India

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 01, 2023 1:11 pm

Colonial Legacies and Post-Colonial Realities: Vijay Prashad (Interview)
MAY 30, 2023

Image
“The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State epicures taking un petit souper,” an 1805 caricature by James Gillray, lampoons French and British imperialisms as they carve up the world. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In this insightful discussion, Vijay Prashad, a prominent Indian historian and commentator, shared his valuable insights on various subjects, including the role of the Indian diaspora in shaping global perspectives on Indian politics and culture, his motivation to study the intersections of imperialism, capitalism, and globalization, and the enduring effects of colonialism on India and other colonized nations. Through his profound knowledge and expertise, Prashad provided thought-provoking perspectives that shed light on significant historical and contemporary issues.

As the Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Prashad continues to shape critical discourse and provoke thoughtful analysis. Prashad has authored numerous influential publications, which serve as intellectual milestones in understanding historical and contemporary issues. With a profound understanding of global politics, Prashad’s works unravel the intricate intersections between power, culture, and resistance, offering invaluable insights into the complexities of our world.

Excerpts of the interview;

Question [Q]: As an Indian historian and commentator, how do you see the role of the Indian diaspora in shaping global perspectives on Indian politics and culture?
Answer [A]: The Indian diaspora is varied, oscillating between people who have almost no politics to people who are adherents of the far-right. There was a time when the Indian diaspora was the home of the Left. The first left-wing Indian political party was established in California in 1913. It was the Ghadar Party. Many of those who were attracted to it later went to the USSR to learn how to become Communists, and then went on to join the Communist movement in India. The Communist Party of India was founded in Tashkent (USSR) in 1920, mostly by emigré Indians, a different kind of diaspora. But, after independence, the nature of migration changed, as sections of the Indian middle-class left the country for economic reasons and their political life mirrored the journey of the Indian middle-class within the country. The middle-class Indian diaspora today is the exact complement of the Indian middle-class inside India.

Q: What motivated you to study and write about the intersection of imperialism, capitalism, and globalization, particularly in relation to the Global South?
A: I was born and brought up in Kolkata, India, which is a city of great marvels but also a city of immense inequality. To people like me, born into education and means, the striking aspect of our lives was the gap between what we experienced and the absolute devastation of poverty that defined the lives of people around us. That social inequality hit me hard and continues to strike me. It is what forced me to learn about why inequality is reproduced, to seek answers from the facts, and therefore to discover that the source of such inequality was the ugly profit-driven system of capitalism that had absorbed wretched hierarchies that predate capitalism, such as the caste system. Why was India not able to transcend the caste hierarchies and the ugliness of capitalism? It was not just because of the greed of the Indian bourgeoise and the landlords, but also due to the immense power of the neo-colonial structure maintained by the former colonial powers. You can’t understand the poverty on the streets of Colombo, for instance, without having a full understanding of the imperialist system.

Q: In your work, you often highlight the impact of imperialism on the countries and regions it has affected. How would you describe the lasting effects of imperialism on India and other colonized nations?
A: Firstly, it is important to note that British imperialism – which ruled India for centuries – stole tens of trillions of pounds from the Indian people. Several economists have tried to calculate this enormous ‘drain of wealth’. Profits made in India and wealth built in India were not reinvested in the country but taken and invested in the United Kingdom. This led to a cascade of underinvestment in India, and therefore the impoverishment of the country. Second, as a consequence of this underinvestment – the lack of use of capital formed in India – was that there was reduced employment opportunities for the people, including lack of investment in agriculture that led to the catastrophic famines of the Victorian Era. Third, the British imperial state in India failed to invest in social development – namely in health and education – which grievously impacted the living conditions of people. When the British were booted out of India, the literacy rate was a mere 13% (in the UK, during the same period, the literacy rate was about 98%). These three impacts – theft of capital to the UK, the underinvestment in Indian agriculture, and the lack of social investment – have had long-term, catastrophic impacts on India.

Q: Some critics argue that anti-imperialist movements and ideologies often romanticize and idealize certain regimes or leaders, even when they may have engaged in oppressive practices. How do you respond to these critiques, and how can anti-imperialist movements avoid falling into this trap?
A: The journey out of the neo-colonial structures is not easy. People in very poor countries, with backward state institutions, struggle to establish their sovereignty over their territory and to create dignity for their people. They face attacks ceaselessly, which often leads beleaguered states to turn inward. The problems within the path of anti-colonial projects are nothing compared to the problems that structure those failures, namely the neo-colonial system. It is convenient for the old colonial powers to point fingers at the problems inside the post-colonial states, but harder for them to accept their own role in creating the enabling conditions for state failure and oppressive practices.

Q: What are some key challenges faced by post-colonial countries in achieving economic and political sovereignty, and how can they address these challenges effectively?
A: The most important challenges are two: first, the obduracy of the old colonial powers who refuse to allow for sovereignty and thereby use any means (including invasions and coups) to hold onto power (even if they allow for flag independence), and second, the theft of wealth by the colonial powers that leaves the new states in a dependent relation to their former colonial rulers, but this time not through political power but through economic interconnections. If a post-colonial state tries to establish its sovereignty over its own territory and raw materials (such as Chile in the early 1970s), it faces economic sabotage and then a coup (1973). This story repeats itself over and over again.

Q: Your work often critiques Western interventionism and imperialism. However, some argue that there are instances where international intervention can be justified, such as in cases of genocide or human rights abuses. How do you navigate this complex ethical terrain?
A: Obviously, there must be room for external intervention in times of genuine genocide. That principle is not established by the United Nations. However, that principle is also misused by the West to fulfill its own aims. For instance, it used the term genocide to justify the destruction of Libya in 2011 (after the bombardment ended, Amnesty International showed that there was nothing like genocide happening in Libya). Furthermore, Western interventions – such as in Iraq – have led to massive destruction (including loss of life and human rights abuses). We need to be very careful when we hear talk of genocide, since the term has been used instrumentally by Western powers to justify their own military interventions for their own narrow imperialist ends.

Q: The concept of “third worldism” has been central to your analysis. Could you explain this concept and its relevance in today’s global context?
A: Actually, I do not use this term, since the term itself is not precise enough. I use the term ‘Third World Project’ to specify the social dynamic set in place at the tail end of the colonial era, when colonized states got together to drive a combined agenda against the neo-colonial system. These states met in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955, and then later established the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. This Third World Project was destroyed in the 1980s during the Third World debt crisis, when they lost their political strength due to the devastation of their economies and the use by the West of the International Monetary Fund to damage the integrity of the new states. Today, we have a different context, different possibilities. That is our history.

Q: Marxist ideologies have been widely criticized for their historical association with authoritarian regimes. How do you address these criticisms, and what do you believe is the role of Marxism in building a just and inclusive society?
A: The term ‘authoritarian regime’ is an ideological term. Its most scientific basis was provided by Hannah Arendt in her The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which made the case that fascism and communism are much the same thing. The association between fascism and communism is not only analytically lazy but it performed a task for the Western imperialist states that wanted to defame communism despite the historical role played by the USSR in the destruction of Nazism. So, what do we mean by authoritarian regimes? We do not add in their list the totalitarian regimes set in place by Western imperialism after the coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954), nor the money-driven democracies in the West that have corrupted democracy and driven people into either total social passivity or neo-fascist rage. Marxists stand against these kinds of totalitarianisms.

Q: Climate change is an urgent issue facing the world today. What are your thoughts on the responsibility of wealthy nations in addressing climate justice and supporting the Global South in tackling environmental challenges?
A: My thoughts are not as significant as the treaty obligations of the Western powers, who signed the 1992 Rio framework of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, which means that they recognize the common problems of environmental destruction and climate change but see that there are differentiated responsibilities based on the historical abuse of the planet by the imperialist powers. This is a treaty obligation. And yet, the West has not lived up to their own obligation. They should be taken to the International Criminal Court for this malfeasance.

Q: Your book “The Darker Nations” focuses on the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Bandung Conference. How do you view the relevance and legacy of these movements in the present-day geopolitical landscape?
A: Today, the context of that period when the Third World Project shone is very different. Certain states in the developing world – China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa – have taken on an important role in global leadership. The establishment of the BRICS (2009) and the emergence of the New Non-Alignment has opened up new possibilities. This opening is built on the legacy of the past, but it does not repeat them. These large states no longer want to accept the claim by the West that their parochial interests are universal. These states want to put forward their own national interests. We have to closely study this New Non-Alignment.

Q: Identity politics has become a contentious topic in recent years. What is your perspective on the role of identity-based movements in social and political struggles, and how can they contribute to broader movements for justice and equality?
A: The term identity politics is very general. Of course, there are historical social hierarchies – such as the caste system and patriarchy – that have to be frontally challenged and defeated. These will take place by broad based struggles against caste and patriarchy. An idea has come to the fore that only the victims of these systems can fight in this struggle. This narrows the fight and makes it weaker. We need to assemble broad based struggles of all people to fight to liberate humanity from wretchedness.

Q: How do you view the relationship between Marxism and anti-imperialism? Do you think Marxism provides an effective framework for addressing the unique challenges faced by post-colonial societies?
A: Marxism is one of the only frameworks that properly addresses the crisis-ridden system of capitalism that produces imperialist tendencies amongst its most powerful countries. No other theory of the world properly explains the cycle of crises and the punctuality of wars. If another theory comes along, let me know.

Q: However, some argue that globalization and capitalism, despite their flaws, have brought significant economic development and lifted millions out of poverty. How do you respond to this argument, and what alternative economic models do you propose?
A: If you look at the UN data, you will find that the country that has lifted the most number of people out of poverty is China. And the Chinese people have not eradicated absolute poverty through globalization and capitalism. They have done so, as our Tricontinental study shows, by the central work of the Communist Party of China and the state apparatus, which in a very studious and clear way went after certain social problems that had to be overcome for poverty to be eradicated. Countries that have weakened state structures – a necessary byproduct of extreme neoliberalism – have seen their poverty rates rise.

Q: Your analysis often focuses on the negative impacts of imperialism and capitalism. However, can you acknowledge any positive aspects or unintended consequences that may have emerged from these systems?
A: Can’t see any.

Q: In your view, what are some key lessons that can be drawn from the history of anti-colonial struggles, and how can they inform and inspire contemporary movements striving for liberation, self-determination, and social justice?
A: The most important lesson is from the hard work of the people who built these movements, their patience in working to establish the mass character of their movements, and the sacrifices they underwent to establish their movements and our freedom. Hard work, patience, and sacrifice: three things that we have to learn for our own times.

