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Book Review – Pax Indica

Sep 022012

The DNA has carried a slightly shorter version of my review of Shashi Tharoor’ s book Pax Indica

Pax Romana or the Roman Peace is a Latin Term used to describe the, slightly over two hundred year period, when the Roman Empire saw relative peace and prosperity. It was a period when the Republic made way for the Emperor (Augustus); various warring factions within Rome were brought to heel; the Empire was kept safe from invasion and the military expansion was kept to a minimum. It was a time when Rome became the focal point of culture, trade and influence and was the dominant power. The term has been used for other Empires – Pax Americana (the period post the Second World War), Pax Britannica (the century leading up to the First World War), Pax Mongolica (the height of the Mongol Empire in the 13^th & 14^th centuries). In each of these cases the power of the Empire – military, economic, and cultural combined with internal political stability – ensured Peace. In each of these cases the core of the Empire – Rome, America, Britain and Mongolia – were protected from war on, while they expanded outwards with their military and trade might. This Pax Imperium was great for each of the States that were the power centres, but it had a mixed result vis-à-vis regions & people that came in the path of the Imperial Juggernaut.

Pax Indica or the Indian Peace is Shashi Tharoor’s look at modern India – that has come out of the shadow of internal divisions and external invasion – to take her rightful place on the world Stage. Tharoor’s basic hypothesis is that India can use a combination of her size, her trade prowess, her soft power and her growing influence in the world to ensure an age of domestic transformation. He sees word Pax Indica not to imply world or regional domination, as much as foreign policy that allows India to play a role in developing a 21^st century “Peace System” that will help ‘promote & maintain a period or co-operative co-existence’ and in “helping shape the global order’

Pax Indica looks at Indian foreign policy from both a historical perspective, and a normative one. He is rather uncritical in his assessment of history. His great admiration for Jawaharlal Nehru probably gets him to see Indian foreign policy through rose tinted glasses. For example, the entire 1962 debacle in which China wrested ’23,200 square kilometres of Indian territory’ is explained away in one paragraph. His defence of non-alignment is robust. And he believes that those who “critique Nehru for not taking the ‘winning side’ speak with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight’. He also says of non-alignment as Indian foreign policy in the first 40 years after Independence gave India an advantage in the last two decades because that policy

‘enabled us to work with all the major powers without exception – and to get help (if I may be allowed to mangle Marx) from each according to their capacity, to us according to our need.

In this period (post 1991) the ‘post-colonial’ chip has fallen off India’s shoulder and she can look at the world from a position of authority.

In a world where it is acceptable, indeed expected, to berate the problems of non-alignment, Tharoor offers a perspective on why the path of foreign policy independence in the years following 1947 was the correct path for India to follow. However, he also says that in the years to come foreign policy cannot be led by belief and ideology as much as with one single goal – that of ‘facilitating India’s economic growth in order to bring our billion strong masses into the 21^st century.’ And he talks about the need to

‘cultivate good relations with countries that can assist us in that process – trading partners and investors in the economy; suppliers of energy resources and assurers of food security; and partners in our fundamental objective of keeping our people safe, secure and free ‘

This kind of explains the seeming contradictions in India’s foreign policy – the friendship with Iran and the desire to boost trade ties despite the west having issues (“Iran’s natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, have been increasingly important to India for decades’) at the same time as strengthening her ties with the West; the growing relationship with Israel (‘India is now Israel’s largest market for defence products and services’) along with a continued support for the Palestinian cause ; India’s increasing influence in Afghanistan – not through the display of naked power or military might, but through kinder and gentler ways; an enhanced involvement in Africa – through trade, government credits and private sector involvement. All these, says Tharoor makes India a very influential player on the world stage.

Right at the beginning Tharoor says that the book is ‘like an onion’ begins with Pakistan and peels outwards, from South Asia and neighbourhood to the world beyond.’ There is a whole chapter (entitled “Brother Enemy) devoted to our troublesome neighbour in the west. A State whose own internal divisions are so vast that the rulers of Pakistan ‘do not feel able to challenge militant groups and their leaders because they have become too popular with a radicalized and pro-Islamist populace’ – the charitable explanation; or ‘those in power are happy to allow the terrorists to run free and wild, as long as they are only threatening India’ – the sinister excuse. Tharoor is of the firm belief that it would not be realistic to expect Pakistan to change fundamentally for there to be peace – there are too parties jostling for power in Pakistan to allow that. He spends quite a bit of time listing those parties and their positions vis-à-vis India in public and private. But, in his opinion, ‘we want peace more than Pakistan does, because we have more at stake when peace is violated’ and therefore India should ‘seize on whatever straws in the wind float its way from Pakistan to explore possibility of Peace’. It is possibly the only controversial statement in the entire book. And also rather simplistic. He believes that stronger economic ties, a MFN status, and trade could enable Peace, while more contentious issues like Siachin or Kashmir get discussed separately.

There is an entire chapter on China that doesn’t say too much except that we can’t compete with them, we shouldn’t have conflict, maybe we should co-operate. He says that the normally complacent Elephant (us) is naturally wary of the “hissing dragon’. History, the last 60 years including India’s support and sanctuary to the Dalai Lama and the Chinese support of the Indian communist movement – plus the war of 1962 and China’s territorial claims on parts of Arunachal Pradesh have kept relations between the two strained. He lists all the advantages that China has “India’s sclerotic bureaucracy versus China’s efficient one, India’s tangles of red tape versus China’s unfurled red carpet to foreign investors, India’s contentious and fractious party politics versus China’s smoothly functioning top-down communist hierarchy,” and then says, without a trace of irony or sarcasm “India has become an outstanding example of the management of diversity through pluralistic democracy’. But he says, “India is a fractious democracy, China is not. But as an Indian, I do not wish to pretend we can compete in the global growth stakes with China” . He sees India and China following different paths and both making the future their own.

The first 7 chapters of the book are devoted to the neighbourhood; ‘The Near Abroad’- the Arab world and the Rest of Asia; The United States of America; Europe, Africa and Latin America – bunched together in a single chapter. The bulk of these chapters are a walk through the history of India’s relationship with that country. It is in the last 4 chapters that he makes his recommendations. He believes that India ought to use a combination of soft power and public diplomacy in a multi aligned world to achieve her objectives. With the rest of the neighbourhood and the world he advocates growing trade ties to bind us together. In the case of the rest of the world the recommendation is similar – trade ties and soft power to see “peace in our times’. Tharoor is a fan of Indian soft power, though the role of the state in building that power is unexplained. Soft Power arises despite the state – from films, trade ties, cultural exchanges – all the State can do is exploit it, if it exists. The chapters on the ‘Global Commons’ and the need to move from “multi alignment’ extend his philosophy of being ‘ajatshatru’ (without enemy) and ‘sangamitra’ (friend to all) – and that is the guiding philosophy of the book. It may seem optimistic, simplistic and even naïve in parts – but it possibly has a grain of truth and practicality. Apart from Pakistan, India has decent relations with most of the world. It cannot afford to militarily engage to establish influence; nor does she have the kind of wealth to sign blank cheques for the rest of the world – so all that remains to be used is soft power. And, Tharoor advocates that India use that to the hilt.

Pax Indica is foreign policy 101 – a great introduction to foreign policy for students and those interested in reading about how India’s foreign policy evolved since independence. It is a good starting point to understanding Indian foreign policy, but any reader should read more before forming opinions. Shashi Tharoor has a way with words, and the book flows easily and is immensely readable. As he admits, it is not academic, more his perspective as a ringside observer of changing world dynamics. Pax Indica is a bit like a nice breezy travelogue – the generic kind carried by tourists on visits – through the terrain of Indian foreign policy. There is a bit of history, a bit of geography, some amount of characters to know about, who to know about, the events that mattered, those that didn’t, what to see, what to avoid. It is a very good first person, insider view of Indian foreign policy. It is an easy read for a serious subject, and that should not be held against the book. If you know nothing about Indian foreign policy this is a good starting point. The book looks at India through rose tinted glasses, and it is good to discount some of the optimism. But, in a scenario where the overwhelming opinions emanating from India is one of doom and gloom Pax Indica is a good countervailing point of view.

Details

Pax Indica

Hardcover: 456 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books (June 20, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 067008574X
ISBN-13: 978-0670085743

Break the Peace, Go to Jail – My column in Today’s DNA

Articles, elections, India, Politics, Society 1 Response »

Aug 202012

My Column in Today’s DNA

Chaos theory is that branch of mathematics that looks at how random results arise from supposedly ‘normal’ events. The most popular representation of this is the Butterfly effect. The basic premise is “a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, and a hurricane hits India”, essentially an event in one part of the world has terrible repercussions in another. In a globally linked world the butterfly effect is becoming more and more common.

Nothing can explain the butterfly effect better than the last ten days in India. In South Mumbai, a crowd of Muslim men gathered to protest atrocities against Muslims in Burma (approximately 3,000 kms away) and Kokrajhar, Assam (about 2,000 kms away). They had been shown doctored pictures and MMSes lifted from social media to help get them ‘charged’ up. Some of these pictures were a decade old, came from other countries, referred to other ethnic/religious groups, had been debunked multiple times – but none of these mattered. What mattered was the brutality in these pictures that was circulated, and the irresponsible and incendiary speeches that whipped up violence. The crowd became a mob with OB vans, vehicles and property being destroyed. The violence in Mumbai resonated through social media, with the word Muslim being used as an Adjective, Adverb and a religious descriptor. Did it add to the tensions on the ground – unlikely? Did it polarise the universe that inhabits social media and discusses politics and current affairs? Yes.

Bangalore, about 3,000 kms away from Kokrajhar, saw another sort of Butterfly effect. Random SMSes were sent to families in the northeast, warning them of attacks on their children and loved ones who lived, studied and worked in the rest of India. Panicked families began calling back their loved ones. A combination of these SMSes and news of ‘threats’ going viral in the real world led people to leave Bangalore. There have been smaller numbers leaving cities like Pune, Chennai, Vadodara and Mumbai – but Bangalore has faced the worst impact. Various state governments and the central government are making the right noises in terms of reassuring citizens but rumour carried rapidly by unfiltered media has had a powerful impact in creating a sense of insecurity.

It is at times like this you get to see two very different sorts of leadership qualities in both social media & mainstream media. There is the leadership that seeks to reassure and calm. And there is that which wants to create a narrative of victimhood and fear – watch out ‘they’ will take over your lives. Both exist and both are a reflection on the real world. Technology — be it broadcast or social media — has not created these attitudes, at best it allows these attitudes to be transmitted without filters to millions of desktops, mobile phones and TV sets.

Not surprisingly, calls have begun to have greater curbs on social media. Bulk SMSes have already been restricted. There is talk of monitoring social media sites. There are rumours of censorship. But it is neither social media nor mobile phones that are causing panic. People are. It is not the media that is spreading hate. People are. Most who are rioting don’t use social media – someone is downloading material, replicating it, at times morphing it and distributing it with only one express purpose: fermenting trouble. And there is a very good reason for this. From the time of Independence, there has been no cost, no penalty associated with polarising communities, instigating violence and causing death and destruction. In fact the converse is true — people who have done this have not only gotten away scot free but are ‘respectable’ members of the political class. Foot soldiers have been punished but those are the casualties of war.

India is such a complex nation, that even our butterfly effect is multi-layered – distance (event that take place elsewhere), and time (unconnected events in the past). Policies of not ensuring the rule of law, of pandering to religious fundamentalists, of making excuses for law breakers in the name of caste, community, religion, have come back to bite India hard, where it hurts. This is not a social media issue; this is a real world Rule of law problem. If you live in India, the laws of the land apply to you — it doesn’t matter if you sit at a computer and instigate people to cause violence or stand in front of a crowd and egg them to destroy. Both are criminal. The solution is not censorship of social media, or indeed banning gatherings, but punishment of those who break the law – without bias, without exception. Break the peace, go to jail has to be the mantra, going forward.

The Real Problem with Indian Television – DNA Column

Articles, India, Media, TV 1 Response »

Aug 062012

The column in today’s DNA

The TV business, explained a very senior member of the fraternity over a decade ago, is like fire. It needs to be constantly fed with more – more shows, more content, and more money. And, the more you feed it, the more it consumes. If you look at the media landscape today, one realises that statement to be more valid than ever before..

Every TV channel has seen an increase in cost of content – not just in producing it but marketing and distributing it. Channels have to do more to attract and retain audiences. Bigger Stars, more chutzpah, more on gloss and glamour, the newest films, breaking news, – everything geared towards grabbing the attention of the viewer for that split second, and keeping it for as long as possible. There are costs – not insubstantial ones – attached to doing this.

Channels hope that their revenues will offset these costs. There are traditionally three sources of revenue. Worldwide, TV channels earn their money from advertising; from subscriptions to households; and through licensing their content to other channels. In western countries apart from a handful of terrestrial (usually under 10) channels that are free to the household, the rest are subscription based. The free to air terrestrial channels carry a mix of programming – and is paid for by advertising; while the subscription driven channels tend to be far more focussed on a certain kind of content or audience – cookery channel, golf channel, religious channel or a children’s channel; adult channels, old age channels, pet lovers’ channels and more. These are evolved and sophisticated markets that are structured and transparent in their functioning.

In India the market is still evolving. According to TRAI, there are 800 channels and 160 of these are pay channels. Out of 24.7 crore households in India, there are 14.7 crore TV households out of which 9.4 crores have access to cable TV and the rest only receive Doordarshan. Conditional Access – where you pay for the channels that you view and only those – has been promised for a decade or more, but not delivered. The cable lobby is simply too strong. Channels earn a fraction of the revenue that is collected by the cable operator from the household. The rest is not declared. In addition to under declaring the number of households in their locality, cable companies also demand a fat carriage fees for carrying the channel. The world of cable operators is still the proverbial ‘wild west’ – they rule their roost with an iron hand. Channels that push too hard do not get seen.

Most channels rely on advertising as the main source of revenue. The rates they can command from the client is dependent on only one metric – the TRP that is monitored and reported by a monopoly agency TAM, owned by international giant A.C.Nielsen. They monitor 8150 households across India and the viewership ratings are based on these households. In each of these households a meter is fitted to the TV set. The family is given a remote control. Each family member is identified by gender & age by a button on the remote. While watching TV, they are supposed to push their button followed by the channel number. If it sounds complex and unintuitive, it is. Not only that, it relies too much on manual inputs and prone to error. But, it is the only system we have for monitoring viewership. The advertising budget that is spent on various TV channels is determined by ratings..

There have been murmurs and sporadic raised voices for over a decade on the system of monitoring. There have been questions asked about the sample size, about large states being left out, about representation. There have been accusations of fudging the ratings. It was rumoured that for certain large sums of money you would get a list of households that form the sample. In turn you would give money to these households to indicate on the remote that they were watching the channel or programme that you represented.

Ratings always mattered, but, as competition grew, every fraction of a rating point counted. The agencies are squeezing channels on advertising rates. It is estimated that over 80% of all Channels are making losses. It is against this background that NDTV has taken on AC Nielsen in a court case on fudged ratings. And this has opened a floodgate of complaints across broadcasters.

This is an opportunity for broadcasters, agencies & clients for creating a robust rating system that is comprehensive, representative, allows for customer choice and is trusted by all industry stakeholders. It is about allowing niches to be created that can be targeted with appropriate content. It is about allowing diverse voices to be heard. And, that can only be good for the industry as a whole.

DNA Column – the Ordeal doesn’t end with Molestation

Articles, Gender Issues, India, Media, News, Society 9 Responses »

Jul 232012

My column in today’s DNA

On a slow news day, a girl in Guwahati got molested by a gang of men, who saw nothing wrong in groping, pinching, punching, stripping, feeling up and mauling the victim. In fact, they seemed to take great pleasure in it. A news camera crew captured the act in full gory detail; every nuance of the violence perpetuated on the victim was captured as was every hand movement, every expression; as was the pride and joy shown by the molesters in hearing the helpless girl cry for help. The mob action seemed like a rite of passage – something that got the molesters their official entry into the club of Machismo. They had done it – succeeded in stripping a girl of all her dignity, in public space; in front of cameras and a gawking public. Without censure. Without being stopped. It finally ended half an hour after it started when the police rescued the victim. But, the ordeal did not end with the molestation. The news channel decided to air the tape without masking her face. The footage was uploaded to YouTube and went viral. Mainstream media that had completely ignored theAssamfloods for being unworthy of national airtime went to town with the story.

A study conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said that amongst the G20 nations, India, was the hardest country for a woman to live in; worse than Saudi Arabia. In the Danger Poll, also conducted by the same foundation, Indiawas the 4^th most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. The first three on that list wereAfghanistan,Somalia andPakistan.India lags behind on every count that matters. It starts with birth. Rather, it starts by terminating birth. The Poll estimated that there are 50 million girls missing because of female foeticide. A 100 million women and girls are trafficked. 44.5% of all women are married off before the age of 18 – it means education comes to a grinding halt, dreams of economic independence remain unfulfilled, and lifelong servitude in a feudal set up beckons. The woman neither knows nor understands rights that she has as an independent citizen of the country. She is relegated to being part of a traditional society – which may have its’ own charms- but has never been woman friendly.

Public molestation of a woman is not new. It is to teach her and the men in her family a lesson. ‘Look I am doing this to you and yours – and you are powerless to stop me’. We have grown up hearing about Draupadi and her ordeal. Lost in a game of dice by her husband, dragged out of her chambers by her brother-in law, Dushasan , propositioned in an open court by another brother-in-law Duryodhan, she is told to take off her clothes. When she refuses the ‘vastraharan’ begins. An entire court of ‘Noble’ men stand by and do nothing while a woman is being stripped.. Draupadi was the daughter of a king, wife of another and mother to future kings, dressed modestly and visiting her in-laws. Theoretically it can’t get safer than this, yet none of this prevents her ordeal. It literally takes a deus ex machina to save her. But the story doesn’t end there. Draupadi vows not to tie her hair until it has been washed in the blood of Dushasan. Bhima swears to kill every single Kaurav prince to avenge the assault on Draupadi, to tear open Dushashan’s chest and drink his blood, and to break the thigh of Duryodhan who asked Draupadi to sit on his lap. It takes around fourteen years to fulfil all the vows – but fulfilled they are. Retribution for that act of molestation is bloody, brutal and complete.

In a modern world breaking thighs & tearing chests is not allowed nor is personal retribution. So what is the punishment for ‘molestation’? Two years. The men will spend a maximum of two years in prison and probably make bail after a year. The victim on the other hand has been handed a life sentence. What we saw in Guwahati is not new – it is a story mirrored in various cities, towns and villages. It may not happen in front of news cameras but it does happen. And, it happens for only one reason – the perpetuators know they can get away with it .That needs to stop. There needs to be smarter and better policing – surveillance cameras, more manpower on the streets, linked databases. There need to be time bound trials. Finally, where there is crime, there had better be punishment. Hard jail time. Biting monetary fines. Make the punishment hurt. Else arm every woman in India with a gun and teach her how to use it.