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Ukraine war: Re-reading geopolitical contours of Russian foreign policy

The geopolitical narratives underlined by the Russian geopolitical thinkers provide a framework to examine the Russia-Ukraine war in a broader geopolitical context. Though the war is in full swing, what needs to be underlined here is that the geoculture rooted in distrust between Russia and Ukraine is the moot point of conflict.

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While the Russia-Ukraine War has entered into more than two months causing hardship to the common people of Ukraine along with its serious implications for both global and regional politics of the post-Soviet Eurasia. However, the irony is that the war is showing no sign of ending soon. Like every other day, one notices surprises both in terms of geopolitical realignment like the support of the US and EU to Ukraine or Russia’s tactical advances which is generating a lot of hypothetical questions regarding the future course of the war between Moscow and Kyiv. Some of these questions are: Firstly, one needs to ponder whether the present impasse on the strategic front with Ukraine can be explained by the writings of Russian geopolitical analysts?  The second question that requires a more in-depth analysis is how these analyses are going to impact the present war between Russia and Ukraine?

To know the genesis of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and the impasse in the Slavic world one has to look at the geopolitical writings of the Eurasianists like Alexander Dugin and others who gave a sharp geocultural twist to the entire discourses. It may be recalled here that these neo-Eurasianists as analysts are arguing following the footsteps of Lev Gumilev who is considered to be the fiercest Eurasianists and Trubetsky. In this regard, it may be underlined here these Eurasianists left Russia and took shelter in different parts of European countries after the October Revolution and tried to give a new basis to Russia’s geocultural identity in the framework of “Eurasianism”. Though this idea of “Eurasianism” was dormant during the Cold War period made its appearance in the political ideas of Vladimir Zhirinovsky considered to be an outspoken critic of the liberal policy being pursued by late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. One may underline here the bitterness between Russia and Ukraine one can witness in the initial years of the 1990s even though Russia shared a good relationship with the West under Yeltsin’s regime. As observed by Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk, “We want friendly relations with Russia…but Russia considers us to be its vassal and as its vassal, we are expected to submit and to agree” (as quoted in William H. Kincade’s and Natalie Melnyczuk’s ‘Eurasia Letter: Unneighborly Neighbors’, Foreign Policy, No. 94, 1994), pp. 84-104).

The above statement of Kravchuk vividly describes the state of relations between Russia and Ukraine in the post-1991 era although both the countries share common civilisational values rooted in Slavic identity. At the same time, what one notices in the cultural parlance in post-Soviet Russia is a growing shift to the Eurasian geocultural identity matrix and a rejection of the European cultural syndromes. Though at the policy-making level Russia initially pursued a somewhat sombre geopolitical doctrine of “shared identity with the West” as enunciated by a pro-West leaning Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and equally supported by Boris Yeltsin. The enunciation of the Eurasian ideas along with its reflection in the foreign policy doctrine of Russia took an upper hand when Vladimir Putin assumed the leadership of the country. At the same time, on the ideological front also one can notice the growing resurgence of the idea of Eurasia as reflected in the work of Aleksandr Dugin, considered to be the forerunner of Eurasian ideology and a key aid of President Putin. The book of Dugin titled Foundation of Geopolitics provides the ideological underpinnings to Russia’s foreign policy rooted in “greatness of Russian culture”, “Raum” means “Spirit of the land” along with greatness of “Russia’s Orthodox Church” which propelled Russia to call itself as the home to “Third Rome” the “spiritual epicentre” of “Orthodox Christianity”.

Thus the geopolitical idea is rooted in “anti- Westernism” based on the rejection of the “Western value system” as reflected in the book Foundation of Geopolitics, published in 1997. Coming to the context of Ukraine’s geopolitical identity, Dugin, in his article ‘Ethnosociology of Ukraine in the context of the military operation’, highlights that “Ukrainian nationalism as an artificial construct”. In this context, he further emphasises that “Russia will not stop until it abolishes the model of the nation and the nation-state that the Ukrainian nationalists built with the support of the West”. The above idea of Dugin provides an ideological basis for Putin’s present geopolitical manoeuvrability against Ukraine. In fact, in some of his speeches and writings of Putin on the present Russia-Ukraine conflict or in the context of Russian foreign policy one can find the imprint of Dugin.  As President Putin in one of his articles titled ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ published on 15 July 2021 underlined the fact that “modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped—for a significant part —on the lands of historical Russia”.  This article by President Putin gives enough hints at the future course of the present war between Moscow and Kyiv.

Another important Russian academic Fyodor A. Lukyanov, who serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian magazine Russia in Global Affairs and also the Professor of Institute of World Economy, as well as Moscow based World Economy and International Affairs University as well as the faculty at the influential Kremlin, think tank Valdai Club. Lukyanov gives a new geostrategic perspective on the Russia-Ukraine war in a global context by underlining in an article titled ‘Old Thinking for Our Country and the World’ published in Russia in Global Affairs. In the article, he underlines that the present Russia-Ukraine crisis can be traced back to the status quo tendencies in the existing world order dictated by the West. To quote Lukyanov, “Let us emphasise that the current crisis of the world order was not provoked by the special military operation in Ukraine. It was spawned long ago by the stubborn unwillingness of the liberal order leaders to give up the privileges they gained after the Cold War”. Thus Lukyanov’s article gives the structural perspective to the present war between Russia and Ukraine by blaming the western countries who consistently denied Russia the rightful place in the global geopolitics and assuaged Ukraine to achieve their strategic goals of containing Russia in the post-Soviet geopolitical space.

Sergei Karganov, who serves as the Dean of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow and also serves as the advisor to the Presidential Administration of Russia is one of the eminent Russian strategic thinkers whose views count in Russia’s foreign policy-making process. Karganov traces the roots of the present Russia-Ukraine war to NATO’s enlargement programme in the post-Soviet space. In an interview published in Russian International Affairs Council titled ‘We are at war with the West. The European security order is illegitimate’, Karganov highlights the point that “Ukraine was being built by the US and other NATO countries as a spearhead, maybe of aggression or at least of military pressure, to bring NATO’s military machine closer to the heart of Russia. We can see now how well their forces had been preparing for war”. He further emphasises the point that the only way to end the crisis is “the creation of a country in South and South-East Ukraine that is friendly to Russia”. Thus, Karganov is making clear Moscow’s strategic intention to curb the Nato’s expansion and weaken Ukraine’s supply chain in terms of getting arms from the West thus creating a new kind of geopolitical buffer by recognising the independence of both Donetsk and Luhansk republics bordering Russia.

Dmitry Trenin is a policy analyst based in Moscow known for his path-breaking work End of Eurasia: Russia on the border between Geopolitics and Globalisation, published in 2001, known for his balanced political analysis of Russia’s foreign policy conquers with the view of American geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski that “without Ukraine, Russia is not an empire”. (p.106). These explanations on part of Trenin highlight Russia’s imperial intention over the tears. In this regard, it may be underlined here that in the initial days of the Russia-Ukraine war Trenin wrote a piece in Russian Daily Kommersant titled ‘The Russian flag on the front line in the Donbas will sharply raise the stakes in case of aggravation’ where Trenin highlights that it “will lead to a radical change in the geopolitical situation in the east of Europe and a completely new, even in comparison with the confrontation of recent years, quality of relations with the US and the European Union”.

The prognosis made by Trenin highlights both the US and EU countries under the ambit of NATO are directly or indirectly providing all kinds of support including military to Ukraine even though Russia is putting strong objections to it. As stated by Trenin because of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the geopolitical situation in and around Europe is undergoing a complex change. Even both Sweden and Finland are planning to join NATO which to a greater extent may alter the existing geopolitical situation in this part of the world.

The writings of Andrey Kortunov, who serves as the Director-General of the influential policy-making body Russia International Affairs Council (RIAC) also, throw much light on the present context of the Russia-Ukraine war. In this regard, it may be underlined here that Kortunov’s article ‘The End of Diplomacy? Seven Glimpses of the New Normal’ underlines that the Russia and Ukraine war will propel a new world order which will challenge the “status quo” nature of the present world order dominated by the West. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention here that “the strategic goal will be to isolate Russia on the world stage as much as possible, as this will supposedly set limits on Moscow’s ability to diversify its foreign policy, economic and other ties”. The sanctions imposed on Russia by the West though to a great extent limit the geopolitical options. Russia is also using its energy as a major weapon to bargain with the West more particularly with the European countries. Already Europe is in a major crisis over accessibility to Russian energy.

A critical analysis of the geopolitical writings of the above Russian scholars highlights five major vectors in the context of Russia’s geopolitical thinking. These are:

1.   There is a great deal of hesitation lies there in Russia in the official circles to accept Ukraine’s “independent statehood”. Putin’s writing as discussed above also reflects this strand.

2.   There is unanimity among the Russian strategic circles that the West along with NATO is provoking Ukraine to enter into a war with Russia.

3.   Russian geopolitical analysts are also questioning the very basis of the “status quo” nature of the international order led by the US.

4.   There is unanimity of opinion among the Russian geopolitical analysts that the present War by the West against Russia aims at denying Russia its rightful place in the global order by putting all kinds of sanctions.

5.   To protect its strategic interests Russia is aiming at creating a cordon sanitaire by recognising the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk republics from Ukraine. The same formula Russia employed during its war with Georgia where it declared both South Ossetia and Abkhazia independent from Georgia. In this regard, it may be underlined here that these moves by Russia to a significant extent will weaken Ukraine.

One most perplexing issue which confronts both policymakers, as well as the academic community, is to offer a timeline for when the war between Russia and Ukraine is going to end. In this regard, drawing from the lessons of history it can be underlined here that though bilateral negotiations are going by both the parties to resolve the crisis at the same time there is a need for a more active role by international multilateral bodies like the UN to resolve the crisis. However, the moot point of the present strategic impasse is the lack of trust between both sides rooted in the historical past which is impairing the peace process. At the same time, the war will further as it is not as easy as President Putin thought to defeat Ukraine. Though President Putin is looking for a victory as Russia›s Victory Day is nearer, however, the task is much more arduous.

Thus, the only way to end the present war between Russia and Ukraine is through the position taken by India to resolve the crisis. India’s approach to ending the war between these two Slavic brothers is through “mediation” and “diplomatic initiatives”, so also providing humanitarian assistance to the common people affected by the war. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted India’s policy by underlining the fact that, “The ongoing war (Russia-Ukraine war) is affecting every country across the world. India is on peace’s side and hopes that all problems are resolved with deliberations”. Similarly, while interacting with the press during his recent visit to Germany on 2 May 2022, Prime Minister Modi further highlighted that “No country can emerge victorious in the Ukraine conflict. We are for peace, appeal to end the war”.

One hope, looking at the complex geopolitical situation in and around post-Soviet Eurasian geopolitics, India’s approach to ending the war between Russia and Ukraine is the only alternative left at the present moment to end the impasse.

The author teaches at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The views expressed are personal.

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CONG HOPES RAHUL’S YATRA WILL CATAPULT PARTY TO POWER IN KARNATAKA

The Mekedatu padayatra was just a prelude as the scale at which DK is orchestrating this Bharat Jodo is unimaginable, sources in the Congress said.

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CONG HOPES RAHUL’S YATRA WILL CATAPULT PARTY TO POWER IN KARNATAKA

With the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra all set to enter Karnataka via Kerala’s Wayanad on 30 September, the Pradesh Congress has made elaborate arrangements to amplify the yatra on a grand scale, hoping to revitalize the party ahead of the crucial 2023 Assembly elections. The yatra which started from Kanyakumari will begin its Karnataka leg from Chamarajnagar district and cut through the state for over 500 km from Old Mysore region, which is the Cauvery Delta Region all the way to Bengaluru, and then move towards North Karnataka.

The yatra in the Cauvery delta is touted as a game-changer as D.K. Shivakumar, the KPCC president, is leaving no stone unturned to amplify the rally on foot. He intended to achieve two things—showcase his organizational prowess and also score brownie points from the Gandhis. The Old Mysore region is dominated by Vokkaligas and thus the significance. In the last six months, there were several instances where D.K. Shivakumar and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy have crossed swords over donning the Vokkaliga leader mantle.

The Mekedatu padayatra was just a prelude as the scale at which DK is orchestrating this Bharat Jodo is unimaginable, sources in the Congress said. The optics here are also relevant from the point of view of who is the mass leader from the Old Mysore Region. Siddaramaiah faced an embarrassing defeat last time and is now made Badami of North Karnataka his political home. History has it that whoever is voted for in huge popularity in this region has become the chief minister of Karnataka and in that D.K. believes that his time has come. Even H.D. Kumaraswamy at a recent event had said on stage that “if a situation presents itself where DKS needs my support to become CM, I will’’

The yatra will then move towards Bengaluru and then towards north Karnataka which is very critical for the Congress. It is here that during the 2013 elections, Congress reaped over 45 seats, thanks to the fallout B.S. Yediyurappa had with the BJP then. The big question is will Congress successfully convert the anger in the Linagayat community over BSY to its kitty? From Shyamanur Shivsankrappa to M.B. Patil, the grand old party has prominent Lingayat leaders, but will they occupy the space vacated by Yediyurappa remains to be seen.

The yatra will have a galaxy of national and state leaders who will join Rahul Gandhi–former chief minister Siddaramaiah, ex-Deputy CM Dr G. Parameshwar, M.B. Patil, Ramalinga Reddy, B.K. Hariprasad, Krishna Byre Gowda, Dinesh Gundu Rao, K.H. Muniyappa, Veerappa Moily and Mallikarjun Kharge along with others will walk during different stages of yatra. During the yatra, the Congress is expected to rake up several issues and revive its campaign coined around “40pc commission govt” and “Nimma hathira iddiya Uttara”, a charge sheet compiled to highlight the failure of the BJP government for not implementing promises made in its last manifesto.

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Russia, West at odds over NATO expansion

The Ukraine crisis is caused primarily by NATO’s aggression and expansion. Achieving lasting peace means checking that aggression and expansion; however, the US is leveraging the war as an elaborate advertisement for NATO

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Russia, West at odds over NATO expansion

Everything old is new again. Through the lens of Ukrainian history, the world has been reminded of the Russian colonial imperialism imposed upon its neighbours. This is important to understand within the context of today’s crisis because Putin fundamentally believes that Ukraine is not a nation state and perceives other neighbouring countries similarly.

To understand the current realities of Russia and Ukraine, and the part NATO has played in defining the current hostilities between the two nations, it is important to rewind history and trace the developments that have happened since the 1990s. Most of the conflicts in the world have an extended history of various complexities and overlapping difficulties, the Ukraine-Russian crisis is no exception.

The crisis in Ukraine is caused primarily by NATO’s aggression and expansion. Achieving lasting peace means checking that aggression and expansion; however, the US is leveraging the war as an elaborate advertisement for NATO, promoting a bloc-based version of collective security premised on opposing Russia. Sweden and Finland have long thrived under a policy of military non-alignment, but they are now coming under pressure to discard neutrality in favour of NATO membership. Such a policy will foment collective insecurity and push the European continent further into chaos.

Nobody can seriously argue that NATO is fundamentally defensive in character. It is an aggressive, nuclear alliance designed to enforce US hegemony. In the decades following the Soviet collapse, NATO has expanded from 16 countries to 30 – reneging on repeated promises made to the Soviet and Russian leadership in the early 1990s that NATO’s borders would move “not one inch” East of Germany. In fact NATO’s borders have moved right up to Russia’s doorsteps.

Putin aims to rollback much of the security architecture that has been put into place in Europe since the end of the Cold War, particularly with regard to Central and Eastern Europe. This means not only closing the door to potential NATO membership for Ukraine but curtailing any form of Western military assistance available. The Kremlin also seeks to undermine many of the measures that have been put in place by the NATO alliance dating back to the 1997 Founding Act – a framework designed to determine how their relationship should move forward in view of NATO enlargement – in effect, neutralizing the alliance in Central and Eastern Europe. The challenge for NATO, as an alliance of democratic countries, is that it cannot let Russia dictate the terms of membership.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a dramatic escalation of the eight-year-old conflict and a historic turning point for European security. With expanding Western aid, Ukraine has managed to frustrate many aspects of Russia’s attack, but many of its cities have been pulverized and one-quarter of its citizens are now refugees or have been displaced. It remains unclear if and how a diplomatic resolution could emerge. Ukraine’s place in the world, including its future alignment with institutions such as the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, hangs in the balance.

Ukraine was a cornerstone of the Soviet Union, the archrival of the United States during the Cold War. Behind only Russia, it was the second-most-populous and -powerful of the fifteen Soviet republics, home to much of the union’s agricultural production, defense industries, and military, including the Black Sea Fleet and some of the nuclear arsenal. Ukraine was so vital to the union that its decision to sever ties in 1991 proved to be a coup de grâce for the ailing superpower.

In its three decades of independence, Ukraine has sought to forge its own path as a sovereign state while looking to align more closely with Western institutions, including the EU and NATO. However, Kyiv struggled to balance its foreign relations and to bridge deep internal divisions. A more nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking population in western parts of the country generally supported greater integration with Europe, while a mostly Russian-speaking community in the east favored closer ties with Russia.

Ukraine became a battleground in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and began arming and abetting separatists in the Donbas region in the country’s southeast. Russia’s seizure of Crimea was the first time since World War II that a European state annexed the territory of another. For many analysts, the hostilities marked a clear shift in the global security environment from a unipolar period of U.S. dominance to one defined by renewed competition between great powers.

Some Western analysts see Russia’s 2022 invasion as the culmination of the Kremlin’s growing resentment toward NATO’s post–Cold War expansion into the former Soviet sphere of influence. Russian leaders, including Putin, have alleged that the United States and NATO repeatedly violated pledges they made in the early 1990s to not expand the alliance into the former Soviet bloc. They view NATO’s enlargement during this tumultuous period for Russia as a humiliating imposition about which they could do little but watch.

Despite remaining a non-member, Ukraine grew its ties with NATO in the years leading up to the 2022 invasion. Ukraine held annual military exercises with the alliance and, in 2020, became one of just six enhanced opportunity partners, a special status for the bloc’s closest nonmember allies. Moreover, Kyiv affirmed its goal to eventually gain full NATO membership.

In the weeks leading up to its invasion, Russia made several major security demands of the United States and NATO, including that they cease expanding the alliance, seek Russian consent for certain NATO deployments, and remove U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe. Alliance leaders responded that they were open to new diplomacy but were unwilling to discuss shutting NATO’s doors to new members.

Putin ordered a full-scale invasion, crossing a force of some two hundred thousand troops into Ukrainian territory from the south (Crimea), east (Russia), and north (Belarus), in an attempt to seize major cities, including the capital Kyiv, and depose the government. By March, 2022, some Western observers said that, given unexpected setbacks it incurred on the battlefield, Moscow could curtail its aims and try to carve out portions of southern Ukraine, such as the Kherson region, like it did in the Donbas in 2014. Russia could try to use these newly occupied territories as bargaining chips in peace negotiations with Ukraine, which might include stipulations about Kyiv’s prospects for membership in the EU and NATO. Others warned that continued attacks on Kyiv belied any of Moscow’s claims of a shift in military operations away from the capital.

As a security partner, Ukraine is not afforded any security guarantees under Article V–the US and its allies in the NATO organization do not have a commitment to defend Ukraine and so it becomes difficult to deter an attack on Ukraine through conventional means. However, the gray zone is useful for both sides in the management of escalation risks. Putin wants to be perceived as a strong military leader, but the costs (e.g., political, economic, reputational, etc.) of escalating to kinetic warfare may force him to recalculate. These costs may be the most effective deterrent there is – the West needs to make sure these are communicated clearly.

There is still room for diplomacy but the longer this plays out, the more costly it becomes to keep these troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine. There is room for agreement on issues like nuclear arms control, but this is unlikely to be what Putin is hoping to achieve with this massive military buildup and his outrageous demands. Rather, Putin appears to be seeking a pretext to justify some level of military action.

One wonders – as did the American diplomat George F. Kennan, the father of the Cold War containment doctrine who warned against NATO expansion in 1998–whether the advancement of NATO eastward has increased the security of European states or made them more vulnerable.

If NATO’s extension continues and reinforced its presence in Ukraine, as may propose by offensive realists, Ukraine Crisis will be escalated even more, and country’s eastern part will be turned to another ‘frozen conflict’ in post-Soviet space. In contrast, halting the enlargement policy in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine can encourage Russia even more to use military force in its ‘near abroad’. For these reasons neither approaches are compatible to cope with the ongoing crisis. However, using both views partly help to come up with a solution for the puzzle. Currently, ensuring the territorial integrity of Ukraine should be prioritized, and for this purpose, NATO enlargement policy should not be used to deter Russia (which indeed escalates the war in Eastern Ukraine) instead NATO membership option for Ukraine should be used as a leverage in peace process to ensure territorial integrity of Ukraine.

The writer is an Associate Professor in Seedling School of Law and Governance, Jaipur National University, Jaipur. He had worked as an Assistant Professor in Apex Professional University, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh, and as a journalist in esteemed newspapers, portals and magazines.

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THE TALIBAN NEVER EVER ‘WON’ AFGHANISTAN

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It speaks of the resilience of the shards of the philosophy of Untermensch and Übermensch even within “liberal” minds that explains why it was the liberal W.J. Clinton in 1996 and in 2021 the liberal J.R. Biden Jr who gifted Afghanistan to the Taliban. The latter is these days shrugging off blame for the consequences of his disastrous “Everybody Out” policy on Afghanistan by blaming it on the Trump Surrender Document that was signed in Doha in 2020. If patriotism has been the excuse for many sins committed in the past, there has been within the US since the 1960s a tendency to use the CIA as the whipping boy for several of the policy blunders committed by US Presidents. The boilerplate excuse proffered is that wrong information fed by the CIA was the reason for egregious errors in policy. In the case of Afghanistan, the excuse of apologists for the apparently clueless if usually personable Joe Biden is that the CIA came up with the finding that there was now a Taliban 2.0, that was almost Social Democratic in a newly acquired commitment to reform. That the era when children, women, Hazara, Tajik and other non-Pashtuns were subjected to evident discrimination that was a feature of Taliban rule during 1996-2001 was over and that the “new” Taliban, although comprising of many elements of the old Taliban, was qualitatively different and could be relied upon to rule in an equitable manner. Such was indeed the mantra of the so-called “experts on Afghanistan” that had backed Clinton and subsequently Biden in their consigning to Taliban overlordship the Afghan people, individuals such as Zalmay Khalilzad or Barnett Rubin. If the CIA agrees with such an assessment, that organisation needs to get disbanded immediately, and its analysts need to work behind the counter of junk food stalls. The truth is that it is unlikely that such were the findings, although it is plausible that a liberal dash of rosewater was added to the findings of analysts and agents by those higher up the chain of command in the CIA, those of whom spend much of their time in the essential task of buttering up the politicians who are in charge of US agencies. Who can forget George Tenet, the CIA Director who served both Clinton and Bush, and who assured President Bush that his obsession with neutralising Saddam Hussein was not founded on prejudice rather than reason but was based on “Slam Dunk” evidence that Saddam had WMD? If DCIA Tenet knew where such stockpiles were, after the US-UK occupation of Iraq he declined to reveal them to the weapons inspectors, who came up with nothing in the way of WMD after months of enquiry.

A handful of analysts such as Bill Roggio in the FDD in Washington, not to mention the present writer, challenged the perception that there was now a Taliban 2.0. Instead, the only change in that collection of warlords was that the “new” Taliban had many more within their non-operational wings that spoke English. They knew exactly what buttons to press in their interactions with Atlanticist media and policymakers to make many believe the fiction peddled by the Rubins and the Khalilzads. Executions of those who assisted NATO in Afghanistan were instituted soon after “Taliban 2.0” took over Afghanistan as a consequence of Biden’s folly. This has been blamed by the 46th President on the 45th President, as though Biden was elected President merely to follow the agenda of Trump but without the orange hair.

Such killings continue, such that the number of such former auxiliaries of mainly US forces is shrinking almost by the day, and who are in much greater risk of death than the Ukrainians who are being welcomed across both sides of the Atlantic in a manner that is being used to suggest by rivals of the Atlantic Alliance that the reason is that they are European. There must be other reasons for such throbbing love, but in Asia, Africa and South America, if not yet in the African-American community in the US, the belief that such favouritism is based on ethnic considerations is widespread. The Afghan people deserved better, even if not all of them look the way Ukrainians do.

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Adieu, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last CPSU General Secretary

That Russia would never be accepted as part of the ‘common European family’ by France, Britain and Germany was never comprehended by Gorbachev

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Mikhail Gorbachev

His repeated forgiving of the efforts of Mahmud Ghori to bring down his kingdom and take away his life ensured that Prithviraj Chauhan was the tragic idealist who initiated the process of destroying the India that had endured for many millennia. He failed to recognise that in Ghori, he faced an opponent who sought nothing less than the destruction of an entire system of governance and its concomitant way of life. Each time Prithviraj spared his life, Ghori went back determined to succeed against the merciful ruler the next time around. Finally, Ghori’s day came with a pre-dawn attack that caught Prithviraj’s army unawares, most being deep in sleep. The Rajput princes of the time fought wars in a manner reminiscent of cricket, with set rules designed to make the contest a battle between chivalric foes. Their error was that as a collective as well as individually, the princes of the day failed to comprehend the systemic, the civilizational nature, of the battle that their foe to the north west was intent on waging. That easy, indeed facilitated and assisted plunder, created in their implacable foe an appetite to control the land and its people. In such a conflict, only a single side wins, and eventually that was not the side of Prithviraj.

In his final moments, as he was facing death at the hands of a foe who had from the start been implacable, the luckless Samrat may have understood the fatal error he had made in sparing the life of a foe with the ambition to transform the land and the people in his own image. Even after more than seven centuries of domination by the Mughals, that did not happen. In villages across India, in minds and in the homes of tens of millions, their belief systems remained intact in a manner that had not been the case in any other country taken over by those who had linked their confidence in victory to their belief and fealty to what they believed to be the message of the Almighty. Later, the Rubicon of cruelty was crossed by Aurangzeb, who as a consequence found himself not the protector of Mughal rule but its destroyer. The Marathas in particular, led by the charismatic military tactician Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, proved to impossible to subdue.

Wars within India opened the doors to conquest by the European powers, with the British establishing dominance over the subcontinent through the use of any means that they judged to be effective for the purpose. The age of chivalric combat had perished with the defeat and execution of Prithviraj, and from then onwards, wars were fought not by another version of the Marquis of Queensbury rules but freestyle. Anything was permitted to subdue the rival. It took the blow to the loyalty towards the British Raj of the Indian armed forces effectuated by Subhas Chandra Bose through the Indian National Army to make Whitehall realise that their time was up in India. Had it been Subhas Bose who had headed the freedom struggle rather than the hand-picked lawyer chosen by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, there may not have been a partition of India in 1947, nor perhaps the peeling away of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and other territories that had earlier been an intrinsic part of the subcontinent. Until Partition, Nehru had been adamant that he would not accept any status for the Muslim community different from that which existed for Hindus, aware of the harm that had been done by the separate electorates and partitions that had earlier been agreed to by the Bose-less Congress leadership.

Only after Partition did Nehru transition to a policy that in many ways sought the separation from the majority of the minorities in India. He instituted a difference in treatment that many regard as a repudiation of secularism while others claim that such an across-the-board separation of the Hindu majority and the rest of the population was on the contrary the essence of secularism. Thus was born Nehruvian secularism, in which rather than accept their common cultural DNA, Muslims and Hindus in particular were subjected to messaging that they were different from each other, an obviously erroneous notion that had been the foundation of M.A. Jinnah’s call to the British to divide the country before exiting it. This past quarter, the rate of growth of the economy has been 13.5%. This is the natural growth rate of the economy, given the abundant qualities of the people of India, although under its initial rulers, the growth rate hovered around 2% annually, breaking free of this only when P.V. Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. Incidentally, Rao was disliked, indeed despised, by the matriarch since the tragic death of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, Sonia Gandhi. Any individual who had the effrontery to argue that she should work to help Rao in his reforms rather than weaken him became an instant object of irritation and worse in her. Ultimately, the fissures in the Congress Party that resulted in the weakening of Narasimha Rao ensured the rise of the BJP. Understandably, A.B. Vajpayee had a soft corner for Sonia Gandhi throughout his six years in the PMH, the Prime Minister’s House.

Returning to Gorbachev, from the start of his ascent to the General Secretaryship of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he refused to accept the existential nature of the USSR-US battle that was waged during Cold War 1.0. This was much the way President Biden and some of the other leaders of the Atlantic Alliance have failed to understand the existential nature of the challenge being thrown by the CCP to the US-led alliance, a challenge most visible in the era of the supremacy of Xi Jinping over the CCP. When faced with the economic crisis caused by the statist policies inherited from the Brezhnev era, Gorbachev turned for assistance to the very countries intent on the downfall of the Soviet system. While there was indeed Glasnost, greater freedom of expression, during his time, the only Perestroika (reform) introduced under Gorbachev was to preside over one unconditional, unilateral surrender of USSR interests to the Atlantic Alliance. That Russia would never be accepted as part of the “common European family” by France, Britain and Germany was never comprehended by Gorbachev, although it was by Vladimir Putin, after nearly six years of effort seeking to enter on honourable terms “our common European home” (Putin’s view at the time) proved fruitless. The USSR was eventually destroyed by its lack of substantive Perestroika, but that demise was speeded up by the folly of Gorbachev in handing over the keys to the survival of the USSR to the hands of its most implacable foes. Small wonder that the Gorbymania unleashed by the demise of the last CPSU General Secretary is not shared within his own country.

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WESTERN MEDIA’S COMMENTARY ON INDIA@75 HYPOCRITICAL

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The silly season is back, rather, it is always silly season when it comes to western media’s coverage of India. But this time there is a sudden increase in the number of anti-India articles in the western legacy media to mark 75 years of India’s Independence. Headlines such as “At 75, India’s democracy is under pressure like never before” and “Modi’s India is where global democracy dies” ring the death knell of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reading these articles the following thoughts come to mind: it is as if the Prime Minister of the country was not elected with a landslide in a completely free, fair and hard-fought election; as if regular elections do not take place in the country; as if Opposition parties do not win elections at the state level; as if the government was not forced to backtrack even on its landmark reforms in a sector as critical as agriculture because of opposition from a handful of interest groups from a tiny state; it is as if there is state mandated discrimination of minority groups; as if the media is not robust; as if the judiciary and other institutions are not independent and powerful. One can go on and on. The problem is, some people have decided that since a particular government is not to their liking, hence it signifies the end of democracy in India. The hatred for Narendra Modi as a person and leader increases the aggravation as well as the fact that these people do not see any light at the end of their tunnel because of the inability of the Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, to come to power at the Centre. So, whatever be the positive indices about India, whatever be the ground reality, they have already written the headline that democracy has died in Modi’s India. And now they just need to write the story—the fiction.

75 years after Independence, India’s fault lines are a product of its history and in keeping with its character. To blame them on the last eight years of the current government is to be economical with the truth. If there is division in society, it has been always there—Partition is proof of that. Papering over that reality led to appeasement and gave the majority a minority complex. Indian society is as good or as bad as it has always been. Things have not worsened in the last eight years. At the most, the majority community has become more vocal, and cast aside a few old shibboleths such as secularism, which in practice, is anything but. India is still as complex and colourful as any democracy of its size is expected to be. If anything has changed, it is for the better—India has become a more aspirational society, which is bound to happen with economic prosperity. India is also more open now, apart from more confident. None of this would have been possible if there was a despotic government in power.

Just because Rahul Gandhi says that democracy is dead in India, does not make that a fact. His party’s, rather his family’s inability to win elections, is their own doing. To say that he is not being allowed to win elections is to cast aspersions on India’s institutions. If democracy has died anywhere, it is in his own party—in fact, it has died a thousand deaths ever since the oldest political party of India has been converted into a family enterprise. So, to take Rahul Gandhi’s words as indicator of the state of democracy in India amounts to spreading deliberate disinformation.

It is this same western legacy media that will uphold Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s imposition of emergency and the use of force to counter anti vaccine protesters as legitimate, but will call the Indian government fascist even if it erects a barrier to stop protesters from entering the national capital and spreading mayhem.

It is ironic that a Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper can express worries about the state of the Indian media when an Indian corporate giant buys stakes in Indian TV channel. What is even more appalling is that many of these legacy media outlets, particularly one published from Los Angeles, will regularly publish supplements on authoritarian China, singing paeans to Chinese governance, while berating India for the “lack of democracy”. There has to be a limit to hypocrisy, to double standards.

India at 75 is a miracle. That democracy has survived, nay thrived in this country, in spite of all the odds, is a miracle in itself. If the western media is blind to this fact, it is because they wear blinkers and are motivated by ideological or pecuniary reasons. No wonder, it is so difficult to take western legacy media seriously.

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Digital literacy, innovation keys to transformation

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Digital transformation is an unstoppable development with far-fetched ramifications across the several domains of technology, policies, economy, and society. India’s innate want to participate in it manifests in the Digital Dream, the intent of which is layered in the National Digital Communication Policy 2018. The dream is to “transform into a digitally connected society that enables seamless access to and use of information resources that help create a competitive, innovative and knowledge-based society”. Despite the veritable intent, there are challenges, the most crucial being defining a path to realize this dream by balancing the realities.

Beyond the requirements of the supporting ecosystem of power adequacy, interrupted internet with adequate speed, and device affordability, there exists the ability and willingness to use and adapt to the technology environment. Proceeding with digital transformation without ensuring the presence of these elements risks a digital divide and marginalization. It risks exclusion of group or groups of people from participating in the social, economic, political or cultural processes essential for social inclusion. This would be in direct contradiction to the spirit of the Indian Digital Dream shared above.

Despite overall improvements, issues about the inadequacy of the supporting ecosystem remain. According to the “Household Social Consumption: Education” survey by NSO (2017-18), only 4% of rural and 23% of urban households possessed computers. Just 24% of the households in the country had internet access, which drops to 15% for rural households. According to the 2019 TRAI report titled “Wireless Data Services in India,” less than 50% of the population has access to wireless data services. The current appreciation of digital literacy as shared under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Shakshrata Mission appears limited to the operation of digital devices and the ability to browse the internet besides undertaking digital payments. However, under evolving realities, there is an urgent need to widen it to include awareness and inculcate an attitude to enhance the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats and from various sources. The requirement goes way beyond just the technical knowledge to operate devices properly. It highlights the need to elevate awareness and cognition that instill the ability and responsibility to interpret media and evaluate and apply new knowledge emanating from digital environments, necessitating the ability to communicate, participate and collaborate.

Limitations in digital literacy, especially in terms of the notion highlighted above, can result in several inconveniences, one of the most prominent ones being increased exposure to cybercrimes. According to the 2021 Internet Crime Report by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, India ranked fourth among top 20 international victim nations after US, UK and Canada, way ahead of the peer group nations like Brazil, China, and Argentina. Prevalence of such instances can inhibit technology adoption in the absence of clearly defined, easily understandable, implementable policies supported by the governance structure in the country.

Besides, policies must be vigilant in balancing the multifaceted relationship between technology and inequality. While it is true that technologies help accelerate economic growth, there is a need to ensure that the benefits get distributed equitably, which need not be an automatic outcome.

Technology adoption while sustaining competitiveness can significantly impact the composition and nature of jobs and relative wages and income. In reality, technology and automation are gradually replacing repetitive manual and routine tasks known as middle-skill jobs, i.e. occupations whose wages place them in the middle of the wage distribution like those for drivers, cashiers, secretaries etc. Simultaneously technology adoption can facilitate a rising share of high-skilled jobs as well. This can exacerbate wage, and income equality, wherein high-skilled workers, witness higher wages and income.

In contrast, the low-skilled workers languish, competing with the displaced middle-skilled workers. Different estimates of the share of such jobs at risk due to technology and automation are especially high in developing countries, as shared in UN World Social Report 2020. For India, estimates of shares of jobs at risk of being lost to automation due to technology usage are more than 50 per cent. Hence it is necessary to promote cooperation across and within countries to exploit technology dividends. Internationally, United Nations Technology Mechanism and United Nations technology banks for LDCs are a step in the right direction. Besides any other form of inducements for bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms, must enjoy some policy priority. Within the country, an active framework for reskilling displaced workers and support for transition to new jobs could enhance technology adoption besides those designed toward taming economic rents.

However, the principal amongst them is to develop a policy mindset geared toward promoting inclusive technologies and innovations that can disseminate technology dividends across the broader range of economic agents in society. More so as we step towards being the most populous nation in the world in 2023, according to the UN report on World Population and Prospects 2022. It is strictly up to us how we want to reap demographic dividends by ushering in more inclusive technologies and innovations.

The author is Professor Economics, Environment & Policy Area, IMT Ghaziabad.

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