WHEN JUSTIFIED ANGER DEGENERATES INTO ANARCHY

B.RAMAN

In all democracies, the public has a right to demonstrate in public in a peaceful manner, but it does not have the right to demonstrate where it will, when it will and how it will. The police can impose reasonable restrictions on the right to demonstrate for maintaining law and order.

2.In Washington, there are restrictions on demonstrations in the vicinity of the White House, the Vice-President’s house, the Pentagon and the State Department. Similarly, in London, there are restrictions on demonstrations near 10, Downing Street and the Buckingham Palace.

3. The Delhi Police was justified in imposing restrictions on demonstrations outside the Rashtrapathi Bhawan, the Prime Minister’s residence, the Parliament and the North and South Blocks. Generally, such restrictions are imposed under Section 144 of the CrPC which bans any gathering of more than five persons.

4. Restrictions under Section 144 can be imposed as an anticipatory cum preventive action before trouble breaks out or in order to control a situation after trouble has broken out. The failure of the Delhi Police to impose restrictions under Section 144 near these places before the protesters gathered there enabled the protesters to gather there without violating any law and engage in a confrontation with the police that took an ugly turn. The Police imposed Section 144 only after trouble had broken out and were not able to enforce it effectively.

5. The police had the right and the responsibility to prevent the protesters from forcing their way into the residences and offices located in the high security areas. Not having imposed restrictions under Section 144, the police found themselves with no other option but to use force to prevent the protesters, who had gathered in these areas, from breaking into them.

6. Whatever be the gravity and legitimacy of the grievances of the protesters, they could not have been allowed by the police to go where they want and do what they want. The scenes of clashes between the police and the protesters that one saw indicated a continuing lack of sophistication in dealing with crowds.

7. We still follow, with  some modifications, the riot drill as laid down by the British for dispersing unruly crowds. This riot drill laid down the following steps for dealing with a crowd--- tear-smoke, cane charge, lathi charge, and firing. Use of water was added as the first stage in emulation of the Western countries. There is no lathi charge in Western countries. We continue to use lathis, which can cause severe injuries.

8. Under the riot drill regulations, a police force----whether from the district or armed police--- cannot use force on its own. It can do so only on the orders of a senior magistrate. The do’s and don’ts relating to the use of force lay down, inter alia, as follows:

(a). Use of force should be stopped when the crowd starts running away.

(b). An individual who is running away should not be chased and beaten up.

(c) A person who falls on the ground should not be beaten up.

9.The TV visuals that one saw created an impression that the police was not following any of these dos and don’ts. They were chasing and beating up a fleeing crowd and fleeing individuals and were beating up with lathis even a girl who had fallen on the ground and was helpless. They seemed to be trying to teach a lesson to the protesters .

10. This indicated an ill-trained force not subject to any self-control and self-discipline in dealing with unruly crowds. What one saw was clashes between unruly protesters and equally unruly policemen.

11. There is a need for an urgent review of our riot drill methods and the training of our police force in crowd control to introduce greater sophistication in crowd control. It is time for us to discard the use of lathis, which can cause severe physical injury. Many Western countries have discarded them.

12. It is equally important that senior police officers and magistrates remain present in the scenes of anticipated trouble to exercise leadership and control over the police force.

13. It is also important for our youth to realize that whatever be their anger and outrage, they cannot take the law into their own hands. The police have a duty to perform in maintaining law and order and should be allowed to do so. If everybody---whether protesters or the police---- start behaving and acting as they will, there will be anarchy. ( 24-12-12)

 

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

 

A WAKE-UP CALL FOR BJP

B.RAMAN

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reasons to be concerned over the results of the elections to the State Assemblies of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh announced on December 20,2012.

2.The elections were preceded by a sustained campaign based on allegations of corruption  against the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh, and some Congress leaders of Himachal Pradesh They were also preceded by a steady increase in inflation and by the economy reaching a road-block. The campaign of Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption activists headed by Shri Arvind Kejriwal since August last year was mainly directed against Congress misgovernance.