Q: In conclusion, as artificial intelligence continues to advance, there are concerns about its potential impact on the global workforce. How do you envision the future of work in a world increasingly driven by AI, and what steps can be taken to mitigate any negative effects on employment?
A: Capitalism necessary applies the latest in science to enhance the productive forces, whose advancement lifts the productivity rate but then eventually leads to crisis upon crisis as the rate of profit falls. This is a cycle of increased productivity and then heightened crisis that has been ongoing since the late 19th century. AI is just the latest in a new technological breakthrough. The only way to mitigate the negative impact of unemployment is to socialize the gains from productivity, which is another way of saying to transcend capitalism and go to socialism.

https://orinocotribune.com/colonial-leg ... interview/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:20 pm

The Emergence of a New Non-Alignment: The Twenty-Fourth Newsletter

JUNE 15, 2023
Español Português Italian

Image
Sahej Rahal (India), Juggernaut, 2019.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

A new mood of defiance in the Global South has generated bewilderment in the capitals of the Triad (the United States, Europe, and Japan), where officials are struggling to answer why governments in the Global South have not accepted the Western view of the conflict in Ukraine or universally supported the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in its efforts to ‘weaken Russia’. Governments that had long been pliant to the Triad’s wishes, such as the administrations of Narendra Modi in India and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Türkiye (despite the toxicity of their own regimes), are no longer as reliable.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has been vocal in defending his government’s refusal to accede to Washington’s pressure. In April 2022, at a joint press conference in Washington, DC with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Jaishankar was asked to explain India’s continued purchase of oil from Russia. His answer was blunt: ‘I noticed you refer to oil purchases. If you are looking at energy purchases from Russia, I would suggest that your attention should be focused on Europe… We do buy some energy which is necessary for our energy security. But I suspect, looking at the figures, probably our total purchases for the month would be less than what Europe does in an afternoon’.

Image
Kandi Narsimlu (India), Waiting at the Bus Stand, 2023.

However, such comments have not deterred Washington’s efforts to win India over to its agenda. On 24 May, the US Congress’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a policy statement on Taiwan which asserted that ‘[t]he United States should strengthen the NATO Plus arrangement to include India’. This policy statement was released shortly after the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, where India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the various G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, as well as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Indian government’s response to this ‘NATO Plus’ formulation echoed the sentiment of its earlier remarks about purchasing Russian oil. ‘A lot of Americans still have that NATO treaty construct in their heads’, Jaishankar said in a press conference on 9 June. ‘It seems almost like that is the only template or viewpoint with which they look at the world… That is not a template that applies to India’. India, he said, is not interested in being part of NATO Plus, wishing to maintain a greater degree of geopolitical flexibility. ‘One of the challenges of a changing world’, Jaishankar said, ‘is how do you get people to accept and adjust to those changes’.

Image
Katsura Yuki (Japan), An Ass in a Lion’s Skin, 1956.

There are two significant takeaways from Jaishankar’s statements. First, the Indian government – which does not oppose the United States, either in terms of its programme or temperament – is uninterested in being drawn into a US-led bloc system (the ‘NATO treaty construct’, as Jaishankar put it). Second, like many governments in the Global South, it recognises that we live in ‘changing world’ and that the traditional major powers – especially the United States – need to ‘adjust to those changes’.

In its Investment Outlook 2023 report, Credit Suisse pointed to the ‘deep and persistent fractures’ that have opened up in the international order – another way of referring to what Jaishankar called the ‘changing world’. Credit Suisse describes these ‘fractures’ accurately: ‘The global West (Western developed countries and allies) has drifted away from the global East (China, Russia, and allies) in terms of core strategic interests, while the Global South (Brazil, Russia, India, and China and most developing countries) is reorganising to pursue its own interests’. These final words bear repeating: ‘the Global South… is reorganising to pursue its own interests’.

In mid-April, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its Diplomatic Bluebook 2023, in which it noted that we are now at the ‘end of the post-Cold War era’. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States asserted its primacy over the international order and, along with its Triad vassals, established what it called the ‘rules-based international order’. This thirty-year-old US-led project is now floundering, partly due to the internal weaknesses of the Triad countries (including their weakened position in the global economy) and partly due to the rise of the ‘locomotives of the South’ (led by China, but including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria). Our calculations, based on the IMF datamapper, show that for the first time in centuries, the Gross Domestic Product of the Global South countries surpassed that of the Global North countries this year. The rise of these developing countries – despite the great social inequality that exists within them – has produced a new attitude amongst their middle classes which is reflected in the increased confidence of their governments: they no longer accept the parochial views of the Triad countries as universal truths, and they have a greater wish to exert their own national and regional interests.

Image
Nelson Makamo (South Africa), The Announcement, 2016.

It is this re-assertion of national and regional interests within the Global South that has revived a set of regional processes, including the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) process. On 1 June, the BRICS foreign ministers met in Cape Town (South Africa) ahead of the summit between their heads of states that is set to take place this August in Johannesburg. The joint statement they issued is instructive: twice, they warned about the negative impact of ‘unilateral economic coercive measures, such as sanctions, boycotts, embargoes, and blockades’ which have ‘produced negative effects, notably in the developing world’. The language in this statement represents a feeling that is shared across the entirety of the Global South. From Bolivia to Sri Lanka, these countries, which make up the majority of the world, are fed up with the IMF-driven debt-austerity cycle and the Triad’s bullying. They are beginning to assert their own sovereign agendas.

Interestingly, this revival of sovereign politics is not being driven by inward-looking nationalism, but by a non-aligned internationalism. The BRICS ministers’ statement focuses on ‘strengthening multilateralism and upholding international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations as its indispensable cornerstone’ (incidentally, both China and Russia are part of the twenty-member Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter). The implicit argument being made here is that the US-led Triad states have unilaterally imposed their narrow worldview, based on the interests of their elites, on the countries of the South under the guise of the ‘rules-based international order’. Now, the states of the Global South argue, it is time to return to the source – the UN Charter – and build a genuinely democratic international order.

Image
Leaders of the Third World at the first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, 1961.
Credit: Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade.

The word ‘non-aligned’ has increasingly been used to refer to this new trend in international politics. The term has its origins in the Non-Aligned Conference held in Belgrade (Yugoslavia) in 1961, which was built upon the foundations laid at the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung (Indonesia) in 1955. In those days, non-alignment referred to countries led by movements rooted in the deeply anti-colonial Third World Project, which sought to establish the sovereignty of the new states and the dignity of their people. That moment of non-alignment was killed off by the debt crisis of the 1980s, which began with Mexico’s default in 1982. What we have now is not a return of the old non-alignment, but the emergence of a new political atmosphere and a new political constellation that requires careful study. For now, we can say that this new non-alignment is being demanded by the larger states of the Global South that are uninterested in being subordinated by the Triad’s agenda, but which have not yet established a project of their own – a Global South Project, for instance.

Image

As part of our efforts to understand this emerging dynamic, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research will be joining with the No Cold War campaign, ALBA Movimientos, Pan-Africanism Today, the International Strategy Center (South Korea), and the International Peoples’ Assembly to host the webinar ‘The New Non-Alignment and the New Cold War’ on 17 June. Speakers will include Ronnie Kasrils (former minister of intelligence, South Africa), Sevim Dağdelen (deputy party leader for Die Linke in the German Bundestag), Stephanie Weatherbee (International Peoples’ Assembly), and Srujana Bodapati (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).

Image

In 1931, the Jamaican poet and journalist Una Marson (1905–1965) wrote ‘There Will Come a Time’, a poem of hopefulness for a future ‘where love and brotherhood should have full sway’. People in the colonised world, she wrote, would have to pursue a sustained battle to attain their freedom. We are nowhere near the end of that fight, yet we are not in the position of almost total subordination that we were in during the height of the Triad’s primacy, which ran from 1991 to now. It is worthwhile to go back to Marson, who knew with certainty that a more just world would come, even if she would not be alive to witness it:

What matter that we be as cagèd birds
Who beat their breasts against the iron bars
Till blood-drops fall, and in heartbreaking songs
Our souls pass out to God? These very words,
In anguish sung, will mightily prevail.
We will not be among the happy heirs
Of this grand heritage – but unto us
Will come their gratitude and praise,
And children yet unborn will reap in joy
What we have sown in tears.


Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... alignment/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 08, 2023 1:57 pm

JULY 6, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
India’s discontent with the SCO

Image

The virtual summit meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on July 4 welcomed Iran as its tenth member
To be out of sync with the contemporary life anywhere at anytime becomes indeed a despairing situation. That was the tragic predicament of the Austrian writer of the inter-war period, Stefan Zweig, who once wrote, “One must be convinced to convince, to have enthusiasm to stimulate the others” — alluding to the rising tide of fascism in Europe in the twenties and thirties which culminated in World War 2.

Zweig couldn’t reconcile his inner contradiction, which ultimately drove him to take his life in faraway Brazil, barely escaping the Nazi hunt of the Jewish bourgeoisie in Vienna to which his wealthy family belonged, after handing over to the publisher his great memoirs The World of Yesterday, which is regarded even today as a most evocative book on the Habsburg Empire.

Zweig’s tragedy should not be India’s destiny, as it runs away from the complexities of the current world situation. That is why, the salience of the virtual summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO] under India’s chairmanship on Tuesday becomes highly disturbing. Where is India’s SCO policy heading?

The opening address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SCO event failed to convince, leave alone stimulate the other member countries — especially Russia and China who invented the “Shanghai spirit” almost three decades ago, which became five years later in 2001 the guideline for the SCO cooperation.

The saddest part is that Modi seems unaware of the Shanghai spirit, although his government fortuitously came to harvest the foreign policy initiative by the previous Manmohan Singh government to seek SCO membership for India. Modi’s speeches on the multilateral platforms have by now come to acquire a familiar trait — aiming barbs through innuendoes at Pakistan and China. They enthrall the anti-Muslim and Sinophobic lobbies within India but will have no use for the SCO collective.

Morality is a complex topic in the world of diplomacy, but its nuances must be grappled with. Good moral judgements actually involve discerning when exceptions need to be made in consideration of a larger enduring result. Has India’s harping on terrorism “in all its manifestations” made any dent into the world community’s understanding of the Kashmir dispute, as reflected in the OIC statements or the occasional articulation by UN officials?

Has China’s Belt and Road Initiative come to a grinding halt due to the self-serving sovereignty question that India rakes up as metaphor to embellish its narrative on the boundary dispute in the Himalayas? The answer is a resounding “no”, again. In fact, the SCO member countries are embracing great connectivity projects that bypass India due to its intractable differences and disputes with China and Pakistan.

SCO and the world order

The SCO summit 2023 took place against the backdrop of momentous happenings in international security. Arguably, the historicity of this year’s SCO summit is largely on account of the epochal developments unfolding today that will largely determine the nature of the world order in the 21st century. The presidents of both Russia and China in their speeches focused on this leitmotif of the contemporary international situation and took perspectives on the SCO’s role in a world in transition.

To quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech, “We believe it is important that all members of the [SCO] association share their approaches to the situation in global politics, security, the social and economic spheres. At the same time, our organisation is strongly committed to creating a truly just and multipolar world order, an order based on international law and common principles of mutually respectful cooperation between sovereign states with the central, coordinating role of the United Nations. Most importantly, this is the constructive foundation underlying the SCO’s practical activity…”

In his speech, the Chinese President Xi Jinping also called for opposing hegemonism and power politics, making the system of global governance fairer and more equitable, and promoting modernisation of human society through concerted and constant endeavours to advance equal rights, equal opportunities, and fair rules for all. Asserting that the historical trend of peace, development, and win-win cooperation is unstoppable, Xi called for efforts to maintain regional peace and safeguard common security and reminded his audience that sustaining peace and security in the SCO region is a common responsibility.

