or sectarian in the Modi 1.0 mould, however, we will resist him robustly. India’s people, and its pluralist democracy, deserve no less.” The party immediately dismissed it as his personal view. That it had not gone down well with a section of the party can be had from the fact that Tharoor has not been asked to address the media as a spokesperson since then; and

• Tharoor holding forth on the prime minister’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York to an Indian television channel which had invited him to a panel discussion. According to some in the Congress, Tharoor had not been authorised to do so. Tharoor had variously described the prime minister’s speech as “impressive”, “well done” and “all together an ‘A’ ”. He felt that the speech was “spot on”, although he did find fault with certain portions of the prime minister’s remarks.

Mullapally Ramachandran and (right) Vayalar Ravi

A pre-emptive strike

Tharoor’s sacking should be seen as a preemptive strike by the Congress to make an example of him and send out a message to the party rank and file that it will not brook any indiscretion, however innocent it might seem, in the interest of the party. However, on balance, the punishment meted out to him seems disproportionate to his alleged crime.

To some observers, the sacking of Tharoor is more a symptom of a deeper malaise afflicting the Congress party than anything else. The irony is that a Congress loyalist (a fifth column?) such as Mani Shankar Aiyar is treated with kid gloves even when his uninterrupted and uninterruptible diatribe against Modi cost the party dear in the General Election. His chaiwala remark, in particular, did nothing to project the Congress as a party worthy of a popular mandate to govern.

Also, the party didn’t pull up a Milind Deora when he took aim at Rahul and some of his advisers for the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.

Most recently, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi praised Prime Minister Modi’s ambitious Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) or Member of Parliament Model Village Scheme and also had participated in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in Guwahati. (Under the SAGY, MPs from both Houses of Parliament would be asked to develop one village from their constituency by 2016 and another two by 2019.)

However, Gogoi soon made amends by explaining his position. The fear of a reprimand from the party leadership was evident in the manner in which he clarified that he was not following in the footsteps of Modi by launching a Clean Assam Campaign and that his inspiration even as a child was Mahatma Gandhi.

Tharoor’s sacking raises more questions than answers, especially when the Congress has more pressing issues at hand. To begin with, it needs to reinvent itself by reorganising the party apparatuses and revisiting its strategy of how to take on the BJP and Modi; revive its political fortunes in the states; and also pave the way for a more robust intervention by Rahul in the party’s affairs.

Then there is a larger question of why Indian politicos don’t seem to have a sense of humour?

The irony is that some in the Congress seem to be taking themselves more seriously than perhaps the electorate, which did not see it fit to bestow on the party the status of the principal Opposition party in the Lok Sabha, by limiting its strength to a mere 44 MPs in the lower House of Parliament.

Speaking at a function to celebrate his The Great Indian Novel in New Delhi some years ago, Tharoor had said that when he wrote the book, he was not sure whether there could be humour in politics. It doesn’t seem so yet.

PRIZE AND PREJUDICE: Nobel Peace Prize to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai reinforces its reputation of being as controversial as it is sought after

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 16 October 2014 under the headline Prize and Prejudice

Monday evening was relatively peaceful after the media scrum over the past weekend. A few hangers-on could be seen waiting outside the L-6 office of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan in Kalkaji, a south Delhi neighbourhood, while the staff flitted in and out of the hallway, escorting visitors at the appointed hour to meet with the 60-year-old Nobel Laureate Kailash ‘Satyarthi’ Sharma. Others are turned away because Bhaisahabji, as he is affectionately called, would not meet anyone without a prior appointment. A man with a bouquet walks in to felicitate Mr Satyarthi (Hindi for “a seeker of truth”; the name has stayed with him from the days of his association with Swami Agnivesh, a social activist, with whom he collaborated on social causes such as bonded labour, and after his marriage to Sumedha, his wife of 36 years) but he is politely told to wait his turn. Some journalists who fail to meet him in his office are asked to try their luck at his 73, Aravali Apartments residence in Alaknanda before he flies out to Germany on a short visit later that night.

Kailash Satyarthi (Photo credit: Ram Kumar S)

It was on Friday afternoon India time when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Satyarthi’s name as the co-winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize (along with 17-year-old Malala Yousufzai of Pakistan who lives in exile with her parents and siblings in Birmingham, UK after surviving a 9 October 2012 attack on her life by extremists in Mingora, Swat Valley's main town) at a function in Oslo. Everything has been a blur since then for Mr Satyarthi and his family. As coincidence would have it, the announcement of the award came a day after the second anniversary of the attack on Malala and two days after the wedding anniversary of Mr Satyarthi and on the eve of the International Day of the Girl Child, which is celebrated on 11 October.

Mr Satyarthi’s office has seen a steady stream of visitors over the weekend. A notice board displays newspaper clippings about his winning the Nobel Peace Prize and a modest seating area for guests showcases some of the awards and plaques that have come his way in a 35-year-long career. A black board hung on a wall proudly proclaims that the Bachpan Bachao Andolan has rescued 83,525 children till 30 September. Between receiving well-wishers and entertaining media interviews, the Satyarthis – Mr Kailash Satyarthi, his wife Sumedha, son Bhuvan Ribhu, daughter-in-law Priyanka Ribhu and daughter Asmita – were received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who congratulated him on winning the award. Mr Satyarthi’s wife and son are equally involved in the activities of his NGO. The Bachpan Bachao Andolan’s activities are carried out under the banner of Association of Voluntary Action, which handles funds and whose financial audit reports are shared on the Bachpan Bachao Andolan’s website.

For the son of a police constable born in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, Mr Satyarthi’s journey through life is nothing short of remarkable. He quit engineering to plunge headlong into activism, influenced as he was by the discrimination he saw around him when was of an impressionable age. To his credit, he did not allow the occasional aspersions cast at him sotto voce to distract him from his goals. Mr Satyarthi is the first Indian citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize (Mother Teresa who won the Peace Nobel in 1979 became a naturalised Indian citizen in 1948) and only the eighth Indian to win a Nobel award. “I am thankful to Nobel committee for recognising the plight of millions of children who are suffering in this modern age. It is a huge honour for me,” Mr Satyarthi said immediately after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced his name to an unsuspecting nation caught in the midst of two Assembly elections and ceasefire violations by Pakistan at the Line of Control and the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. The Peace Nobel to the Satyarthi-Malala duo made as loud a thud as the artillery shells that were fired across the border, prompting the peoples, the governments and the militaries of the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours to pause, however fleetingly, and reflect on the burden of a Peace Nobel that had just been thrust upon the warring Indian sub-continent.

Religion and nationality

What confounded some, at home and abroad, was the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s 10 October press release announcing the award. A relevant portion from the text of the press release said, “The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.” The references to religion and nationality (and the re-hyphenation of India with Pakistan) have been variously described by some Indian commentators as condescending, patronising, gratuitous and eminently avoidable. Those references seemed to compound the embarrassment of (and disbelief in) both countries of not only having to live down the recent border skirmishes but to live up to the expectations of the international community now that a Peace Nobel has been jointly awarded to an Indian and a Pakistani national. However, if the resumption of the ceasefire violations after a hiatus and the Pavlovian response by their respective bureaucracies is any indicator, India-Pakistan peace might be premature just as the Peace Nobel for Barack Obama in 2009 was controversial. The Norwegian Nobel Committee had said the following about Obama then: “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons[.] Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics[.] Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.” Obama not only failed to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as promised but the US sees itself returning to Iraq only three years after it pulled out its troops from there. Also, the situation in West Asia (be it the Israel-Palestine issue or Syria) and North Africa (which is still to recover from the after-effects of the Arab Spring) does not inspire much confidence either.

Yet, there are constituencies in both India and Pakistan that are keen to see a normalisation of relations through dialogue but, as with all things subcontinental, patience will be of the essence. As Norwegian Nobel Institute’s Director Geir Lundestad said, he was more hopeful about the Peace Nobel helping to further reduce child labour than the likelihood of it leading to a rapprochement or a detente between India and Pakistan. What he left unsaid though was that peace would be a bonus and a welcome consequence of the Peace Nobel – especially if the afterglow of the Peace Nobel were to have a salutary effect on the prime ministers of India and Pakistan when they meet in Kathmandu for the SAARC Summit next month. In her statement to media, Malala – at 17, the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize – took the initiative of inviting both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to grace the 10 December award ceremony at Oslo. For her part, Malala described the award as “a message of love between two religions”. She thanked her father for “not clipping her wings” and said she was proud to have shown that “a girl is not supposed to be a slave”. She dedicated her award to “all those children who are voiceless”, saying that “my message to children around the world is: Stand up for your rights.”

Malala Yousafzai

Struggle for rights

At the same time, there are those who insist on treating the Peace Nobel for what it is: A recognition of the Satyarthi-Malala duo’s struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. As the Nobel Committee said in the press release, “Children must go to school and not be financially exploited.  In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age.  It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected.” The efforts made by NGOs and individuals around the world are paying dividends, too. As the Committee noted, “It has been calculated that there are 168 million child labourers around the world today. In 2000 the figure was 78 million higher. The world has come closer to the goal of eliminating child labour.” A former Indian diplomat echoed similar sentiments when he said that too much should not be read either into the timing of the Peace Nobel being awarded to the Satyarthi-Malala duo or to the situation at the India-Pakistan border. The award was not meant as an intervention in the recent border skirmishes or an attempt to play the peacemaker.

Mr Satyarthi’s name, as indeed that of some of his compatriots, has been doing the rounds of the Nobel nominations for some time now. Some Americans such as Tom Harkin, a lawmaker from the state of Iowa, and University of Iowa law professor Lea VanderVelde and some European lawmakers are known to have re-nominated him since 2005. (When Mr Satyarthi began receiving death threats, he moved to the US at the invitation of Harkin. His daughter joined him in Iowa where she was enrolled as a student.) However, one will have to wait till 2064 or wait for a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to break his/her vow of silence, whichever comes earlier, in order to say with any degree of certainty as to how and why Mr Satyarthi was awarded the Peace Nobel. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, “Proposals received for the award of a prize, and investigations and opinions concerning the award of a prize, may not be divulged. A prize-awarding body may, however, after due consideration in each individual case, permit access to material which formed the basis for the evaluation and decision concerning a prize, for purposes of research in intellectual history. Such permission may not, however, be granted until at least 50 years have elapsed after the date on which the decision in question was made.” According to Norwegian Nobel Institute’s Director Geir Lundestad, Mr Satyarthi’s name was among a dozen-odd names of Indians who were nominated for this year’s Peace Nobel. The number of Indians being nominated for the award is increasing year on year, too.

Shot in the arm for NGOs

The Peace Nobel to Mr Satyarthi and by extension his NGO, the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, would have come as a shot in the arm for the NGO movement in India today. An Intelligence Bureau (IB) report, the contents of which were published by the media in June, had targeted certain foreign-funded NGOs and Indian NGOs supported by foreign NGOs for fuelling protests with a view to obstructing developmental projects. It claimed that the pursuit of such an agenda had a negative effect on the GDP growth. Following the media reports, some members of the civil society had voiced their anxieties and concerns at the attempts to discredit the NGOs. Mathew Cherian, CEO of HelpAge India, says that governments, past and present, would do well to change their viewpoint on activism and rethink their attitude towards civil society in general and the NGOs in particular. “Both the UPA and the NDA always viewed civil society with suspicion, especially those who receive funds from foreign sources,” says Cherian. He feels that the NGOs and genuine people’s movements must not be unfairly criticised or made a scapegoat for the failings of the governments, be it labour issues, women’s rights or acquisition of land. According to data collated by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, there are an estimated 168 million children globally who are engaged in child labour. India accounts for five million child labourers as per government data and 50 million, as per NGO estimates. India needs to pass the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill pending before the Rajya Sabha and ratify the ILO (International Labour Organisation, a United Nations agency) Convention Number 182 on worst forms of child labour and Convention Number 138 on the minimum age of employment.

A double-edged sword

Another reason for the disquiet in diplomatic circles is the possibility of the Peace Nobel being used as a disruptive tool of intervention or being motivated by geopolitical considerations. If it was a Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010, it could be a similar figure from the developing world, India included, in the future. (Irom Sharmila and her relentless campaign for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA, is a case in point.) This writer was witness to the developments in India and certain other world capitals leading up to the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo when China warned countries of “consequences" if their diplomats attended the ceremony. The Norwegian Nobel Institute had invited 58 ambassadors based in Oslo of which China, Russia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Cuba, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, among others, excused themselves from the ceremony. (Russia and Indonesia ensured that their envoys were not in Norway at the time.)  India joined at least 36 other countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands in participating in the event. As diplomatic sources then pointed it out to this writer, New Delhi recognises that the Nobel prizes are a political issue; they are in a sense like the Miss World contests that are accused of being driven by market considerations. The dissonance was clearly brought out in the international discourse that followed the announcement of the Peace Nobel to Liu Xiaobo, too. As Kishore Mahbubani, Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, then argued, “[The] West has double-standards when it comes to judging human-rights violations. It does not condemn American society because it violated every canon of human rights by being the first modern Western society to reintroduce torture. Instead, it sees Guantanamo as a blemish that should not take away from all the good that American society has done.” This inability of the West to understand that there may be an alternative point of view could well create a major problem for the world, Mr Mahbubani said, responding to Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland’s argument that silence undercuts the most basic tenets of human rights and that supporting a Chinese dissident could not worsen conditions for the opposition in China. Already, doubts are being raised about whether the Peace Nobel for Malala would increase hostility in Pakistan towards her and everything she has come to represent. Some of the commentary published by a section of the Pakistani media and the opinions voiced by Pakistanis on social media indicate a deep suspicion of the Nobel awards, with some calling it motivated or a conspiracy by the West.

All of which begs the question: How noble is the Nobel Peace Prize?

* * * * * *  

The Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Norway, showcases the ideals that the award stands for. Photo: AFP

Facts about the Nobel Peace Prize

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and engineer who invented dynamite, is the founder of the Nobel Prizes. His fortune was used posthumously to institute the annual awards.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway. (The Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Economic Sciences are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences; the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, while the Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature.)

On 10 December, in Oslo, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates receive their awards from the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in the presence of King Harald V of Norway. (The Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Economic Sciences take centrestage in Stockholm, Sweden, when they receive the Nobel Medal, Nobel Diploma and a document confirming the Nobel Prize amount from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.)

An important part is the presentation of the Nobel Lectures by the Nobel Laureates. In Oslo, the Nobel Laureates deliver their lectures during the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony. (In Stockholm, the lectures are presented days before the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.)

Nomination process

Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee receives more than 250 valid nominations suggesting candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee reviews all nominations before creating a shortlist consisting of 20 to 30 candidates. This list provides the basis for further investigations and candidate analyses submitted by the committee’s permanent consultants and other local or international experts. As a rule, the committee reaches its conclusion at the very last meeting before the announcement of the prize at the beginning of October. The committee seeks to achieve unanimity in its selection of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. On the rare occasions when this proves impossible, the selection is decided by a simple majority vote.

Criteria for nominators

A person who falls within one of the following categories can nominate:

• Members of national assemblies and governments of states;

• Members of international courts;

• University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes;

• Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;

• Board members of organisations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;

• Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (proposals by members of the committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the committee after 1 February); or

• Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Deadline for nominations

The Nobel committee makes its selection on the basis of nominations received or postmarked no later than 1 February of the year in question.

Nominations that do not meet the deadline are normally included in the following year’s assessment.

Selection process

At the first meeting of the Nobel committee after the 1 February deadline for nominations, the committee’s permanent secretary presents the list of the year’s candidates. The committee may on that occasion add further names to the list, after which the nomination process is closed and discussion of the particular candidates begins. In the light of this first review, the committee draws up the so-called shortlist — i.e., the list of candidates selected for more thorough consideration. The shortlist typically contains 20 to 30 candidates.

The candidates on the shortlist are then considered by the Nobel Institute’s permanent advisers. In addition to the institute’s director and research director, the body of advisers generally consists of a small group of Norwegian university professors with broad expertise in subject areas with a bearing on the Peace Prize. The advisers usually have a couple of months in which to draw up their reports. Reports are also occasionally requested from other Norwegian and foreign experts. When the advisers’ reports have been presented, the Nobel committee embarks on a thoroughgoing discussion of the most likely candidates. In the process, the need often arises to obtain additional information and updates about candidates from additional experts, often foreign. As a rule, the committee reaches a decision only at its very last meeting before the announcement of the prize at the beginning of October.

50-year secrecy rule

The committee does not itself announce the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves. In certain cases, names of candidates appear in the media because of sheer speculation or information released by the person or persons behind the nomination. Access to information about a given year’s candidates and/ or nominators is not given until 50 years have passed.

Nominations for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize

There were 278 candidates, including 47 organisations, for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 — the highest number of candidates ever. The previous record was 259 from 2013.

Nobel Committee

According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the prize to champions of peace is to be awarded by a committee “of five persons, to be elected by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament)”. The rules subsequently adopted by the Storting for this election state that the members of the committee are elected for terms of six years, and can be re-elected. The committee chooses its own chairman and deputy chairman. The director of the Nobel Institute serves as the committee’s secretary.

Source: www.nobelprize.org

Will Modi’s Gamble Pay Off?

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 9 October 2014 under the headline Will Modi’s Gamble Pay Off?


A creditable show by the BJP in Maharashtra could propel the PM to explore talks with Nawaz Sharif on the margins of the SAARC summit next month, says Ramesh Ramachandran

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the road to peace with Pakistan will likely pass through Maharashtra. A creditable performance in the Assembly election to be held on 15 October will have consequences far beyond the ordinary, setting him on a trajectory that few could rival.

How well the BJP performs in Maharashtra will determine the following:

♦ Balance of power between his government, on the one hand, and the party and its ideological mentor, the RSS, on the other. A handsome win in Maharashtra, leading to the installation of a government with the BJP playing a key role in it, will further cement his authority in the party and vis-à-vis the RSS. But for that to happen, first Modi and his protégé Amit Shah’s gambit of going it alone in Maharashtra will need to pay off. A BJP win will also silence some, if not all, of his sceptics, critics and naysayers who wondered whether the party’s unprecedented win in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election was a flash in the pan or the result of a carefully-crafted strategy executed by Shah, who, as BJP president, now represents a formidable duopoly along with Modi. No doubt, therefore, that the results of the Maharashtra election will be an acid test for the duo

♦ The extent to which Modi would be able to free himself from the pulls and pressures from the BJP, the RSS and their core constituents (who run the risk of becoming restive if Prime Minister Modi doesn’t quite continue to catch their fancy as much as Candidate Modi) and go about fulfilling his mandate, that of delivering on his promise of a fast-track development agenda, putting the economy back on rails and creating jobs, among others. Modi could go in for a reshuffle of his council of ministers, too; and

♦ Last but not the least, whether Modi will be able to transcend the dichotomy between his image and reality and steer his government’s foreign and security policies, particularly vis-à-vis China and Pakistan, in a direction he wants to

The SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit to be hosted by Nepal in November will pose a challenge and an opportunity for Modi. The summit, sandwiched as it will be between the Assembly election that would have concluded by then in Maharashtra and the Assembly election due in Jammu and Kashmir, could well see Modi hold a meeting with his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

While a favourable result in Maharashtra would likely shape Modi’s “intent” to re-engage with Sharif, the talks, structured or otherwise, could well go on to impact the “outcome” of the Jammu and Kashmir election, whenever they are held. Not only would re-engaging with Pakistan find a resonance in the Kashmir Valley, it could induce a salutary response from a section of the voters, if not towards the BJP then at least to one of its potential allies.

If the Modi-Shah duo redeem themselves in Maharashtra after a less-than-spectacular performance in the 54 Assembly constituencies across 14 states (Uttarakhand in July; Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka in August; and Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Sikkim in September) where bypolls were held since the BJP-led NDA came to power on 26 May, then a possible meeting with Sharif on the sidelines of the SAARC summit could lay the groundwork for resumption of talks between the officials of the two countries, to begin with.

India called off foreign secretary-level talks a week before they were to have been held in Islamabad on 25 August, after Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit went ahead with his meeting with a Hurriyat representative disregarding New Delhi’s objections. Sartaj Aziz, adviser to the Pakistan PM on national security and foreign affairs, has since said that probably the meetings with Hurriyat representatives were a mistake and they could have been avoided. For his part, Basit has said that in diplomacy one leaves the door ajar, implying that talks in the future could not be ruled out.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj echoed similar sentiments at her maiden press conference in September, when she said, “Diplomacy mein kabhi bhi poorna viraam nahin lagta, there is no full stop in diplomacy. It’s always (a) comma or semicolon. And, after all this, people always move forward. There are no full stops in (the) diplomatic journey.”

As if on cue, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval held talks with Basit on 13 September. This was followed by a meeting between Basit and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh a few days later.

For his part, Modi iterated in his United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speech, “I am prepared to engage in a serious bilateral dialogue with Pakistan in a peaceful atmosphere, without the shadow of terrorism, to promote our friendship and cooperation. However, Pakistan must also take its responsibility seriously to create an appropriate environment. Raising issues in this forum is not the way to make progress towards resolving issues between our two countries.”

The message to Islamabad was clear: Choose between the Hurriyat or the Indian government, and between bilateral engagement and raking up outstanding issues in international fora. Although the two PMs did not meet in New York on the margins of the UNGA later that month, they could meet in Kathmandu.

A meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Kathmandu seems “unavoidable”, says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal. “Provided there is no major provocation” from the Pakistani side between now and the summit on 26- 27 November, he hastens to add. Sibal was in office when India and Pakistan signed a ceasefire agreement in November 2003.

MK Bhadrakumar, a former diplomat, feels that either side could have pleaded scheduling difficulties in New York but a Modi-Sharif meeting in Kathmandu “cannot be avoided”. He says that it will be embarrassing for Modi if he does not follow up on his talks with Sharif in May, when the latter was invited to New Delhi for the inauguration of Modi as PM.

A strategic analyst with a New Delhi-based think-tank, who did not want to be identified, said that a bilateral meeting would be par for the course but cautioned that should Modi decide to meet Sharif in Kathmandu, they should go beyond restating their respective positions. Otherwise what purpose would be served by only exchanging courtesies? he asked.

Some others cite the asymmetry between the two prime ministers (Modi came to power riding on the back of a huge mandate while Sharif has been rendered weak even as the Pakistani Army gains in influence) to question the wisdom of exploring the possibility of talks.

If the two principals indeed hold a meeting next month, the expectation in some quarters is that it will be followed by an announcement that their foreign secretaries would either meet soon or that they will remain in touch and explore how to move forward.

A house damaged by cross-border shelling in Arnia sector near the India-Pakistan border

Victims undergo treatment at a government hospital in Jammu

However, repeated ceasefire violations (more than 150 this year) by Pakistan at the border and the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, which claimed the lives of five innocent Indians on 6 October — the highest toll in one day since 2003 — and left some injured, has compelled the BJP to take a position that is patently different from that of its predecessor, which was perceived to be soft on Pakistan.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh warned Pakistan to stop violating the 2003 ceasefire agreement. India, he said, will not tolerate Pakistan’s ceasefire violations anymore and that it should understand the reality that times have changed in India (“Zamaana badal gaya hai”).

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, in turn, said that the Indian Army was “fully ready” and was responding to the Pakistani provocations.

The Indian Army and the Border Security Force say they retaliated effectively with the same calibre weapons used by Pakistan to repeatedly violate the ceasefire, which was variously described by security sources as an attempt by Pakistan to push in infiltrators into India before winter set in, with a view to disturbing the peace ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls; to deflect attention from political turmoil inside Pakistan; and to keep the Kashmir issue alive and not allow it to recede into the background.

In spite of the recent provocations by Pakistan, a resounding victory at the hustings in Maharashtra could yet resolve Modi’s Hamletian dilemma of how to solve the Pakistan conundrum.

‘Together We Can’

[This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 1 October 2014 under the headline 'Together We Can'.]

Can Modi and Obama put the fizz back in the India-US relationship? Asks Ramesh Ramachandran

The year was 1993. Three young men reached New Delhi to catch a midnight flight to the United States. Since they had time on their hands, they caught up with each other at the designated time before proceeding together to their destination in Lutyens’ Delhi for a meeting with a senior colleague. Their appointment was for 11 am. The host, an elderly gentleman, enquired about their well-being before launching himself into a tutorial on manners, etiquette and protocol. “Dress smart and get a shave. You would be representing the country,” he said, almost father-like. So, in the evening, the three men dutifully located a barber’s shop and did as ordered. That was how a clean-shaven Narendra Damodardas Modi made his way to the US. The elderly gentleman in question was LK Advani, who was then the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, while Modi’s two associates were Ananth Kumar and G Kishan Reddy.

Modi might have deferred to Advani and shaved off his beard (it has been the RSS pracharak-turned-prime minister’s constant companion for decades now), but he would not relent on the dress code, choosing kurta-pyjama over shirt and trousers. The BJP had nominated Modi, Kumar and Reddy for a US government-sponsored exchange programme organised by the American Council of Young Political Leaders. Modi and Kumar were then the BJP general secretaries in charge Gujarat and Karnataka, respectively; Reddy was the secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP.

Modi spent a month criss-crossing the US, travelling to eight states and meeting with a diverse group of American lawmakers, governors and mayors. His itinerary included a visit to a NASA facility, where he interacted with some Indian scientists, and a series of meetings with the Indian diaspora.

Little did he or America or, for that matter, much of India know then that someone who posed for the camera (see photograph below) outside the White House would, come 2014, be welcomed with a red carpet by its occupant. This, after having treated him as persona non grata for close to a decade.

On 18 March 2005, the US Department of State denied Modi a diplomatic visa and also revoked his existing tourist/business visa. Modi had planned to visit Florida to address a gathering of Indian-American hotel owners, but the US government invoked the International Religious Freedom Act (the only time it has been applied so far) among other legislations against him after an organisation called the Coalition Against Genocide alleged that he had violated certain religious freedoms.

Since then, Modi had become a veritable pariah for some in the West; Asia, in contrast, was more hospitable to him. Modi visited China, Japan and Israel as the Gujarat chief minister. The US has still not revoked the ban (Modi became eligible for an A1 visa by virtue of being a head of government).

Some US lawmakers such as Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Aaron Schock, both Republicans, have publicly said that the US should have reversed the visa ban. Schock has even described the ban as “a huge mistake”.

However, the controversy refuses to die down. Days before Modi landed in the US, a New York court issued summons against him for his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The US has since made it known that not only do heads of foreign governments enjoy immunity from American lawsuits but they cannot be personally served or handed court summons. An Indian court has since cleared Modi of complicity in the 2002 riots and today the world is sitting up and taking notice of Modi, the prime minister. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Modi used to be a four-letter word but not anymore.

Frequent Traveller

Modi is no stranger to America. After his 1993 tour, Modi was to play an instrumental role again in 1999 in the wake of the Kargil conflict when he was deputed to lobby with the US lawmakers for adopting a resolution critical of Pakistan. The resolution threatened to cut off financial aid to Pakistan if it did not withdraw its forces from the territory held by India.

Modi’s travels are in stark contrast to that of Barack Obama. The only time Obama visited India before becoming the US president was in 1981. That year, as a 20-year-old student, he travelled first to Jakarta in Indonesia to meet his mother and step-sister and then to Karachi in Pakistan before rounding off his trip with a visit to Hyderabad in India.

The only other Indian connection to Obama then was his college mate, Vinai Thummalapally, who served as the US ambassador to Belize (the first Indian-American ambassador in US history) and is now the executive director of SelectUSA, which was established under the US Department of Commerce by Obama to showcase the US as the world’s premier business location and attract FDI into the country.

Thummalapally visited India before Modi’s visit to the US; he travelled to New Delhi, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Bengaluru and Mumbai to meet Indian business leaders. (Thummalapally and certain other Indian-Americans in the Obama administration such as Nisha Biswal, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in the US State Department, and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah were among the guests invited to a dinner hosted by Obama at the White House in honour of Modi.)

Some in the BJP and the RSS sought to project Modi’s talks with Obama as any other bilateral meeting that an Indian prime minister holds on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Put differently, Modi travelled to the US primarily for participating in the UNGA debate, on the sidelines of which he also held talks with Obama.

A competing view is that Modi travelled to the US after his meetings with Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping, which to some foreign policy analysts, was by design. The message that Modi sought to send out was that the centre of gravity was shifting to Asia, the power equations were changing and therefore it makes sense for India to start a dialogue with Japan and China without belittling the role of the US.

Over the next three decades, China and India are expected to become the first and the third largest economies, respectively (the US would be placed second). So, in terms of heft, these three countries would be more or less at par and they would dominate global economy and politics for some time to come.

Personal Chemistry

In many ways, Modi’s visit to the US will be an opportunity for American officials, lawmakers and corporates to get to know him as well as he does America. And it needs to begin with Obama.

“With Modi’s arrival in Washington, Obama has a rare second chance to get India right after this country’s ties with New Delhi atrophied over the past two years,” wrote Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former US undersecretary of state for political affairs (2005-08) and lead US negotiator of the US-India civil nuclear agreement, in The Washington Post. “A US-India renaissance would bring the added benefit of clear bipartisan support at home. Bill Clinton began the US effort to define a more practical foreign policy partnership with India at the end of his time in office. George W Bush had great success in moulding close security and counterterrorism connections to the Indian government. There is a Republican-Democratic consensus in Washington that India can be one of our central 21st-century partners. Now, it is time for Obama to make his mark with India.”

Ashley Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a private thinktank based in Washington, believes that “the quality of the personal relations between leaders makes a difference to the way in which they conduct foreign policy. And especially among friendly nations, such as the United States and India, relationships make a huge difference to whether the outcomes of summits are prosaic or momentous”.

However, Obama does not have time on his side. According to Lalit Mansingh, a former foreign secretary and a former Indian ambassador to the US, Obama is fast becoming a lame-duck president, and even if the US wants to, there is only a limited amount of support he can give to this partnership in the remaining two years of his last term. “Modi is ascendant but Obama is descendent,” cautions Mansingh.

With Modi at the helm, there is an opportunity for the US to reboot its relationship with India. Unlike former prime minister Manmohan Singh, whose instinct by virtue of having worked as a civil servant was to preserve, Modi is a politician who seeks to transform. Tellis feels that one of the primary tasks for Obama and Modi would be to rejuvenate the concept of strategic partnership.

“Today, US policymakers across a wide spectrum are perplexed by what the phrase ‘strategic partnership’ actually means (insofar as) India is concerned,” says Tellis. “After an interregnum of desultory conversations, Modi’s visit to Washington presents a great opportunity to reconsider this issue. Beyond platitudes about democracy and common values, it is important that both sides have an honest conversation about the kind of relationship they seek and what it obligates mutually. Modi and Obama are both plain-speaking men and should have no difficulty conducting the type of conversation their predecessor governments once had. If they do so, the bilateral because it will leave little room for exaggerated or misplaced expectations on either side.”

Dinner Diplomacy

By all indications Obama set out to do just that when he greeted Modi with a “Kem Chho?” (how are you?) in Gujarati at the private dinner he hosted for a select group of officials that comprised, among others, Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the US side and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh on the Indian side. The host had taken great care with the menu, offering only vegetarian dishes in deference to Modi, who was observing the Navratri fast.

The two seemed to have hit it off almost immediately given the similarities in their respective election campaigns, their digital savvy, the manner in which both leaders overcame odds to come to occupy the high office and how they both transformed themselves from being the proverbial outsider to the consummate insider. The two leaders issued a Vision Statement, which was titled “Chalein Saath Saath: Forward Together We Go”. It said, among other things, the following:

• “Through intense consultations, joint exercises, and shared technology, our security cooperation will make the region and the world safe and secure. Together, we will combat terrorist threats and keep our homelands and citizens safe from attacks”;

• “We will prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and remain committed to reducing the salience of nuclear weapons, while promoting universal, verifiable, and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament”;

• “We will partner to ensure that both countries have affordable, clean, reliable and diverse sources of energy, including through our efforts to bring American- origin nuclear power technologies to India”

• “We will support an open and inclusive rulesbased global order, in which India assumes greater multilateral responsibility, including in a reformed UN Security Council”;

• “The US and India commit to expand and deepen our strategic partnership in order to harness the inherent potential of our two democracies and the burgeoning ties between our people, economies, and businesses. Together, we seek a reliable and enduring friendship that bolsters security and stability, contributes to the global economy and advances peace and prosperity for our citizens and throughout the world”; and

• “We have a vision that the US and India will have a transformative relationship as trusted partners in the 21st century. Our partnership will be a model for the rest of the world”

While paying homage to the victims of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Modi said India and the US were allies in the fight against terrorism

Bilateral Talks

In an op-ed article jointly penned by Modi and Obama, which was published by The Washington Post on the morning of 30 September before the delegation-level talks got under way, they emphasised on the need to “set a new agenda”. A relevant portion from the op-ed read: “With a reinvigorated level of ambition and greater confidence, we can go beyond modest and conventional goals.”

Both leaders got an opportunity to set out the contours of that agenda when they jointly addressed the media soon after the conclusion of their talks. Modi spoke about “shared interests” in furthering defence relations and security dialogue with the US. Expectedly, the “framework for the US-India defence relationship” was renewed for another 10 years. It was signed in 2005 for a 10-year period. India invited US defence companies to come and support India’s defence manufacturing industry. For its part, the US agreed to cooperate as a knowledge partner for India’s planned National Defence University.

Modi reaffirmed India’s commitment to pursuing civil nuclear energy cooperation with the US and resolving all issues, without specifically referring to the Nuclear Liability Act. An India-US group would be tasked to address all outstanding issues and speed up deployment of US-origin nuclear reactors in India.

He urged Obama to allow the Indian service sector easy access to the US markets. Both sides had candid talks on the WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations. Modi conveyed to Obama that India supports trade facilitation as long as India’s food security concerns are taken care of.

Regional and global issues figured prominently in the talks, too. China, for one, was the proverbial elephant in the room. The details of their conversations on Washington’s rebalance towards Asia, maritime security and the global commons are not likely to be made known in a hurry because of the sensitive nature of the issues involved.

All that Modi ventured to say in the course of a joint press statement with Obama after the conclusion of their talks was that peace and security in the Asia-Pacific was of paramount importance and that there was a convergence of views regarding the region between India and the US. The US, he was quick to add, was “intrinsic” to India’s Look East Policy.

Significantly, an India-US Joint Statement issued towards the end of the bilateral talks said that India, the US and Japan would explore holding their trilateral dialogue at the level of foreign ministers and “work more closely with other Asia-Pacific countries through consultations, dialogues, and joint exercises”.

However, it needs to be said here that while the US might expect India to play a more robust role in East Asia, Modi is handicapped by a dissonance within India’s strategic community on how to deal with China.

Delivering the 25th late Air Chief Marshal PC Lal Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on 26 March 2008, the then national security adviser, MK Narayanan, had said that a “national consensus across the board” was required on issues such as whether “China is a threat or is China a neighbour that we can go along with”. Six years later, New Delhi is still none the wiser about Beijing’s intentions, particularly in light of recent incidents along the undemarcated border between the two neighbours.

(Even as Modi held talks with US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, the Ministry of External Affairs put out a statement conveying that the border commanders of India and China had met at Spanggur Gap earlier in the day and that the stand-off in Chumar and Demchok areas had been successfully terminated.)

Pakistan came up for discussion in the context of the challenges posed by terrorism in South Asia and beyond. Deepening and broadening the counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation was particularly flagged by Modi. Both sides agreed to work together to disrupt financial and tactical support for terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Haqqani network and Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company, all of which are linked to Pakistan. Dawood is wanted in India in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. India and the US also agreed to collaborate to dismantle safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks.

In the run-up to the summit meeting, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (a private think-tank in the US) and a former CIA analyst, had contended in a “India-US policy memo” that “counterterrorism cooperation with India should include robust intelligence exchange on Pakistan’s terrorist connections, particularly the ISI-LeT connection. Another LeT attack like Mumbai or Herat will provoke the most serious crisis in years between India and Pakistan — the more that can be done to prevent such a disaster, the better. Even if an attack cannot be foiled, the more information exchanged about Pakistani involvement with LeT, the more likely the US will have credibility with New Delhi if a crisis occurs”.

Riedel also said, “The US should also consider a unilateral step: Placing Pakistan on the State Department list of terrorist sponsor states. It certainly meets the criteria and has for decades. The first Bush administration seriously considered this step in 1992. Such a step would obviously have immense consequences for US-Pakistan relations. A more limited step would be to target specific sanctions against individual Pakistani officials involved in supporting terrorism like members of isi’s ‘S’ branch that handles liaison with let, the Haqqani network, and others. A targeted counterterrorism sanctions move against specific Pakistani officials would send a strong deterrent message to the Pakistani Army and could be a warning shot before putting Pakistan on the terror patron state list.”

And as incidence would have it, the US Treasury Department on 30 September took action against Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and the LeT by naming some individuals associated with them as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. “Both LeT and HuM are violent terrorist organisations that train militants and support the activities of many of the best known and brutal extremist groups, including al-Qaeda,” US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said, adding that “today’s designations will disrupt efforts by these terrorist organisations to access their financial networks and the international financial system”.

The foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan were called off last month after the Pakistan high commissioner to India met with Hurriyat leaders disregarding New Delhi’s objections. Pakistan carried forward the cold vibes to the UNGA where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif harped on Jammu and Kashmir. Modi, uncharacteristically, did not join issue with Sharif, as some had expected him to do; instead, Modi reiterated India’s position that it was willing to resume a dialogue with Pakistan so long as those talks are held in “an atmosphere of peace, without a shadow of terrorism”.

Those developments came close on the heels of Modi inviting leaders of Pakistan and other SAARC countries for his swearing-in ceremony this May. A Pakistan-based terrorist group had attacked the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, just days before he was sworn in.

Significantly, unlike previous years, the leaders of India and Pakistan did not meet in New York. Last year, the then prime minister Manmohan Singh met with his Pakistan counterpart on the margins of the UNGA, defying public sentiment and in spite of an overwhelming body of evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in allowing its territory to be used for mounting terrorist attacks against India and Indian interests, at home and abroad alike.

Incidentally, the history of India-Pakistan bilateral engagements is replete with an unending series of terrorist attacks interspersed with peace talks, an overwhelming majority of which were held in third countries on the margins of multilateral summits.

Last year’s meeting between Manmohan and Sharif in New York was but one in a long list of bilateral engagements starting with the 2006 Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Havana, Cuba; the 2008 Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing, China; the 2008 UNGA session in New York; the 2009 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia; the 2009 NAM Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt; and the 2010 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit in Thimphu, Bhutan.

Modi at the Madison Square Garden in New York

Afghanistan was an obvious talking point. India not only reiterated its commitment to working along with Afghanistan for regional peace and security but also improving its coordination with the US on Afghanistan.

Modi revealed his mind when he told the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think-tank in New York, that he would like the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan to be “slow” and carried out in a calibrated manner; otherwise, he felt, Afghanistan could go the Iraq way. He also said that terrorism was a phenomenon that needed to be tackled globally.

In a related development, on 30 September, the new government of Afghanistan headed by President Ashraf Ghani signed a much-delayed bilateral security agreement with the US, which will, among other things, provide the residual troops, numbering about 12,000, immunity from criminal prosecution after a majority of the US and NATO forces leave Afghanistan by the year-end. Riedel argues that the US should “seek to work with India and Afghanistan” given the fact that India is already increasing its capabilities in Afghanistan and working closely with the Afghan government.

Modi and Obama also discussed the situation in West Asia. The US is keen to see India join a ‘coalition’ of 40-odd countries that supports a US-led campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. However, India has traditionally been averse to taking part in any operation that is not held under the UN flag.

There is no gainsaying that intent alone will not help to translate Obama and Modi’s vision for the India-US relationship into reality. Cold logic will probably dictate and determine the future course of the bilateral ties.

Modi alluded to it when, in an oblique reference to irritants in the relationship, he used marriage as a metaphor to point out that even happily-married couples have fights and maybe there was no need to seek comfort on all issues in a relationship. “One does not have to be comfortable about everything. Even between a husband and wife 100 percent comfort is not possible,” he said, revealing the pragmatic side of his personality.

Modi knows only too well that there are pockets of resistance even within his own party to issues such as GM crops, FDI in multi-brand retail, WTO negotiations and an Indian education system modelled on the US four-year undergraduate programme.

If Obama and Modi succeed in enabling their respective bureaucracies to overcome the inertia that has bedevilled them for the past few years, then it should not come as a surprise if both sides make considerable progress on some of these issues in the coming months. So, going forward, expect love and heartache in equal measure.

The India-US Joint Statement: Pledges and commitments

• Establish an India-US Investment Initiative with special focus on capital market development and financing of infrastructure

• Establish an Infrastructure Collaboration Platform to enhance participation of US companies in infrastructure projects in India

• Have the US industry as the lead partner in developing smart cities in Ajmer (Rajasthan), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh)

• Establish an annual high-level Intellectual Property Working Group with appropriate decision-making and technical-level meetings as part of the Trade Policy Forum

• Established a Contact Group on advancing the implementation of civil nuclear energy cooperation

• A new and enhanced strategic partnership on energy security, clean energy and climate change

• A new US-India Partnership for Climate Resilience entailing a new programme of work on air quality aimed at delivering benefits for climate change and human health

• Reinvigorate the political-military dialogue and expand its role to serve as a wider dialogue on export licensing, defence cooperation and strategic cooperation

• Enhance exchanges of civilian and military intelligence and consultation

• Intensify Cooperation in maritime security to ensure freedom of navigation and unimpeded movement of lawful shipping and commercial activity; also upgrade their existing bilateral exercise MALABAR

• Reaffirmed their shared interest in preserving regional peace and stability, which are critical to the Asia-Pacific region’s continued prosperity; expressed concern about rising tensions over maritime territorial disputes and affirmed the importance of safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region, especially in the South China Sea

Vajpayee and Modi at the UNGA

There are some interesting comparisons between Narendra Modi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee insofar as their participation in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) debates is concerned. Vajpayee became the first Indian to speak in Hindi at the 32nd session of the UNGA on 4 October 1977. Vajpayee was also the first Indian prime minister to speak in Hindi at the Millennium Summit in 2000. Modi is only the second Indian prime minister to speak in Hindi at the UNGA. In 1977, the Janata government had been in office for barely six months. In Modi’s case, the NDA government was only four months old when he addressed the UNGA.

While Modi chose to focus on yoga, terrorism, climate change, environment and development, Vajpayee dwelt on the regional situation in Asia and Africa, including the Israel-Palestine conflict. Vajpayee also focussed at some length on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. He said, “… we are prepared to cooperate wholeheartedly with other countries in discussing ways and means of putting an end to the danger of nuclear weapons. It is both urgent and necessary for the political mind to free itself of military logic and for the political will to assert the force of reason and reverse the nuclear arms race in the direction of nuclear disarmament.” Modi, however, used boilerplate language on disarmament, saying: “Let us continue to redouble our efforts to pursue universal global disarmament and non-proliferation.”

Looking in the rearview mirror

It would be instructive to look back at the road travelled in order to better appreciate the present and future trajectory of the India-US relationship. India’s engagement with the US over the past 65-odd years divides itself into three phases. The major phase, spread over the first 50 years, coincided with the Cold War. That was followed by five years of transition and then 10 years of a strategic partnership.The first 50 years were ideal because the world was getting divided into power blocs and the US believed that India was not really non-aligned and that it was with the Soviet bloc; hence, everything that the Americans did was coloured with that perception. Also, since India refused to join the US-led power bloc, it got a backlash in terms of minimal investments and minimal transfer of technologies. What compounded the hostility from the US side was the fact that India exploded a nuclear device in 1974; with that came sanctions on technology transfers and acquisition of high-technology items.A big thaw came towards the end of Bill Clinton’s term as US president. Clinton was very fundamentalist on nuclear issues; his policy was to cap, roll back and eliminate India’s nuclear programme. He was pursuing it relentlessly and then the 1998 nuclear tests took place. Strobe Talbott, the then US deputy secretary of state, recalled a furious Clinton asking why the US agencies could not detect the Indian nuclear tests. Clinton was as angry with India as he was with his own officials, especially given that the US State Department came to know about the tests from CNN, and the CIA, in turn, learnt about the tests from the State Department. Subsequently, further sanctions were imposed on India.

If one were to identity the lowest point in the India-US relationship, it would have to be 1998, but oddly enough, it was also to be the beginning of a new relationship. An 18-month-long dialogue between Talbott and the then external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, paved the way for Clinton’s visit to India in 2000; and the equations changed thereafter.

The India-US strategic partnership was cemented in 2005 after Manmohan Singh visited the US for talks with George W Bush. Both sides agreed to pursue civil nuclear cooperation and boost their defence ties.

However, there were differences of perception on what this strategic partnership meant. While the US discussed about the distant future and shared values, India worried about more immediate problems such as sanctions; it wanted three specific issues to be resolved before both sides could start talking about the future. First was transfer of high-technology; second, nuclear cooperation; and the third was space. A high point in the bilateral relationship was the signing of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2008.

However, the years that followed were pretty staid for the relationship. The 2012 Budget was a lightning rod of sorts for the US businesses to start criticising India for retrospective taxation, unfriendly investment conditions and uncertainty about future economic reforms.

Last year, the relations plummeted after Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was strip-searched for allegedly mistreating her maid.

And earlier this year, the National Association of Manufacturers petitioned the US government and the US Congress that sanctions be imposed on India for violating its international trade obligations. The US Trade Representative toyed with the idea of placing India under a special category of countries, which would have invited mandatory sanctions by the US Congress. “If that had happened, it would have been like a declaration of war” against India, said a source tracking India-US ties. “Nothing would have prevented the countries from drifting further apart.” Fortunately, that was not to happen.

However, bitterness was building up, mainly from the US industry side. In India, there was a feeling that under Obama, the urge to forge a bond with India was not there. Obama was not George W Bush. Bush may have been criticised for some of his policies but one policy that survived was his decision to enter into a strategic partnership with India. Some Indians felt that Obama was not investing in the partnership.

A more charitable view was that Obama was buffeted by crises at home and abroad, such as the state of the US economy, Arab Spring, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, which contributed to the drift.

Clearly, the fizz had gone out of the relationship.

Will reality bite the diaspora?

Promises have been offered at a dizzying pace, but their realisation will take its own sweet time

After the euphoria, the hard news. And after the politician’s extravagant promises, the bureaucrat’s caution. It is authoritatively learnt that Narendra Modi’s promise to merge the scheme for Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) with that for Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) will take time to become a reality.

Security establishments will provide their inputs and seek to plug existing loopholes before going full steam with the merger. Apart from the security establishment, the Bureau of Immigration will look closely into the implications that the merger may entail.

There are certain other vital areas as well. The merger, it has been clarified, will not lead to dual citizenship anytime in the near future. Diplomatic circles aver that the issue of dual citizenship is not only nettlesome but has dangerous ramifications in a South Asian context, what with PIOs abounding in countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka, a situation fraught with complications.

As things stand, PIO cards are given to those Indians who have been residing abroad for no less than two generations. On the other hand, OCI cards are given to those abroad of more recent vintage.

Other specifics include the fact that while PIOs get visas for a specific timeframe and have to currently go through some bother of visiting the Foreigner Regional Registration Office or the police to extend visas, an OCI card is enough for its holder to enter the country for an undefined period of time.

Modi meeting members of the Indian-American community

PIOs will be hopeful that once the two schemes are merged, they could also avail visa-free travel in India, residential rights and participation in business activities.

The merger scheme has a history — the upa government in its second term promised to deliver the goods but failed. The upa scheme has now come in handy for Modi, if and when it is implemented.

Attractive as the OCI is, existing rules stipulate that the OCI registration certificate and visa have to be reissued every time a new passport is acquired, up to the completion of 20 years of age and once after 50.

When it was introduced nine years ago, the OCI card was touted as proof of the government’s seriousness about wooing the diaspora. People were pushed to give up the PIO card as OCI was considered PIO-plus. The lifelong duration promise was tantalisingly dangled even at that time.

Additionally, other than allowing the holding of agricultural property and granting the vote, it put OCI cardholders at par with Indian citizens. It sounded like a dream scenario for non-residents, but it never got implemented. Further, OCI applications have to be sent to India, and for Washington, the processing time has been given as 90 days. In practical terms, an OCI cardholder is effectively without an Indian visa for three months minimum as far as Indian-Americans are concerned.

There has been a demand that the OCI card can be a standalone document without the need for another visa stamp in the passport. An OCI costs $475 and the hope being expressed is that at least the hugely convoluted process has been jettisoned, as promised by Modi.

There is optimism that the US will make a reciprocal gesture and offer India membership in its ‘Global Entry’ traveller network. The US does provide the facility to citizens of a clutch of countries such as Canada, South Korea and Mexico.

By the time the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is held in January 2015 — this time in Gandhinagar, Gujarat — the euphoria of Modi’s US proclamation will no doubt have died down. The diaspora, with its entitlement attitude, may have discovered that the ubiquitous red tape is preventing instant gratification of the type they are so used to in the West.

Incidentally, embassies and consulates across the world are propagating the event thus: “Since 2015 marks the hundredth anniversary of the return of the greatest ‘pravasi’ of all, Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa, it is desired that Pravasi Bharatiya Divas would be celebrated in a grand way.” Whether those who went abroad in determined pursuit of material wealth would have any time for Gandhi’s message of “simple living, high thinking” will be interesting to touch.