Graham Allison’s book, ‘Destined for War: Can American and China escape Thucydides’s Trap?

I have written my work, not as an essay to win the applause of the moment, but as a

possession for all time.

—Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

Here we are on top of the world. We have arrived at this peak to stay there forever. There

is, of course, this thing called history. But history is something unpleasant that happens to

other people.

—Arnold Toynbee

The book depicts whether war can be averted when an aggressive rising nation (China in 21st century) threatens a dominant power (USA). He studied 16 such cases, twelve of those rivalries ended in war and four did not. Both USA and China believe in their exceptionalism and are probably on a collision course for war. USA hegemony will be challenged by China, as the UK's was threatened by an emerging Germany. UK-Germany rivalry resulted in World war one. This is in contrast to USA-Soviet rivalry where war was averted before the Soviet Union collapsed.

There are many plausible scenarios of how conflicts between these two superpowers could break out. Taiwan, North Korea. (Vietnam and India are regional conflicts,might not attract USA intervention).

Allison asks the most pertinent question, "Will the impending clash between these two great nations lead to war? Will Presidents Trump and Xi, or their successors, follow in the tragic footsteps of the leaders of Athens and Sparta or Britain and Germany? Or will they find a way to avoid war as effectively as Britain and the US did a century ago or the US and the Soviet Union did through four decades of Cold War?"

What is then the central idea expounded by Thucydides as mentioned by Allison- "when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception. It happened between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE, between Germany and Britain a century ago, and almost led to war between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s."

Racial Sinicisation- Han Power and Racial and Ethnic Domination in China

“Unlike the exterminationist logics of Nazi Germany, the segregationist logics of South African apartheid and the expulsionist logics of racial palestinianisation, the logic of Chinese racial domination involves assimilation by coercion and is akin to post-racial positions in its denial of any shred of raciality.”

Ian Law in Red Racisms: Racism in Communist and Post-Communist Contexts

China, like most other Communist regimes claimed to have ended racism by the mere fact of its triumph. Most of the communist governments denied any racism either towards outsiders or ethnic minorities within the country. Racism might not come as a surprise to someone who is familiar with the language of how minorities are treated in China. Few samples- , “modernising” minorities, “bringing “development”, ending “primitivism” and “feudal practices” or bringing “civilisation” like British did in India (we are grateful of course !!).

Ian Law has exposed this fallacy in his book "Red Racisms: Racism in Communist and Post-Communist Contexts". Following are my favorites from the book-

..Racial sinicisation is primarily driven by the use of migration as a tool of domination, patriotic ‘re-education’ and the use of military power.

.....Sinicisation involves the aggressive, state-led, promotion of Han culture, language and identity, and the concomitant dissolving of the culture, language and identity of non-Han groups and the social disappearing of those groups into the mass of the Chinese nation.

......The civilising mission of Russia and the Soviet Union particularly in relation to territories in its Eastern borderlands parallels China’s civilising mission in its Western borderlands.

..In scores of official policies and regulations, there is an open attitude of superiority and paternalism, which is sometimes officially recognised as ‘Han chauvinism’ (dà Hànzúzhuyì ˇ ) but which masks a reality that exists in countries all over the world – racism.

...........The sino-centric view of a superior central state and associated civilisation and culture provided a hierarchial world view within which core concepts of racial difference led to a logic of incorporation and assimilation of those other ‘barbarian peoples’ on the part of the Chinese civilisation state.

..Chinese nationalism has been shaped by successive imperialist, Republican and Communist regimes and comprises a mixture of ethnic Han identity and a culturalist pride. 

...A Han Chinese nation came into being with the imperial unification of the Qin-Han period, and with the development of political centralisation and cultural standardisation, such as the decision to designate one national language to be used for all official purposes. Despite internal divisions, alien conquests, elite culturalism, peasant particularism and movements of peoples this nation evolved and defined itself in terms of a common myth of origin and descent, common lifestyles, rituals, a political elite and an imperial bureaucracy.

.....At the heart of China’s first twentieth-century revolution, the Xinhai Revolution in 1911/12, were ideologies of racial hierarchy, race war and the need for racial domination by the Han. Initial uncertainty over how to address the identities and demands of non-Han Chinese was resolved through the vision of post-imperial China as a ‘Republic of Five Nationalities’ (wuzú gònghé ˇ ).

Something recently published on mass internment camps, here.

1st amendment (India & USA)

On May 10, 1951: Jawaharlal Nehru scripted the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution (which was passed into law within a few weeks). It introduced many restrictions on our fundamental rights, also restricted freedom of expression.

In 1950, Crossroad, a pro-communist weekly journal in English,was banned by the Madras State for publishing critical views on Nehruvian policy. The publisher petitioned the Supreme Court, which led to the landmark judgment in "Romesh Thappar vs The State Of Madras" on 26 May 1950. This led Nehru administration make the Amendment to 19(1)(a) of Constitution of India against "abuse of freedom of speech and expression".

It states “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with Foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence” will be paramount and freedom of expression will not be unconditional.

This amendment set the precedent for amending the Constitution to overcome judicial judgments which purportedly impeded the fulfilment of the government’s responsibilities to particular policies and programmes. The amendment’s language gave it retrospective and prospective effect which feature was used by Indira Gandhi to render constitutional, the actions that had been both illegal and unconstitutional during emergency.

Now compare this to what happened in USA?

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

Now these are two different stories of  freedom of expression, not a difficult one to see which one follows liberalism to the core.

My Notebook (Aug-Sept)

Aug 1: 

Qarachil expedition- In 1333, Muhammad Bin Tughluq led the Qarachil expedition to the Kullu-Kangra region of modern-day Himachal Pradesh in India. Tughluq originally wanted to cross the Himalayas and invade China. He wanted to annex the kingdom to his empire and secure his northern frontier from Chinese ( Mongol ) incursions. He faced local resistance in Himachal. His army was not able to fight in the hills and was defeated by the Katoch clan of Kangra, nearly all his 10,000 soldiers perished and he was forced to retreat.

Temples restored by Marathas that were destroyed during Islamic rule
-The Shri Mahalakshmi (AmbaBai) Temple @ Kolhapur
- Ballaleshwar Pali Temple (contains a bell that was brought back by Chimaji Appaafter his defeat of the Portuguese)

Aug 2:

Manikya dynasty of Tripura
 Dhanya Manikya was the best among Manikya kings. During his time, Muslims under Bengal sultan Hussain Shah invaded Tripura. He captured Chittagong from Muslims. To avenge this disgrace, Tripura was attacked by Muslims three times. First attack took place in 1513. These attacks resulted in a stalemate between both forces. 


Aug 3:

Mongol Code- 
Genghis Khan was a realist, he knew his rise to power had depended on the choices he had made in politics, in friendships, in strategy.

Divine protection, yes, but the Mongol god, external heaven, only helps those who help themselves 

Loyalty was the moral equivalent of gold, rare, hard-won, easily lost....

Aug 6:

Indian historical traditions
-Rajatarangini- Authored by Kalhana, its a historical chronicle of  kings of Kashmir
-Madala Panji- Temple chronicle of Lord Jagannath of Puri. It describes the historical events of Odisha related to Lord Jagannath or Jagannath Temple
-Buranjis- Historical chronicles of Ahom kings of Assam
-Rajmala- Chronicle of the Kings of Tripura

Aug 7:

Eastern Ganga (Odisha) empire's conflict with Bengal sultanate as chronicled in Sanskrit prose/poetry-

1. Ekavali was written by Vidyadhara of Orissa in the fourteenth century. He was the court poet of Langula Narasingha Deva I. Ekavali frequently speaks of king VIranarasimha as having humbled the pride of Hammira ( Muslim king or Emir)

2. Chandra kala Natika- Written by Viswanath Kaviraj, gives credit to Bhanudeva IV with the conquest of Gauda (Bengal). He had marched towards Bengal to save the Hindus from the control of Jalal-ud-dln Muhammad Shah.

My Notebook (October)

Oct 27: South Korea threw weight of state behind rapid Economic growth, channeling credit and subsidies to firms that were successful.North Korea outlawed private property and banned market. 

South Korean success and North Korean bankruptcy has lessons for India- 3 pillars of Economic success: Private property, unbiased system of law, robust public services


26 Oct: 1974 railway strike, a good book on this The Indian Railways Strike of 1974: A Study of Power and Organised Labour by Stephen Sherlock. This one is mostly ignored labour historians, it launched career of George Fernandes who, as the president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation (AIRF), was the main leader of the strike. This will always be remembered  for the brutal methods adopted by the government against the striking workers and their families. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi responded to the strike with tough measures. More than 30,0000 people, including Fernandes, were imprisoned.The army was called out in several places. The government’s ruthlessness paid off. The strike was broken within three weeks.

20 Oct: India has no national consciousness, took little notice of her foreign invaders?

19 Oct: War of Pushyamitra with greeks, often ignored, Pushyamitra drove Greeks out of Magadha, freed Saketa ( Areas around Ayodhya). In the Mālavikāgnimitram, Kālidāsa mentions Vasumitra  (Grandson of Pushyamitra Shunga) who defeated a cavalry squadron of the Yona (Indo-Greeks) on the banks of the Indus River.

13 Oct: Khiljis in Bengal, Muslim conquest of Bengal, disastrous kamrup (Assam) expedition of Bakhtyar Khilji scarcely 100 survived out of 10,000, he died a broken man in 1206 AD.. west-south Bengal remained a part of Ganga empire. By the time of Nasiruddin shah (1442-59), Bhagirathi river was the border of Bengal sultanate and Hindi Ganga empire.Mandaran remained the frontier fortress ans consequently prone to change hands. Ismail Ghazi recovered from local Gajapati commander.Alauddin Hussain Shah recoverd it again in 1509 AD. 

Bengal was conquered by Muslims in first decade of 13th century, yet Odia Gajapatis successfully blocked their expansion for more than three centuries by the time of recovery of Mandaran fort by Hussain Shah.

12 Oct: Jalakanteswarar Temple inside  Vellore fort, worship was banned after the fort fell to Muslims, The public then voluntarily shifted the idol to Sathuvachari for safe worship. After several futile attempts at reinstalling the idol at the original temple during the 20th century, a large group of  Hindu devotees brought the Linga in a closed lorry in March 1981, and re-installed it in its original shrine inside Sri Jalakanteswarar Temple.

Ariyanatha Mudaliar  reconstructed the Meenakshi Temple, destroyed by the Mohammedans in 1569. At the entrance of the Thousand Pillar Mandapam, we can still see the statue of Ariyanatha Mudaliar seated on a  horse-back. 

Ahmadis of Tipu

Following three letters were written by Tipu Sultan to his officers. He mentioned "Ahmadis" in all these letters. Now who were these Ahmadis?

1. To Ghulam Ahmed, Kazy of Nugr

“Your letter has been received. You have written, that nine Frenchmen, together with their captain, had embraced the faith, and that the said captain humbly hoped to be honored with the command of a Ahmadi Risalas. It is known and our pleasure is, that ten rupees be given to each of them, and that they be all dispatched, under an escort a safeguard, to the Presence, where, on their arrival, the aforesaid captain shall receive the honor he solicits. Peremptory orders for the payment of the above stipends, and for furnishing the necessary escort, have been sent to the Kiladar of Nugr.”

2. To the Baxi of Gooty

“Directing him to chastise the turbulent or seditious wherever they raised the head of revolt ; and after making them prisoners, to place those under age or of tender years in the Ahmadi band, and to hang the remainder”

3. To Budruz Zuman Khan

“Your two letters, with the enclosed memorandums of the Nair captives, have been received. You did right in causing a hundred and thirty-five of them to be circumcised, and in putting eleven of the youngest of these into the Usud Ilyhe band [or class], and the remaining ninety-four into the Ahmadi troops”

The Ahmadis were a military corps, composed of the converts (whether forced or voluntary) to the Mohammedan religion. It was instituted by Tipu Sultan. Most of the members of Ahmadi contingent were hindus who were captured and forcibly converted during Tipu’s Malabar and Coorg raids. May be, he was inspired by Janissaries (elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultan's household troops & bodyguards, an elite corps of slaves made up of kidnapped young Christian boys who were forced to convert to Islam, and became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order).

Pakistan and its allies

Pakistan’s foreign policy has perennially sought that elusive alliance that would solve its key problems: building its economic and military potential and supporting it in its intractable conflict with India.

This premise has driven its alliance with USA. However, Pakistan has never been certain of American support and consequently has sought other allies with which Pakistan’s leaders ( military of course) feel an affinity—be it ideological or strategic—to diversify its sources of support. China has been a source of military assistance (has extended financial assistance with CPEC program), while Saudi Arabia is an ideological and economic collaborator. Between them, the two countries are seen as Pakistan’s friends of last resort.

In case of American retrenchment, Pakistan is likely to turn ever more to Saudi Arabia and China, even if this means providing military guarantees to Saudi Arabia and acting as China’s surrogate against India.

While neither Saudi Arabia nor China was able to prevent Pakistan’s breakup in 1971, the almost mythical faith in their friendship remains intact and will play a key role in framing Pakistan’s policies in the future.

Pakistan and USA

The two countries signed a mutual defense assistance agreement in 1954 and a bilateral executive agreement in 1959. Pakistan also entered into the U.S.-led military alliances known as Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), in 1954 and the U.K.-led alliance known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), in 1955.

For the vast majority of their bilateral history, Pakistan and the United States have differed on the nature of the threat that motivated their partnership: for Pakistan it was always India, for the United States it was initially Communism and later global terrorism.

The American reaction to the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1965 India-Pakistan war was seen by Pakistan as a betrayal by a close ally.

More recently, in 2005, when Pakistan was hit by an earthquake, and again in 2010, when massive floods engulfed central Pakistan, the United States was again the first to come in with aid but the Saudis gave far more. Pakistan’s leaders have always shied away from praising American support in the form of multilateral inputs, choosing instead to highlight only the bilateral assistance of the so-called dependable allies: Saudi Arabia and China.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has been presented to the Pakistani public as the ideal ideological ally of Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country that would stand by Pakistan in any conflict with India. Saudi Arabia’s assistance to Pakistan has never quite matched the Pakistani expectations despite the effusive rhetoric that Pakistan has long conferred to the kingdom. Like China, Saudi Arabia has periodically provided Pakistan with loans and short-term emergency aid.

Pakistan imports most of its oil from the Gulf and in periods when Pakistan has not been able to pay for this oil the Saudi Arabian government has given them oil at concessional rates or even waived the payment for a few years. For three years after the 1998 nuclear tests Pakistan did not have to pay for the oil that it was provided by Saudi Arabia (Kamal 2008). Pakistan’s economic dependence on the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, continued through the 1980s and into the twenty-first century (Add to this remittances from Pakistanis working in the Gulf).

The 1970s also saw the start of a worrying trend in Saudi-Pakistani relations: Saudi Arabia’s growing role in Pakistan’s domestic politics. Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates have often supported one or another political party in Pakistan, provided economic aid, or deferred loan payments or oil payments when their preferred party was in power and offered asylum to political leaders. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after being toppled in a military coup in 1999.

Since the 1970s, Pakistan has sporadically offered military manpower to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies in return for financing Pakistani purchases of military equipment. The most recent instance is the induction of Pakistani volunteers into the military and police in Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia has sought to prop up the Sunni regime against Shia protesters since 2011. Such deployments confer to Pakistan the mantle of protector of the Muslim holy lands.

The Saudi-Pakistan defense cooperation originated with a 1976 bilateral agreement that provided for an exchange of defense technical knowledge. By the mid-1980s, approximately 50,000 Pakistani military personnel were serving abroad, with the largest commitment (about 20,000 persons) to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani pilots routinely participated in air defense operations in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Arab countries prefer foreign fighters from non-Arab countries as it ensures that the foreigners will not be involved in domestic politics. During the Iran-Iraq conflict, in return for $1 billion in aid, Pakistan stationed around 10,000 Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia.

In early 2014 there was a discussion between the two governments about Pakistan providing trained military personnel to man Saudi Arabia’s security forces and also talks about creating a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) military force to counter Iran.

Given Pakistan’s lack of funds and the opacity of the financing arrangements for its nuclear program, it is widely believed that Saudi Arabia provided some of the funding that enabled Pakistan to become the world’s first Muslim country to build and test nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has also welcomed donations from wealthy individuals and charities from Saudi Arabia to found and support Wahabbi madrassas and universities in Pakistan. Such institutions have proliferated since the mid- 1970s and became major recruiting centers for jihadis in the 1980s.

China

Pakistani officials and even media accounts portray China as the ideal strategic ally: a country that is strong enough to provide Pakistan economic and military support whenever the Americans stopped or reduced aid but also one that has an antagonistic relationship with India. Pakistan was China’s bridge to the Muslim world in more ways than one. China has a large Muslim minority in its western region and having a friendly Muslim neighbor next door was seen as strategically and diplomatically useful. Friendship with Pakistan helped China build trade and diplomatic ties with the Muslim Middle East and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was the via media for China’s ties with Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries, with economic (energy) and defense (military and nuclear) components.

Right from the start, Chinese investment in the military arena focused on ensuring a captive market for selling its equipment, gaining access to Western technology and equipment from Pakistan, and in later years sharing nuclear and missile technology with Pakistan.

The Pakistani military prefers more sophisticated American weapons, preferably provided on concessional terms. But the American habit of rationing spare parts in case Pakistan enters wars that the United States does not like, as well as the imposition of periodic American sanctions, have caused Pakistan to seek a more reliable source of armaments. Since the 1960s, China has been that source. By 1982 Chinese weapons systems formed the backbone of the Pakistani military arsenal, composing 75 percent of the tank force and 65 percent of the air force (Vertzberger 1983). Between 2008 and 2012, Pakistan was the main purchaser of Chinese weapons, buying 55 percent of Chinese weapons exports (Lipin 2013).

In June 1978, China and Pakistan opened the all-weather Karakoram Highway, the highest paved road in the world at an elevation of 15,000 feet. Attitudes toward the highway demonstrate how each side viewed the relationship: for Pakistan, the road demonstrated China’s commitment and friendship. For China, the highway was a land route through which it could gain access to Central Asia as well as to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Pakistan viewed itself as being indispensable for China; China viewed Pakistan as a part (but only a part) of securing its energy sources and markets.

Sino-Pakistani cooperation in the nuclear field can be traced back to the 1980s. As early as 1983, American intelligence agencies reported that the Chinese transferred a complete nuclear weapon design to Pakistan, along with enough weapons-grade uranium for two potential nuclear weapons. In 1986, China and Pakistan concluded a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. Later that year, Chinese scientists began ‘‘assisting’’ their Pakistani counterparts with the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. Analysts believe that, since 1986, ‘‘China has supplied Pakistan with a wide variety of nuclear products and services, ranging from uranium enrichment technology to reactors.’’ There are also reports that China ‘‘involved’’ Pakistani scientists in a nuclear test at its Lop Nur (Xinjiang) test site in 1989.

For Pakistan, the key indicator of true friendship is a country’s view of India and of the Kashmir conflict. China used anti-India rhetoric during Pakistan’s wars with India in 1965 and 1971.

Three years later, during the 1999 Kargil conflict, China once again demonstrated that it had no intention of entering into an India-Pakistan conflict. Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif had flown to the United States to seek American support but President Bill Clinton had asked him to ‘‘respect the sanctity of the Line of Control’’ and withdraw his troops. Hoping for Chinese support, Sharif flew to Beijing, where he received a similar message. These messages delivered by the Chinese, however, have not had the intended impact: Pakistan’s leaders still have faith that China will stand by them in any conflict with India.

As part of Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructure projects, in 2002 China promised to help in the construction of the Gwadar seaport. For Pakistan, Gwadar was important for both strategic and economic reasons: the port’s development would make Pakistan the gateway to shipping routes for both western China and the Central Asian republics. Pakistan also sought ‘‘strategic depth’’ in Gwadar: Karachi, Pakistan’s other main port and naval headquarters, was located too close to the Indian coast. Gwadar has both strategic and economic benefits for China as well. Gwadar is closer to western China than the ports on China’s eastern coast and is located nearer the Persian Gulf, through which most of China’s oil tankers travel. From the strategic point of view, the Chinese navy’s desire for ‘‘blue-water navy’’ status demands a presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

Lee Kuan Yew on India

From the Book The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World:

....On my earlier visits in 1959 and 1962, when Nehru was in charge, I thought India showed promise of becoming a thriving society and a great power. By the late 1970s, I thought it would become a big military power…but not an economically thriving one because of its stifling bureaucracy

......India has wasted decades in state planning and controls that have bogged it down in bureaucracy and corruption. A decentralized system would have allowed more centers like Bangalore and Bombay to grow and prosper…The caste system has been the enemy of meritocracy…India is a nation of unfulfilled greatness. Its potential has lain fallow, underused

.....India has poor infrastructure, high administrative and regulatory barriers to business, and large fiscal deficits, especially at the state level, that are a drag on investment and job creation

....If all Indian ministers and top bureaucrats were like Narayana Murthy [cofounder and former chief executive officer of Infosys]— hardworking, tough taskmasters, hard negotiators, but always forwardlooking—India would be one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, and in one generation would become a first-world country. However, Murthy probably realizes that no single person can change India’s system of governance to become as efficient as Infosys.

...I am against a society which has no sense of nurturing its best to rise to the top. I am against a feudal society where your birth decides where you stay in the pecking order. The example of that, par excellence, is India’s caste system.

......India is an established civilization. Nehru and Gandhi had a chance to do for India what I did for Singapore because of their enormous prestige, but they could not break the caste system. They could not break the habits

...Unless India moves away from its mindset, it will be a case of lost opportunities…It has to build super highways, introduce super fast trains, and build bigger and better airports. It will also have to accept that to be a developed nation, it has to move its people from the villages to urban areas, as China is doing

..After Indira Gandhi’s son died, I said to her…“Take this chance, open up India, change the policy. Look at Indians overseas, see how well they are doing in England, in Singapore, all over the world. You are confining and conscribing them by your policies, by your bureaucracy.” She told me: “I cannot do it. This is this. That is the way India is”…I did not see anybody else. She had the gumption to declare a state of emergency, and by the time you have the guts to do that, you should have the guts to change the system and let Indian enterprise break out. So that was when I became resigned that India was going to go the slow path. And at that time, I saw China rising…breaking away from communism. So I knew that the race would not be an equal one. I gave up

...........To create jobs, the main thrust of reforms must be in manufacturing. That requires a change in labor laws to allow employers to retrench workers when business demand is down, streamlining the judicial processes, reducing the fiscal deficit, loosening up the bureaucracy, and most of all, improving infrastructure

...India’s narrower band of educated people will be a weakness in the longer term. And although top quality Indian manpower is in high demand, large numbers of engineers and graduates lack the skills required in a changing economy and remain unemployed…Only over half of each Indian cohort completes primary school, a big loss

...A second relic of India’s historical legacy is its preoccupation with fair distribution… To redistribute all the gains in the early stages of growth will slow down the capital accumulation necessary to generate further growth. Wealth springs from entrepreneurship, which means risk taking…The only way to raise the living conditions of the poor is to increase the size of the pie. Equality of incomes gives no incentive to the resourceful and the industrious to outperform and be competitive.

...There are three Indian schools in Singapore. There were going to be more, but I said no. You either go to a Singapore school or you go back to India, because…even if they [Indians] stay on as permanent residents and do national service, they are not readily absorbed because they have been oriented toward Indian culture…The textbooks in these schools are all India-oriented, the knowledge is Indian, the sentiments, and everything. That is the problem

.....Democracy should not be made an alibi for inertia. There are many examples of authoritarian governments whose economies have failed. There are as many examples of democratic governments who have achieved superior economic performance. The real issue is whether any country’s political system, irrespective of whether it is democratic or authoritarian, can forge a consensus on the policies needed for the economy to grow and create jobs for all, and can ensure that these basic policies are implemented consistently without large leakage

....India does not geographically fit in the Pacific. But the contest between the U.S. and China will be in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. China has moved naval forces into the Indian Ocean to protect its oil supply from the Gulf, and commodities from Africa. That is where the Indians are a force. If the Indians are on the American side, the Americans will have a great advantage. So the Chinese have to have a counter, and have developed ports in Myanmar and in Pakistan

Rig Vedic Rivers

The rivers named in the Rigveda can be classified into five geographical categories:

1. The Northwestern Rivers (western tributaries of the Indus, flowing through Afghanistan and the north):

Trstama

Susartu

Anitabha

Rasa

SvetI

Kubha (Kabul, The Kubha is the modern Kabul river which flows into the Indus a little above Attock and receives at Prang the joint flow of its tributaries the Swat (Suvastu) and Gauri)

Krumu (Kurrum)

GomatI (Gomal)

Sarayu (Siritoi)

Mehatnu

SvetyavarI

Prayiyu (Bara)

Vayiyu

Suvastu (Swat)

GaurI (Panjkora)

Kusava (Kunar)

Kabul and Swat rivers are in Afghanistan.

2. The Indus and its minor eastern tributaries: 

Sindhu (Indus)

SuSoma (Sohan)

ArjIkIya (Haro)

3. The Central Rivers (rivers of the Punjab)

Vitasta (Jhelum)

AsiknI (Chenab)

Parusni (Ravi)

Vipasa (Beas)

SuturI (Satlaj)

Marudvrdha (Maruvardhvan)

4. The East-central Rivers (rivers of Haryana)

-SarasvatI (The relative insignificance of the Indus in the Rigveda is demonstrated by the fact that the Indus is not mentioned even once in the three oldest Mandalas of the Rigveda. In sharp contrast, the SarasvatI is referred to many times in the three oldest Mandalas. The SarasvatI is so important in the whole of the Rigveda that it is worshipped as one of the Three Great Goddesses in the AprI-suktas of all the ten families of composers. The Indus finds no place in these AprI-suktas. The contrast between the overwhelming importance of the SarasvatI and the relative unimportance of the Indus makes theory of an Aryan invasion from the northwest incongruent.)

-DrsadvatI/HariyupIyA/YavyavatI

-Apaya

5. The Eastern Rivers (The Ganga and Yamuna are the easternmost rivers named in the Rigveda)

AsmanvatI (Assan, a tributary of the Yamuna) 

Yamuna/AmsumatI

Ganga/Jahnavi

V. S. Wakankar

In 1957 Dr Wakankar discovered the Bhimbetka rock caves. In 1970 UNESCO declared the Bhimbetka rock caves as a World Heritage Site. The Bhimbetka rock caves exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India. This discovery placed India on the top of the World Map of Rock Art. Dr. Wakankar discovered and studied more than 4000 rock caves in India. He founded Bharati Kala Bhavan at Ujjain - a center for study of drawing, painting, sculpturing, carving etc 

He carried out extensive excavations at Maheshwar (1954), Navada Toli (1955), Indragarh (1959), Manoti (1960), Awara (1960), Kayatha (1966), Mandsaur (1974, 76), Azadnagar (1974), Dangwada (1974), Runija (1980), as well as Verconium Roman sites in England (1961) and Incoliev in France (1962).

Dr. Wakankar was responsible for tracing the basin of the now-dried-up Saraswati river, that is said to hold secrets to much of the Indian civilization. A team led by Dr. V. S. Wakankar traced the path of this river and discovered several sites belonging to the Indus-Saraswati Civilization. As Vedic literature and the civilization flourished on the banks of this river, he has proposed that our civilization should be termed as "SaraswatCivilization" instead of Indus Valley Civilization.

Dr. V. S. Wakankar identified the exact spot where the Tropic of Cancer and the local longitude intersect each other at village Dongla near Ujjain. During summer solstice as the sun is exactly overhead at noon, no shadow is cast. This spot has great astronomical significance. He was of the opinion that this spot and the corresponding longitude could have been the key position for all Vedic astronomical calculations in India. He proposed that due to its unique position and India's contribution to the knowledge of Astronomy, the local meridian should be named as Prime Meridian (zero meridian) instead of the one at Greenwich UK and that international timing should be based on DMT (Dongla Meridian Time) instead of GMT (Greenwich Meridian Time).

 

His other significant discoveries :

1. 23 Parmar inscriptions at Dhar.
2. More than 68 Chalcolithic sites in Malwa.
3. More than 4000 painted rock shelters throughout India.
4. Mahudi Copper plate of King Bhoja at Dhar.
5. Indragadh inscription of King Nannappa of Rashtrakut dynasty of Manyakheta.
6. Bilpank prashasti of Siddharaj Jaysinnh of Gujarat.
7. Elephant capital of Maurayan period at Soudhanga.
8. Remains of Harappan culture at Manoti.
9. Black and Red ware culture at Awara.
10. Earliest remains of a culture now known as Kayatha culture at Chalcolithic sites at 'Kayatha' near Ujjain.
11. Shaka inscription at Ujjain.
12. Inscription of Vijaysinh at Ujjain.
13. Discovered and classified 15000 coins of Ujjain.
14. Discovered and deciphered 2 Brahmi inscriptions outside India (one being at Quassein on Red Sea and other being a tablet from Babylon).
15. Glass seal and 4 Greek amulets at Ujjain.
16. New sites at Arryo Hando; Rio Grande Canyon and Macon Georgia in USA.

When he submitted his thesis on the prehistoric rock paintings, one of the committee members suggested him to remove an acknowledgement he had made to RSS. He refused to do so. In 1975, the central government awarded him the Padmashari award. 

Arab Expansion and Gujarat front

During reign of Siladitya II of Maitraka Kingdom, Arabs raided a port near Kathiawad . Arabs under the command of Ismail landed at the p ort in 677AD. They met with a disastrous defeat at the place and gained no access to the Saurashtra coast. This was one of the earliest Arab raids on Gujrat.

During the caliphate of Hasham, around 735 AD, forces under Junaid burst into India and sacked many places including Jaisalmer, Broach and many areas in Northern Gujrat. The Gurjara king of Nandipuri, Jayabhata IV, documented, in an inscription dated to 736 AD, that he went to the aid of the king of Vallabhi and inflicted a crushing defeat on a Tājika (Arab) army. The Arabs then overran the kingdom of Jayabhata himself and proceeded on to Navsari in southern Gujarat.

As per Navasari plates of Pulakesin, Arabs moved south after reducing Gujarat. At this stage, Hindus came together to face this common foe. At Navasari, the confederate army reinforced by Chalukya troops defeated Arabs. The Arab expansion in India came to a screeching halt.  Pulakesin subsequently received the titles "Solid Pillar of Deccan" (Dakshināpatha-sādhāra) and the "Repeller of the Unrepellable" (Anivartaka-nivartayitr). This was the “battle of Tour “ moment for India.

In 760AD, an Arab fleet under Amru-bin-Jamal landed in the vicinity of Porbandar. The brunt of this attack was borne by the Saindhava feudatory Aggukka.  Aggukka with his flotilla became victorious.

Saurashtra was again invaded by Arabs in 776AD with much better preparation. This naval jihad was ordered by caliph Al-mahdi and  was led by Abdul malik. They had many victories initially but sickness broke out among their troops and they had to cancel this campaign. No further attempt was made by caliph Al-Mahdi upon India.

Naikidevi: The Queen who Defeated Muhammad Ghori

Very few people know that Muhammad Ghori first invaded India 13 years before first battle of Tarain.

In 1178 AD, Ghori entered India from west and continued his march through the sandy desert towards Gujarat. Acting against the dictates of geography and historical precedence, the idea behind this expedition was to outflank the Ghaznavids in the Panjab and to open up an alternative route into Hindustan, through the rich territories of the Caulukyas.

At that time, Gujrat was ruled by Naikidevi. She was the widow of Chalukya king Ajayapala. After her husband’s death, she served as queen reagent as her son Mularaja II was just a child.

The Muslim army was exhausted and famished by the time the battle ensued at village of Kayadra (near to Mount Abu, about forty miles to the north-east of Anhilwara). Hindus drove their elephant phalanx onto the battlefield in such a manner that all the horses of the army of Ghori were scattered.

This defeat induced the Ghurids not to persist with the southern route into Hindustan via the Gomal Pass. Gujarat as a whole remained exempted from any further serious Muslim attack for more than a century.

Hindu (Prthiviriija Vijaya), Jain (Prabandha Chintamani) and Muslim (Minhaj-i-Siraj) scholars chronicled this victory of Naikidevi over Ghori.

Caste and Distortion

The recent conviction of Dera chief brought focus on one contentious issue- legitimization of the caste system across religions. Dera primarily draws most of its members from lower castes and the lower strata of society.  Some issues around caste are not given attention in India for last 70 years, hence the perpetuation of this social system despite constitutional guarantees of equal status.

Ambedkar proposed that one could not destroy caste unless one destroyed Hinduism. Caste exists among the Muslims (ashraf-Muslims of foreign lineage and ajlaf-local converts), Christians, Sikhs etc; although doctrinal Islam or Christianity does not approve such social classification. It will be good to discuss what sustains caste divisions among such communities in the absence of religious sanctions?

Role of British in solidifying many of the caste fault lines also needs to be examined. British divided Hindu population into Hindus, Animists and Dalits in the beginning of 20^th century. The idea was to create dissension and weaken rising Hindu nationalism during that period. The bias against higher castes was fueled due to their participation in 1857 war of Independence.

Initially Muslims tried to convert high caste people including Brahmins/Rajputs, which resulted in failure. This was mostly the case with business community. At last, lower caste people were targeted. They used the Sufi movement for this purpose.

Similarly Roman church accommodated caste divisions to propagate its faith. Pope Gregory XV published a bull sanctioning caste regulations in Christian churches in India. Converted Brahmins in Goa were even allowed to wear sacred thread and other caste markings.

The Real Stalin

On the third day of 20^th party congress, Anastas Mikoyan denounced Stalin on several counts. A week later, in a closed door session, Nikita Khrushchev shocked the Soviet Union (and the world) by denouncing Stalin in a special address to Communist party comrades. The speech shook the Soviet Union to the core, but even more so its communist allies, notably in central Europe.

While Stalin’s crimes against his communist associates were deplored, his greater crimes against Russian people were applauded in the name of “Socialist construction”, although it was reaffirmed in Lelin’s name for a change.

Highlights of that speech-

-It condemned cult of individual and its consequences as it is foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism

-About abuse of power- “The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lelin’s time, were only incipient, transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our party”

…practiced brutal violence not only towards everything which opposed him, but also towards that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary to his concepts…..

.....He (Stalin) abandoned the method of ideological struggle for that of administrative violence, mass repression and terror….. mass arrests and deportations of many  thousands of people, executions without trial and without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, fear and even desperation...........

Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet)

Bharat Karnad is one self-proclaimed conservative foreign relation/defense intellectual in India. He is a doctrinaire realist and has little patience for left of center international relation experts. His latest book "Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet)" tries to answer the following question: Why is our country not counted as among the major powers of the world?

He defines a major power as having following attributes-

-Maximize strategic location (let’s say India’s strategic location is like an Aircraft carrier going into Indian ocean, it can be used to control access or choke shipping channels like Strait of Malacca

-Distant defense: A major power would try to contain its rival as far as possible from its borders/shore

-Arms dependency: A major power would be able to produce most of its arms; it would not be major importer like India

-Software of hard power: A major power will have clear vision for future, corresponding policies, capacity to implement strategies, in short a Monroe document

-Ability to transform or change with time: To some extent , Indian Navy has managed to keep pace with changes in doctrine and technology.

India has many attributes of a major power like strategic location, landmass, population etc. Still it hardly achieved any of the above-mentioned attributes, remained an inconsequential power so far.

Ghaznavi of Hizbul

Top Hizbul mujahideen commander Yasin Itoo alias Gaznavi was killed in the Shopian encounter recently. He was Hizbul mujahideen's operations commander in the region. He joined Hizbul mujahideen in 1996, surrendered in 2007 and released on parole in 2014. He joined Hizbul again and was named the commander by United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin four days after the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016.

It will be interesting to mention Major Gaurav Arya in this context. He had a premonition of this. In his open letter to the deceased Burhan Wani last year, he wrote-

“Burhan Wani’s successor has a code name – Mehmood Ghaznavi. They could have named him Changez Khan and he would still have a remarkably short shelf life. A 7.62 mm full metal jacket round does not respect fancy historical names. The 7.9 g (122 gr) projectile flies at 2,350 feet per second and destroys whatever it comes into contact with. Mehmood Ghaznavi, the moment you were declared successor, you were a dead man. They have started hunting you. They will kill you. Soon.”

Hizbul has already named Mohammad Bin Qasim as its new operational chief. In case this new commander does not survive to see 2018, next in line could be Shihab ad-Din Ghori!!!

Beyond The Lines – By Kuldip Nayar

Beyond The Lines – By Kuldip Nayar is an account of the seventy year history of India from an honest journalist’s perspective. He had been a vocal critic of the Congress ever since Indira’s rise and has not been very kind towards BJP. Many of the views presented are unpalatable to leftist intelligentsia in India. 

Here are excerpts from the chapter- THE NEHRU YEARS The Road to Partition

On Cabinet Mission

To the Mission’s surprise, Nehru spoke about a plebiscite in the border districts as if his party had already accepted the idea of division. Jinnah also mentioned partition, and told a Punjab Hindu delegation that in his scheme of things Ambala would not form part of Pakistan. Azad, still the Congress president, was on a different wavelength. He ruled out both Partition and a unitary structure. His thesis, which Gandhi had approved, was that a federal constitution would give full autonomy to the provinces and transfer all subjects to them except defence, foreign affairs, and communications.

I believe Patel’s suspicion was that Azad and Nehru were in league and would bypass him. Even during the Cripps Mission in 1942, he was tormented by similar thoughts. C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, a distinguished scholar from south India, with whom I briefly worked on a committee on Hindu temples to ensure their proper administration, told me that Patel ‘interpreted the Cripps Mission as an organized stunt by Nehru to get himself into the forefront so that he could become the prime minister of India’.

Azad’s meeting with the Cabinet Mission was discussed threadbare by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) when it met on 12 April 1946. Members voiced their doubts over the federal structure. Gandhi came to Azad’s rescue and silenced the critics by saying that a federal solution alone could work in a country of India’s size and diversities. When Patel said that subjects like currency and finance should be in the hands of the Centre, Gandhi intervened to say that it would be in the interest of the provinces to have a unified policy in such matters but it was not necessary to include such subjects in a compulsory central list. 

Jinnah reacted sharply and blamed Nehru for repudiating the grouping of provinces and the limited Centre, the ‘basic form’ on which the scheme rested. He made the All-India Council of the Muslim League change its earlier resolution by rejecting the proposal. He accused the Mission of ‘bad faith’ and the Congress of a ‘pettifogging and haggling attitude’. When I met Azad many years later, he held Nehru responsible for Jinnah’s reversal. In chaste Urdu, Azad said: ‘Woh tala jo kabhi khul nahin sakta tha Nehru ne uski chabi Jinnah ke hath main de di [Nehru gave to Jinnah the key of the lock which could not be opened].’

Jinnah gave a call for Direct Action, not against the British but as a show of strength on the part of Muslims as the Congress had treated their demand with ‘defiance and contempt’. He argued the Congress was not willing to accept even the proposal conceding only a ‘limited Pakistan’. This was false propaganda because the Congress had come round to accepting the Cabinet Mission plan, but after raising doubts that made Jinnah wary. That might have been why, when Mountbatten offered a partition proposal a year later and asked Jinnah whether he would accept some links with India, he said: ‘I do not trust them now.’

When asked whether Direct Action would be violent or non-violent, Jinnah said: ‘I am not going to discuss ethics.’ Direct Action was undertaken only in Calcutta and that too merely for a day (16 August 1946). The Muslim League government in Bengal declared a public holiday on that day, despite warnings and protests by the Opposition. The League organized a ‘grand rally’ over which Chief Minister Shaheed Suhrawardy himself presided. Bands of Muslim League National Guards forced their way into Hindu areas and asked for subscriptions, sometimes as much as Rs 1,000. Returning from the rally, the League’s National Guards began looting Hindu shops for not paying subscriptions or not responding to the League’s call for a hartal on that day. Hindus and Sikhs were attacked and the entire event appeared to have been pre-planned. 

Soon Calcutta was engulfed in a communal riot, with Hindus and Sikhs retaliating against Muslims. Parts of the city were reduced to rubble. Over 5,000 people lost their lives in less than three days in what came to be known as the ‘great Calcutta killing’, a phrase coined by the Statesman, the influential British-owned newspaper. Jinnah laid the blame on the Cabinet Mission, the Congress, and Gandhi. Surprisingly, Jinnah found no fault with his National Guards who had pledged themselves before the carnage ‘to strive for the achievement of Pakistan and glory of the Muslim nation’. The Statesman laid the blame on the British governor and Chief Minister Suhrawardy. ‘Arson, looting, murder, abduction of women, forced conversions and forced marriages are everywhere and by every investigator spoken of as the characteristics of lawlessness.’ 

At this juncture Suhrawardy sought Gandhi’s intervention. The latter’s reply was that the future of Bengal could only be decided by the joint will of the Hindus and Muslims in the state. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, a Hindu Mahasabha leader from Bengal, who joined the central cabinet after Independence, met Gandhi to oppose the whole idea of a sovereign Bengal state. Even then the Congress and the League in Bengal came to a tentative agreement that if and when a Greater Bengal came into being, ‘every act of its Government must carry with it the support of at least two-thirds of the Hindu minority in the executive and the legislature’. This was intended to allay the fears of Hindus who would be in a minority in a United Bengal. 

Punjab, which was also partitioned, saw no similar move to unite the state. One reason was that the state had neither a Rabindranath Tagore nor a Nazrul Islam to bind the people through poetry, culture, or language. There was nothing like Punjabi nationalism to string together Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. In comparison, Punjab’s great poet, Iqbal, was himself the author of the idea of Partition. The Punjabi language, even though spoken by the people as a whole, was written differently by the three communities: in Arabic (Urdu) script by the Muslims, in Devnagri (Hindi) by the Hindus, and in Gurmukhi (Punjabi) by the Sikhs. The only culture attributed to Punjab was ‘agriculture’, a disparaging remark that still is thrown at Punjabis.