TIME FOR PM TO STEP FORWARD TO DISPEL SPREADING NEGATIVISM IN PUBLIC MOOD

B.RAMAN

All right-thinking persons should be concerned over the growing negative mood in Indian public opinion.

This started in the wake of the various scams last year, exposing large-scale corruption and financial irregularities and public impressions of favouritism in seeking to appoint wrong persons to important posts such as that of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.

It got aggravated by the shockingly insensitive manner in which the Government and some of its senior Ministers handled the public protest against corruption spearheaded by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev and by the Government’s dragging its feet in pushing though the Lokpal Bill.

The public mood has further worsened due to the increasingly negative economic indicators relating to inflation, GDP growth date, industrial production, the value of the rupee etc.

The Chinese economy has also been going through a bad patch. Its GDP growth rate that used to record 10 per cent plus year after year for nearly a decade has come down below 10 per cent and has reached a three-year low of around 8 per cent in the recent quarter. The number of internal disturbances due to economic factors such as anger in public over arbitrary ways of acquiring land is increasing. The Chinese Government and Communist Party are more worried about the dangers of internal instability due to economic factors than ever before.

There is a negative mood in China too, but that doesn’t get reflected in its controlled media, but one can see signs of it in the debates among its rapidly growing community of netizens.

Foreign opinion-makers, who have their own agenda against  India due to factors such as our Prime Minister’s political weaknesses and constraints, which come in the way of his pushing ahead with economic reforms, have been wittingly or unwittingly adding to the negative mood in India by the way they project our Prime Minister as indecisive, as an underachiever, as a political non-entity etc.

There is a vicious circle of the criticism and negative projection of the Prime Minister by domestic and foreign analysts feeding each other.

As a result, the Prime Minister finds himself being relentlessly stoned by his critics at home as well as abroad.

I have been a strong critic of the Prime Minister and his weak style of leadership.

I have also been an equally strong critic of his failure or reluctance to impose his authority on those around him.

His reluctance or inability or both to lead from the front and take effective charge of the ship of the Indian State has added to the negative mood.

It is important for the Prime Minister to realise that ONLY HE and nobody else can arrest this spreading negativism.

This calls for policy initiatives, decision initiatives and strong activism and leadership assertion.

Initiatives are urgently required in matters  such as action against corruption, control of inflation, pushing through urgently needed economic reforms and repeatedly engaging with the public instead of continuing to disengage from them.

The Prime Minister continues to lead from inside a well instead of from the deck of the ship of the Indian State.

His leadership is unfelt, unseen.

His voice is feeble and unheard.

His senior advisers, who are defensive in the face of increasing public criticism, are letting him down by failing to vigorously counter the negative mood.

They seem to be thinking: When the Prime Minister is reluctant to assert himself why should we do so and stick our neck out?

Even some good initiatives taken by the Government have not been properly projected to the public in matters such as better handling of counter-terrorism, avoiding the injection of more poison into our relations with Pakistan and reducing the trust deficit with China.

Even if these initiatives are  properly projected to the public, that alone will not counter the negative public mood unless bread and butter issues are addressed head-on.

A message has to go to the Indian public that the Prime Minister is in charge and is determined to reverse the negative public mood.

It is important for him to be felt.

It is important for him to be respected.

It is important for him to be feared.

Low profile, non-assertive leadership will not instil confidence in the public.

I had said this before and am saying it again.

The starting point of the exercise towards leadership assertion has to be vigorous and sustained interactions with carefully selected sections of our media.

A media kept groping for answers to important questions of State policy can damage the image of the PM.

That’s is what is happening now.

He should explain his worries, concerns, hopes and determination to act to the people through the media.

Social networks with periodic Tweets cannot serve this purpose.

Only frequent face-to-face interviews to important journalists will help.

We need to see the PM more and more on our TV screens.

We need to see him more and more in newspaper columns.

We need to see our Prime Minister as a picture  of physical and intellectual vigour.

