Urvashi Sarkar

Thoughts, stories and ideas.

Tag: International Affairs

  • Why India’s commitment to nuclear disarmament is “merely rhetorical”

    In 1998, the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee conducted a second round of nuclear tests in Rajasthan and declared to the world that ”India is now a nuclear weapons state.” Photo: REUTERS

    Published in Caravan Magazine. 18 November 2017

    In October 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-governmental organisations across 100 countries, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The award recognised ICAN’s role in bringing about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—the world’s first multilateral legally-binding instrument on nuclear disarmament in 20 years. All nine nuclear-weapon states, including India, refrained from participating in the treaty negotiations. While India, China and Pakistan abstained from voting on the United Nations General Assembly resolution that established the mandate for nations to negotiate the treaty, five nuclear countries—United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, and Israel—voted against the resolution.

    The Indian government issued a statement explaining its abstention from the resolution on the day after the vote, in October last year. After claiming that “India attaches the highest priority to nuclear disarmament,” the statement noted that India was “not convinced” that the proposed negotiations could address the “longstanding expectation of the international community for a comprehensive instrument on nuclear disarmament.” The ICAN website notes that although India “regularly declares its support for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, its true commitment to nuclear disarmament remains in serious doubt.”

    India periodically supports calls for nuclear disarmament, but these assertions are contradicted by its continued possession of nuclear weapons and efforts to upgrade nuclear capabilities. For instance, during the Cold War, the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru made frequent appeals for disarmament to the United States and the Soviet Union. But later, in 1974, the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi conducted India’s first “peaceful nuclear explosion.” Again, in 1988, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi addressed the UN General Assembly in a seminal speech calling for an end to all nuclear testing.  A decade later, the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee conducted a second round of tests and declared to the world that “India is now a nuclear weapons state.” That year, consistent with India’s contradictory statements on disarmament and weaponising, George Fernandes, the then defence minister, stated that the tests enabled India to “pursue, with credibility and greater conviction, our long-term campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

    Since then, India has made several statements in support of disarmament—for instance, at the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, the former prime minister Manmohan Singh stated that “India has maintained an impeccable non-proliferation record, of which we are proud.” Simultaneously, India also continued to develop nuclear weapons. According to ICAN’s website, India possesses 110–120 of the nearly 15,000 nuclear warheads among the nine nuclear-weapon states in the world.

    As a result, civil-society organisations and individuals are sceptical of India’s commitment to disarmament. Tim Wright, the Asia-Pacific director of ICAN, addressed India’s refusal to sign the treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, in an email. “ICAN has repeatedly urged the Indian government to sign the treaty. However, it has refused to do so, based on its misguided belief that nuclear weapons bring security,” Wright wrote. “India’s support for nuclear disarmament is, it seems, merely rhetorical.”

    Closer home, Indian civil-society groups, such as the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP)—a network of more than 200 Indian organisations against nuclear weapons—expressed similar concerns. Sukla Sen, a member of CNDP, said the organisation had made attempts to lobby the Indian government to sign the treaty, but with no success. “Some international peace activists were initially hopeful of India’s participation in the nuclear weapons ban treaty negotiations,” Sen told me. “For example, the nuclear-policy expert Alice Slater was hopeful that if India and Pakistan were properly lobbied, they would participate.” He added, “CNDP was not similarly optimistic and we communicated our apprehensions.”

    There appeared to be divided opinions on whether there had been a change in the nature of response under the present government led by Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Wright told me, “We have discerned no difference in India’s policy on nuclear disarmament under prime ministers Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh.” He added, “Neither leader has shown serious commitment to this cause.” Sen, on the other hand, told me that it had been more difficult to lobby with the BJP government. He said, “There is no channel of communication with the current regime. We made informal contact with government officials at seminars, but that was it.”

    According to Sen, the Congress was more open to communicating—he recalled that individuals such as Mani Shankar Aiyar had spoken up for the cause on several occasions. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi proposed an action plan to the UN, for a world free of nuclear weapons. Decades later, in 2010, the former prime minister Manmohan Singh constituted an informal group, headed by Aiyar, to take the plan forward. “The group, among other things, recommended that India should pursue the matter bilaterally with various states,” Sen told me. “But this was not done, either multilaterally or bilaterally.”

    Arun Mitra, the senior vice president of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), which also works closely with ICAN, told me that the difference is more starkly visible in the ground-level opposition to India’s nuclear tests by its citizens. “Nearly two lakh people had gathered for a peace march in Delhi in the mid 1980s opposing the nuclear arms race around the globe,” Mitra said. “Currently, we just cannot get similar numbers.” According to Mitra, this was a result of a complacency that had set in after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. He said, “People felt that since a unipolar world had emerged, the arms race of the Cold War era was over. But the future would throw up fresh complexities and new power centres. It was wrong to think that the arms race had ended.” Mitra appeared critical of the present BJP-led government’s discourse on disarmament. He said that the question of disarmament does not receive adequate attention, whereas “non-issues” appeared to dominate the political discourse under the BJP government. But he did not give much credit to the Congress government either. “Even the previous government went ahead with the India-US civilian nuclear deal in the face of opposition,” he added.