3.Many of us formed the perception that the public disenchantment against the Congress was so strong that its electoral defeat in the various elections to the State Assemblies and to the Lok Sabha in 2014 would be certain. We were surprised when public opinion polls held in some states a few months ago indicated that the disenchantment with the Congress was not as widespread as one thought it would be and that any disenchantment that did exist had not translated itself into enchantment with the BJP.I had pointed out  in earlier articles and tweets that the BJP had not been a beneficiary of any disenchantment with the Congress.

4. This was because of public skepticism over the capability of the BJP to set right matters and over the internal mess in its organization in States such as Karnataka. It was apparent that campaigns solely based on allegations of corruption and criticism of the dynasty rule were not making headway with the rural and small town voters. Signs of a creeping disillusionment with the BJP were there for all to see if only they wanted to see them.

5.The results of the elections to the Gujarat and HP State Assemblies clearly show that these misgivings were not ill-based. The elections to the Gujarat Assembly were preceded by months of a high-voltage campaign mounted by a group of Gujarati whiz-kids from the diaspora in the US to project NaMo as the coming saviour of India, who had performed economic miracles in Gujarat, which he was destined to repeat in New Delhi after gravitating to New Delhi and taking over as the Prime Minister of India following the 2014 elections.

6. NaMo willingly and uncritically allowed these whiz-kids from abroad and their associates in Gujarat to project him in a new designer-made personality as the development man, as India’s man of economic miracles, as the ruler who turned Gujarat into India’s Guangdong. Interestingly, some of these Hindutva whiz-kids from the US were earlier associated with some Telugu whiz-kids from Andhra Pradesh in the US, who had mounted a campaign some years ago to project Shri Chandra Babu Naidu, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, as the man of the technology-based development miracle sweeping across AP and as the coming saviour of India when the NDA under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee was in power.

7.These whiz-kids and NaMo had so convinced themselves that Gujarat was shining under him that they created for themselves an illusory world of unstoppable NaMo who was bound to sweep the polls in Gujarat before moving on to New Delhi. Their exaggerated expectations, based on hype and delusions, on the number of seats that NaMo was likely to get far exceeding what he got in 2007 drove them blind to the ground reality.

8. The Congress poll strategists, advised by sons of the soil analysts and not by imported whiz-kids, concluded that the strong state of the BJP in Gujarat and its undoubted economic record and the poor state of the Congress  would not enable them to prevent another NaMo victory. Their strategy was, therefore, designed to devalue the significance of NaMo’s hat-trick.

9. Whatever NaMo’s spin-kids may say, his was not a phenomenal victory. That NaMo himself realizes this is obvious from his remark in the victory speech “ a victory is a victory, whether one gets 93 or more”. The tone of his victory speech was that of an embarrassed leader whose Himalayan expectations have been belied.

10.Two significant indicators of the Gujarat poll results are the fact that the BJP got two seats less than in 2007 and registered a fall of one per cent in its popular support (48 %).As against this, the popular support of the Congress went up by one per cent to 40. The poll results clearly show a saturation effect and the onset of a NaMo fatigue. NaMo’s victory speech in Hindi was designed to conceal the signs of this fatigue and to project the significance of his hat-trick against a pan-Indian instead of a purely Gujarati background..NaMo is no longer the man going up and up and up. He is an engine which is beginning to stall.

11.If the Gujarat results are significant purely against the State perspective, the HP results are very significant from the pan-Indian perspective against the background of the sustained anti-Congress and anti-dynasty campaign mounted by the BJP. This campaign has failed to dent the Congress image. The BJP has not been a beneficiary of this campaign and is unlikely to be its beneficiary in other States too during the 2014 polls to the Lok Sabha.

12. If the BJP does not revamp itself and design a new poll strategy based on ground realities and not on imported myth and delusions of diaspora origin, its hopes of returning to power in New Delhi in 2014 are likely to be belied. If its own chances of returning to power are so weak, where is the question of NaMo assuming its leadership and becoming the next PM. It will be premature and futile to analyse NaMo’s chances, when the BJP’s own chances are questionable.

13. The BJP leaders should stop building castles in the air. ( 21-12-12)

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

SHRI NEHCHAL SANDHU TO JOIN NSCS

B.RAMAN

The Government of India needs to be complimented for its reported decision to appoint Shri Nehchal Sandhu, who will be retiring as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau on December 31,2012, as Officer on Special Duty  in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) to be in charge of internal security .It has been reported that he will be ultimately taking over as the Deputy National Security Adviser on March 21 when the current incumbent Ms Lata Reddy completes her tenure.

2.Shri Sandhu, who is from the Bihar cadre of the IPS, is an officer in the mould of Shri M.K.Narayanan and Shri Ajit Doval, both of whom headed the IB with tremendous distinction. Like them, he is a clandestine operative par excellence and a brilliant analyst.

3.Shri Doval and Shri Sandhu built up the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism capabilities of the IB in difficult years and contributed immensely to the fight against terrorism and insurgencies of various hues. Their names should figure prominently in any official account of the role of the IB in counter-terrorism.

4. When I was in service, I had an opportunity of working closely with Shri Doval and  Shri Sandhu, then a young officer, in the case relating to the kidnapping of Liviu Radu, a  Romanian diplomat posted in New Delhi, by some Khalistani terrorists in 1991. The credit for getting the diplomat released without conceding any of the demands of the terrorists should go to these two officers and to Shri Narayanan, the then DIB, who co-ordinated an excellent, copybook counter-terrorism operation.

5.. Shri Sandhu is a very pleasant officer, who has enjoyed a consistent reputation as a good team player with no trace of service or institutional parochialism. He got along well with other agencies of the intelligence community and the Multi-Agency Centre of the IB, which co-ordinates the counter-terrorism operations across the country, came of age under him.

6.Many, including me, had a feeling that under Shri P.Chidambaram, as the Home Minister, the internal security role of the NSCS tended to get diluted. Shri Sandhu, with his vast experience in intelligence and physical security, is the right choice to restore to the NSCS its due role as a co-ordinating centre in internal security strategizing.

7.Shri Sandhu will be an asset to Shri Shivsankar Menon, the National Security Adviser, in the processing and implementation of the recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Task Force on the modernization of our national security set-up. Its flagship chapters relate to internal security, intelligence revamp and cyber security and an experienced officer like Shri Sandhu should be of immense assistance to the NSA  and the Government in ensuring effective implementation.

8. The appointment of an outgoing DIB as the Deputy NSA should facilitate the current exercise to create the concept of an intelligence community in our country on the pattern of that in the US.

9.Shri Sandhu will be succeeding Ms.Lata Reddy, an officer of the IFS,who had played a commendable role in counter-terrorism as the Indian Ambassador to Portugal. Her tenure as the Deputy NSA was marked by the initiation by her of an exercise to strengthen our TECHINT and cyber security capabilities. Credit should also go to her for steering successfully the  work of the Naresh Chandra Task Force.

10. Shri Satish Chandra, another IFS officer, who held charge as Deputy NSA under the late Shri Brajesh Mishra and the late  Shri Mani Dixit, was the moving spirit behind the successful work of the Group of Ministers of the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government for the revamping of the national security set-up.

11. Ms Lata Reddy, under Shri Menon, played a similar praiseworthy role in respect of the Naresh Chandra Task Force for the modernisation of our national security set-up. Shri Sandhu will be a worthy successor to her.

12.Shri Sandhu had accompanied the Home Secretary on his visit to Islamabad earlier this year. This should have given him an opportunity to get to know senior officers of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau and Internal Security Ministry. This should facilitate his interactions with them in his new role ( 20-12-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter @SORBONNE75 )

SONIA GANDHI:A WOMAN OF STONE

B.RAMAN

The whole of India has been shocked and outraged beyond measure by the bestiality inflicted upon a girl in her early 20s by a gang of beasts.

2. When one tries to imagine her helpless moments at the hands of these beasts, one’s heart bleeds. The whole country, particularly its women, have been outraged not only by the bestiality of the gang-rape, but equally by the politics as usual attitude of the Government and the Congress.

3. This was the time to discard politics and to act to ensure that this will not happen again. The people of this country have a right to expect that the Government will not stand on false prestige in acting against rape. If we watch helplessly as our women ---urban or rural—are subjected to such bestiality, we have no right to call ourselves a civilized nation.

4. It is not a political issue. It is an issue of our feelings as human beings and our pride as citizens of this country. The agonizing call of our feelings has to be heard and responded to by our political leaders--- whatever be their political affiliation.

5. One would have expected Mrs.Sonia Gandhi as a political leader and as a woman to reflect the agony and anguish of the people of this country, particularly its women, and be in the forefront of an epic battle against rapes.

6.Instead of projecting her human personality, she has shown herself to be a woman of stone with no feelings, as a political opportunist calculating only the cost of action and inaction.

7.When the Lok Sabha debated the bestiality, what happened to her anger, her outrage, her heart? Why one doesn’t see any sign of blood in her heart as the flood of reports giving the details of the bestiality pour in?

8.Past woman leaders of the Congress must be grieving in heaven as they watch the stone-like response of Sonia Gandhi to this act of bestiality.

9. We need leaders with bleeding hearts, not a leader with a heart of stone.( 19-12-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  .Twitter : @SORBONNE75  )

 

CRIME AGAINST WOMEN

B.RAMAN

In our country, crime against women is not treated seriously by the police. Its prevention, investigation and prosecution are given low priority. This was so during the days of the British. This has been so since we became independent.

2.Our Police Regulations, which lay down how the Police should function, were originally drafted by the British. The Regulations as drafted by the British did not categorise any  offence against women as heinous requiring mandatory supervision by a senior police officer. The responsibility for investigation and prosecution used to be left to a Thanedar or a Head Constable with no supervision at senior levels.

3. One does not know whether the Police Regulations have since been revised to categorise rape as a heinous offence on par with terrorism, dacoity and murder requiring mandatory supervision at senior levels. If not, this is the first step that has to be taken to underline the gravity of the crime.

4. Every police officer holding independent charge is required to submit to his superior a fortnightly report of crime in his jurisdiction. The past proformas of this report when I was in service did not provide for a separate section on crime against women. The Government should prescribe a separate Fortnightly on crime against women indicating the measures taken for prevention and the progress of investigation and prosecution.

5. The attitude of policemen from the constable upwards upto the DG of Police has to change. It has to be ingrained in the minds of policemen during their training that a rape should be treated as seriously as an act of terrorism or a murder. This change can be brought about only by having a separate and special training capsule on crime against women in our police training institutions. When I was trained as an IPS officer in the Central Police Training College at Mount Abu in 1961-62, crime aginst women was given very low attention in the syllabus. The syllabus has to change giving the same importance to crime against women as to other categorized heinous offences.In the final examinations, there has to be a separate paper on crime against women.

6. The annual confidential reports of police officers, which determine their promotion, should have a separate column to assess their performance with the regard to the prevention, investigation and prosecution of crime against women.

7. There are very few instances of habitual rapists. Most rapists are one-time offenders. They rape in a momentary loss of sanity and self-control in the presence of women. They commit the crime under the sudden onset of a mad urge to rape. It is very difficult to identify potential rapists and anticipate their crime. Despite this, prevention is the most important aspect of dealing with crimes against women. Prevention has two aspects----prevention by women themselves through appropriate self-defence measures.A self-defence measure which can be fairly effective is the use of mini tear-smoke cartridges. These cartridges should be made easily available in the market for purchase by women. There is a possibility of other criminals like dacoits etc misusing these cartridges for  overcoming their victims, but this is a risk which has to be faced to enble women better protect themselves.