Both Putin and Xi dilated on the issue at some length. They seem to inhabit the same planet, Planet Earth. In contrast, the Indian statement dismissed this topic rather perfunctorily and curtly in two sentences. Modi said, “The present times mark a crucial phase in global affairs. In a world surrounded by conflicts, tensions and pandemics; food, fuel, and fertiliser crises is a significant challenge for all nations.” Period!

It’s as simple as that! Does India have any views at all on such a “crucial phase in global affairs”? Instead, Modi’s speech took a detour, wandering aimlessly through Venus and Mars — Startups and Innovation; Traditional Medicine; Youth Empowerment; Digital Inclusion; Shared Buddhist Heritage; Emerging Fuels; Decarbonisation in the Transportation Sector; Digital Public Infrastructure and so on — which, ironically, would have made the business of the moribund SAARC.

This is becoming hilarious as India pretends that it is not even aware that SCO is quintessentially a security platform. In reality, Delhi seems to be increasingly frustrated that more and more countries from South Asia (eg., Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan) are finding SCO to be an alternative to the SAARC, which India is subjecting to slow death.

Equally, the countries of West Asia (Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Türkiye, etc.) are eagerly flocking to the SCO seeking some or any form of lien with the grouping. Delhi cannot stop these processes, while at the same time, it is also in distress that China may be the beneficiary and is unsure how the newfound gravitas in multilateralism in India’s extended neighbourhood might actually erode its self-projection, with western encouragement, as the number one regional power in its region and the extended region.

Fundamentally, India is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. It is, of course, a risky and dangerous game that can only aggravate India’s isolation regionally. Certainly, it is the Modi government’s own choice to put all its eggs in the American basket when it comes to the security of the Indian Ocean region. On the other hand, India must also be knowing this to be a contrarian trend in regional politics when the regional states are overwhelmingly moving into the orbit of the SCO and even the US’ closest allies in the Gulf region are shaking off the West’s hegemonic role in regional security and seeking shelter in that unique Russian-Chinese condominium.

Actually, this is a self-invited trauma for India, since it is to be solely attributed to the Modi government’s incomprehensible agenda to tie the country to the American stable, completely contrary to the world trend of the Global South shaking off the western yoke finally and decisively.

At the end of the day, therefore, there aren’t going to be any takers for the rhetorical questions raised in the Indian prime minister’s statement at the SCO summit:

“We should collectively ponder upon whether we are capable, as an organisation, of fulfilling the aspirations and expectations of our people?”
“Are we equipped to tackle modern-day challenges?”
“Is SCO evolving into an organisation that is fully prepared for the future?”
It is a foregone conclusion that none of the SCO member countries — or aspiring regional states — will in the least be interested in taking the cue from India.

SCO rallies the Global South

India’s discontent with the SCO can no longer be hidden. With an eye on President Biden, this is a natural fallout of the Modi government’s lurch toward the American camp. Yet, the most regrettable part is that India’s lackadaisical approach toward the SCO is coinciding with the US plans to insert NATO as the number one security provider in Asia. Unwittingly or otherwise, India’s conduct effectively weakens the SCO’s solidarity when it is needed most, and in turn de facto subserves the US’ so-called Indo-Pacific strategy.

However, the Indian doublespeak is doomed to fail. The writing is there on the wall already with the major states in West Asia moving in tandem in the same direction that Iran took. Thus, whether India likes it or not, the gravitational pull within the SCO is already toward wider use of national currencies for mutual settlements and implementation of the SCO roadmap for the transition to national currencies in mutual trade; coordinated measures to remove regulatory barriers; establishment of necessary payment infrastructure; and the ultimate goal of creating an independent financial system.

Most important, India’s lukewarm attitude notwithstanding, the SCO countries will prioritise the consideration of the entire substantial portfolio of applications from other states that want to cooperate with them in the regional format in one capacity or another. Again, while India soft-pedals the Russian proposal “to transform the regional SCO anti-terrorist structure into a universal centre that would be responsible for responding to the entire range of security threats” — given Delhi’s obsession with bracketing Pakistan with terrorism. But Putin underscored that the matter “requires the most attentive and constructive approach.”

Putin means it. This puts India in a quandary. For, India’s passion to fight terrorism begins and ends with Pakistan. The Modi government is not in the least interested in the US’ innovative uses of terrorism as a geopolitical tool in various parts of the world — the latest instance being the drone attacks on the US’ Independence Day on Moscow and the Moscow Region, which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, “would have been impossible without the support provided to the Kiev regime by the United States and its NATO allies, which continue to pour weapons into Ukraine, including drones, train drone operators and provide intelligence information necessary for such crimes, including civilian and military satellite images.”

Russia and China have a special concern in building up the SCO’s resilience to counter the US’ containment strategy against them. It is to be anticipated, therefore, that in the international arena, the SCO and the BRICS are poised to be the two principal vehicles to advance the aspirations of the Global South.

Quite obviously, China and Russia will take lead roles in forging the unity of the Global South. Witness China’s peace and reconciliation initiatives in West Asia or the Russian efforts in Africa and Latin America or in the working of the OPEC Plus . The point is, China and Russia are not tainted as colonial powers historically. On the other hand, by clinging on to the American coattails, India is only weakening its own pretensions as the self-appointed leader of the Global South. The sooner India comes to terms with this geopolitical reality, the better.

So long as India remains an SCO member, the trend is likely to be resistance from other member countries to reducing the regional body to ventilate its grouses against Pakistan and China and vitiate the working of the organisation. Thus, when it comes to the core of the SCO territory, Central Asia, a new China-Central Asia format at the heads of state level has been created recently (with Russian support), which will meet bi-annually — the region being highly vulnerable to the US-sponsored colour revolutions and regime change agenda. It is unlikely that Moscow or Beijing took Delhi into confidence on this major development in Eurasia’s geopolitics. (See my blogs here, here and here)

Again, a similar trend can be expected with regard to the acceleration of the BRI in the SCO landscape, with the decision to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan, which will at the next stage connect Central Asia. Similarly, it is entirely conceivable that the new Central Asian gas alliance in the making at Russia’s initiative will eventually connect Pakistan, too, by pipeline to the massive Russian gas fields.

The idea seems to be gaining ground in the SCO capitals that India will get the message at some point that it does not pay to be a dog in the manger. The SCO is determined not to meet the tragic fate of the SAARC.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/indias- ... h-the-sco/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 10, 2023 2:35 pm

AUGUST 9, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
West is paranoid about BRICS Summit

Image

Reuters carried a speculative report last week that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in person and, furthermore, that India disfavoured an expansion of the grouping. Reuters’ long history of cold war skulduggery notwithstanding, the gullible Indian media fell for the rumour mongering.

And it created some confusion, but only momentarily. South Africa is conscious that with the state of play in its bilateral ties with the US being what it is, President Cyril Rampaphosa’s excellent personal equations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, BRICS’ sojourn on the ‘’de-dollarisation’’ pathway and its expansion plans, there are high expectations of Modi’s constructive role to make the upcoming event in Johannesburg a historic milestone in 21st century world politics.

The plain speak by the South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor on the Reuters report is spot on. Pandor said, “I did speak to various colleagues in government and outside, and everybody was astounded by this rumour. I think that someone who is trying to spoil our summit is creating all sorts of stories that suggest that it won’t be successful.

“The prime minister of India has never said that he is not attending the summit. I am in constant contact with foreign minister Jaishankar. He has never said that. Our sherpas are in touch and they have never said it. So, we have all been trying to look for this needle in a haystack that began this rumour.”

There was a time not too long ago when the West used to ridicule the BRICS as an ineffectual butterfly beating its wings in the void in a world order dominated by the G7. But the ‘‘butterfly effect’’ is being felt today in the remaking of the world order.

Simply put, the torrential flow of events in the past year in the situation around Ukraine brought to the surface Russia’s existential struggle vis-a-vis the US, which in turn triggered a tectonic shift in the international landscape, one transformative aspect being the rise of the Global South and its increasingly important role in international politics.

The Biden administration wouldn’t have expected that a polarisation to isolate Russia and China would end up like this. Paradoxically, Washington’s ‘‘dual containment’’ of Russia and China, as enshrined in the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy marked the beginning of the Global South breaking away from the control of the big powers, repositioning their international status and role, and seeking strategic self-confidence and autonomy.

Saudi Arabia is a stellar example — assuming an independent trajectory in regional hot spots such as Sudan or Syria, calibrating the world oil market through the OPEC Plus format rather than obey the diktats from Washington, and in seeking BRICS membership.

The developing countries are gaining room to manoeuvre in the game of big powers and their political influence has risen rapidly. Their diplomatic independence and strategic autonomy against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis has accelerated their rise as an emerging force in global politics in a remarkably short period of time.

What prompts the 23 non-western countries to formally seek BRICS membership — although, the grouping doesn’t even have a secretariat — is because the grouping is perceived today as the principal platform of the Global South espousing an equitable world order and, therefore, has a tryst with the destiny of mankind.

Right from its inception, BRICS has been savvy enough not to inject any ‘‘anti-westernism’’ into its agenda — in fact, none of its founding members has a ‘‘bloc mentality’’. But that hasn’t prevented the West from feeling threatened. In reality, this threat perception emanates out of a morbid fear of extinction that the 4-century old western dominance of the political and economic order and the international system is drawing to a close.

Neo-mercantilism, which is crucial to arrest the decline of the western economies, is being frontally challenged, as we are witnessing in real time in Niger. Without the massive transfer of resources from Africa, the West faces a dim future. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell blurted out in a weak moment that the West, a manicured garden, is threatened by the jungle. The atavistic fears and instincts implicit in Borrell’s metaphor are simply stunning.

Hence such frenzy to run down BRICS, to weaken its resolve, to tarnish its image and standing, and prevent it from gathering momentum. Alas, the same old colonial ‘‘divide and rule’’ mindset is at work to amplify the differences and disagreements between the BRICS member states.

The controversy about the Indian stance on BRICS expansion can be seen only that way. Last week, following the rumour mongering by Reuters, Indian foreign ministry spokesman felt compelled to clarify all over again, ‘‘Let me repeat again. We have clarified our position in the past. As mandated by the leaders last year, BRICS members are internally discussing the guiding principles, the standards, criteria, and procedures for BRICS expansion process on the basis of full consultation and consensus. As our External Affairs Minister had mentioned, we are approaching this with an open mind and a positive outlook. We have seen some baseless speculation… that India has reservations against expansion. This is simply not true. So let me put it very clearly from that.’’

As regards the canard that Modi planned to skip the trip to Johannesburg, Indian spokesman reacted, ‘‘I would urge you not to go by speculative media reports. When we are in a position to talk about, to announce such high-level visits, we will certainly do so, and you’ll know that that’s been our practice. For the moment, I would urge you all to just be patient and let us announce it at the right time.’’

Equally, the Anglo-American conspiracy behind the ICC’s arrest warrant on Putin is self-evident. Russia had pioneered BRIC and the grouping’s first summit took place in Yekaterinburg in 2008 [which, by the way, issued a joint statement warning against the global domination of the US dollar as the world’s standard reserve currency.]

Putin has been tirelessly campaigning for ‘‘de-dollarisation’’ and is the most resonant voice today on that issue on the international stage. Putin’s prognosis has gained wide acceptance in the Global South, as evident from the exodus of countries opting for national currencies to settle their mutual payments. Washington is increasingly concerned that a process of ‘de-dollarisation’ is gaining traction in the international financial system following its excessive weaponisation of sanctions and arbitrary seizure of dollar reserves of countries it does not get along with.

Interestingly, Bloomberg featured an article on the BRICS summit titled ‘‘This club isn’t big enough for both China and India.’’ Its thesis is that ‘‘tensions between the Asian rivals will likely prevent the BRICS bloc from ever posing a coherent challenge to the West.’’ It is a hackneyed attempt to dwell on the contradictions that exist between China and India to drive a wedge and undermine BRICS unity.

True, India may have concerns about China dominating BRICS group. But then, China is also a strong exponent of BRICS expansion and increased representation of developing countries. Doesn’t that show a strategic convergence?

Fundamentally, despite their unresolved border dispute, India and China have a common vision that BRICS plays an essential role on the global multilateral stage. Both countries also see the BRICS as a platform to enhance their international status and influence. This commonality of interests is what worries the West.

For India, BRICS is a favourable instrumental platform to realise its aspiration to achieve greater representation on the international stage. Therefore, BRICS success can only strengthen India’s foreign policy — and, conceivably, may even create some positive energy and ambience in its relations with China.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/west-is ... cs-summit/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 15, 2023 2:42 pm

Image
‘If ever, in any posh colony or good apartment, even educated and socially well-placed Muslims’ population grows, a sense of having been taken over starts pervading the Hindu residents there.’ (Photo: Flickr/José Miguel (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0))

What we lose through the ghettoisation of urban India
By Ben Norton (Posted Aug 15, 2023)
Originally published: The Wire on August 13, 2023 by Khurshid Akram (more by The Wire) |

Overarching facts lead to overriding arguments. Overriding arguments beat all arguments even if they are more logical, even if they have more meaning.

For example, there can be a communal flare up at any moment and there can be riots on any day and at any time. Consequently, you can be attacked and killed at any time. This is unfortunately a fact in the India we are living in.

And so, there is the overriding argument we hear – “live amongst your folks.”

If you are a Hindu, don’t live in an area dominated by or surrounded by Muslims, and vice versa. And because you never know if and when any such a moment will come in your life, you tend to follow your fears.

Thus, “only Hindus can protect Hindus and only Muslims can protect Muslims” is the overriding argument in the India of the 21st century.

Such ‘facts’ and such ‘arguments’ go hand in hand, traversing the length and breadth of the country.

In the past 70-odd years, Hindus and Muslims appear to have increasingly followed this undeclared dictum. With rapid urbanisation, rural and small town populations have shifted base. Big and small cities have mushroomed rapidly in the Indian landscape. In such cities, everybody has, first and foremost, a desire to get a good job, set up a good business, get a good education, have access to good medical facilities, and all the other material goods one can think of.

Valid aspirations, aren’t they?

Urban versus Rural
Those living in villages may have the same aspirations. They, too, may be longing for a good life within the limited and available resources they have.

But unlike the neo-urban population, their preferences and priorities are different. Perhaps their overarching desire is to have good neighbours and live in a close-knit society.

In places that are not urban, civic facilities are scarce. So in an emergency, those who live there need each other’s moral and physical support. It could be said that religious identity is secondary to them. Religion itself is rather simple and resides deep in their faith system. Of course, it would be naïve to say that there is no religious divide in the villages and small towns of India. Religious identities result in cultural differences as well, but, in my view, they are mostly confined to the domestic and private arena.

But the over-assertion of rituals and religious festivities by one community or the other can sometimes lead to skirmishes, which in turn has been known to lead to communal riots. But once the dust settles, both Hindus and Muslims, irrespective of whose population is more in a particular area, seem to reconcile and go on co-existing. They can’t afford to and don’t shift their homes or fields to ‘safer’ places, unlike how urban people seem to be able to do.

And so, despite the fact that there are villages and towns entirely or predominantly inhabited by one community or the other, there is no ghetto. A line of division may be there, but that is often largely invisible.

In urban settings, though, the picture is strikingly different.

The urban phenomenon
Because the urbanites are mostly, if not all, displaced people, they don’t have any archetypal memory or attachment to their new abodes.

Because they are keen to earn according to their aspirations and can secure access to most facilities on their own, without seeking the help of a neighbour, they feel they don’t require the community life they found necessary in villages. Inter-dependence, which is central to village residents’ harmony with each other, has little meaning in urban settings.

Yet the urbanites’ sense of community can appear far stronger, even vocal at times and more aggressive. Religion here is not simple. It is strong and evocative. It dominates life, but for no reasons apparent outwardly, with no visible signs, can suddenly surface. The books interpreting religious scriptures are, at one end, soft like a cotton ball and at the other end, sharp and unbending like a dagger.

With prosperity promised and ambitions high, elements of spirituality and contentment which are understood to be the core of religion, bear little relevance in an urban population’s life. Yet their sense of religious identity remains all pervading. There is a conundrum here: religion in them appears skin-deep and yet, religious identity is writ large on their face.

A Hindu, whether or not s(he) is religious and a Muslim, whether or not s(he) is a practicing one, have access to big mosques and grand temples. They have community leaders and protectors of their ‘interests’. And of course, there are communal conflicts. Not necessarily in their neighbourhood, not necessarily where they could be affected, and maybe at a much farther place, which they may not have even heard of before.

But the impact of all this is nearly the same.

Any such strife is enough to bring a sense of insecurity in them and they think of shifting to a ‘secured’ place, thus creating more and more ghettos, which continue to expand even in times of peace.

And this is not limited to less well-off Muslims. Posh colonies, localities or apartments are largely beyond the economic reach of most members of the Muslim community. Still, there are many who wish to live a quality life and have enough money for such a life to sustain. But it is not as simple for them. There have been numerous instances when Residents’ Welfare Associations have resisted, mostly successfully, attempts by any Muslim to purchase a house within ‘their’ area. Even when not a single Muslim family stays there, an unseen, undeclared and sub-delicate hatred towards Muslims hangs like a dark cloud, overhead. So, effectively, that too is another form of a ghetto.

There is another aspect to this, which one can call a ‘wilful exodus’.

If ever, in any posh colony or ‘good’ apartment, the population of educated and socially well-placed Muslims grows, a sense of having been ‘overtaken’ starts pervading the Hindu residents there. And what do they do, consequently? They start shifting from there to a place where there are no Muslims as yet. There, they feel ‘secure’. This is not a standalone fact; this is a phenomenon which is usually brushed under the carpet. The same is the case with Muslims, though they are fewer in number, compared to Hindus.

The effective result in both cases is the proliferation of ghettos. Muslims feel secure living with their brethren, Hindus with their folks. And this is despite the fact that they both need to deal with each other in businesses, in services, and in workplaces. In the economic spheres of life, Hindus and Muslims still are dependent on each other. And why won’t they be? They largely belong to the idea of the same people, speak the same language, eat the same foodgrain and suffer or enjoy the same weather and air.

Muslims go to hospitals where they are treated by doctors, who may be Hindus. And Hindus go to Muslims’ restaurants to savour delicious biryani, kebabs and Mughlai dishes. Children go to schools, older ones go to colleges and universities and make friends with each other, without letting their religious identities come in between.

And yet they live, out of an unseen and ever-lingering fear and mistrust, in separate and clearly demarcated areas. Their ghettos. Back in their ghettos, this liberalism, secularism and brotherhood vanishes. Because there, the air is thick with the purported injustices meted out to the Muslims or the imaginary fear of Muslims outnumbering Hindus.

Now, most of them speak the same language of victimhood and portray the same mistrust towards the other. They have grown up with this notion and their children also grow up with the same notion of otherness. Unfortunately, the educated and affluent class, which is less prone to be affected by communal strife is rather more radicalised, exudes more mistrust and is filled with more hatred. Effectively, both Hindus and Muslims in large urban swathes of India are happy in their ghettos and this alienation is increasing day by day. They don’t extend their trust towards each other, thus depriving their children of a composite and humane culture. Mixed populations which were not uncommon in urban areas once, are fast becoming a rarity in semi-urban towns, along with big and small cities.

The most unfortunate fact is that the educated and financially well-off middle-class Muslims and Hindus, who are safer than people living in unorganised, unplanned or undeveloped areas or localities, are not keen to beat ghettoisation.

What is worrying is that if it continues this way, India, as a composite society, will suffer immense losses. The urbanites are, wittingly or unwittingly, making the task easier for those who are out to sharply divide the country in the name of making an undivided India or akhand bharat.

The big question is, is there a way out? It gets harder everyday with the kind of blatantly divisive social atmosphere which is promoted by the powers that be.

https://mronline.org/2023/08/15/what-we ... ban-india/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 19, 2023 2:44 pm

Image

Siege on Manipur: Hindu nationalists’ war for ethnic supremacy
Originally published: The Wire on Angana P. Chatterji by August 2023 (more by The Wire) | (Posted Aug 19, 2023)

Nazi imagination and practices of grotesque brutality are formative to Hindu nationalism. “Volksgemeinschaft” or national community was, for Nazis, the ideal society to be achieved through mass movement, statecraft, thieving, violence, race experiments, and Holocaust. The “Other” was its target.

M.S. Golwalkar, an early ideologue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), professed deep admiration for the Nazis. An inspiration to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Golwalkar, noted: “To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here.” Golwalkar continued that non-Hindus in India “may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges… not even citizen’s rights”.

Since their second electoral victory in 2019, the Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party-led national government has prioritised the actualisation of Akhand Bharat (“undivided India”), the mythologised once-future homeland of Hindu nationalists. Across India, experiments to forge the “Hindu national community” are predicated on the breakage of minoritised Muslims and Christians, and Adivasis and Dalits. Across the historically fraught political construct termed the “northeast”, the Hindutva movement attacks Muslim citizenship while igniting the decimation of indigeneity and the Christian community. In Kashmir, it furthers coloniality through land occupation to potentially reconstitute demographics.

Image
Hindutva groups. Representative image. (Photo: PTI)

Since 2022, racist discourse and monstrous violence by Hindu nationalists have spun out of control. Swarms of Hindu militias are storming village after town, supported by Hindu nationalist leaders and central and state governments, the silence of upper class-caste Hindus, and the complicity of various courts, institutions, and state forces. In 2023, the savagery reached a crescendo. UAPA. Mobs. Bombs. Bulldozers… Haryana. Uttar Pradesh. Delhi. Rajasthan. Jharkhand. Assam. Kashmir. Manipur…

Capture East
In the northeast, the Modi government repositioned the 1991 Look East Policy to commence the Act East Policy for military and trade ascendancy, and also to motivate securitisation. In contrast to security measures to safeguard freedom and well-being, securitisation weaponises social life, religion, and government. The promissory of trade and commerce accompany the fabrication of dangers posed by non-Hindus, racialised as internal antagonists. Émigrés across historically porous borders are concocted as external enemies. The capture of tribal lands and labour at the borderlands shatters indigenous identity, culture, and self-determination.