The exercise to use the media for a better projection of himself , his policies and his hopes and vision for the future  has to be accompanied by an exercise to look for more opportunities to interact directly with the people.

The PM needs a team of imaginative, innovative, self-confident and positive minded media advisers who will keep the media and through it the public informed of the policy and decision initiatives of the PM and his Cabinet.

It is time for the PM to let the word spread that HE MEANS BUSINESS. (17-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

SPY VS SPY: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

B.RAMAN

A spook spends his  working life in a cloistered world---protecting himself, his relatives, his feelings and his joys and sorrows from unwanted curiosity.

The special bonds that one develops in this world last till one makes one’s peace with the Maker.

Amar Bhushan is one of the  officers of the R&AW with whom I developed special bonds of friendship, professional regard and affection.

He joined the Indian Police Service almost a decade after I did and retired from the R&AW 11 years after me.

He was my junior colleague in my division for some  years after he set foot in the organisation. Thereafter, he moved to other divisions with which I had nothing to do, but the special bonds between us remained strong and unrusted.

He was a man of tremendous personal and professional integrity, with an eye for thoroughness in whatever he did---- a professional to his finger tips.

After a  distinguished career during which he became a highly valued expert on Bangladesh, he retired as Special Secretary in 2005.

Amar wore many hats in that capacity. One of them was as the R&AW’s Czar of counter-intelligence responsible for preventing, detecting and neutralising attempts of foreign intelligence agencies to penetrate the R&AW and subvert the loyalty of its officers.

Under that hat, he played a commendable role in detecting, with the help of his junior colleagues, the penetration of the R&AW by the USA’s  Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through Maj.Rabinder Singh, a retired officer of the Army who joined the organisation in the 1980s.

One does not know when Rabinder became a mole of the CIA? Was he already a mole when he was in the Army? Or was he recruited by the CIA after he joined the organisation? If so, when?

What role his sister, who was a US citizen and who was a US Government public servant, played in facilitating the penetration of the R&AW by the CIA through her brother? Was it wise and professional on the part of the R&AW to have taken into the organisation someone many of whose relatives were US citizens and at least one of whom was a public servant of the US?

What damage did he cause to the organisation and the country during the period he was a CIA mole in the sanctum sanctorum of the R&AW?

Penetration by a foreign intelligence agency is an occupational hazard in the intelligence profession.

Rabinder was not the first mole of the CIA in the Indian intelligence community.

We had another in the Chennai office of the R&AW detected in the 1980s.He was allegedly being run by a CIA officer working under Consular cover in the US Consulate-General in Chennai.

We had one at a very senior level in the Intelligence Bureau detected in the 1990s. If he had not been detected in time,he might have become the head of the IB. A woman officer of the CIA working under cover in the US Embassy in Delhi for maintaining liaison with the Indian intelligence had allegedly become close to him by exploiting her frequent meetings with him for sharing intelligence on counter-terrorism.

We reportedly found a mole even after the detection of Rabinder in the National Security Council Secretariat, which is  part of the Prime Minister’s Office. A woman cyber security expert of the US had allegedly played a role in this case.

These were the detected cases. One does not know how many undetected cases are there.

Of the four detected cases, that of Rabinder was unique. Whereas the other three were detected and acted against without their being able to run away from the country. Rabinder was the one that got away evading the surveillance that had been mounted on him.

His getting away was made possible by the active assistance reportedly given by the CIA to him and his family.

In the other three cases, the CIA merely withdrew its officers working under cover in India after it came to know that its moles in the Indian intelligence community had come under suspicion by the Indian counter-intelligence.

It did not try to help them to get away.

Only in the case of Rabinder, even at the risk of an adverse impact on the State-to-State relations with India, the CIA seems to have moved heaven and earth to help him get away into the safe sanctuary of the US.

Why did it do so? Was it in gratitude for the invaluable services that he might have rendered to the CIA? Or was it due to fears that if arrested and interrogated by the Indian counter-intelligence, he might under duress reveal the identities of other CIA moles in the Indian intelligence community of whom he possibly had knowledge?

So many questions without answers in the public domain.

When Aldrich  Ames, the notorious spy of the KGB in the sanctum sanctorum of the CIA, was detected and arrested in the 1990s, there were detailed enquiries in-house in the CIA as well as by the Congressional oversight committees.

The entire history of Ames as a KGB mole was traced. How was he recruited? How did he manage to evade detection for many years? What were the deficiencies in the CIA’s CI set-up which he and the KGB exploited? What damage did he cause?

Many of the details of these enquiries were made available in the public domain. You can find them in the Congressional records.

In India, any scholar who wants to reconstruct L’Affaire Rabinder Singh on the basis of authentic data will not be able to do so because nothing is available in public domain.

Whatever we have are speculative reports carried by the media.

In this context, one has to welcome reports carried by sections of the media on July 15,2012, that Amar has written a semi-fictional narrative of the case ( Escape To Nowhere), which is being published this week and will be launched in Delhi on July 23.

Knowing the central, active and leading role that Amar played in this case, one can be certain it will not be just a semi-fiction as it has been projected to be.

It will be a critical analysis incognito.

Amar needs to be hailed for writing this. It will be an important contribution to the meagre history of Indian intelligence available in public domain.

It will throw welcome light on a sad chapter in the history of the R&AW.

Strength to you, Amar. (16-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), R&AW )

UNWISE TO LIFT BAN ON PAK TV PROGRAMMES

B.RAMAN

In 1989, widespread demonstrations, some of them leading to violence, broke out in Jammu & Kashmir against the Government of India.

2.That was the time when East Europe was in turmoil with large-scale demonstrations  against their Communist regimes by the people of the then East Germany, Rumania etc.

3. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence acquired visuals of these massive demonstrations in East Europe and started beaming them through Pakistani TV to the people of J&K, with appeals to emulate the people of East Europe and come out in the streets to demonstrate against the Government of India.

4. Shri V.P.Singh, the then Prime Minister, and Shri Vinod Pandey, the then Cabinet Secretary, convened an emergency meeting of the Secretaries’ Committee to discuss how to counter this.

5.The head of the R&AW was directed to take whatever measures were necessary to prevent Pakistani TV programmes from being receivable in J&K and authorised to procure the necessary equipment for this purpose. The equipment was acquired on an emergency basis and the Pakistani TV’s  programmes were effectively jammed.

6. Since then, we have been careful to see that Pakistani TV programmes are not receivable in India for the following reasons:

·        

 To prevent dissemination of programmes that could incite sections of our population to violence

·         

To prevent dissemination of wrong information that could cause communal violence.

·         

To prevent attempts to subvert the loyalty of any section of our population to the Government of India.

7.After the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, many Governments have armed themselves with powers to ban TV programmes that could tend to incite their population to take to violence or terrorism. For example, there is a ban in many Western countries on the Al-Aqsa TV channel of Hamas.TV channels of Iran are not allowed to be shown in many countries.

8. On July 7,2010, the Agence France Presse (AFP) disseminated the following report: “On July 7, 2010, the French government instructed its broadcasting authority to take Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV off the air. The satellite channel was broadcast on Eutelsat, a French satellite company headquartered in Paris. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said that the instruction was given when France received a warning from the European Commission that the channel repeatedly violated European laws by showing programs which incited hatred or violence for reasons of religion or nationality, mostly against Israel and Judaism.”

9. At a time when we are still grappling with  the evil of jihadi terrorism emanating from Pakistan, through State-sponsorship and other means, it will be extremely unwise on our part to  remove existing curbs on the airing of Pakistani TV programmes in India and to allow Pakistani TV channels to beam their programmes to India.

10. Some sections of our media have reported that the Government of India is considering relaxing some of the existing restrictions. Such action will be seriously detrimental to national security and should be opposed by public and political opinion. (15-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

SINDHI NATIONALISTS PROTEST AGAINST PUNJABI SHENZHEN

B.RAMAN

( To be read in continuation of my article of June 7,2012, titled ZARDARI IN CHINA: FOCUS ON SINDH  available at http://ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.in/2012/06/zardari-in-china-focus-on-sindh.html )

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan was in Beijing from June 5 to 7,2012, to attend the summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) of which Pakistan, like India, Iran and Afghanistan, is an observer.

2.During Zardari’s stay in Beijing, officials of the two countries signed three  memoranda of understanding (MoUs) covering supply of water from Tarbela to Islamabad, the establishment of a Special Economic Zone in the proposed new city Zulfikarabad in Sindh and the building there of 6,000 flats   on private-public partnership basis. They also signed  an agreement for Chinese assistance in the  de-silting of canals and barrages in the Sindh province.

3. After Mr.Zardari’s return from China, it was reported that he  has directed the Sindh Government to identify amillion acres (4,000 km²) of land near the coast in Thatta district for the development of the proposed new city, in  memory of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The proposed location of the city would be near Jherek in Thatta district.

4. It was also reported that Mr.Zardari sought Chinese assistance to make Zulfikarabad into a major special economic zone patterned after Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province where China’s first SEZ was set up and where the Chinese economic miracle started.

5. Reports about Mr.Zardari’s plans to create, with Chinese assistance, a Pakistani Shenzhen in the Thatta area of Sindh have caused serious concerns among sections of the Sindhi nationalists, who fear that the Chinese-aided project might result in the eviction of the Sindhi peasants from the area and the ingress of a large number of Punjabi businessmen and ex-servicemen into the area to make the city a Punjabi Shenzhen in the heart of Sindh.

6.The protesting Sindhi nationalists claim that the Chinese-aided construction of the Gwadar port in Balochistan resulted in the ingress of a large number of Punjabi businessmen and construction companies into the area, transforming Gwadar, which was essentially a Baloch fishing village, into a Punjabi colony in the heart of Balochistan.

7. Many Sindhis fear that a similar fate might befall Thatta and that the Punjabis would be the ultimate beneficiaries of the project. Mr.Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which strongly supports the project, has undertaken a campaign to educate the Sindhis that the project would benefit Sindh and the Sindhis and that the fears voiced by the Sindhi nationalists were baseless. The inauguration of the construction of the project, originally due in the last week of June, has reportedly been postponed for giving time to address the concerns of the Sindhi nationalists.

8. In their campaign to remove the fears of the Sindhi nationalists, PPP leaders have been saying that the proposed  SEZ  would have  a special regulatory regime to ensure that the  locals have the priority over jobs and other opportunities, that the inflow of people from other parts of the country is controlled by introducing  work permits and that land could only be leased with ownership  remaining  with the locals.

9.PPP leaders have also been promising that as part of the Chinese-aided project, the road, rail and port (Keti Bunder) infrastructure in the area will be upgraded and a number of technical and vocational training institutions will be started to train Sindhis to take up jobs in the SEZ and to start their own small and medium scale industries

10. Despite this, Sindhi nationalist parties such as the Jeay Sindh Qaumi  Mahaz (JSQM)   have started a protest movement against the project. On July 12,2012, the JSQM took out a protest rally against the proposed project in Karachi. JSQM leaders had planned to march to the Chinese Consulate-General in Karachi to hold a demonstration, but the police prevented them from going there.

11. The protesters then  staged a sit-in on the National Highway and destroyed over  1000 SIM cards of their Chinese mobile sets. Dr.Niaz Kalani, the acting Chairman of the JSQM, who led the protest rally, announced that more protest rallies and sit-in demonstrations against the Chinese Government would be held from July 18.An appeal was issued to the Sindhis to boycott Chinese goods and a Chinese cell phone service provider. Among other JSQM leaders who participated in the protest were Mr.Asif Baladi, Mr.Sagar Hanif Burrdi,Mr. Sarfraz Memon and Mr. Maqsood Qureshi. ( 15-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )