Pant writes that in a “stunning rebuke to the Communist Party’s handling of the Hong Kong crisis”, the pro-democracy forces “made massive gains in local elections held last month”. He argues that this “outcome is a strong show of support for the protesters in a first real test of sentiment in the territory since protests began” earlier this year.
It is not clear if the Hong Kong protests “would be heard in Beijing where there is little incentive for Xi Jinping to change his approach”. At the same time, “the inability of the Xi regime to exercise control came into sharp relief when a massive trove of classified Chinese government documents was leaked” which showed “how China is carrying out the mass detention of Muslim Uighurs”.
Pant claims that there is a “chance of internecine rivalries within the Communist Party flaring up as Mr. Xi’s policies take a hit”. Further, there are “fears that Beijing might want to divert attention from its own internal failures by lashing out at the world”. He calls for New Delhi to “guard against any Chinese misadventures”.
Remembering Inder Kumar Gujral – and his elevated vision for India’s South Asian neighbourhood
Shyam Saran | Former foreign secretary
The Times of India
Marking former prime minister I.K. Gujral’s 100th birth anniversary, Saran writes that India’s borders “with neighbours can serve as ‘connectors’ linking” the country “with a larger landscape beyond the subcontinent”.
Gujral, “one of India’s most cerebral and far sighted external affairs ministers and later prime minister” deeply understood “the overriding challenge of the neighbourhood most clearly”. He had said that India “does not ask for reciprocity but gives all it can in good faith and trust”.
Saran writes that these “principles continue to be relevant for India’s neighbourhood policy”. However, the “logic of improved connectivity within the subcontinent is often trumped by heightened security concerns”.
Enunciated in September 1996, the ‘Gujral Doctrine’ sought to “put in place key principles which must guide relations among states of South Asia”. For instance, it proposed that “no South Asian country will allow its territory to be used against the interests of another country of the region”.
Finally, Saran calls for the need of connectivity to be “pursued with greater vigour while security concerns are addressed through cost effective, efficient and reliable technological measures which are in use in other parts of the world”.
A lesser-known narrative of Ayodhya from 1857 – and the dispute
Anand Patwardhan | Documentary filmmaker
The Indian Express
With the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque on 6 December, Patwardhan provides another version of history. He reminds that in the 16th century, Tulsidas “composed his Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi dialect of Hindi” which made “Ramayana accessible to ordinary people for the first time”. Tulsidas was “attacked by the Brahmin orthodoxy” for his efforts and then took “refuge in mosques to write his epic”. Patwardhan writes that during the reign of Akbar, “Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas became popular” and “Ram temples began to be built”.
Before the arrival of the kar sevaks in 1990, Patwardhan’s film crew found that “more than 20 temples” claimed to be “Lord Ram’s birthplace” in Ayodhya. He notes that Tulsidas “never mentions in his epic” that a “temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram had just been demolished by Babur”.
With Supreme Court claiming that the “earliest record of Hindu-Muslim clashes around the disputed site was marked by the British colonial power in 1856-57’’, Patwardhan argues that this marks the First War of Independence (1857) and that “even as Hindu and Muslims joined hands in the battlefield to oust the British, the latter found it convenient to stoke a potential religious conflict in Ayodhya”.
Records show that Hindus “decided to maintain communal harmony and made a pact to pray within the temple-mosque site in two demarcated portions” and the “harmony remained unbroken till 23 December 1949”. Patwardhan states that on 9 November, “those who had demolished our national monument effectively causing the deaths of thousands across the Subcontinent were legally granted the very objective of their crime”.
Time for the orchestrated use of three different economic levers
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha | Academic board member, Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics
Mint
In view of India’s ongoing economic slowdown, Rajadhyaksha maps out three mental models to understand moments of economic stress.
The first describes unsustainable fiscal deficit and high inflation. This is due to a “fiscal splurge” by governments which “rapidly expand[s] money supply” — India went through something similar in 1990, explains Rajadhyaksha. The second model refers to economies that maintain fixed exchange rates and “in effect, lose control over their monetary policy” when there are changing tides in the global economy, he writes. The third refers to “stressed balance sheets of financiers” and borrowers. Rajadhyaksha warns a balance sheet recession could be triggered by a drop in asset prices or some other factor.
India must consider “a deep interest rate reduction… [as] a first line of defence” but more importantly, it needs to “get banks, companies and households… to change their behaviour, or reignite animal spirits”, he suggests. Looking at the models, a “coordinated use of monetary, fiscal and exchange rate levers will …be a nuanced act”, he concludes.
Hidden inter-linkages hurting growth
Neelkanth Mishra | Co-head, Asia Pacific Strategy & India Strategist, Credit Suisse
Business Standard
In his piece, Mishra spells out inter-linkages in the Indian economy which, given the slowdown, could be useful for policy makers in trying to limit the damage done on “economic momentum”.
When it comes to government spending, states spend “90 per cent more than the Centre” and are more discreet about it. Slippage in receipts and inability to meet expenditure targets set in their budgets has constrained spending. “Weaker-than-budgeted tax transfers from the Centre” are also a factor, adds Mishra.
He predicts total spending growth could slip to as low as 7 per cent (year-on-year) and states could be “forced to cut spending”.
Also, states were promised on the launch of GST that any dip in collections would be made up by the Centre. However, the Centre may not be able to compensate them due to the slowdown. This could also curtail state spending, he explains.
The last (and unrelated) linkage Mishra discusses is the impact of the economic slowdown on interest rates, which “counter-intuitively” shows that interest rates “are not falling even for government bonds”.
The unfinished agenda of Bhopal
Chandra Bhushan | CEO, iForest Global & Columnist
The Financial Express
It’s been 35 years since the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and yet there is “no closure for Bhopal”, writes Bhushan. He retraces the “world’s worst industrial disaster” and categorises it into two — Bhopal disaster 1.0 and 2.0.
Bhopal 1.0 was the gas leak itself, which saw “Hindu-Muslim unity in death” and left behind severe health crises, “from cancer and mental problems to birth defects”, he writes. Union Carbide, the company that set up the pesticide plant, paid $470 million as compensation for victims which was a “joke” as it barely covered their medical bills, explains Bhushan. The Centre’s additional handout in 2010 was problematic as it didn’t recognise various disabilities caused by the tragedy, he adds.
Bhopal 2.0 is the Union Carbide’s legacy of industrial waste that continues to pollute groundwater and contaminate soil, writes Bhushan.
Efforts to decontaminate the land “has got embroiled in legal and political disagreements”, showing that the response has been “inadequate and… callous”. It shows that post-disaster management is as important as immediate relief, he concludes.