On March 27, the Manipur high court required the state government to endorse the inclusion of the dominant Hindu Meitei community under the Scheduled Tribe designation. Such inclusion adversely impacts marginalised tribes, such as the Kuki-Zo indigenous/tribe, a majority of whom converted to Christianity to escape caste/tribe oppression. Meiteis comprise over 53% of Manipur’s population, and 83% of the Meiteis are Hindus. Meitei ethnic identity emerged through the joining together of various tribal groups. Initially opposed to their incorporation into the brahminical order, the Meiteis were progressively neutralised through their Hinduisation and castefication.

Proponents of Hindutva disparage the customary and constitutional rights of Christians and Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits, and those that convert from Hinduism in India. Marginalised communities have been steadily denied access to “reservations” (akin to affirmative action), including at educational institutions. The selection, notification, and identification of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and the criminalization of tribes, are mediated by Hindu majoritarian power politics.

Made public on April 19, the Manipur high court’s directive induced large-scale dissent. The protests of the Kuki community encountered brutal reprisal as Hindu-descent Meitei and Hindu nationalist militias executed a pogrom. Between May 3 and July 2023, more than 286 attacks were committed on Kuki-prevalent areas across Manipur. Acts of terror deployed with excessive power and impunity, wherein approximately 170 members of the Kuki community died, over 48,500 persons were displaced, and 2,440 homes were torched or damaged.

Between May 4 and June 3, 255 churches were burnt down, destroyed, or looted. Meitei women were mobilised to block roads to aid the mobs. The events took place with the complicity of state officials and the partisan involvement of state forces personnel. Meitei Muslims (also Pangals)—the fourth largest community in Manipur following Hindu Meiteis, Nagas, and Kukis—were threatened for aiding the Kuki.

Mass sexual violence against two Kuki women by a Hindu Meitei mob did not receive wide condemnation until mid-July when a video depicting the public assault went viral online. The Meitei mob of reportedly 900-1,000 persons targeted a Kuki village with murder and plunder. They reportedly paraded two Kuki women naked, gangraping one of them. More women were raped. The violations and scrutiny have been unbearable for the community.

Hate speech, falsified statements, and deception surrounded the atrocities. Meitei political leaders claimed, “May 3 was just the small spark.” The Organiser (RSS mouthpiece) noted that the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity urged that Kuki “militants” be proclaimed “terrorists for waging war against civilians and security forces”, and that the World Meitei Council contended that the violence was planned by the “Myanmar migrant Kuki-Chin”. Manipur chief minister Biren Singh accused Kuki “militants” of “narcoterrorism.”

Cycles of aggression ensued. Arms and ammunition were looted from state forces, largely by Meiteis. Certain Kuki groups and individuals responded with force. Violence by members of the Kuki community in early May displaced approximately 5,000 Meitei. In mid-June, Kuki persons reportedly killed none Meitei men who were part of a mob that had torched Kuki homes and in early July, three Meitei persons were killed.

Favoured by Union home minister and strident Hindu nationalist, Amit Shah, the Manipur chief minister continues in office, lauded for his immoderate stance against the Kuki and his support of dominant Meitei interests. The Modi government did not act to stop the hostilities, incurring a no-confidence motion in parliament. The bloodshed further divided Meitei, Naga, and Kuki, and Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. The Kuki People’s Alliance revoked their support to the BJP in the state legislative assembly.

Hinduisation
The plan to proliferate a mass movement to Hinduise the Northeast was operationalised decades ago. The Hindu Right organisations were instituted to train foot soldiers, future leaders, and militia operatives. Around 1949, RSS centers appeared in Assam, then Manipur. By 1965, the RSS started day-to-day operations in the region. By 1975, several Hindu Right branches were functional across Manipur, and at the turn of the 21st century, a BJP member was tasked with overseeing developments there.

Image
RSS drill. (Photo: Twitter)

Leading up to and following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the Sangh Parivar group of Hindu nationalist organisations escalated activities in Manipur. Misleading that aggressive and non-consensual Christian conversions were rampant in the northeast, the RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) set up Banabasi [Vanvasi] Kalyan Ashram and Adimjati Samity to force out Christians or “bring home”/ forcibly convert them to Hinduism.

In 1993, the fabrication of Muslim influx into Manipur culminated in the mass targeting of the Muslim Meitei community. By 1994, Hindu nationalist programming concentrated on forced assimilation through “national integration,” campaigning against “illegal immigration”. By 1995, there were reportedly 650 branches of Hindu Right organisations in the northeast. By 2017, there were over 6,000 such entities. In 1998, four Catholic nuns were raped in Madhya Pradesh, following which Hindu nationalists propagandised about Christian violence against Hindus. A Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader reportedly stated without proof that in Nagaland and Manipur,

Christians [were] committing atrocities on Hindus.

During the 2000 decade, organised violence in Manipur perpetrated by state forces against civilians incorporated torture, including rape and summary executions, and found support among the Hindu Right. Impunity laws, such as the Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958 (amended, including in 1972) and other legislations, extended de facto immunity to state forces. Between 2008-2014, reportedly 340 Ekal Vidyalaya schools were operationalised by Hindu nationalists across Assam, Manipur, and Tripura, with 12,000 students. In 2014, RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat inaugurated a conference of cadres in Imphal.

The BJP gained two Manipur assembly seats in 2015. That August, state legislation on land revenue and reforms, commerce, and “protection of people” marginalised Manipur’s vulnerable tribes. Following the Modi-led government’s electoral victory in 2014, the BJP took power in Manipur in 2017, aided by the growth of Hindu nationalism in the region. For this triumph, Hindu nationalists praised the Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) and the Manipur BJP.

Early in 2017, led by the BJP, Hindutva organisations ramped up activities among the Meiteis to secure the “Hindu Vote”. Segments of the Meitei community were untrusting of the BJP’s political alliance with sections of the Naga community. As Hindu nationalists enlarged their grassroots presence, they identified flashpoints for the Hinduisation of the Meitei and promoted Vaishnavism as a method in saffronisation.

On August 13, 2019, the RSS appropriated Patriot’s Day, inserting a depiction of “Bharat Mata” (Mother India) between portraits of Manipur luminaries. Hindu nationalist schools started materialising across Manipur, operated by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Bal Sanskar Kendra, Bharatiya Jan Seva Sansthan, Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan, Ekal Vidyalaya, Friends of Tribal Society or Van Bandhu Parishad, Kisan Sangha, Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh, Sewa Bharati, Sewashram, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Vidya Bharati, and VHP.

In May 2019, Amit Shah spoke of “external aggression,” positioning the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as a mechanism for expelling “infiltrators”. Akin to Nuremberg Race Laws instituted in 1935 in Nazi Germany, India’s prejudicial citizenship laws legalise Hindu ascendance, creating “racialised” hierarchies of belonging.

In 2022, an RSS leader stated in Manipur that the organisation’s principal obligation was the “protection of Bharat, preservation of its identity, and consolidation of [a] Hindu world”. An event, ‘Lok, Beyond Folk: Reimagining Bharat’s Future’, emphasised “national self-hood”. That year, the BJP was re-elected to state power in Manipur.

The government required state approval for books on the culture, history, geography, and tradition of Manipur and pushed for implementing the NRC. Presently applicable in Assam, NRC’s Islamophobic experiment to reconstitute Indian citizenship through legal discrimination impacts millions of Bangla-origin Muslims, who also self-identify as Miya Muslims. Next is the implementation of the NRC in Manipur to evaluate documentation of descent for millions of individuals, crossing generations, to decree if non-Hindus of Manipur may be bona fide citizens of India.

Today, Hindu nationalist organisations are allied with Hindu Meitei groups across Manipur, reinforced by VHP and Bajrang Dal units, aided by reportedly 107-120 RSS branches, 44 Akhil Bharatiya Kalyan Ashram units, and 463 Ekal Vidyalaya schools.

Disintegrating lifeworlds

Image
Fire and smoke are seen against a church in Manipur. (Photo: Twitter/@MangteC)

Leading up to May 2023, majoritarian speech racialised the Kuki community as “Other”/“Outsider”. In January this year, Amit Shah stated that “in just eight years, PM Modi has visited Manipur 51 times”, claiming “we had promised to make Manipur free from terrorism, today Manipur is completely free from terrorism”. In April, the Manipur high court ordered the demolition of three churches citing “illegal” construction. Since May, Hindu nationalists and majoritarian Meitei Hindus collaborated to cement ethnic supremacy in the region.

A Kuki Christian community leader says,

It has taken concerted Hinduising to turn the Meitei people of the valley against us, Kuki, from the hills. Hindu nationalists (HN) treat the Hao (original peoples), Kuki, and Naga as untouchable. Tribal and Adivasi people were never Hindu. Hindutva’s ambition to convert us by allurement or by force and Meitei design for large-scale land grab are behind the violence. This process has been building for 30 years and has been exceptionally aggressive since 2019.

Reportedly, “instigated by the RSS, the Manipur government prompted the forest department to measure forest lands around early 2023”, manipulating laws to claim tribal lands. Community members conclude,

Manipur is inherent to the master plan, and connected to Gujarat (2002) and Kandhamal (Odisha 2007-8).

The 2023 attacks were premeditated. “The Meiteis see their alliance with the RSS as opportunistic, but the RSS will subsume the Meitei, using them to create warlike conditions.” Members of the Kuki Christian community say that hatred tore through the soul of their community. Physically violated, bodies are besieged with extreme fear. Material possessions, places of worship, memories, sacred sites, and livelihood, have been devastated. Indescribable violence, calculated to displace the Kuki from their homeland, leave them bereft.

The attacks sought to defile and destroy us, who we are, our life ethics, indigenous wisdom—Khankho, and ways of living. This estrangement, spiritual unbelonging, is torture.[/i

Aiding our comprehension with hindsight, The Wire uncovered that the attacks began five days before Union home ministry was to sign a peace treaty with Kuki groups on May 8, granting an “autonomous territory council” under the Sixth Schedule of India’s Constitution.

On August 3, a mass burial laying to rest approximately 35 Kuki Christian bodies was halted and postponed by the state, in a dispute over land, intensifying social trauma. Violence, rejection, and erasure disintegrate the lifeworld of the Kuki-Zo, already enmeshed in complex histories, “like a hammer to the heart, breaking, breaking, breaking it apart”, mourns a community member.

Directives to decimate the Kuki circulate. Unlike “communal violence”—a term that masks radical dissimilarities in relations of power/state between Hindus and non-Hindu communities—the targeting by Hindu nationalists in Manipur-2023, Kuki leaders dread, is calculated to massacre their community through forcible assimilation, ethnic cleansing, presumptive statelessness, and calls to genocide.

The battle for the Hindu nation is sustained by psychic and physical brutality. Will further carnage before the next national elections, expected in May 2024, lead to the Hindu Right’s annexation of “India”? Resistance is profuse among marginalised communities in Manipur, as elsewhere, with solidarity from diverse allies. Yet, across India, dominant Hindus fail to collectively refuse ill-gotten privileges accrued through the deep-rooted, intersecting, and pernicious fault lines of caste, gender, and religion. This remains the pivotal impetus precipitating absolute nationalism.

https://mronline.org/2023/08/19/siege-on-manipur/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 22, 2023 2:53 pm

AUGUST 21, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
India doesn’t want BRICS to dismantle the world order built by the West

If the BRICS group of rising powers tries to usurp global governance, it will collapse under its own weight…

A famous incident narrated by Bob Woodward in his book Obama’s Wars comes to mind: President Barack Obama, disregarding the protestations of Chinese protocol officials, burst into a closed-door meeting of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders on a late Friday afternoon in Copenhagen, a week before Christmas in 2009, where the three BRIC leaders (this was before South Africa joined and the group became BRICS) were negotiating in secret a common position at the climate talks, which were on the verge of complete meltdown.

Obama had wanted the three leaders of the most powerful nations of the “Global South” – and South African President Jacob Zuma – to meet him individually rather than collectively, and was frantic that his ploy was upended. Eventually, Obama joined the four leaders and the negotiations resulted in a meaningful agreement.

That incident, just six months after the first BRIC Summit in Yekaterinburg in June of that year, underscored a cardinal truth that although the signs were there already that the West’s decline had begun, no one had any doubts that the United States and Europe would continue to determine the characteristics of the world economy and international politics for a long time.

Today, when India’s approach to the upcoming BRICS Summit has become a matter of some controversy – with Reuters even floating a mischievous rumor that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not travel to Johannesburg – what is being overlooked is that there is a remarkable consistency in India’s conception of the grouping: that BRICS was a community of revisionist powers who were not seeking the destruction of the world order, but the inclusion of their interests in this order.

However, time didn’t stand still. Globalization is moribund and the system of international institutions that provided its underpinnings are no longer inclusive. In fact, Russia and China are under US sanctions. On the contrary, India’s relationship with the US is perhaps at its highest point in history – almost a quasi-alliance – and Washington describes it as the “defining partnership” of the century. Arguably, the US sanctions against China could even hold advantages for India. The close bonding between the two countries that is in the pipeline for the chip industry is a case in point. Suffice to say, life may even be getting better for India, and the country’s elite would see no reason to trade its modest revisionist wishes for a most fundamental restructuring of the existing international order, let alone its destruction.

The bottom line is that India is content if the influence of BRICS in the shaping of the main aspects of the global agenda can make the world more just and stable. Indeed, that is not a far-fetched dream, as BRICS is on the right side of history. None of the group’s members have their economic opportunities and political influence grounded in a history of bloody wars, conducted with the purpose of establishing regional and global dominance centered around the wealth accumulated over several centuries. India feels at home.

This brings us to the core issue of the attraction that BRICS holds for so many countries today that are so patently divergent in their national characteristics, values, and interests – from Indonesia to Iran, Egypt to Saudi Arabia – who tend to regard the grouping as if it is poised to pick up the banner of global governance from the West. Such expectations are irrational, as they are premised on the evolution of the entire international order in a certain predetermined direction, which is of course not the case.

Thus, it is only natural that Brazil – or India, for that matter – may feel troubled as to how, moving forward, BRICS’ contribution to global governance can truly be decisive. Fundamentally, there is uncertainty as to whether, in the current circumstances, it is even possible for BRICS to maintain the revisionist behavior of the past. The issue is not about the outcome of the Ukraine conflict, which Russia cannot and will not lose, but that even after a catastrophic defeat, its adversaries are highly unlikely to change their views on the world.

Therefore, if BRICS expands, devoid of norms, the unity of the grouping could get impaired, rendering it diffuse and ineffectual. That was what happened to the Non-Aligned Movement. Yet, this is also a transformative period where “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity,” to borrow Yeats’ anguished formulation of an eternal principle of politics.

The predicament is acute against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict and the Biden administration’s dual containment strategy against China and Russia, two founding members of BRICS. Unsurprisingly, Chinese and Russian world views have dramatically changed in the most recent past and are robustly countering US hegemony. The “no limits” friendship between these neighboring giants sets them apart somewhat within BRICS, and that cannot but affect the alchemy of the grouping – although the collegial spirit continues, thanks to their pragmatism and sagacity.

Curiously, many of the aspirants who seek association with BRICS could even be getting attracted to the grouping principally for that reason – a sort of second pillar that upholds a more just and less selfish global governance in relation to the small and medium-sized states of the world.

Make no mistake that all the experience of strong institutions and global governance happens to be the experience of the West on the basis of common values and shared interests. Ironically, it also accounts for their “bloc mentality.” BRICS, on the contrary, lacks such cohesiveness and the capacity to set the world agenda, which the G7 had been doing for decades. That is why a country like India will always expect BRICS as a community to aim not at destroying the existing world order, but at changing it for the better. India does not want the collapse of globalization, institutions and international law. Put differently, India prefers to create within the existing order such rules, norms and ways of cooperation that would allow for the preservation of its advantages and the elimination of its shortcomings.

For India, this is both a matter of tactic and strategy. The prevailing rules-based order gives India a sense of security and strengthens multipolarity in Asia. It is a misconception that India is under pressure to bandwagon with the US. That might have been the case previously, but present-day India, under the current leadership in particular, is consciously expanding the relations with the US, which it considers to be in its own national interests. It is a logical outcome of the trajectory of politics in India since the 1990s and it enjoys a “bipartisan consensus” between the ruling party and the main opposition party. And it has become a long-term trend that already seems irreversible.

Several factors are involved here and one main factor is, paradoxically, the phenomenal rise of China, India’s BRICS partner, which raises alarmist sentiments in the country. The partnership with the US is one of the few ways India hopes to address the security paradigm. That said, India’s BRICS partners can and should trust India to continue to pursue an independent foreign policy based on its national interests. There is no reason to doubt that India reposes faith in the decisive influence of the BRICS in the shaping of the main aspects of the global agenda that will make the world more just and stable.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-d ... -the-west/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 28, 2023 2:54 pm

AUGUST 28, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
India, the reluctant BRICS traveller

Image
( L to R) Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at BRICS Summit, Johannesburg, Aug 23, 2023

India became a beacon of hope for the Western media for a short while in the run-up to the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg — a potential dissenter who might derail the grouping’s acceleration toward a “de-dollarisation” process.

Reuters floated a rumour that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not attend the summit in person, which of course was an excessive case of wishful thinking but called attention to what a high stakes geopolitical game BRICS has become.

Such paranoia was unprecedented. If up until last year, the Western game was to mock at BRICS as an inconsequential club, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. The reasons are not far to seek.

At the most obvious level, there is great sensitivity in the Western world that the massive effort through the past 18 months to weaponise sanctions against Russia not only flopped but boomeranged. And this is at a time when the United States’ morbid fear of being overtaken by China peaked — burying the global hegemony of the West since the “geographical discoveries” of the 15th century.

The recent years witnessed a steady strengthening of the Russia-China partnership, which has reached a “no limits” character, contrary to the Western calculus that the historical contradictions between the two neighbouring giants virtually ruled out such a possibility. In reality, Russia-China partnership is shaping up as something bigger than a formal alliance in its seamless tolerance of the optimal pursuit of each protagonists’s national interests while concurrently supporting the core interests of both sides.

Thus, any format in which Russia and China play a lead role, such as BRICS, is bound to be in the US’ crosshairs. It is as simple as that. The New York Times called the BRICS expansion “a significant victory for the two leading members of the group, increasing China’s political influence and helping to reduce Russia’s isolation.”

It drew comfort that the group is heterogeneous and does not have a clear political course, “except for the desire to change the current global financial and management system, making it more open, more diverse and less restrictive.”

This is the whole point. The Indian analysts are missing the wood for the trees. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov disclosed to the media that behind closed doors, the Johannesburg summit had “quite a lively discussion” [read divergent opinions] but reached a consensus on the “criteria and procedures” of BRICS expansion, which he outlined as follows:

“The weight, prominence and importance of the candidates and their international standing were the primary factors for us [BRICS members]. It is our shared view that we must recruit like-minded countries into our ranks that believe in a multipolar world order and the need for more democracy and justice in international relations. We need those who champion a bigger role for the Global South in global governance. The six countries whose accession was announced today fully meet these criteria.”

Later, after returning to Moscow from Johannesburg, Lavrov told the Russian state television two important things:

“We [BRICS] don’t want to encroach on anyone’s interests. We simply don’t want anyone to hamper the development of our mutually beneficial projects that are not aimed against anyone.” Western politicians and reporters “tend to wag their tongues, while we use our heads and [engage in] concrete issues.”
There is no need for BRICS to become an alternative to the G20 now. That said, “the formal division of the G20 Group into G7+ and BRICS+ is taking a practical shape.”
Unless one is myopic, BRICS’ sense of direction is there for all to see. The grumbling and hand-wringing about the logic of BRICS expansion is complete nonsense. For, the unspoken secret lies here, as a leading Russian strategic thinker Fyodor Lukyanov wrote in the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

“We can hardly talk about an anti-Western orientation — with the exception of Russia and now, perhaps, Iran, none of the current and likely future [BRICS] participants openly wants to oppose themselves to the West. However, this reflects the coming era, when the policy of most states is a constant choice of partners to solve their problems, and there may be different counterparts for different problems.”

This is the reason why India, which carefully protects its line of “multi-alignment” — that is, cooperation with everyone — is also satisfied with a large and heterogeneous BRICS. Delhi is least interested in strengthening antagonistic sentiments within the BRICS community. The Indian commentators cannot grasp this paradox.

Indeed, the pragmatism in admitting three major oil producing countries from the Gulf region (Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) only signals what Lavrov meant by the “projects” and “concrete issues” that BRICS is grappling with — principally, creating a new international trading system to replace the 5-centuries old system that the West created, which was geared to transfer wealth to the metropolis and enabled the latter to get fatter and richer.

Basically, this is today about tackling the phenomenon of the petrodollar, which is the pillar of the western banking system and at the very core of the “de-dollarisation” process that the BRICS is aiming at. Suffice to say, the curtain is coming down on the Faustian deal of the early 1970s that replaced gold with American dollar and ensured that oil would be traded in dollars, which in turn required all countries to keep their reserves in dollars, and eventually turned into the principal mechanism for the US’ global hegemony.

Put differently, how is it possible to roll back the petrodollar without Saudi Arabia being at the barricades? That said, it is also well understood by all member states, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, that while BRICS is “non-western,” a transformation of the BRICS into an anti-Western alliance is impossible. Quintessentially, what we are seeing in the BRICS’ expansion, therefore, is its transformation into the most representative community in the world, whose members interact with each other bypassing Western pressure.

This is enough for a start, as the reaction in the Western countries to the outcome of the Johannesburg summit testifies. The leading German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung noted that with this limited expansion itself, BRICS has gained “significant geopolitical and economic weight. The question now is how the West will react to this.”

A top official at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Caroline Kanter told the daily, “It is is obvious that we [Western countries] are no longer able to set our own conditions and standards. Proposals will be expected from us so that in the future we will be perceived as an attractive partner.”

France’s Le Figaro wrote that the “enthusiasm” of some 40 countries for BRICS membership “testifies to the growing influence of developing countries on the world stage.” The Guardian highlighted expert opinion that BRICS expansion is rather “a symbol of broad support from the global South for the recalibration of the world order.”

At the same time, the bottom line is that BRICS expansion is perceived in the West as a political victory for Russia and China. Nonetheless, despite its tensions with China, India did the right thing by trimming its sails accordingly while sensing the winds of change and anticipating a new dawn breaking for BRICS cooperation that could inject new vitality into the grouping’s functioning and further strengthen the power of world peace and development.

It is about time the government rethinks the viability of its strategy to holding the relationship with China hostage to the border issue. The BRICS Summit highlighted that China enjoys big support from the Global South. It is quixotic, to say the least, to act as a proxy of the US to contain China.

India will find itself in a cul-de-sac by dissociating itself from the issue of local currencies, payment instruments and platforms simply because China could be a beneficiary of a new trading system that is part of a more just, equitable and participative global order. India risks alienating the Global South who are China’s natural allies, by turning its back on the BRICS’ core agenda of a multipolar world order.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-t ... traveller/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 08, 2023 2:36 pm

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Modi’s trip to Jakarta is a geopolitical event

Image
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s daylong visit to Jakarta for the ASEAN-India Summit on Thursday despite the countdown having begun for the G20 summit he’s hosting in New Delhi, stands out as a sign of Indian diplomacy responding to a transformative geopolitical environment in Asia.

Modi’s decision signifies the highest importance Delhi attributes to its relations with the ASEAN region, which is in the throes of a creeping new cold war like it never experienced since the Vietnam War ended fifty years ago.

Modi stated at the ASEAN Summit that India regards the group as a central pillar of its Act East policy. In his words, “India supports ASEAN’s outlook on Indo-Pacific. While our partnership enters fourth decade, ASEAN occupies prominent place in India’s Indo-Pacific initiative.” He lavishly praised ASEAN as the epicentre of growth, playing a crucial role in global development.

The full import of Modi’s remarks can be understood only if they are read in the immediate context of the opening remarks earlier on Tuesday by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, calling on the ASEAN to devise “a long-term tactical strategy that is relevant and meets people’s expectations”. [Emphasis added.]

Jakowi, as this charismatic statesman is fondly called, warned against ASEAN getting dragged into big-power rivalry, saying “ASEAN has agreed not to be a proxy to any powers. Don’t turn our ship into an arena for rivalry that is destructive.”

Jokowi added, “We, as leaders, have ensured this ship keeps moving and sailing and we must become its captain to achieve peace, stability, and prosperity together.”

Jakowi’s exhortation has a complex backdrop. For a start, it comes in the downstream of an impassioned plea by China’s top diplomat Wang Yi addressed to an audience in Jakarta last Saturday that southeast Asian countries must avoid following in the footsteps of Ukraine and beware of being used as geopolitical pawns by foreign forces that are sowing discord in the region for their own gain.

The geopolitical pantomime is crucially about the mounting US pressure on Indonesia to get the latter to bandwagon with the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Washington is anxious to “lock in” Indonesia, the biggest Muslim nation in the world and an Asian powerhouse, as part of a US-led bloc arrayed against China.

Indonesia felt compelled to pull back its BRICS membership application seeking more time to reflect. Jokowi was originally expected to participate in the BRICS Summit at Johannesburg on August 22-24.

President Joe Biden is skipping the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta and is heading from the G20 event in Delhi to Vietnam on September 10. In a nuanced commentary, Voice of America, the flag carrier of America’s public diplomacy, posed a tantalising riddle on Sunday titled Why Is Biden Going to Vietnam, Not Indonesia, differentiating between Vietnam and Indonesia through the prism of US interests:

“Vietnam is a valuable partner for the United States as it develops ties in Southeast Asia… Vietnam is now ready to increase its relations with the US after 10 years of comprehensive partnership. One reason Vietnam might now be ready to increase relations with the US is because of China’s activities in the South China Sea… Vietnam wants to protect its rights in the South China Sea by making partnerships that strengthen its position. Earlier this month [September], Biden said Vietnam “want[s] relationships because they want China to know that they’re not alone.”

“The US has supported Vietnam’s maritime, or sea, security in the past… Increased partnership would help Vietnam develop its technology industry. This would include production of semiconductors and development of artificial intelligence. Both these fields are areas of competition for the US and China.”

When it comes to Indonesia, though, VOA quotes expert opinion to make the point that “among Southeast Asians, the United States was more popular than China and that popularity increased from the year before. However, Indonesians appeared to be outliers. The percentage of Indonesians choosing the US fell 18 percentage points from 2021 to 2023. Those choosing China rose by about the same number of percentage points during the same period… finding balance between the US and China is the “biggest homework” for Indonesia. One way for Indonesia to find balance is to look to the US to provide arms.” [Emphasis as in original text.]

Poking reluctant or sceptical partners by simulating contrived attitudes is an old trick in the US diplomatic toolbox. Thus it happened that Washington took advantage as the host country to exploit the recent visit of the Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto to stake outlandish claims in a fake joint press statement on the Pentagon website.

It claimed amongst other things that Prabowo and Secretary Austin “shared the view” regarding China’s “expansive maritime claims” in the South China Sea; “jointly condemned violations of national sovereignty” and “deplore in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”

But Jakarta wasn’t amused. Defence Minister Prabowo publicly insisted later through the national news agency Antara that “there was no joint statement [with Austin], nor was there a press conference.” Prabowo was actually on a working visit to Washington!

Prabowo said, “The important thing is, I can underline here that we (Indonesia) have very good relations with China. We build mutual respect and understanding. I conveyed that in the US. We are close friends with China, we respect America, and we seek friendship with Russia. Indonesia’s position is clear that we are non-aligned. We befriend all countries.”

The minister then announced his plans to visit Moscow and Beijing this year. “I will visit Moscow, I also have an invitation to visit Beijing in October. Insya Allah (God willing), I was invited. We want to befriend all countries. If possible, we can become a bridge for all.”

This bottom line has now been confirmed at the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta on Tuesday by President Widodo himself. The entire ASEAN alliance “agreed not to become a proxy for any power,” declared Jokowi. He asserted that ASEAN cooperates with any countries for peace and prosperity, but no one is allowed to make the alliance “an arena of destructive rivalry.” And Jakarta insists on its neutrality.

Suffice to say, Modi’s Jakarta visit can be seen as a geopolitical event. In all likelihood, it was an intentional move by Delhi. After all, Modi was also one of the first Asian leaders to warmly felicitate the new prime minister of Thailand Srettha Thavisin on September 5 after he took oath of office in front of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, marking another spectacular defeat of another Western-sponsored colour revolution in Asia, after the turmoil in Hong Kong three years ago.

If China moved with “coercive smart power” to weather the storm, the Thai establishment leaned on “coercive soft power” — possibly with Beijing’s backing behind the scene — to marginalise the protestors who enjoyed Anglo-American support and were rooting for the overthrow of the ancient Thai monarchy in that deeply religious nation and impose republicanism as the state ideology under the leadership of a tycoon trained in Harvard and inserted latterly into Thai politics as a cult figure by the social media — reminiscent of Mikhail Saakashvili during the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia in 2008.

The stabilisation of Thai politics works well for India. India, Thailand and China are more for less on the same page as stakeholders in the Myanmar situation. Modi’s visit to Jakarta (as indeed the invitation to Bangladesh as special invitee to the G20 summit) testify to an independent foreign policy. The Act East policy is adjusting in tune with the Asian regional environment.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/modis-t ... cal-event/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:02 pm

G20 Aesthetics: Modi’s Brutal Delhi Facelift
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 11, 2023
Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Image

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi really wanted to make an impression for his guests and dignitaries, and coarse realities would simply not do. The occasion of the G20 summit presented him with a chance to give the city an aggressive touch-up, touching up a good number of its residents along the way, not to mention the city’s animal life as well. As for those remaining nasties, these could be dressed up, covered, and ignored. Elements of the Potemkin Village formulae – give the impression the peasants are well-fed, for instance – could be used when needed.

One Delhi resident, Saroaj Devi, informed The Guardian about the sharp treatment meted out to him and those living in poverty blighted areas. “They have covered our area so that poor people like us, and poverty in the country, is not witnessed by the people arriving from abroad.”

These coverings, which could really be said to be barriers, are intended as temporary structures, shielding the G20 delegates from the unsightly as they head to their various abodes, a supreme example of detachment from social realities.

This attempt at rendering Delhi’s savoury reality anodyne and safe has also extended to policies of animal removal. Delhi police have been reported as seeking out the aid of civic agencies to deal with the presence of monkeys and stray dogs in the vicinity of Rajghat.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has not expressly linked the removal of the canines to summitry aesthetics, stating that this is being done “only on an urgent need basis”. The premise is fanciful, given the MCD’s express order made last month to remove stray dogs “from the vicinity of prominent locations in view of the G-20 summit”. It was only withdrawn after provoking much opposition.

This unpleasant picture was not something the opposition was going to let pass. The Indian government, concluded Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, “is hiding our poor people and animals. There is no need to hide India’s reality from our guests.”

Whatever Gandhi’s stance, the slum dwelling Devi is wise enough to realise that poverty is a damn nuisance to all, except when it comes to electioneering opportunities. In such instances, the invisible are brought to life as votes, tangible opportunities. “When it is election time, every politician comes to see us. They eat with us and make promises. But today, they are ashamed of our presence.”

There should certainly be some degree of shame, but hardly for the toiling slum dwellers who shoulder the world’s most populous country. Judging from the figures, the authorities, including the ruling regime, should turn crimson and scurry for cover in burning shame. In Delhi itself, there are 675 clusters populated by 1.55 million people. But do not fear, suggests the confident Union Minister for State Housing and Urban Affairs, Kaushal Kishore. Progress is being made. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), he recently revealed, had “rehabilitated” 8,379 people in 2022-23. Not to be outdone, the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) had also its own set of figures: 1,297 people, according to their books, had been rehabilitated in five years.

The meaning of rehabilitation in this context is much like pacification. It is a benign expression enclosed in a fist or, in the Indian context, hidden in a bulldozer. It entails control, management, and dispossession. Slum clearance and forced evictions are favourites. The excitement of G20 summitry has clearly led Prime Minister Modi to speed matters up.

On July 13, 2023, the Concerned Citizens’ collective, with an eclectic membership, released a report documenting testimonies from those affected by the displacement policy ahead of the G20. The findings were based on a public hearing held on May 22, 2023, a horror story in the name of India’s beautification drive. Victims of these projects came forth from Delhi itself, along with Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur, Indore, and Udaipur.

The report reveals that 2.5 to 3 million individuals have been displaced, with Delhi alone bearing witness to the razing of 25 slums to the ground. The displacement has not merely taken the form of bulldozed slums; shelters that would have offered temporary relief have also been destroyed. Options for resettlement for the evictees have not been made available.

Residents, according to the report, received the shortest of notices to evacuate; in the case of Delhi’s Bela Estate near Yamuna Floodplains, a mere three hours was offered. Spitefully, the authorities could not leave it at that. Handpumps, for instance, were sabotaged as an incentive to abandon the settlement.

Barriers around the site, according to Akbar, an activist living in East Delhi’s Seemapuri, have also been erected in the immediate aftermath of the evictions to seal off any points or entry or exit. The account he gives is particularly harrowing: a police arrival time of 4-5 am; the barking of orders to vacate within a few hours; the lack of opportunity to seek court intervention. The demolition, once commenced, is done under the cover of police protection, a sinister practice designed to prevent documentary evidence from leaking out.

The police have been particularly mealy mouthed about describing the harsh conditions inflicted on residents. “Global event, Global responsibility – Not a lockdown,” read a full-page advertisement issued by Delhi police welcoming G20 guests. But the requirement for businesses, schools, offices, workplaces, markets, restaurants and non-food shops to effectively cease operations for three days, aided by onerous traffic restrictions, has crippled daily wage earners of the hand-to-mouth variety.

As it happens, the G20 Delhi summit was, as so many of these occasions are, much ado about nothing. The absence of China and Russia turned the occasion into a G18 gathering, removing a good deal of flavour that would otherwise have been present. At the very least it provided Modi an excellent excuse to rough up the slum dwellers, using beautification as a strategy to criminalise the poor.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/09/ ... -facelift/

*******

18th G20 summit set to begin in New Delhi as faultlines among members widen

The West’s disregard of concerns from the Global South on reforms of international financial institutions and climate change, as well as attempts to use the forum for geopolitical gains, has made consensus elusive

September 07, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

Image
(Photo: G20)

The 18th G20 summit is set to open in the Indian capital New Delhi on Saturday, September 9. The two-day summit of the grouping would be the first to be held in India and is being keenly watched due to disagreements among member states on several economic and geopolitical issues.

The G20 consists of some of the world’s 20 largest economies, including 19 countries and the European Union (EU). Apart from the members, 11 more countries have been invited as guests, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, and the UAE. The meeting will also be attended by representatives of different international organizations — from the UN to ASEAN.

While a number of heads of states are expected to attend the summit, including US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be participating. Russia will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and China by Premier Li Qiang.

The grouping, which represents almost 80% of the world’s GDP and over two-thirds of the global population, was formed in 1999 as a platform for economic cooperation. It emerged as a significant forum for global economic coordination in 2008 as the West, represented by the G7 countries, found it useful in managing the impact of the global financial crisis at the time.

India, the current chair of the G20, has chosen “One Earth, One Family, One Future” or Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as the theme for the summit.

India has been holding preparatory and technical meetings in the run-up to the summit for the last several months. Meetings of G20 Finance Deputies and Sherpas were conducted on September 6.

Growing disagreements over major agenda issues
The G20, which was pushed to prominence by the G7 countries—namely, the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and South Korea—when they were unable to deal with the impact of the economic crisis, is gradually losing its significance due to their increasing emphasis on using the platform for geopolitical objectives.

In recent times, the potential of G20 as a grouping has further eroded due to the US attempts to re-establish the hegemony of the G7, increasing polarization among the countries of the Global South over the West’s attempts to transfer responsibility to developing nations in areas such as climate change, and their refusal to reform multilateral forums and give up hegemonic control over multilateral financial and political institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the UN

It was very obvious during its last summit meeting in Bali, Indonesia, that some G20 members had different views from the West on issues such as global financial institutions, food and energy security, and climate change. Geopolitical issues, such as the war in Ukraine and the US-led New Cold War against China, have intensified these faultlines ever further.

According to the Indian government, the New Delhi summit has several major agenda items, including restructuring of international debt, increased disbursal of loans to developing countries, food and energy security, and regulation of cryptocurrencies.

Other important discussions would be around the issues of climate change and its financing, support for small and medium scale enterprises, labor rights, inclusive agricultural value chains, and bridging of global skill gaps.

India and some other countries are also pushing for full membership for the African Union in the Delhi summit.

US policies towards China have already created a rift in the grouping, with the Chinese terming it as “cold war mentality.” Other contentious issues are related to commitments to phase out of fossil fuels, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and renewable energy targets.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, which are major exporters of fossil fuels, have objections to the hurried attempts to push for greater use of renewable energy, while countries like China have objected to any attempts at forceful emission reduction without considering historical and geopolitical factors.

President Xi Jinping had warned during the last summit in Indonesia about the “politicization of food and energy issues” and the use of unilateral sanctions. He had also questioned rushed attempts to impose restrictions on the use of certain technologies and preferred use of certain energy resources, claiming that development and “modernization is not a privilege reserved for any single country.”

The US is also insisting on a discussion on the economic impact of the war in Ukraine, which has created uncertainty about the possibility of a joint declaration at the end of the summit. While Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has tried to play down this possibility, Lavrov has already warned that he will not agree with the final communique if Russian concerns over the war in Ukraine are ignored.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/09/07/ ... ers-widen/

******

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
US stoops to conquer Global South with some Indian help

Image
Family photo of the leaders of BRICS ‘troika’ (Brazil, India, South Africa) flanked by World Blank president Ajay Banga (L) and the US president Joe Biden (R) at the 18th G20 Summit, New Delhi, Sept 9, 2023

The impact of the G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 is to be measured by the consensus reached regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

There is wide recognition of such an outcome as a remarkable feat that became possible largely due to a perceived climbdown by the US and the Western bloc. This is hugely consequential to international politics.

However, upon closer examination, a tantalizing question also arises: Does the Delhi Declaration’s three sentences on Ukraine, which favor Russia’s position on the conflict, signify a change in the Western approach to the hostilities and, specifically, give a certain nudge to Kiev to negotiate?

Indeed, we are witnessing a strange line-up: both Russia and the US have praised the G20 declaration, while Ukraine has complained “it was nothing to be proud of.”

In the run-up to the Delhi summit as well as during the event, there was nothing of the Russia-bashing or contrived emotional outbursts by Western leaders that they are wont to. Even the EU’s super bureaucrat, Ursula von der Leyen, was patience personified – as if on cue from Washington. The curious incident in the famous Sherlock Holmes story comes to mind: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

In fact, the discernible trend had already set in during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s atypical two-day visit to Kiev last Wednesday, and the briefing aboard Air Force One by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan the very next day regarding President Joe Biden’s forthcoming sojourn in Delhi for the G20.

The White House had perhaps given a meaningful clue even earlier on August 22, when its statement announcing Biden’s visit to India underscored that “while in New Delhi, President Biden will also commend Prime Minister Modi’s leadership of the G20 and reaffirm the US commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026.”

Suffice to say there is no question that the US wanted the G20 Summit to be a grand success – and to “empower” Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on the geopolitical arena as the group’s leader – once it emerged that Biden had no peer group competing for space at the gathering during his four-day visit to Delhi.

The point is, in the rapidly changing international environment, in the US calculus, the G20 has come to life unexpectedly as the only forum available today for the West (the members of the G7) to “(re)connect” with China and Russia as well as with the Global South. As BRICS began surging in giant leaps, suddenly the specter of extinction was looming over the forum.

One hallmark of the Delhi summit, in fact, is that American diplomacy moved in tandem with the BRICS troika – India, Brazil, and South Africa. The politics of it was projected by the family photo of the troika flanked by Biden on the left and the World Bank president, Ajay Banga, on the right.

Make no mistake, the US is taking an audacious course correction in its approach to the Global South, especially Africa, anchored in the geopolitical reality of the mounting challenge that China and Russia are posing by striving to monopolize that geopolitical space. Certainly, the incipient anti-colonial stirrings in Africa lately also hold dark forebodings, given their profound implications for Europe’s economic prosperity.

Thus, in rapid succession, the manifestations of a pattern of “new thinking” are emerging:

*the US-Vietnam “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the purposes of peace, cooperation, and sustainable development”;
*the new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (here and here);
*the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (comprising the US, European Union, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the World Bank);
*the Lobito Corridor;
*“the new initiative with G20 partners to fundamentally reshape and scale up the World Bank to more effectively deliver poverty reduction and inclusive economic growth.”

All of the above unrolled within a space of 48 to 72 hours. The sense of urgency is palpable. The message couldn’t be any louder: the US is seeking a leadership role in the engagement with the Global South and in this paradigm shift, Biden envisages Modi as a key ally.

Of course, this has only become possible thanks to the nascent signals from Delhi in recent months of a willingness to accelerate and cement its strategic partnership with the US as a global ally, which has been at least partly a fallout from India-China tensions and a direct consequence of the Indian assessment that the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy is for real after all, and that it holds seamless potential for serving Indian interests without being confrontational with China.

Considering the huge stakes involved in the launch of this new foreign policy approach to synergize US relations with the Global South, it is not really a big deal that Biden threw Ukraine under the bus during the negotiations over the G20 declaration. He opened a pathway where tactic and strategy could coalesce in Washington’s core interests.

Consider the following:

*Ukraine has been a demanding partner all along and all good things must come to an end. Ukraine cannot and should not dictate US foreign policy priorities.
*No doubt, the failure of Kiev’s three-month-old “counteroffensive” has been on an industrial scale with around 70,000 killed in the conflict so far, according to Ukraine-favoring Western estimates. The responsibility for it – moral and political – lies largely with the US, something that cannot be hidden from world conscience any longer.
*Meanwhile, NATO countries have scrapped the bottom of their barrels for weapons stockpiles. A further pursuit of the path chasing inchoate mirages is futile and meaningless, and can only lethally wound the Indo-Pacific strategy, which can impact the global strategic balance.
*In the eyes of Western media, G20 host India is still a dirty colony
*The looming Russian offensive must be stalled somehow, as its inevitable consequence will be Ukraine’s “demilitarization” and “denazification” – the conclusive eviction of NATO from Ukrainian soil and the removal of the present viscerally hostile power structure in Kiev, which serves as a proxy of the US and NATO.
*The number one priority today, therefore, is to freeze the Ukraine conflict at the present stage where Russia is yet to succeed in fulfilling its original objectives of full control of Donbass and the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine – plus preventing Ukraine’s future NATO membership – while on the other hand, the Western alliance still retains the option to remain engaged with Kiev regarding the unfinished business of the war from the angle of European security.

These considerations prompted the atypical, unannounced two-day trip to Kiev on September 6-7 by Blinken with a view to transmit Biden’s twofold message that while Washington will continue to strengthen Ukraine militarily, Kiev must engage in dialogue with Moscow – consistent with the American riddle of “nothing without Ukraine.”

No doubt, this is a bitter pill to swallow for the regime in Kiev, weaned on outlandish notions of defeating Russia militarily. But what is the alternative? Ukraine is nothing but a permanent inmate in the Intensive Care Unit of America’s palliative care, and the Russian offensive will mean its asphyxiation.

Surely, there must be a lesson in all this for the G20 troika, BRICS, and the Global South. Biden has started playing hard ball to win the 2024 election.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/us-stoo ... dian-help/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply