“India’s Achilles’ Heel in a Trumpian World”

Let’s skip the rhetoric of calling Donald Trump the world’s worst bully for his Venezuelan adventurism, and think about how it concerns India, because, unless we can call his bluff, he would keep on trying to arm-twist us one way or the other. And we ought to be genuinely concerned, because for all the chest-thumping of our being a global power and world’s fourth largest economy, we have problems within the country that could be easily exploited by his henchmen.

There is an eerie similarity between the way Siraj-ud-Daulah’s generals were bribed off by Robert Clive and Maduro’s bodyguards being bought by Trump. And Siraj was not even a corrupt ruler like Maduro, who reveled in luxury while his people suffered. He just happened to be spunky enough to put the British in their place when they challenged his authority, unlike umpteen other spineless Indian rulers of the times. And the money to pay the turncoats, Mir Jafar and his cohorts, came not from the coffers of English East India Company, but that of the traitorous banker of Bengal, Jagath Seth, lured by his profiteering motive in trading with the Company, perpetrating the most heinous conspiracy of betrayal in Indian history.

This is not a legacy we Indians can be proud of and there is nothing concrete to suggest that our people today are anymore morally upright than the Mir Jafars and Jagath Seths of the past were, not to be swayed by the right incentives. Add to that the yawning economic divide between the rich and the poor of the country, we offer a ready recipe for betrayal from within. The powers that be need to exigently focus on social justice, to ensure that no section of the society is left prone to external influences. Take for instance, the unorganized sectors of employment like those of gig workers and security guards. They and many others of their ilk enjoy no social security and could fall easy prey to alien manipulations. The deplorable plight of these hapless souls is compounded by the vulgar display of wealth and power by the celebrity of the land they watch every day, especially those of the political kind. It is beyond anyone’s comprehension why a minister, or any legislator for that matter, needs a cavalcade of so many vehicles when he or she moves around, with an army of police personnel deployed along the roads to keep the route clear for the monstrosity to pass through. Besides the unwarranted expenditure on vehicles and gross misuse of police force, the movement of these modern ‘Maharajas’ causes severe public inconvenience due to traffic interruptions.

Gandhiji was supposed to have suggested for free India’s legislators to set an example by following simple lifestyles, to the extent of their cleaning their own toilets. While the last bit could be discounted as more of a symbolic expression, he was apparently emphasizing the importance of the legislators having to be sensitive to the poor living conditions of the country’s masses. Ironically, our politicians, who claimed to be his ideological followers, did exactly the opposite, Nehru the first prime minister himself setting an unsavoury example of commandeering the residence of the Commander-in-Chief, the second-most powerful man after the Viceroy during the British Raj, for his own residence, since he could not occupy the Vicegeral Lodge, which had to go to the president. Since then, political dispensations and regimes may have changed, but the trappings of power the political class enjoy have only kept increasing. They are not just merrily following the lifestyle of our former colonial masters, but outclassing them with the grandeur of their own living. And these are the same guys who are fiercely vociferous about ridding ourselves of our colonial hangover! Individuals, who did not even own a bicycle when they entered politics, find themselves uncomfortable riding anything cheaper than a BMW! Could we possibly blame the millions below poverty line who do not earn enough even to sustain their families, let alone get adequate medical care or governmental support in their old age, for being unhappy? Where have thy gone, Gandhi’s India? How do we tell our politicians to wake up and come down to earth, or follow the paths of the Russian Tsars or the modern-day Maduros?

We can strengthen our armed forces, tighten our external security, but nothing can safeguard us from the resentment of our own people. India’s situation is further aggravated by the multiple insurgencies we have been combating over the years, troubled waters the CIA operatives would find ideal to fish. It is time the government took the bull by the horns and put an end to this menace. The Indian Army has, time and again, snuffed out each of these insurgencies, but insurgencies by their very definition do not remain snuffed for long, unless followed up with adequate conciliatory measures of political, economic and social nature. Unfortunately, our political parties, across the board, have been exploiting the dormant insurgent tendencies to play one-upmanship against each other, betraying their constitutional obligation of keeping insurgency at bay. Economic progress of the people in the insurgent prone areas, which is the key factor to wean out insurgent tendencies, remains an elusive dream for the common man, with the elected representatives pocketing the bulk of the funding meant for public welfare schemes. The civil society, which can play an effective role in assuaging people’s resentment, merely pays lip service and more often than not, revels in playing to the gallery with counter-productive exercises of criticizing the security forces, with no real understanding of the constraints under which they operate.

An honest and determined approach is all that is needed to see an insurgency-free India. For starters, we need to remove the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and relieve the army from the thankless police job it is neither trained for nor equipped. Let the people breathe easy and let the police, for a change, start earning their salary. Easier said than done, it might sound, but such a bold and fresh approach is indeed workable if all the players concerned are sincere and committed. I venture to make this assertion after having had the opportunity to observe the Northeast Indian insurgencies at close quarters for long and being convinced that those insurgencies are actually dead, but kept alive by an unholy nexus of politicians, businessmen and criminals masquerading as insurgents. Sorting them out is not a military job, but a police one. The only remedy from this scourge is to erase it through a concerted, carrot-and-stick policy involving all agencies concerned. Once that is done, development projects can be taken up for the upliftment of people. Notwithstanding what goes on in Kashmir is a proxy war and not an actual insurgency, the remedy could more or less be the same, because the parameters are not much different. We no more have the option to shy away from a decisive measure. It is either that or leave ourselves vulnerable to the thuggery of Trump, who has Asim Munir to our west and Muhammad Yunus to our east to gleefully dance to his tune.

United Nations is a dead horse and its charter a joke. And it’s all on his own. Let’s better take care of ourselves, instead of bothering what Trump would or wouldn’t do.