    Mitra told me that the IDPD, CNDP and a host of other organisations plan to hold an international conference in Delhi, in 2018, which would seek to revive civil society action to pressurise the government towards disarmament. “We will invite trade unions, labour organisations and women’s groups. There is a need to rejuvenate the peace movement,” Mitra said.

    This is not the first time that the Indian government has stayed away from global disarmament efforts—successive Indian governments have refused to be part international treaties in the past as well. India has refused to be a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the grounds that it is discriminates against states that tested nuclear weapons after 1967. In 1996, India refused to sign to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which proposes to ban all future nuclear tests, also on the grounds that it was discriminatory towards countries that had not conducted nuclear tests at the time. With regard to India’s quest for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)—a group of nuclear supplier countries that seek to prevent nuclear proliferation by controlling the export of materials used for developing nuclear weapons—in an opinion piece published in DNA India, the late political analyst and journalist Praful Bidwai had noted that despite initially opposing the NSG as unjust and arbitrary, India now seeks to be a member. Though China has ensured that India’s bid to gain membership to the group has been unsuccessful, it did not prevent India from gaining a unique waiver from the NSG in 2008, which permitted other countries to provide nuclear fuel, materials and technology to India.

    However, India has also consistently made the right noises on nuclear disarmament by periodically supporting it at the UN Conference on Disarmament, which was established in 1979 as the single multilateral negotiating forum of the international community for disarmament. In recent times, the Indian government has condemned North Korea’s nuclear tests, and in June 2016, India became is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which seeks to limit the proliferation of missile weaponry and technology by limiting their exports.

    India is, however, simultaneously expanding its nuclear arsenal.  According to a 2017 factsheet on trends in world nuclear forces, released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute—an independent international institute that carries out research on issues surrounding conflict and arms control—“India is gradually expanding the size of its nuclear weapon stockpile as well as its infrastructure for producing nuclear warheads.” The factsheet noted that its stockpile had increased from 2016, when it had 110–120 warheads, to 120–130 in 2017.

    Even as a broad section of civil society has expressed disappointment about India’s refusal to sign the treaty, national security analyst Bharat Karnad, a research professor at the think tank Centre for Policy Research, feels otherwise.  Over email, Karnad, who was a member of India’s first National Security Advisory Board, wrote that India’s decision not to support the non-proliferation treaty may have “conditioned the Modi government’s response.” “The Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN falls in the same category as that given to US President Barack Obama—a reward for good intentions,” he wrote. “ICAN might succeed in disarmament efforts, perhaps in a fantasy world.”

    According to Karnad,there is no contradiction between India’s possession of nuclear weapons and its repeated calls for disarmament.  “From Nehru’s days, India has championed not just nuclear disarmament, but nuclear and general disarmament, including of conventional military.” He noted that in 1956, Krishna Menon, Nehru’s foreign policy advisor, “had warned in the UN that unless the then nuclear weapons powers disarmed fully, India would feel compelled to acquire these weapons.” He continued, “They didn’t pay heed, and India belatedly produced these weapons.”

    Read the original article: https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/india-nuclear-disarmament-merely-rhetorical

  • Carnegie Endowment in India: Promoting US leadership with Indian corporate wealth

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Carnegie president William Burns. Photo: Facebook/Carnegie India

    Published in The Wire. 31 August 2017

    New Delhi: Days before India’s prime minister visited the US on June 25-26, 2017, a new development was reported with regard to the F-16 fighter aircraft which the US is trying to sell to India.

    The development was that Tata Advanced Systems, the aerospace and defence arm of the Tata Group, and American defence contractor Lockheed Martin announced a partnership to build the F-16 aircraft for the Indian Air Force. The duo are in competition with the Gripen aircraft manufactured by Saab, a Swedish company. The Indian government is yet to make a decision on the deal estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

    A prominent advocate of the deal happens to be Ashley Tellis – a well-known Indian-American strategist and senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace. The Carnegie Endowment is a 100-year-old Washington-based think tank which recently opened its newest centre in Delhi.

    Tellis, who has given statements and published research on the advantages of F-16s to India, was tipped to be the US ambassador to India. He was also appointed the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, established by the Carnegie Endowment in April 2017. In a press release announcing the chair, Tellis said his relationship with the Tatas – who fund both the Carnegie Endowment and Carnegie India – goes back many decades.

    Carnegie’s most recent annual report (2016) lists both Tata Sons and Lockheed Martin as funders; the former contributed in the bracket of $100,000-$249,000 while Lockheed Martin Corporation’s contribution was in the category ‘up to  $24,999’.

    Think tanks are known to receive an assortment of funding from governments, companies and foundations, which means that Carnegie’s funding is not unusual. Think tanks also adopt a range of positions on issues depending on the direction in which they want government policies to take shape.

    However, these connections between Tata, Lockheed Martin and the Carnegie Endowment, their investments in each other and clearly intersecting interests, raise questions about the positions taken by think tanks on issues and why corporates invest such large sums in them.

    In response to questions from The Wire, Tellis said there was no conflict of interest involved in Carnegie’s funding and his championing of F-16s. “My conclusions about the F-16 and F-18 were published several years before I was appointed to the Tata Chair and before Tata or Lockheed Martin ever contributed to Carnegie. My analysis about the fighter competition stands on its own merits,” he said.

    While one of Tellis’s articles on F-16s was published in 2009, a second  came out in 2016 and a third in August 2017. Ratan Tata became a trustee of Carnegie Endowment in 2013 and Lockheed Martin funded Carnegie between July 2015 to June 2016.

    Atul Bhardwaj, adjunct fellow at the Delhi-based Institute of Chinese Studies, points to another of Tellis’s works which urges India to develop its next generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with US support. “Think tanks like Carnegie sell dreams of making India a great power equipped with sophisticated defence technology. They build threat scenarios that shape the national security outlook of the country and their foremost objective is to shape elite opinion,” he says.

    Responding to this reporter’s email on whether the links between Tata, Lockheed Martin and Carnegie create a conflict of interest for the think tank, Shivnath Thukral, managing director of Carnegie India, said,

    “Carnegie scholars never submit work to donors for pre-review, approval, or any other direction and do not accept funding from organisations that seek to influence our research. The only substantive Carnegie Endowment report involving the F-16 was the ‘Dogfight’ report written by Ashley Tellis in January 2011, based on his own independent analysis and rigorous research. Tellis received no funding for writing the report. He continues to stand by his conclusion that the American F-16 (Lockheed) and F-18 (Boeing) are the most cost effective solutions for India’s needs.”

    Thukral’s response also stated that Carnegie Endowment “as a whole” never received funding from Lockheed Martin. When this reporter pointed out that Carnegie Endowment’s 2016 annual report listed Lockheed Martin Corporation as a donor, he said:

    “Our earlier response was regard to Carnegie India which has not received funds from Lockheed Martin – Carnegie India is a registered Section 25 company subject to Indian laws including the FCRA.  Lockheed Martin is a member of the Carnegie Endowment’s Global Council – a group of individuals and corporations who provide general support not tied to any specific program, center, project, or scholar.”

    That Lockheed Martin funds Carnegie is not a surprise, since it is known to fund think tanks. But it is ironic that its funding should be accepted by a think tank whose founder, Andrew Carnegie, considered war to be the “foulest blot upon our civilization.”

    However, Carnegie is not alone in its advocacy of  Lockheed fighters for India. In 2015, TheIntercept ran an article showing that the conservative Heritage Foundation worked to restore funding for Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jet which the Pentagon had decided to cut. More interestingly, the Heritage Foundation, in a June 20 article titled ‘Heritage Expert Influences Production Move on F-16s’, said that it had championed the production of F-16s in India since it would help protect American jobs.

    In the US, which is home to the largest number of think tanks in the world, the issue of whether think tanks further corporate agendas is hotly debated. That debate has still not taken off in India because of their relatively small numbers and the lack of clarity around their work. Yet the arrival of heavyweight American ‘brands’ like Brookings and Carnegie, and their funding by Indian industry, have certainly been noticed.

    Lobbying tool of US commercial interests

    Ajai Shukla, who writes on defence and strategy for Business Standard provides the background:

    “An ambitious US-India defence framework agreement signed in 2005 marked the acceleration of defence commerce. The 2008 India-US nuclear deal and balancing against increasing Chinese activities in the South China Sea resulted in greater strategic convergences. Track-II dialogues with the US were also underway, organised by organisations like the Aspen Institute. But a key area of interest for the US and other countries was that India was fast emerging as a major buyer of arms and had lucrative projects in oil, gas and infrastructure.”

    According to Shukla, the presence of foreign think tanks is not the sinister ‘CIA hand’ that Indira Gandhi would refer to. “It is a lobbying tool for a plethora of commercial interests,” he says.

    In the last decade, three US think tanks have set up their India offices – the Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution and Carnegie Endowment. Each of these are set up as Indian entities and seek to raise Indian funding.

    When one considers the work of think tanks in general, there is little clarity around their methods of working and impact, or how they use their funding. But most think tanks are established with the intent of informing and influencing government policy. The methods of trying to influence government policy are diverse – employing retired government and defence officials, collaborating with ministries on research projects, convening conferences and inviting ambassadors and joint secretaries, serving or retired, to launch books and reports.

    Prime minister’s first book launch

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the launch of <em></p> <p id=

    Getting India Back on Track. Credit: PTI” width=”352″> Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the launch of Getting India Back on Track. Credit: PTI

    Weeks after the BJP was voted to power, Narendra Modi presided over what was probably his first book launch at his 7 Race Course Road residence as prime minister. The book, Getting India Back on Track: An Action Agenda for Reform, was published by Carnegie Endowment. The book, according to its blurb, “broadly coincides with the 2014 Indian elections to spur a public debate about the program that the next government should pursue in order to return the country to a path of high growth.”

    The book was launched prior to the setting up of Carnegie in India. The groundwork for establishing Carnegie India had started earlier – in 2011, a delegation from the Carnegie Endowment met an array of Congress leaders including then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and shared plans to set up a South Asia centre in Delhi.

    Prior to Delhi, Carnegie had already established its centres in the Middle East, Russia, Europe and China. With its headquarters in Washington DC, it is known as one of the oldest international affairs think tank of the US. What is its role in the US?

    Inderjeet Parmar, author of Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power, says, “These institutions emerged to cope with massive changes that the US was undergoing in the areas of urbanisation, immigration and industrialisation in the early 1900s. They emerged out of corporate wealth, were staffed by elites and usually connected with US State Department or other government agencies. They wanted to develop American leadership to replace the British and French rule, and also to challenge communism and socialism abroad. They viewed the problems of the American state as their own.”

    According to Parmar, the strategy of ‘exporting institutions’ has been going on for a long time, especially in China. “In India, these institutes try to influence and socialise the Indian elite into the international order promoted by the US. This elite consists of university academia, people who have spent many years at the higher rungs of government service, business leaders and the media,” he adds.

    Carnegie India, of course, contests the idea that it is a conduit for American influence. During the recent launch of Carnegie India, the management of Carnegie stated that it was “less interested in amplifying directives from Washington than it was … in bringing international perspectives to bear in Washington.”

    To place this claim in perspective, however, it is necessary to understand the logic behind Carnegie’s expanding global footprint in the first place. In 2007, the Carnegie Endowment articulated its vision for creating the world’s first ‘global think tank’. Though India is not explicitly mentioned, the vision provides a clear rationale for why the think tank wanted to expand abroad.

    Describing the vision, Carnegie’s former president Jessica T. Matthews said the think tank was globalising out of a deep conviction that this was the best way to advance core US national interests. “History has shown that a dominating world power has paradoxically a greater than normal need to understand in depth what others’ interests are. This is because of the sheer scope of its interests and because dominance engenders resistance, resentment, and often fear. So deep engagement is an essential strategy for managing dominance.”

    “We live in a world where critical issues have moved beyond national solutions, because they reside in the global commons or because they require the cooperation of many countries. Whether trade or terrorism or nonproliferation or climate change, US leadership is needed as never before,” she said.

    Taken together, these statements from Carnegie’s top leadership suggest Carnegie in Washington and its centres abroad are working to preserve US leadership and its core interests by mapping – but also moulding – the interests of other powers like India onto the policy matrix in Washington.

    What constitutes core US national interest? This could mean everything from maintaining a unipolar world, balancing the rise of China, preserving its security and protecting its economy to boosting American companies’ business interests. Not all of these interests necessarily complement India’s.

    Carnegie India head Ashley Tellis before the Senate Armed Services Committee on US policy in the Asia Pacific. Credit: Twitter/Carnegie India
    Carnegie India head Ashley Tellis speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on US policy in the Asia Pacific. Credit: Twitter/Carnegie India

    Intersecting interests of American and Indian corporate wealth

    But it is not the case that American-origin think tanks in India promote only American interests. If that was the case, Indian corporates would not have made a beeline to fund them. Carnegie India receives funding from both Indian and international donors, including prominent names from Indian industry such as C.K. Birla, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Shobhana Bhartia, Sunil Mittal, G.M. Rao and Tata Sons.

    Even as the US is a major source of foreign direct investment for India, Indian corporates have increasing investments abroad, with acquisitions in nearly every part of the world. According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, more than 65 large Indian corporations have invested about $17 billion in the US. For some of these companies, like Tata Sons, it has become profitable to be in the US.

    A report by the Cato Institute shows how individuals and Indian corporations have driven the India-US relationship much more than governments. “Indian industrial houses once cowered in fear of being crushed by US multinationals, but have now become multinationals in their own rights. Many have become global giants, making acquisitions in every continent,” the report states, citing several examples of Indian acquisitions abroad.

    Thus, even as the outsourcing of American jobs to India is a bone of contention, Indian and American companies continue to collaborate. The partnership between Tata and Lockheed Martin to build F-16s in India is just one example. Several high-level forums exist to take forward the business ties between the two countries.

    At one level, Carnegie in India represents the intersecting interests of Indian and American corporate wealth. That’s the main reason Indian corporates fund such institutes, which are not only high profile but also have access to the highest levels of government. These institutes also encourage research and policy making that promotes free markets and liberalisation of economies.

    For example, the Carnegie Endowment publication launched by Modi in 2014 was essentially an argument for the centrality of markets in driving economic growth, and a critique of the welfare state. The foreword was written by Ratan Tata, a member of Carnegie’s board of trustees, while Bharti Enterprises’ chairperson Sunil Mittal was present at the launch.

    Both Tata and Mittal played an important role in bringing Carnegie to India. At the launch of the think tank in Delhi, Carnegie president William Burns – a former senior official in the US State Department who was closely involved in implementing the US-India civil nuclear agreement – thanked both Tata and Mittal for their vision and drive in expanding the Carnegie platform to India. A video from the launch shows Mittal stating that it was his personal mission to see that the think tank established its centre in Delhi, marking its South Asia presence. Mittal also personally accompanied the Carnegie delegation when it met Congress and opposition leaders in 2011 to announce plans to launch a think tank in Delhi.

    With similar visions driving them, Indian industry and American think tanks are leveraging each others’ advantages to exert influence on the government of the day.

    (The Tatas and Lockheed Martin did not respond to queries from the author)

    Read the original article: https://thewire.in/business/carnegie-india-think-tank-role

  • India, Israel and Palestine: A triangle that does not sum up

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in New York in 2014. Photo Credit: PMO

    Published in The Wire. 2 July 2017

    It is the 50th year of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It has been 50 years since Israel annexed the Palestinian territories of West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip following the Six Day Arab-Israeli War of June 1967.