8. Prevention by the police has to be through enhanced anti-rape patrols in areas susceptible to commission of rapes such as transport buses, parking lots and deserted streets at nights. Since rapists operate more at night than during day time, these patrols should be intensified at night. Intensified anti-rape patrols would also have a salutary effect on other crime.

9.The police should set up a separate anti-rape control room and widely publicise its telephone number. Every woman should save this number in her mobile and activate it immediately on apprehending danger.

10. If rape is categorized as a heinous offence to be treated on par with terrorism, this would lead to changes in the way we react to it and deal with it with the creation of anti-rape squads for prevention, investigation and prosecution and anti-rape tribunals for speedy trial.

11.Since rape is an offence committed in moments of sudden insanity and loss of self-control, fear of death penalty may not be an effective deterrent, The only effective penalty will be to put all rapists out of circulation through mandatory life imprisonment. ( 19-12-2012 )

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

AFTER REHMAN MALIK'S VISIT TO INDIA: THE CONTINUING FARCE

B.RAMAN

There is no need for one to be surprised by the trail of controversies and anger created by Mr.Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, during his three-day visit to India from December 14,2012.

2.What he sought to convey was that India cannot escape its share of the blame for the 26/11 terrorist strikes. That is why he sought to connect the Babri Masjid incident in December 1992, the explosion in the Samjotha Express in 2007 and the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai. He subsequently tried to deny any intention to project them as connected, but he was clearly trying to minimize the gravity of the 26/11 strikes by bringing in the Babri Masjid incident and the Samjotha explosion. By announcing the arrest of another suspect in the Samjotha explosion during his visit, we have unwittingly given him an opportunity to go back to Pakistan and claim to the fundamentalists and the Army that he succeeded in forcing India to act against the remaining suspects in the Samjotha case. This shows how naïve we can be in matters concerning Pakistan.

3. On the basis of the various statements made by him regarding expediting the trial against the Pakistan-based chief conspirators of the 26/11 strikes, we should not nurse any illusions regarding the sincerity of Mr.Malik. He is an ex-police officer who heads a police Ministry. The Pakistani police has never had the courage and powers to act against the jihadi terrorists created and used by the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).We saw it in the case of the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, by a group of terrorists headed by Omar Sheikh, who was in touch with Brig. Ejaz Shah of the ISI, in 2002.Ten years after Pearl was murdered, the case is still going on and the appeal filed by Omar Sheikh against the death sentence awarded to him by a lower court has not been disposed off.

4.Similarly, the Pakistani Police has not been able to expedite the trial of the suspects in the Benazir Bhutto murder case five years after she was assassinated. Before the assassination, Benazir had named some officers of the Army, including Ejaz Shah, as posing a threat to her security. The police has been dragging its feet in the case because of the alleged involvement of the Army and the ISI.

5.The 26/11 terrorist strikes were carried out by the Lashkar-E-Toiba (LET), created and nursed by the ISI and used against India and in Afghanistan along with the Haqqani network. For us, to expect that Mr.Malik and his Police will act against  the ISI-protected LET will be to live in a fool’s paradise. Not only the Pakistani police, but even its anti-terrorism tribunals are hesitant to convict terrorists enjoying the protection of the ISI. Even if the Police collect all the evidence and produce them, the tribunal is unlikely to accept them and convict the masterminds.

6. We should not, therefore, have any illusions that Mr.Malik and his Police are going to act against the ISI-sponsored terrorists. It is for us to act through appropriate covert action against the LET. Unless and until  the Manmohan Singh Government realizes the nasty ground reality in Pakistan and acts on its own instead of depending on Mr.Malik to act, this charade will go on. (17-12-12)

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

MALDIVES' RELATIONS WITH INDIA & CHINA

 

 

B.RAMAN

The decision of the Government of President Mohammad Waheed of the Maldives to terminate the contract given to a consortium headed by an Indian company to run the Ibrahim Nasser International Airport of Male has given rise to speculation that China might have nudged the Maldivian Government to terminate the contract and that Beijing might ultimately emerge as the beneficiary of the termination with a Chinese company being made responsible for the running of the airport.

2. Apart from the fact that the termination of the contract was preceded by a visit to Male by the Chinese Defence Minister Gen.Liang Guanglie during the course of visits to Sri Lanka, the Maldives and India and was followed by a visit to Beijing by Mr.Mohammed Nazim, the Maldivian Minister for Defence, National Security and Transport, earlier this week, no other evidence has been forthcoming in corroboration of this speculation.

3.The fact that Mr.Nazim handled the entire affair relating to the contract has added to suspicions that his visit to Beijing might have been utilized by him to brief his Chinese counterpart on the reasons and implications of the termination and to seek Chinese co-operation in running the airport.

4. During his stay in Bejing, Mr.Nazim met on December 11,2012,  Gen.Xu Qiliang, Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission of Communist Party of China (CPC), followed by a metting with Gen.Liang. There are so far no reports of his having met Prime Minister Wen Jiabao or Mr.Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), who is also the new Chairman of the CMC.

5.According to the Xinhua news agency, Gen.Xu said during their meeting that the two countries have in recent years increased mutual political trust, expanded trade and economic cooperation, diversified cultural exchanges and set an example for countries to treat each other as equals and cooperate with sincerity.

6.He added: “The two militaries should continue to enhance high-level contact, strengthen pragmatic cooperation, expand the scope of cooperation and upgrade military relations."

7.According to the Xinhua, Mr.Nazim said  the Maldives hoped to strengthen communication and cooperation between the two countries as well as their militaries, jointly address common challenges and meet opportunities so as to promote the two countries' relations to a higher level.

8.The Xinhua quoted Gen.Liang as telling Mr.Nazim: "China has always positively developed its military relations with the Maldives and hopes to enhance communication and cooperation, promote the construction of both militaries and safeguard regional peace and stability.”

9.After taking over as the President earlier this year, President Mohammad Waheed  Hassan had visited  Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province of China, in the first week of September,2012, to attend the second China-Eurasia Expo.

10. During his stay in Urumqi, he met Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao,who reportedly assured him that China would provide assistance  to the Maldives to counter climate change. Hailing the sound bilateral ties over the past four decades since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Mr.Wen said the two nations had set up a good example for countries of different sizes that treat each other equally and conduct cooperation in a friendly way, and that China would continue supporting the Maldives in economic and social development.

 11.Mr. Waheed  described  China as a reliable friend and  added that the Maldives was willing to increase communications with China in regional and international affairs, enhance their pragmatic cooperation and join hands with China to deal with global challenges including climate change, and advance the bilateral relationship into a new phase.

12.Three agreements were signed on September 2,2012, between the two Governments in the presence of the Maldivian President and Prime Minister Wen, providing for Chinese assistance worth US $ 500 million.

13.These amounts  included the grants under the annual economic and technical assistance program by the Chinese government, and a preferential loan of US $ 150 million from the  EXIM Bank of China for the onstruction of 1500 houses in the Maldives.

14.A press note issued by the President’s office in Male highlighted the fact that this was the first time that agreements had been signed in the presence of the heads of governments of the two countries and that the agreements were signed in Urumqi, a Muslim area of China.

15.It is my assessment that China’s immediate and medium-term interest in the Maldives wll be in establishing a communications base similar to what it had in the Coco Islands of Myanmar to facilitate communications with the Chinese anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf and to snoop on Indian naval communications and monitor Indian satellite and missile launches.

16. Whether the new Government of the Maldives in its petulance towards India will oblige Beijing remains to be seen. The Maldives has considerable dependence on India in national security matters. Whenever Maldivian Governments have faced threats to their internal security and natural disasters, they had generally sought Indian assistance. The rapidity with which India can rush to the assistance of the Maldives, China cannot. It will be unwise and suicidal for any Government in Male to reduce the dependence on India in national security matters and turn to the Chinese, but one never knows.

17.India needs to closely monitor the developments without jeopardizing the mutual security assistance programs that have been built up with the Maldives since 1979. ( 14-12-12)

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