    During this time, Israel has tightened its hold over the territories, crushed Palestinian resistance and created hundreds of thousands of refugees. Its discriminatory policies affecting every area of Palestinian life have invited comparisons with the South African apartheid. However, UN resolutions condemning the occupation and Israeli settlements in the West Bank leave Israel unaffected, even as it relies on the continued support of the United States for its actions.

    This is also the year that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Israel; the first Indian PM to do so. He will address a gathering of Jews of Indian origin in a community reception in Tel Aviv on July 5. Modi he will not visit Palestine.

    Historically, India framed its relationship with Israel based on a priority accorded to Palestine. In 1936, Jawaharlal Nehru informed the Zionist emissary Immanuel Olsvanger that he could not tolerate imperialism in India or Palestine.

    P.R. Kumaraswamy, professor of West Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, writes that while anti-colonialism was an important aspect of India’s backing Palestine, there was a religious dimension to the matter. The Congress and the Muslim League perceived the anti-imperialist Palestinian cause as a way to win over Indian Muslims whose support they were competing for and to unite Indian Muslims with the resistance against the British. Supporting Palestine was also a method of leveraging India’s interests in the Middle East.

    Road to Washington and arms access through Israel

    Nevertheless, India established full diplomatic ties with Israel only in 1992, even though it had formally recognised Israel in 1950. The end of the Cold War in 1991 reconfigured world politics and established the United States as the sole superpower.

    Vijay Prashad, professor of International Relations at Trinity College, says: “India’s road to Washington and arms lay through Israel. After India’s nuclear weapon tests in 1998, the US imposed economic and military sanctions. During the 1999 war with Pakistan, Israel supplied arms to India, which were American in any case. India under Indira Gandhi had already reached out to Israel in 1971 for arms despite absent diplomatic ties. The Palestine issue started getting sidelined long ago, while the Congress was in power.”

    In 2009, following lobbying by US and Israeli governments, India diluted its stand on the Goldstone Report which showed the illegality of Israel’s blockade of Gaza and accused it of violating international law.  The Congress expressed “reservations in making unqualified endorsement” of the report recommendations.  According to Prashad, there is not much difference in the language used in 2009, and the language subsequently used by India for Israel’s attacks on Gaza in 2012 and 2014.

    Then, for the first time in 2015, India abstained on a UNHRC resolution calling for a probe by the International Criminal Court into war crimes by Israel.  It continued to abstain on the resolution in 2016 and 2017 as well. However, it has voted in favour of other UNHRC resolutions that criticised Israel on the expansion of settlements and the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

    India justified abstaining on the grounds that the resolution referred to ICC of which India is not a member. But a report in The Telegraph showed that India voted at least twice in favour of UNHRC resolutions which refer to the ICC in the context of atrocities in Syria. India’s altered voting behaviour therefore caused speculation that India had changed its policies on Palestine which the government has denied.

    India-Israel bonhomie under Modi

    Undoubtedly, there is markedly more visible warmth between the two countries since 2014 when Modi was elected PM.  High level visits to Israel by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, President Pranab Mukherjee and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj have already happened.  While Singh did not visit Palestine, Mukherjee and Swaraj did so. During the Congress regime too, a steady stream of bilateral visits continued to Israel.

    Interestingly, the first time that a senior Indian minister visited Israel was only in the year 2000, when the BJP was in power; and the minister was L.K. Advani.  This is despite the fact that diplomatic relations were established since 1992 and Israel had been sending its presidents and prime ministers to India since 1993.  The most recent visit being of President Reuven Rivlin in November 2016.

    India and Israel have been cooperating in a range of areas including agriculture, water conservation, science and technology, trade and investment. India and Israel also view each other as victims of Islamist terror which complements Modi’s Hindutva background. But by far, the largest area of cooperation is in defense.

    Israel’s defense industry bagged its biggest security contract in April 2017 with the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries being awarded contracts worth $2 billion for providing medium range surface to air missile systems to the Indian Army. There are expectations of further arms deals when Modi visits Israel. It is no secret that India is currently the biggest importer of arms in the world while Israel is its second largest foreign supplier.

    Where does Palestine stand?

    Where does Palestine stand next to India-Israel bonhomie? When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited India last month – his third state visit to the country – Modi mentioned India’s unwavering support to Palestine and for a two state solution. He also spoke of a ‘sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.’

    Even before Abbas’ visit, a Palestinian Authority official said that while India had the right to build relations with Israel, it should not come at the expense of support for Palestine.

    How has that panned out? Is it possible for India to de-hyphenate its ties with the two countries, considering that one is an internationally condemned transgressor state and the other fighting for independence from it? India’s defense ties with Israel make this even more difficult.

    Palestinian embassy officials in Delhi who monitor India-Israel ties have expressed unhappiness over the increasing defense relationship.  A Der Spiegel investigation in 2014 showed that Israel invests significant sums into defense research and production. A good chunk of defense production is exported to countries like India. Defense export revenues in turn make it possible for the Israeli forces to sustain the military occupation of Palestine, inviting allegations that India is subsidising or underwriting the occupation.

    When Modi visits Israel on July 4, what should we expect? Will he refer to the Palestinian cause? One can expect utterances about ‘the peace process and support for the two state solution. But it is doubtful he will go further – he is unlikely to raise the issue of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike for example.

    Any criticism of Israel’s human rights records at international forums could invite criticism of the Modi government’s own policies in Kashmir where he has militarily suppressed dissent and separatism. Neither Netanyahu nor Modi will embarrass each other; Netanyahu in particular would be eager to win over India for the longer term, especially as a voting ally at various human rights forums.

    As Palestine observes its 50th year of Israeli occupation, hard strategic and military calculations define India’s national interest and colour its ties with Israel and Palestine.

    Read the original article: https://thewire.in/diplomacy/india-israel-palestine-modi

  • Brics’ New Development Bank may be new only in name – it’s yet to lay the ground for sweeping change

    Photo: Reuters

    Published in Scroll.in. 16 October 2016

    As leaders of Brasil, Russia, India, China and South Africa meet for the 8th Brics Summit in Goa on Saturday and Sunday, one of the key agendas is to take forward the New Development Bank. President KV Kamath, will attend the summit and bank’s management will look to hobnob with senior officials and business leaders at the two-day event.

    Comprising the five Brics member-countries, the New Development Bank, first proposed in the 2012 summit and signed into agreement last year, at the seventh summit, has been hailed as an alternative to US-dominated institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

    The bank formally opened in July in Shanghai, China – but within months, questions about its functioning have been raised.

    What’s new?

    The biggest concern is that the New Development Bank has tied up with the very institutions to which it was projected as an alternative. Rather than presenting a different framework, the New Development Bank has signed agreements of cooperation with the World Bank as well Asian Development Bank. In a recent press release, the bank reiterated that it would complement the efforts of other existing financial institutions “to realise the common goal of global growth.”

    While the World Bank has been criticised for imposing loan conditionalities, such as liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation, on borrowing countries, some of the Asian Development Bank’s projects have had an adverse impact on vulnerable populations such as those in Cambodia and Indonesia.

    According to Rathin Roy, director of the National Institute for Public Finance and Policy, a research institute under India’s Ministry of Finance, the New Development Bank has so far failed to show how it will be different from existing global financial institutions. “The bank has not said how it will deal with loan conditionality differently, nor articulated how it will be different from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank,” he said. “If it does not replicate the World Bank or Asian Development Bank, then what is the New Development Bank going to be? So far the bank has not provided any answers or even a policy paper that addresses this.”

    To its credit, the bank, by assigning equal voting rights to its five founding members, has tried to be different from the World Bank and IMF, where voting rights are skewed in favour of developed countries. But this is a piecemeal measure, and the bank has not shown any inclination to bring about larger changes in the functioning and landscape of international financial institutions.

    Who’s accountable?

    One of the aims of the New Development Bank is to fund infrastructure projects in developing countries, and support public as well as private projects.

    However, the impact of the major projects it is expected to fund, such as ports, dams, industrial corridors and smart cities, is a cause of concern as such projects tend to displace populations, undermine local livelihoods, and cause damage to the environment. Though the bank has published its social and environmental framework, there is little evidence that aspects of equity and justice have been considered in the context of mass-scale development.

    Similar concerns have also been voiced about the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, of which India is the second-largest shareholder and which opened for business in January.

    The New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank together represent the changing landscape of international financial institutions, most of which were established after the end of the World War II, during the ’90s.

    However, the inauguration of the two was not preceded by substantive debates in Parliament about India’s role or monetary commitments to institutions, which stands at $10 billion for the New Development Bank and $8 billion for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

    A briefing paper of the Centre for Financial Accountability, which monitors financial institutions and their investments in development projects, noted that the Parliament had remained silent and uninvolved, and called discussions on it a problem from the public accountability and transparency viewpoint.

    The huge gaps in finances for infrastructure projects, especially in emerging economies, mean that the two entities are likely to have many takers for their funds, and need not vie with one another.

    According to a G20 estimate, $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion will be required annually for over the next 15 years to fund infrastructure in the developing world. Nevertheless, there is broad agreement that the China-led bank with 57 members, including major Asian economies and European countries, has overshadowed the New Development Bank.

    Poverty, inequality and development

    Talk on this competition is further fuelled by the rivalry between India and China, two of Asia’s largest economies. However, there are more pressing concerns for the New Development Bank – which it has not addressed so far.

    For instance, despite being a development bank, its policy documents remain curiously silent on poverty and inequality – two major challenges facing India and other growing countries.

    The People’s Forum on Brics – which represents social movements, trade unions, civil society and the like from the member countries that analyse the functioning and policies of Brics – has already called the bank out for mainly serving private interests. The forum met ahead of the summit in Goa on October 13 and 14.

    A growing perception among policy analysts is that Brics countries are unsure of which direction to take the bank. The bank website states that it will not just fund infrastructure, but also promote sustainable development. But how it defines development is not clear. While the bank emphasises on economic growth, it says nothing about jobless growth, rural poverty, or those marginalised from the benefits of economic growth.

    Kamath’s claims about the New Development Bank symbolising political sovereignty and the “rise of the South” – of developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere – already appear hollow, and it appears far-fetched that the bank can produce a paradigm shift.

    Read the original article: https://scroll.in/article/819119/brics-new-development-bank-may-be-new-only-in-name-its-yet-to-lay-the-ground-for-sweeping-change

  • BRICS may not replace the old world order – but it could still make a difference

    Photo:Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

    Article published in Scroll.in. 4 October 2016

    Since its first summit in 2009, the BRICS group of nations has done what it takes to be noticed – carved out a multilateral bank with an initial authorised capital of $100 billion and created a Contingency Reserve Arrangement to tackle financial crises. However, as the group of emerging economies gears up for its eighth summit that will be held in Goa on October 15-16, in a year India assumed the BRICS presidency, questions remain about its credibility.

    BRICS first started with Brazil, Russia, India and China as its constituents, and was joined by South Africa in 2010. It was envisaged as an alternative to dominant Western financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which, 70-odd years after they were set up, continue to be dominated by the United States and Europe.

    However, links with the International Monetary Fund remain in place. A BRICS country, when in need, still requires an agreement with the financial body to withdraw more than 30% of its quota from the Contingency Reserve Arrangement. Also, the growing ties of India and Brazil with the United States further undermines the grouping’s credibility.

    BRICS nations – comprising 43% of the world population, 31% of global GDP (purchasing power parity basis) and 17% of world trade – also face other serious problems. High levels of poverty and great inequality mark their societies. The faltering of their economies, barring India, is a concern. Critics also draw attention to a renewed scramble for Africa by BRICS countries, resulting in natural resources extraction and impoverishment of locals.

    Different political structures, varied economic trajectories and inter-rivalries such as between member nations India and China, make it difficult to accept that BRICS can have a cohesive position on anything.

    Great expectations

    Despite such problems, ahead of the eighth summit, different constituencies have their expectations. For instance, business-related groups want it to be easier to do business with each other and seek increased trade, and civil society groups hope to be consulted in policy making.

    “The BRICS countries could have better levels of intra-BRICS trade,” said Onkar Kanwar, chairman of BRICS Business Council (India). “This can be done through harmonisation of customs regulations, easier visa regime, uniformity in technical standards and easier access to information on trade and investment.”

    The BRICS Business Council will also press for a travel card, or special business visa, which will make it easier for people doing business in these five countries to travel across BRICS.

    The Indian government’s expectations from BRICS is best expressed in terms of what not to expect. Contrary to popular and media perceptions, issues like the Kashmir dispute or India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group membership cannot be pursued.

    “If these issues are pursued, BRICS would only be occupied with India-China border problems or Brazil-China anti-dumping disputes,” said former Ambassador HHS Viswanathan, who works with the Observer Research Foundation and heads the BRICS Academic Forum from India. “Bilateral issues are off the agenda. Even if international issues relating to third countries crop up in discussions, we try not to enter them. And if we do need to mention them, references are watered down.”

    India and BRICS

    So, how does India gain from BRICS?

    BRICS wants to alter institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and pushes for reform of the United Nations Security Council, and India is keen on both processes.

    Further, by being a founding and contributing member of the New Development Bank and Contingency Reserve Arrangement, India has come a long way since it had to request food aid from the United States in the 1970s, and negotiate assistance from the International Monetary Fund in 1991, during the balance of payments crisis.

    BRICS also provides a space for India and China, which share thorny ties, to find areas of cooperation such as in railways, industrial parks, tourism, urbanisation and agriculture. The group can be a source of investment for initiatives like Make in India and smart cities, and facilitate investments by Indian companies in BRICS countries.

    As far as civil society in India goes, the belief is that the legitimacy of BRICS can increase if civil society organisations that are attuned to people’s concerns are also consulted for inputs into policy making.

    While the government-approved civil BRICS with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals will take place in Delhi, a separate gathering, People’s Forum on BRICS, will be held in Goa later this month. The forum will focus on BRICS from a relatively critical lens, with discussions on public services, natural resource governance and human rights.

    While civil society organisations have demanded that their participation be formally recognised in BRICS summits, as in the case of academia and business participation at present. But though the Indian government will facilitate a gathering of such organisations, or civil BRICS, it still does not mean institutional recognition. Further, the recommendations from the gathering may not be accepted in the final summit outcomes since there is no formal mechanism for accepting recommendations.

    Concerns about the New Development Bank have also been raised by civil society groups.

    Joe Athialy of the Centre for Financial Accountability said: “If the NDB [New Development Bank] cannot show transparency and accountability and evades environmental and social concerns, it won’t be any different from multilateral development banks like World Bank and Asian Development Bank.”

    BRICS and the world order

    BRICS remains a young institution still in the process of contact building among member countries. Existing areas of cooperation include attempts to provide an alternative to dominant financial institutions, reducing international financial market risks and concerns about disruptive monetary policies of advanced countries. Further grounds of cooperation are being identified with each summit.

    BRICS cannot be the new world order and perhaps does not intend to be, given its differences and continued cooperation with existing institutions of power. The attempt will not be to replace these institutions, but to occupy space within them, and gain a share of global governance through arrangements like the BRICS bank, Contingency Reserve Arrangement, and trading in local country currencies. But more importantly, global governance entities like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the UN Security Council are in serious need of a shake up to reflect current global realities, and BRICS might just be able to deliver this. It is therefore premature to write it off, just yet.

    Read the original article: https://scroll.in/article/817619/brics-may-not-replace-the-old-world-order-but-it-could-still-make-a-difference

  • Is India’s trade with Israel significant enough to justify jettisoning its support for Palestine?

    Photo: President of India/Facebook

    Published in Scroll.in. 17 October 2015

    A “historic political milestone” is how President Reuven Rivlin of Israel described Pranab Mukherjee’s just concluded visit, the first by an Indian President to Israel and Palestine.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Israel in 2016. India and Israel have never been closer, and the cooperation between them never quite as visible.

    Advocates of India-Israel partnership on economic grounds cite burgeoning trade, investment and business ties as reasons for this close relationship. Israel’s considerable defence supplies to India are also considered an important component in the relationship.

    However, the trade figures tell us another story, leading to the question: Does Israel need India more in this relationship?

    History of economic cooperation

    India recognised Israel in September 1950 and full diplomatic relations were established in 1992.  PR Kumaraswamy notes in India’s Israel Policy:

    “Indo-Arab trade was growing, but India’s bilateral trade with Israel was meagre and negligible. In 1960, the government informed the Lok Sabha that the size of the Israeli market was small and thus offered little incentive for Indian exports.”

    At the time of assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, Indo-Israel relations were at rock bottom, but under Rajiv Gandhi they started improving. Bilateral trade showed improvement, and was dominated by trade in diamonds, controlled by a group of Indian diamond merchants based in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, who had started operating in the late 1970s.  Though trade has diversified, diamonds continue to dominate.

    Kumaraswamy writes that from 1996-2006, the diamond trade ranged between 52%-71% of total trade.

    In 2014, diamonds still constituted 53.5% of bilateral trade. Bilateral trade which was $200 million in 1992 passed the billion mark before the end of the decade. By the end of the 1990s, Israel had emerged as India’s fourth-largest trading partner in the wider Middle East.

    In 2014, bilateral trade had reached $4.52 billion, excluding defence.

    Not a major trading partner

    Despite the expansion in trade, Israel does not figure among India’s top trading allies, not even among the top 10.  According to EXIM bank figures, India’s top bilateral trade partner is China with a trade partnership amounting to $72.4 billion for the financial year 2015, followed by the United States and United Arab Emirates. India’s trade partnership with Saudi Arabia is to the tune of $39.4 billion.  Even with Iran, a major Israeli rival, India has an annual bilateral trade of over $14 billion.

    In comparison, the India-Israel bilateral trade is under $5 billion. As for Israel, India is Israel’s tenth-largest trade partner and third-largest partner in Asia after China and Hong Kong.

    The defence partnership

    The real business between India and Israel is its defence partnership, and from which Israel has been earning nearly $1 billion annually and is currently valued at $10 billion over the past decade.

    Interestingly, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Israel was among the top 10 global exporters of arms between 2010-14. India emerged as the top arms importer in the same period.

    Exports are crucial for Israel’s defence economy. Ajai Shukla, Strategic Affairs Editor of the Business Standard, explains the economics:

    “The Israeli Defence Forces are largely equipped with American equipment which comes in the form of US aid. That means Israeli defence forces buy relatively small amounts of equipment from Israeli defence companies, which must, therefore, rely on sales to foreign markets. India, the world’s biggest arms importer, has become a major buyer of Israeli defence equipment.

    Israel is more willing than most other arms producers to transfer defence technology to India. India enjoys leverage with Israel, since a significant amount of Israeli defence research is funded through Indian purchases of Israeli arms. Much of the R&D of Elta Systems (an Israeli defence electronics company) for instance is supported by the proceeds of sales to India, not by Israeli tax payers.”

    Shukla points out that much of this support that India provides to Israeli firms could have been spent by the Ministry of Defence to support Indian defence research and development, but this has not been the practice.  However, he points out that both sides have benefited:

    “Active defence cooperation between India and Israel began during the Kargil war in 1999, when India urgently required defence equipment and ammunition, which Israel promptly supplied, no questions asked.”

    State of Israeli economy

    The recently released UNCTAD World Investment 2015 report showed that Foreign Direct Investment in Israel dropped by 46%. Inward FDI in Israel in the year 2014 was $6,432 million as against $11,804 million in 2013.  The decline, according to one of the authors of the report, was primarily because of the Israel Defence Forces Operation Edge of 2014 and international boycotts against the country for alleged violations of international law.

    Israel is facing tough trade negotiations with European Union, its largest trading partner, over the labelling of products made in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. In order to reduce its dependence on the EU, it is actively tapping markets in Latin America and Asia. In fact, India, China, and Brazil are “focus” markets for increased trade.

    Even with regard to Israeli FDI in India, it is not a major source. During April 2000-October 2012, Israel ranked 43rd among foreign direct investors in India with with an investment of of $55.32 million in India.

    Though there is an India-Israel free trade agreement in the pipeline, which aims to significantly boost bilateral trade, and Israel is rendering assistance in a range of areas such as agriculture, irrigation, water, technology, education and Information Technology,   it appears that Israel has a much greater need for India as an ally, in a world where it faces isolation on account of its occupation and severely discriminatory policies towards Palestine.

    India under Modi is obliging, despite a history of active and vocal support for Palestine.

    Read the original article: https://scroll.in/article/762931/is-indias-trade-with-israel-significant-enough-to-justify-jettisoning-its-support-for-palestine

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