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The First Cosmic Bits that were Caught in Webb’s Web

Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. High-resolution imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope combined with a natural effect known as gravitational lensing made this finely detailed image possible.

Image Credit: NASA and STScI

Professor Avi Loeb, head of the Galileo Project and founding Director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Project writes about the first pictures from NASA’s revolutionary James Webb Telescope. This article is published earlier in Medium.

From its vantage point L2, located a million miles away from Earth, the Webb Telescope just started to unravel new insights about the Universe. What is most exciting about the latest data caught in the “spider web” of the 18 hexagonal segments of its primary mirror?

The new Webb data shows evidence for water vapor, hazes and some previously unseen clouds, on the gas-giant planet WASP-96b. The planet’s mass is half of Jupiter’s mass and it transits in front of its star every 3.4 days, allowing a small fraction of the star’s light to pass through its atmosphere and reveal its composition to Webb’s instruments. This planet is not expected to host life-as-we-know-it because it does not possess a thin atmosphere on top of a rocky surface, like the conditions on Earth.

The image shows numerous red arcs stretched around a cluster of galaxies, named SMACS 0723, located about 5 billion light years away. NASA-administrator Nelson noted: “Mr President, we’re looking back more than 13 billion years”, an unusual statement to be heard in the household of DC politics which makes plans on a timescale of four years.

But there was also a “deep image” of the cosmos that was released in a dedicated White House event, hosted by President Biden and vice-President Harris. The image shows numerous red arcs stretched around a cluster of galaxies, named SMACS 0723, located about 5 billion light years away. NASA-administrator Nelson noted: “Mr President, we’re looking back more than 13 billion years”, an unusual statement to be heard in the household of DC politics which makes plans on a timescale of four years.

These amazingly sharp arcs were observed thanks to the unprecedented angular resolution of Webb’s optics. They feature ancient small galaxies from early cosmic times which happened to lie behind the cluster so that their images were deformed by the effect of gravitational lensing. Clusters of galaxies, like SMACS 0723, contain a concentration of about a thousand Milky-Way-like galaxies, buzzing around at five per cent the speed of light or a thousand miles per second. Most of the cluster mass is made of dark matter, an invisible substance which fills the dark gaps in Webb’s image. The luminous cores of galaxies are like fish swimming in a container filled with transparent water, bound together by gravity — which serves as the “aquarium” walls.

Ever since Fritz Zwicky observed clusters of galaxies in 1933, we know that most of the matter in them is invisible. While Zwicky inferred that dark matter must exist in order to bind the fast-moving galaxies, the same gravitational potential well can be probed directly through its lensing effect on background galaxies.

The Webb Telescope achieves unprecedented sensitivity to the faint galaxies that produced the first light during the dark ages of the Universe, hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. Its unprecedented ability to peer back in time stems from its observing site far away from the glowing terrestrial atmosphere, the area of its “light bucket” being 7.3 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, and its high sensitivity to the infrared band into which starlight from early cosmic times is redshifted.

In its released “deep image”, the 10 billion dollars Webb Telescope, is aided by the natural gravitational lens of SMACS 0723, graciously provided to us for free. The cluster lens magnifies distant sources behind it by bending their light. The combination of the Webb telescope and the cluster’s magnifying power allows us to peer deeper into the universe than ever before.

In a paper from 1936 titled “Lens-Like Action of a Star by the Deviation of Light in the Gravitational Field”, Albert Einstein predicted that a background star could be gravitationally lensed into a ring if it is located precisely behind a foreground star. This “Einstein ring” is an outcome of the cylindrical symmetry around the lens. A cluster of galaxies is not perfectly symmetric and so sources behind its center are lensed into a partial ring, or an arc — as evident from Webb’s image.

In 1992, I entered the neighboring office of Andy Gould, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where Einstein wrote his lensing paper. Andy worked extensively on gravitational lensing by compact objects, considering the possibility that the dark matter is made of them. I asked Andy whether he ever considered the contribution of a planet to the lensing effect by a star. Andy responded promptly: “planets have a negligible mass relative to their host star and so their impact on the combined lensing effect would be negligible.” I accepted the verdict of the local lensing expert and retreated quietly to my office. Ten minutes later, Andy showed up in my office and said: “I was wrong … the Einstein ring radius of planets scales as the square root of their mass and so their effect is measurable and could serve as a new method for discovering planets around distant stars. Let’s write a paper about that.” And so we did in a paper titled: “Discovering Planetary Systems Through Gravitational Microlenses.” Today, gravitational lensing is the main method by which planets are discovered around distant stars where the transit method is less practical because the stars are too faint.

This anecdote from thirty years ago weaves together the themes of the two Webb images that were just unraveled.

A decade ago, I wrote two textbooks, one titled: “How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form?”, and the second co-authored with my former graduate student, Steve Furlanetto, titled “The First Galaxies in the Universe”. Both books described theoretical expectations for what the Webb telescope might find in the context of the scientific story of Genesis: “Let there be light”. Last year, I co-authored a textbook with my former postdoc, Manasvi Lingam, titled: “Life in the Cosmos”. There is no doubt that I would be glad if the forecasts in these textbooks will be confirmed by future Webb data. But even better, I would be thrilled if Webb’s data will surprise us with new discoveries that were never anticipated.

Feature Image Credit: NASA

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image.

July 15, 2022
The New World and the Ukraine-Russia Breadbasket – Book review of “Oceans of Grain”

To understand the rise and fall of empires, we must follow the paths travelled by grain—along rivers, between ports, and across seas. In Oceans of Grain, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson reveals how the struggle to dominate these routes transformed the balance of world power. Early in the nineteenth century, imperial Russia fed much of Europe through the booming port of Odessa, on the Black Sea in Ukraine. But following the US Civil War, tons of American wheat began to flood across the Atlantic, and food prices plummeted. This cheap foreign grain spurred the rise of Germany and Italy, the decline of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and the European scramble for empire. It was a crucial factor in the outbreak of the First World War and the Russian Revolution.
A powerful new interpretation, Oceans of Grain shows that amid the great powers’ rivalries, there was no greater power than control of grain.

Thomas Grennes reviews the book ‘Oceans of Grain’ by Scott Reynolds Nelson. The book is very timely, given the emerging food crisis as a result of the blockade of the Black Sea ports that hampers the export of grain from the major exporters, Ukraine and Russia.

Book Title – Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World

Author – Scott Reynolds Nelson

Publisher – Basic Books

Page Count – 368 pages

Date Published – Feb 22, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has reminded the world that war in Europe isn’t just the stuff of history books. It also demonstrates how war can affect the world’s food supply, as both Ukraine and Russia have long been major global suppliers of wheat and other grains.

This makes the new book Oceans of Grain, by University of Georgia history professor and Guggenheim fellow Scott Reynolds Nelson, especially timely. Nelson has written five other history-oriented books, including the award-winning Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend and A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of American Financial Disasters.

Oceans of Grain covers some 14,000 years of human history, beginning with the origin of bread, with an emphasis on the era in which the modern wheat market developed, from the 18th century to the end of World War I.

New World food / The book focuses on the breadbaskets of the United States, Russia, and Ukraine, though it also gives a little attention to Canada, Argentina, and Australia, and passing mention of South and East Asia. Nelson often writes as if Russia and Ukraine are one land, in part because the border between them has shifted many times throughout history. His use of the word “grain” is nearly synonymous with “wheat,” though he does offer limited discussions of corn (maize), oats, barley, and rice.

Grain has been crucial to human life for millennia. Expressions such as “Bread is the staff of life” and prayers such as “Give us this day our daily bread” illustrate the historical importance of bread and wheat. Technical change that has raised productivity in grain production has increased the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people, and negative shocks to the grain sector have caused crises and wars.

Expansion of grain production in the 19th century to the then-newly settled regions of the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Australia greatly benefited grain consumers around the world, but it harmed traditional producers in Russia and elsewhere. The benefits for Europe were previously described in a 1997 Journal of Economic History article by Kevin H. O’Rourke as the “distributional effects of Christopher Columbus.” According to O’Rouke, transport innovations such as steamships and railroads “exported New World land to Europe, embodied in New World food.”

Geography and transport / Geography has been crucial to the location of grain production and the pattern of world grain trade. The fertile chernozem (Russian for “black soil”) of Ukraine, parts of Russia, and neighboring lands were conducive to early grain production. Ancient “black paths” used by oxcart drivers led from the interior of Ukraine to Black Sea ports. Centuries ago, grain was shipped through the Turkish Straits on both ends of the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean Sea and then onto the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations along the Mediterranean. Control of those straits, the Bosporus and Dardanelles, has long been crucial and has led to many wars involving Russia and Turkey. Even today, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, access to the Turkish Straits by Russian ships is a crucial military issue.

Transport innovations have had a major effect on the pattern of world trade. Improvements in navigation and sailing ships were followed by the transition to steamships. The development of Odessa on the Black Sea was a major contributor to Ukrainian grain exports. Grain ports have been described as the children of empires, and Nelson points out the Greek term emporion — “marketplace” — is the etymological root of both “emporium” and “empire.”

Other innovations also played important roles. Improvements in communication, such as the telegraph and undersea cables, aided long-distance trade. Improvements in explosives (nitroglycerin) contributed to the construction of deep-water harbors that can handle bigger ships. Better explosives also helped build the Suez Canal. Completed in 1869, it reduced travel time from London to Calcutta from six months to 30 days. The shortcut from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean permitted the bypassing of the southern tip of Africa.

Grain policy / Government policies have had an important effect on the pattern of world grain trade.

Russian Tsarina Catherine II (1762–1796), better known as Catherine the Great, sought to develop a more grandiose Russian empire by making the country a major grain exporter. Russia’s partitioning of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth added territory from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south that included fertile wheat-growing land.

According to Nelson, Catherine was influenced by the French Physiocrats, led by François Quesnay, who thought that agriculture was the main source of wealth. Catherine believed that Russia’s becoming a large grain producer would free its citizens from having to rely on other countries for their basic food. She also admired the benefits received by Poles from transporting grain down the Vistula River to Gdańsk. By increasing Russian production and exports of grain from Black Sea ports through the Turkish Straits, Catherine expected to convert Constantinople to “Tsargrad.”

She promoted Russian wheat production in various ways, including increasing the power of landlords over serfs that made the serfs more like slaves. She also followed the anti-Semitism of earlier tsars who restricted Jews from living in old Russia. Jews were underrepresented as grain growers and overrepresented as middlemen in the grain sector. According to Nelson, this made it easy for Catherine to believe they were “leeches” who profited off the work of others. She limited the area where Jews could live to an area called the Pale of Settlement, which mostly came from land recently acquired from the partition of Poland–Lithuania. The Pale included Ukraine, with its rich black soil for growing grain, and Odessa was founded during her reign. Adding the Jewish population of the Pale made Catherine the ruler of the largest Jewish population in the world.

A grain “invasion” / At the time of Catherine, the United States had not become an important grain exporter. But after 1865, the American Great Plains were settled, the U.S. rail network expanded, and ships and communication improved. Those innovations contributed to the United States becoming a major producer and exporter of grain.

O’Rourke’s 1997 article described the expansion of U.S. exports as a “grain invasion” of Europe. Train tracks substituted for the ancient black paths, carrying the Plains’ bounty to U.S. ports and then onto Europe. Development of multinational grain companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus (known collectively as ABCD) also contributed to a major change in the pattern of trade. The migration of labor from Europe to the United States and other emerging exporters aided the production of the newly settled farmland.

This grain invasion increased the world supply of land devoted to wheat. That harmed European landowners, and they sought protection from their governments. German landowners successfully lobbied Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who responded with protectionism in the form of tariffs. He was supported in this by ultranationalist politician and history professor Heinrich von Treitschke, who blamed cheap imports for the fall of the Greek and Roman empires.

This grain invasion increased the world supply of land devoted to wheat. Russian leaders, including Prime Minister Sergei Witte and Finance Minister Ivan Vyshnegradsky, sought to regain Russia’s export prominence. They promoted a long and costly railroad expansion through Siberia to Port Arthur in Manchuria, believing it would become a major port for Russian grain exports to the Pacific. Japan resented the Russian encroachment in their neighborhood and defeated Russia in the Russo–Japanese War of 1905. The defeat was an embarrassment to the government of Witte and Vyshnegradsky, and the Marxists used it in their calls for revolution. Frequently stated goals of the Bolshevik revolutionaries were “Peace, Land, and Bread.” Nelson suggests that the humiliating military defeat may have contributed to Russia’s participation in World War I and drove Russia into revolution.

The United Kingdom was a prominent exception to grain protectionism. Parliament did impose the protectionist Corn Laws (“corn” in British English encompasses all grains) in 1815, but the beginning of the Irish Potato Famine (1845–1852) led to the laws’ repeal in 1846. British grain production fell as a result, but the broader economy prospered. Land devoted to grain production decreased and real wages rose. Many British cities, including London and Liverpool, doubled in size between 1845 and 1860. European workers gained from greater access to grain, and European socialist parties generally supported free grain imports.

Parvus / Nelson illustrates the connection between developments in the grain sector and politics by following the colorful life of Israel Lazarevich Helphand (sometimes spelled “Gelfand”; 1867–1924), who used the pseudonym “Alexander Lvovich Parvus” or just “Parvus.” He was the odd combination of a widely-read journalist with a doctoral degree in political economy from the University of Basel, a Marxist theorist and practitioner, and a wealthy grain trader. According to Nelson, Parvus was the thinker whom Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg most admired. Parvus was born in a shtetl in Belarus and his family moved to Odessa, where his father became a grain trader. Odessa was also the home of David Leontyevich Bronstein, who raised and traded grain. His son, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, would later take the pseudonym “Leon Trotsky.”

Parvus has been rediscovered recently, and he was the subject of recent television series in both Russia (“Demon of the Revolution,” 2017) and Turkey (“The Last Emperor,” 2017–2020). Nelson claims that both series distorted and glorified Parvus’s true role in the Russian Revolution.

Conclusion / Oceans of Grain is a good read. It is imaginative and bold in suggesting that shocks to the grain sector may have contributed to wars and revolutions. Relevant data are usually presented to support the hypotheses. Even though they are not always convincing, they do stimulate thought.

There are inevitable omissions, but all good stories must leave out some details. Nelson’s extensive focus on the emergence of U.S. grain production and exports is appropriate given the resulting negative effects on European grain producers and positive effects on European grain consumers. However, his limited attention to Canada, Argentina, and Australia is disappointing because they contributed to those effects on Europe. Failing to examine the competing producers in some detail could exaggerate the effects of American grain exports to Europe.

The current Russian invasion of Ukraine certainly gives this book special relevance. Putin aspires to control the territory of the old Russian Empire, and he considers Russia and Ukraine inseparable. Nelson tells the story of how the combined Russia/Ukraine once dominated grain trade with Europe, and how the United States and other newly settled grain exporters successfully challenged that dominance. Russia and Ukraine remain among the world’s largest wheat exporters today. The fertile black soil north of the Black Sea continues to be a major source of wheat and daily bread for millions of people.

This review was published earlier by Cato Institute.

Feature Image Credit: www.gtreview.com

July 13, 2022
On Metaverse & Geospatial Digital Twinning: Techno-Strategic Opportunities for India

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Abstract:

With the advent of satellite imagery and smartphone sensors, cartographic expertise has reached everyone’s pocket and we’re witnessing a software-isation of maps that will underlie a symbiotic relationship between our physical spaces and virtual environments. This extended reality comes with enormous economic, military, and technological potential. While there exist a range of technical, social and ethical issues still to be worked out – time and tide wait for no one is a metaphor well applied to the Metaverse and its development. This article briefly introduces the technological landscape, and then moves over to a discussion of Geospatial Digital Twinning and its techno-strategic utility and implications. We suggest that India should, continue on the existing dichotomy of Open Series and Defence Series Maps, initiate Geospatial Digital Twins of specific areas of interest as a pilot for the development, testing, and integration of national metaverse standards and rules. Further, a working group in collaboration with a body like NASSCOM needs to be formed to develop the architecture and norms that facilitate Indian economic and strategic interests through the Metaverse and other extended reality solutions.

Introduction

Cartographers argue that maps are value-laden images, which do not just represent a geographical reality but also become an essential tool for political discourse and military planning. Not surprisingly then, early scholars had termed cartography as a science of the princes. In fact, the history of maps is deeply intertwined with the emergence of the Westphalian nation-state itself, with the states being the primary sponsors of any cartographic activity in and around their territories[1].
Earlier the outcome of such activities even constituted secret knowledge, for example, it was the British Military Intelligence HQ in Shimla which ran and coordinated many of the cartographic activities for the British in the subcontinent[2]. Thus, given our post-independence love for Victorian institutions, until 2021 even Google Maps had remained an illegal service in India[3].

One of the key stressors which brought this long-awaited change in policy was the increased availability of relatively low-cost but high-resolution satellite imagery in open online markets. But this remote sensing is only one of the developments impacting modern mapmaking. A host of varied but converging technologies particularly Artificial Intelligence, advanced sensors, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and the increasing bandwidth for data transmission – are enabling a new kind of map. This new kind of map will not just be a model of reality, but rather a live and immersive simulation of reality. We can call it a Geospatial Digital Twin (GDT) – and it will be a 4D artefact, i.e. given its predictive component and temporal data assimilation, a user could also explore the hologram/VR through time and evaluate possible what-if scenarios.

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July 9, 2022
GST @ 5 Years: The Union Govt and States Can’t Ignore the Most Contentious Bits Any Longer

India’s goods and services tax (GST) regime was launched with much fanfare on July 1, 2017. It was marketed by many as the nation’s second ‘tryst with destiny’, a reform that would unify the country by creating a single market while ushering in excellent ease of doing business.

It was said that gross domestic product (GDP) would rise by 1% to 2%, inflation would decline with the elimination of the cascading effect and the ‘black economy’ would be checked. It was supposed to benefit backward states which are consuming states since GST is a last-point tax – collected where the final sale occurs. It was pitched as a win-win situation.

Government officials, writing on the occasion of the completion of five years of operation of GST, have enumerated the various benefits but admitted to some problems which they feel can be sorted out soon. The Congress has asked for a revamp of the GST since it is fundamentally flawed that a bit of tinkering cannot resolve. Many of the states have been expressing their concerns for some time, most recently in the just-concluded GST Council meeting.

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July 7, 2022
Hegemonic Regionalism (Indo-Pacific concept): As opposed to locally based Regional Cooperation (ASEAN and Bay of Bengal)

The late embracing of the Indo-Pacific concept by the United States further supports the position that it is being employed as a strategic instrument to counter a rising power and a potential challenger to its global quasi-hegemonic power position.

Based on a consideration of capabilities, the United States is currently the only country that can be described as a potential global hegemon. Certainly, there are a number of other countries that have the potential, based on their capabilities, of being candidates to become regional hegemons. Notably, China is among them, but Japan, India, and Brazil are also potential candidates, though their individual capacities vary widely and one could argue, based on capacities, that China takes the lead among them. With the implication that China becomes the main target of the de facto global hegemon, the other potential contenders must be kept in sight, as well. While most recent academic and non-academic discussions about global power transfer are focusing on rising countries, on potential challengers to the existing global hegemon, China in particular, a focus on how the existing quasi-global hegemon, the United States, is reacting to challenges to its dominance, to preserve its leading position and influence, seems almost completely missing. This lack of emphasis constitutes a rather critical issue, because when we focus on global or regional power competition, what should be of interest to analysts is not only the behaviour and strategy of a rising county, i.e., a potential challenger to an existing hegemon, but also to analyse the response of the existing hegemon, as well. After all, when it comes to issues of global and regional stability, the actions of both the existing hegemon and the potential challenger must be taken into account.

There is no doubt that an existing hegemon does not just ‘sit back’ and watch when its influence is challenged by a new contender for power. Even a declining hegemon will try to challenge a rising power contender, consequently, the potential for instability within the international system arises not only from a rising power but also from the actions of the country which possesses a quasi-hegemonic position, trying to defend its power position. In one of his earlier and most influential works, Mearsheimer (2001) points out that great powers always aim to maximise their share of power and are in constant competition with other power contenders, with the aim of maximising their own power. Therefore, the rise of a new competitor occurs in a dynamic context between the established and the rising hegemon. Ikenberry (2014) points out that, as the overwhelmingly global power once concentrated within the United States dispersed with the arrival of new power challengers in different parts of the world, new struggles over global rules and institutions are emerging. At the very least, as emphasised by Mearsheimer (2013), great powers do not trust one another, as they worry about other countries’ capabilities and intentions.

Not without reason, Mearsheimer (2013) argues that the United States did not and does not tolerate peer competitors, adding that the United States has demonstrated this clearly during the twentieth century.

For these reasons, we cannot expect that a hegemon will stay inactive when watching the rise of potential challengers. An established great power, holding an almost global hegemonic position as the United States does, has the capacity to respond to the challenges arising from power contenders, and there are clear indications, past and present, that it will act to preserve its dominant power position, even within an international system that has become more multilateral in comparison with the Cold War period. Not without reason, Mearsheimer (2013) argues that the United States did not and does not tolerate peer competitors, adding that the United States has demonstrated this clearly during the twentieth century. One just has to remember that in the late 1980s, when Japan was close to economically overtaking the United States. at the global level, various United States administrations actively worked against it, refusing Japan more decision-making rights within international organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, even though Japan had become a major donor to both organisations. Obviously, the previous Japanese challenge to the United States’ dominance was only economic. Neither will the United States allow other challengers to succeed in undermining its dominant position, even in distant regional settings. Mearsheimer (2001) reminds us that the dominant power will act at the regional level to ensure that no challenge to its own global position will take place, since the crucial task is to block potential peer competitors, even within distant regional settings.

When evaluating the influence of a hegemon it is worth remembering that this goes beyond a focus on military capabilities, even though such capabilities are essential, and include the hegemon’s ability to disguise its ambitions and interests by pretending that it provides global public goods, which in reality satisfy primarily its own interests. More importantly, as pointed out by Griffiths, O’Callaghan and Roach (2002), all hegemonic states enjoy ‘structural power’, which permits the hegemon to occupy a central position within its own system, as well as shape other states’ preferences. As emphasised by Kupchan (2014), a hegemon also strives to generate a normative and ideological dominance, in support of its power dominance. Indeed, Gilpin, in his seminal influential work on war and change, emphasises that a major power aims to create social structures to serve its hegemonic interests, consequently supporting its domineering position with rules, institutions, and organisational principles, supporting, indeed screening and protecting, its power position with normative dominance (Gilpin 1981).

one can also reasonably assume that when a hegemonic country introduces a new geopolitical or regional concept of space, such as the Indo-Pacific framework, will be of foremost importance to its own strategy of dominance. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific framework signals the re-mapping of geopolitical space, with little, if any, historical relevance.

By considering these arguments describing the behaviour of a typical hegemonic power, it is rather consistent to assume that a country, such as the United States, which holds a nearly global like hegemonic position, will use its position and capabilities to support its own power position in different regional settings so as to ward off any potential competitor. For this reason, one can also reasonably assume that when a hegemonic country introduces a new geopolitical or regional concept of space, such as the Indo-Pacific framework, will be of foremost importance to its own strategy of dominance. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific framework signals the re-mapping of geopolitical space, with little, if any, historical relevance. From a historical perspective, the Indian and Pacific Oceans have been perceived as separate maritime spaces. What marries them into one geopolitical space is an invented geopolitical strategy facilitating the strategic power interests of the existing hegemon. What is more, a hegemon or hegemon-like state will not introduce or favour a new geopolitical concept if it goes against its own strategic interests.

Indeed, from a United States perspective, the Indo-Pacific strategy not only re-strengthens, at least from a hegemonic perspective, its role within the older geopolitical concept of Asia-Pacific, but now extends this influence, from a conceptual perspective, to include the Indian Ocean, as well. One can further argue that the adoption of the Indo-Pacific approach by the United States comes at a time when we can observe considerable changes in the power configuration within East Asia (which encompasses Northeast and Southeast Asia) and to a lesser extent within South Asia. Certain changes in the regional power configuration, namely the rise of China – not only as an economic but increasingly as a military and especially as a maritime power – generate considerable challenges from the perspective of hegemonic power competition. While the strategic challenge that China, as a rising power, generates to the United States quasi hegemonic position is so far limited to a regional challenge, instead of a global challenge, still, based on hegemony theory, the existing hegemon cannot allow such a challenge to take place.

The late embracing of the Indo-Pacific concept by the United States further supports the position that it is being employed as a strategic instrument to counter a rising power and a potential challenger to its global quasi-hegemonic power position. We may remember that the origin of the Indo-Pacific concept is associated with the previous Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ concept. Shinzo Abe mentioned it as early as 2007 when addressing the Indian parliament and began frequently restating it from 2016 onwards. This was part of his intention that Japan should take a more active role in East Asia and beyond. As such, the Indo-Pacific concept was born out of the political-strategic considerations of a regional actor within East Asia. Only later, around 2018, did the United States become considerably interested in the concept, at a time when the potential challenges from rising countries increased – not only from China; one may also consider India’s rise in this context. In 2018, the United States administration even changed the name of its Pacific Command to United States Indo-Pacific Command to highlight its changing geopolitical perspective and to address the increasing regional challenges it faced from a rising China. Not without reason was the replacement of the previous Asia-Pacific concept with the Indo-Pacific concept aimed at integrating India, another rising power in Asia, more firmly with the hegemonic interests of the United States. In academic terms, one could argue that this may represent a strategy of accommodation, in which an existing hegemon accommodates a rising power by offering political and strategic space for that country. It is a strategy the United States followed previously with China until China started to become a too fundamental strategic challenge to the United States hierarchic position. One may wonder if this may also happen to India, once India becomes too powerful to be contained within a United States hegemonic project. However, for the time being, India seems to feel quite comfortable within the geopolitical space it has been offered by the existing quasi-global hegemon. As revealed by Paul T.V (2016) the strategy of accommodation is not only quite a challenging undertaking – as the hegemon has to offer political status, leadership responsibilities, and even a sphere of influence to a rising country – but in the long run the implications are that this will weaken, if not undermine, the hegemon’s own position, thus indicating the limitation of such a strategy. After all, a hegemon is rather unwilling to give up its dominant position voluntarily, though a strategy of accommodation may buy some time and allow it to employ a strategy of divide-and-rule by offering support to a potential weaker power contender when addressing the challenges of a more powerful contender. There can be no less doubt that the ongoing border conflicts between India and China and the emerging regional power competition between them facilitate India’s readiness to become increasingly enveloped in a stronger relationship with the United States which, by the way, contradicts India’s previous entrenched national strategy of non-alignment in global power politics. Consequently, drafting India into its power orbit enhances the United States’ strategic influence in regions where it is not even a resident power, like East, Southeast, or South Asia.

There can be no less doubt that the ongoing border conflicts between India and China and the emerging regional power competition between them facilitate India’s readiness to become increasingly enveloped in a stronger relationship with the United States which, by the way, contradicts India’s previous entrenched national strategy of non-alignment in global power politics.

Therefore, a hegemonic state will try to manipulate even distant regional settings in its favour, to arrest the rise of potential challengers to its dominant position, even by facilitating the introduction of a new geopolitical concept, like the Indo-Pacific, which ignores local perceptions of regional cooperation dynamics, the Bay of Bengal approach or ASEAN. While there are some claims that the Indo-Pacific approach does not represent a challenge to ASEAN, a position that is widely disputed, the more specific issue is that the Indo-Pacific approach does not contribute or offer support to those local-based regional cooperation processes from a conceptual perspective. Therefore, while one has to recognise that more recent regional cooperation processes within the Bay of Bengal are less dynamic for the time being, it does not mean that such a regional cooperation process is altogether missing. As stated by Amrith (2013), Asian economic connections led to renewed interest in the Bay of Bengal as a focus for regional cooperation. Indeed, BIMSTEC^[1] which was established in 1997, does provide focus on regional cooperation.

BIMSTEC creates political space for economic cooperation by addressing common challenges like underdevelopment. Consequently, offering a strategic vision for national development to its member countries, a focus fundamentally different from the geopolitical outlook of the Indo-Pacific regional hegemonic project, with its focus on military and especially maritime power distribution. Another crucial difference is that, while the Indo-Pacific strategy is a rather recent invention, regional recognition of the Bay of Bengal as a particular and unique geographic location for regional cooperation, particularly as a centre for trade and cultural migration, goes back centuries, if not millennia. As such, the Bay of Bengal commands a rich history as a historically recognised cultural and trade-inspired region. Yet, with geopolitical concepts based on hegemonic interests, such home-grown sources of regional cooperation are not recognised or supported only if they would fit the interests of the hegemon. It is evident that the Indo-Pacific concept, from a conceptual perspective, also ignores the ASEAN regional cooperation process. As such, the Indo-Pacific approach represents an artificial strategic overlay, not linked with local beads regional cooperation dynamics, even when a regional cooperation process is very well established, as is the case with ASEAN. With regard to the Indo-Pacific concept, ASEAN’s statement on the Indo-Pacific (ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific 2019) clearly indicates that the perception of the Indo-Pacific area is a contiguous geographic space is misleading and not appropriate, even though the two geopolitical spaces are geographically connected. Indeed, while the Bay of Bengal and the ASEAN regional cooperation favour regional cooperation characterised by horizontal relationships, facilitating the cooperation of countries within the region to address common challenges, the Indo-Pacific approach represent a vertical power arrangement, where a dominant power is projecting its influence onto the regional level.

However, it should not come as too much of a surprise that a hegemon’s regional strategy, which primarily focuses on supporting its own power interests, has little to say about regional cooperation processes initiated by the people living in that region. Indeed, a global acting hegemon has only a limited interest in the empowerment of independent regional cooperation projects, since they could signal the creation of a more independent political sphere. As Mearsheimer (2013) asserts, based on its superior standing and its need to defend this position, a hegemon has always an inclination to interfere in and re-order the political outlook of even distant regions. We may take into consideration what Mearsheimer (2013) made earlier, that the United States will ensure that it will dominate the commanding heights in Asia. For all these reasons, the Indo-Pacific approach should be recognised as the newest geopolitical strategy supporting the United States’ hegemonic position in Asia.

Bibliography

Mearsheimer, John J (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), W.W Norton & Company: New York

Mearsheimer, John J (2013) Structural Realism. In: Dunne T, Kurki M., Smith S (eds) International Relations Theories Discipline and Diversity, 3^rd ed., Oxford University Press: Oxford. pp. 77-93

Ikenberry, G. J. (2014) Introduction: power, order, and change in world politics. In: Ikenberry, G. J. (ed.) Power, order, and change in world politics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.1-16.

Griffiths, M, O’Callaghan T, Roach S T (2002) International Relations: The Key Concepts 2nd; Martin Griffiths, Routledge

Kupchan, C. A. (2014) Unpacking hegemony: the social foundations of hierarchical order. In: Ikenberry, G. J. (ed.) Power, order, and change in world politics. Cambridge, University Press Cambridge, pp. 19-60.

Gilpin, R. (2010) War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Paul T.V. (2016) The accommodation of rising powers in world politics. In: Paul, T. V. (ed.) Accommodating rising powers past, present, and future. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 3 32.

Amrith, S. S. (2013) Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The furies of nature and the fortunes of migrants By Sunil S. Amrith Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific 2019, available at: https://asean.org/asean-outlook-on-the-indo-pacific/

Notes

[1] BIMSTEC has seven members: Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

Feature Image credit: War on the Rocks

July 6, 2022
Higher Judiciary Needs to Take More Suo Motu Action

The higher judiciary must proactively exercise its powers to intervene suo motu to deal with a spate of incidents that rip the country’s social and communal fabric.

On 14 June, six former judges of the Supreme Court and different high courts, along with six senior advocates, urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu action on the recent cases of bulldozing and demolition of houses of protestors against the remarks about the Prophet made by spokespersons of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In the appeal, directly addressing state actions in Uttar Pradesh, the letter states:

[I]n its role as custodian of the Constitution, we … urge the Hon’ble Supreme Court to take immediate suo motu action to arrest the deteriorating law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, specifically involving the high-handedness of the police and state authorities, and the brutal clampdown on the fundamental rights of citizens…

We hope and trust the Supreme Court will rise to the occasion and not let the citizens and the Constitution down at this critical juncture.

This may seem like an unprecedented appeal coming from legal luminaries, but action by the Supreme Court is well within the judicial realm, as the higher judiciary in India has the mandate to initiate proceedings on its own, without being petitioned by a claimant or party.

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June 28, 2022
Roe overturned: What you need to know about the American Supreme Court abortion decision

Despite the terminal decline of the American Empire or the Deep State, the American Republic still remains an inspiration for people across the world, for reasons of its vibrant democracy and peoples’ liberty ensured through robust institutions, law and order, and the strong constitutional process. To paraphrase Johan Galtung – ‘the US is a fabulous Republic but a terrible empire’. But even that seems to be changing as society’s democratic values, ethics, and morals are in serious decline. The rise of right wing politics has led to a decline in the standards and values, and in the independence of institutions most notably the Judiciary. Separation of the Church and the State is a core tenet of the American Constitution and governance. That seems to be compromised as many judges bring their personal and religious beliefs in to their work. This was in demonstration in the American Supreme Court’s judgement that ends one of the most critical fundamental rights of women to their bodies and their choices for abortion.

After half a century, Americans’ constitutional right to get an abortion has been overturned by the Supreme Court.The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – handed down on June 24, 2022 – has far-reaching consequences. There is a strong religious influence to this judgement. This could influence many other countries, particularly in an environment where right wing politics, influenced by narrow religious overtones, is on the upswing in many countries across the world, including the world’s largest Democracy, India. Fortunately, India’s abortion laws are governed by medical advice and womens’ safety (and so it is termed MTP – Medical termination of Pregnancy). The MTP Act of 1971 was further liberalised through an Amendment Act of 2021 wherein the gestation limit for abortions is raised from 20 to 24 weeks. While India’s laws are considerate by supporting abortion decision to rape and incest survivors, the American judgement will deny this freedom or choice to the victim women.

Nicole Huberfeld and Linda C. McClain, health law and constitutional law experts at Boston University, explain what just happened, and what happens next. This article was published earlier in The Conversation. TPF is happy to republish this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives 4.0-International (CC BY-ND 4.0).

– TPF Editorial Team

What did the Supreme Court rule?

The Supreme Court decided by a 6-3 majority to uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In doing so, the justices overturned two key decisions protecting access to abortion: 1973’s Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decided in 1992.

The court’s opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, said that the Constitution does not mention abortion. Nor does the Constitution guarantee abortion rights via another right, the right to liberty.

The opinion rejected Roe’s and Casey’s argument that the constitutional right to liberty included an individual’s right to privacy in choosing to have an abortion, in the same way that it protects other decisions concerning intimate sexual conduct, such as contraception and marriage. According to the opinion, abortion is “fundamentally different” because it destroys fetal life.

The court’s narrow approach to the concept of constitutional liberty is at odds with the broader position it took in the earlier Casey ruling, as well as in a landmark marriage equality case, 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges. But the majority said that nothing in their opinion should affect the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Alito’s opinion also rejected the legal principle of “stare decisis,” or adhering to precedent. Supporters of the right to abortion argue that the Casey and Roe rulings should have been left in place as, in the words of the Casey ruling, reproductive rights allow women to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation.”

The ruling does not mean that abortion is banned throughout the U.S. Rather, arguments about the legality of abortion will now play out in state legislatures, where, Alito noted, women “are not without electoral or political power.”

States will be allowed to regulate or prohibit abortion subject only to what is known as “rational basis” review – this is a weaker standard than Casey’s “undue burden” test. Under Casey’s undue burden test, states were prevented from enacting restrictions that placed substantial obstacles in the path of those seeking abortion. Now, abortion bans will be presumed to be legal as long as there is a “rational basis” for the legislature to believe the law serves legitimate state interests.

In a strenuous dissent, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor faulted the court’s narrow approach to liberty and challenged its disregard both for stare decisis and for the impact of overruling Roe and Casey on the lives of women in the United States. The dissenters said the impact of the decision would be “the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.” They also expressed deep concern over the ruling’s effect on poor women’s ability to access abortion services in the U.S.

Where does this decision fit into the history of reproductive rights in the U.S.?

This is a huge moment. The court’s ruling has done what reproductive rights advocates feared for decades: It has taken away the constitutional right to privacy that protected access to abortion.

This decision was decades in the making. Thirty years ago when Casey was being argued, many legal experts thought the court was poised to overrule Roe. Then, the court had eight justices appointed by Republican presidents, several of whom indicated readiness to overrule in dissenting opinions.

Instead, Republican appointees Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter upheld Roe. They revised its framework to allow more state regulation throughout pregnancy and weakened the test for evaluating those laws. Under Roe’s “strict scrutiny” test, any restriction on the right to privacy to access an abortion had to be “narrowly tailored” to further a “compelling” state interest. But Casey’s “undue burden” test gave states wider latitude to regulate abortion.

Even before the Casey decision, abortion opponents in Congress had restricted access for poor women and members of the military greatly by limiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services.

In recent years, states have adopted numerous restrictions on abortion that would not have survived Roe’s tougher “strict scrutiny” test. Even so, many state restrictions have been struck down in federal courts under the undue burden test, including bans on abortions prior to fetal viability and so-called “TRAP” – targeted regulation of abortion provider – laws that made it harder to keep clinics open.

President Donald Trump’s pledge to appoint “pro-life” justices to federal courts – and his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices – finally made possible the goal of opponents of legal abortion: overruling Roe and Casey.

What happens next?

Even before Dobbs, the ability to access abortion was limited by a patchwork of laws across the United States. Republican states have more restrictive laws than Democratic ones, with people living in the Midwest and South subject to the strongest limits.

Thirteen states have so-called “trigger laws,” which greatly restrict access to abortion. These will soon go into effect now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe and Casey, requiring only state attorney general certification or other action by a state official.

Nine states have pre-Roe laws never taken off the books that significantly restrict or ban access to abortion. Altogether, nearly half of states will restrict access to abortion through a variety of measures like banning abortion from six weeks of pregnancy – before many women know they are pregnant – and limiting the reasons abortions may be obtained, such as forbidding abortion in the case of fetal anomalies.

Meanwhile, 16 states and the District of Columbia protect access to abortion in a variety of ways, such as state statutes, constitutional amendments or state Supreme Court decisions.

None of the states that limit abortion access currently criminalize the pregnant person’s action. Rather, they threaten health care providers with civil or criminal actions, including loss of their license to practice medicine.

Some states are creating “safe havens” where people can travel to access an abortion legally. People have already been traveling to states like Massachusetts from highly restrictive states.

The court’s decision may drive federal action, too.

The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which protects health care providers and pregnant people seeking abortion, but Senate Republicans have blocked the bill from coming up for a vote. Congress could also reconsider providing limited Medicaid payment for abortion, but such federal legislation also seems unlikely to succeed.

President Joe Biden could use executive power to instruct federal agencies to review existing regulations to ensure that access to abortion continues to occur in as many places as possible. Congressional Republicans could test the water on nationwide abortion bans. While such efforts are likely to fail, these efforts could cause confusion for people who are already vulnerable.

The Supreme Court’s rolling back a right that has been recognized for 50 years puts the U.S. in the minority of nations, most of which are moving toward liberalization.

What does this mean for people in America seeking an abortion?

Unintended pregnancies and abortions are more common among poor women and women of color, both in the U.S. and around the world.

Research shows that people have abortions whether lawful or not, but in nations where access to abortion is limited or outlawed, women are more likely to suffer negative health outcomes, such as infection, excessive bleeding and uterine perforation. Those who must carry a pregnancy to full term are more likely to suffer pregnancy-related deaths.

The state-by-state access to abortion resulting from this decision means many people will have to travel farther to obtain an abortion. And distance will mean fewer people will get abortions, especially lower-income women – a fact the Supreme Court itself recognized in 2016.

But since 2020, medication abortion – a two-pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol – has been the most common method of ending pregnancy in the U.S. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated this shift, as it drove the Food and Drug Administration to make medication abortions more available by allowing doctors to prescribe the pills through telemedicine and permitting medication to be mailed without in-person consultation.

Many states that restrict access to abortion also are trying to prevent medication abortion. But stopping telehealth providers from mailing pills will be a challenge. Further, because the FDA approved this regimen, states will be contradicting federal law, setting up conflict that may lead to more litigation.

The Supreme Court’s rolling back a right that has been recognized for 50 years puts the U.S. in the minority of nations, most of which are moving toward liberalization. Nevertheless, even though abortion is seen by many as essential health care, the cultural fight will surely continue.

Featured Image Credit: Evening Standard

June 26, 2022
Ukraine Crisis and India’s Rejection of Western Binary Construct

“India has already chosen a side, its own, where it is happy, willing and most importantly capable of staying put”

The current crisis in Ukraine has, or at least threatened to, shift the focus away from two equally urgent geopolitical conundrums – the Taliban usurping power in Afghanistan and China increasing its assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. One almost gets the feeling that the timings of these events couldn’t have been better scripted. Needless to say, all three of them are intertwined in a complex web of events where the major world players are looking to outmanoeuvre each other. These events hold serious ramifications for India, a country which under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has looked to continuously raise its international profile as a major and responsible power in the region. Out of the three, India is a serious stakeholder in the Afghan equation and the Indo-Pacific construct, with even the Ukraine crisis putting the world’s focus on India.

Derek Grossman, writing for the Foreign Policy magazine, observes that due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing crisis, “Modi’s multipolar Moment Has Arrived”. He even sees India as ‘the clear beneficiary of Russia’s war’. Grossman says that by not condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and refusing to toe the Western line in sanctioning Moscow, India has in fact elevated its global stature. He suggests each of the major powers from the US to China to Russia has been vying to have India on its ‘side’. This assumption is not limited to just Grossman alone but many Western analysts assume that India is vying for a side. But this is exactly where Grossman fails to understand the basic objective of India’s foreign policy. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s remarks at the recent GLOBESEC 2022 Bratislava Forum throw light on this ‘misunderstanding’ on the part of Grossman and analysts of his ilk. Jaishankar, to a question regarding the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that in case India must pick a side, who India will side with – the US or China, quipped “I don’t accept that India has to join either the US axis or the China axis. We are one-fifth of the world’s population, the fifth or sixth-largest economy in the world, and India is entitled to have its own side and make her own choices devoid of cynical transactions but based on India’s values and interests.” In the same forum, he also remarked that India is not “sitting on the fence” on the Ukraine issue (a reference to Biden’s remark of India being ‘shaky’) and is in fact merely “sitting on its ground”. Jaishankar’s remarks emphasize India’s policy of strategic autonomy and of India not being a lackey of any power or axis. Meaning India has already chosen a side, its own, where it is happy, willing and most importantly capable of staying put.

“Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.”

But what Grossman does get right is in his usage of the term ‘Multipolar’. India indeed views the world as multipolar today. Instead of clinging to either pole of the binary world order, India desires to be one of the poles itself. So, then what explains the West’s adamancy or incapability to understand India? Even this has been partly answered by Jaishankar himself as he says, “Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” And this is exactly why I mentioned Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific at the very outset. It is not to say that an India desiring to be a globally recognised power shouldn’t be concerned about Ukraine, but to understand the fact that, for India, a “messy” US withdrawal from Afghanistan and an ever-aggressive China lurking large on its borders are far greater challenges that cannot be met by choosing sides, rather India has to meet those challenges on its own strength. India simply doesn’t have the luxury of joining Axis A against Axis B or vice versa. Among many other things, India needs Russia to balance out China and for its strategic interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia; India needs the US to cement its role in the Indo-Pacific and create a strong deterrence against China; while India also needs to partner with China and Russia in climate change politics as well as limit Western dominance over the global financial system.

But it is also true that today, India’s strategic interests find greater convergence with that of the US, ranging from countering extremism in the Af-Pak region to checking China’s rise and securing a free and open Indo-Pacific with the help of “like-minded” nations in the region like Japan and Australia in the QUAD grouping. With regards to Russia, relations between the two traditional partners have cooled down a little especially because of Russia’s hobnobbing with Pakistan to secure its interests in Afghanistan and India’s growing ties to the US. Given the fact that Russia is speculated to become increasingly dependent on China as the war in Ukraine wages on, India’s manoeuvrability stands even more limited. Ever since the start of the war, India has tirelessly tried to explain to its Western counterparts the need to re-focus on the Indo-Pacific. Perhaps the bigger challenge for the democratic world is China’s unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the region. Russia’s threat is largely military in nature and is a headache majorly for its European neighbours. But the Chinese threat is global and all-encompassing ranging from economic to military to security to cultural. Additionally, for India, the Taliban in power next door doesn’t evoke any pleasant memories as anti-India forces might be on the loose given the Taliban’s proximity to Pakistan and its ties with anti-India forces.

India must solidly guard against being labelled in any camp and should steadfastly pursue its own path. India’s recent actions of abstentions in the UN against Russian aggression at the same time as Prime Minister Modi making a whirlwind tour of Europe to calm Western nerves augur well for its strategic objectives. The signing of the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in the recently held QUAD summit in Tokyo also serves India well vis-à-vis China. A recent visit of an Indian delegation to Afghanistan, ostensibly to oversee aid distribution, suggests that New Delhi may be willing to work with the Taliban regime, thus providing the latter with some legitimacy and the former some flexibility. To be recognised as a major global power, India should de-link from all geopolitical binaries and work towards becoming the Third Pole, maybe taking a cue from the Himalayas.

Feature Image Credits: Economic Times

June 24, 2022
Is the sheen of overseas higher education still compelling?

We may not have easy and clear answers as to when, why, and how Indian students began going abroad to study — particularly in the realm of higher education, but this process has been on for generations. It is essential to draw attention to the fact that ancient India has had at least two reputed ‘universities’, Nalanda and Taxila (the erstwhile Takshashila now located in Pakistan), which indeed attracted students from outside the subcontinent.

Overseas education is a centuries-old phenomenon in India. Quality of education, variety of courses, and comparatively low fees are some of the influencing factors

While during the ancient times the concept, as well as the content of education, was quite at variance and different from what evolved and spread widely during the modern period, the urge to seek knowledge has been ubiquitous and pervasive right from the time institutionalised form of imparting education emerged. However, we do have to recognise and acknowledge that ‘education’ in some form or the other has always been the sine qua non throughout the existence of Homo sapiens, howsoever family- or community-driven, and informal it may have been, and irrespective of the level of economic and socio-cultural development of a given society in any part of the world.

The very first three ‘modern’ universities, namely Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, got established in India during the colonial period in 1857, though some undergraduate degree colleges did precede the establishment of these universities in the three presidencies of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. For those aspiring for a higher degree, a kind of avenue existed, in general, in the British universities, because of the colonial scenario, though it was not uncommon for some to go to universities in the United States too.

Thus, ‘studying abroad’ — that magic phrase in educational circles today — is not really a recent phenomenon; it has been an educational trajectory for at least some sections of students in India for at least 150 years.

Those who could afford paid for these overseas ventures, and for the less privileged but talented scholarships came in handy. Today, however, it has become rather easy to obtain bank loans which many are able to pay back given the rise in the income of both the lower classes as well as the middle classes. Also, quite a few philanthropic organisations are coming forward to disburse scholarships as well as loans at really soft interest rates. This has strengthened many a student from the erstwhile underprivileged and minority groups, including women students, to benefit from such good deeds and opportunities.

Unavailability of some courses, and the lack of appropriate ambience for higher education, in general, were indeed reasons for going abroad, at least during the very early period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

It is also true that a lot of prominence and significance has all through been attached to the better quality of education prevalent abroad. It was invariably held that degrees from a foreign university were superior to those from the home universities

Though this argument was true given the state of higher education in India during the said period, there, nevertheless, prevailed a notion that anything associated with the colonial rulers and their country was qualitatively better than things (including academic degrees) that were homespun. It is not out of place to point out that in some circles in India — in the contemporary context too — this notion of the superiority of a foreign degree is still given quite a high level of leverage. Some of the recently-established private universities swear by and recruit only faculty with a foreign doctoral degree!

The surveys that rank universities in different countries as per their ‘performance’ have emerged rather recently, but do seem, at least in the present context, to add to the long-existing bias that exists in India in favour of better quality of outcomes vis-à-vis overseas universities. True, that though Indian universities do not feature anywhere in the top echelons in the ranking of higher educational institutions, and many an academic, not just in India but elsewhere too, question the methodology adopted in these processes, the fact remains that going by the various criteria and parameters adopted, most Indian universities do not make the cut.

This is because there exists a truly uneven range of quality across departments and centres. Reasons for such a state are many but nepotism and corruption in the recruitment of faculty is indeed a prime reason.

I must hasten to add that many higher educational institutions in India do have departments and centres that have done exceedingly well, and are undoubtedly abodes of excellence in the central and state university spheres; so also some departments in private universities. What our higher educational institutions suffer from in terms of not measuring up in totality when all the departments and centres are weighed together at the pan-institutional level. This is because there exists a truly uneven range of quality across departments and centres. Reasons for such a state are many but nepotism and corruption in the recruitment of faculty is indeed a prime reason.

We also need to examine the developments during the last few decades, particularly as regards students going abroad for medical education to China, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, and other East European countries, and do not get surprised, even Pakistan! It is clear that the much sought-after medical degrees come at a much cheaper cost, almost at a fraction of what they would have to pay in private Indian medical colleges.

The beeline that is made to go abroad for a medical degree in this particular realm is out and out a cost-cutting mechanism.

Those who are after such medical degrees are mainly students who fail to obtain a high ranking in the currently prevalent National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to the MBBS and BDS courses, in State-run medical and dental colleges where the fees are substantially low. The beeline that is made to go abroad for a medical degree in this particular realm is out and out a cost-cutting mechanism.

However, students who obtain a medical degree from an overseas institution must clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) if they wish to practice in India. So much for a foreign degree.

So, today the lure of foreign universities is not just due to the sheen or quality alone, which probably was so some time back, but currently, there are many other reasons as delineated above.

This article was published earlier in moneycontrol.

Feature Image Credit: The Free Press Journal

June 22, 2022
Politics and Technology

Book Name: Politics and Technology

Author: John Street

Publisher: The Guilford Press

Year of Publication: September 1992

Pages: 224

The eighties and the early nineties of the twentieth century witnessed seismic shifts like the globalisation of technology (viz. FAX machines) coupled with tumultuous political events like the Tiananmen protests, the Kuwait war etc. This highlighted the increasing significance of politics and technology, providing the backdrop for John Street’s work in the early nineties. However, Street departs from similar works by illustrating not merely how technology and politics are important but rather the diverse ways in which both are intricately enmeshed with each other.

The relationship between technology and politics constitutes the major theme underlying this work. While the exponents of autonomous technology believe in a notion of technological rationality, technological determinists argue that technology influences the division of labour, which ultimately shapes state functions. On the other end of the spectrum, political determinists argue that politics is prior to technology, contending that the state functions as a customer, regulator and underwriter of technology. However, he is careful not to wade into simplistic conclusions, arguing that there are wide differences in the way states perform these functions, depending on their respective political structures. He uses a diverse range of examples from the UK and the US to Russia across a range of technological sectors from nuclear to medical.

A second but interrelated theme in this book is the interrelationship between politics and science. This is illustrated using various aspects of science like the scientific method, the concerns, language and ideology of science, the interests of scientists etc. For instance, the feminist critique of science argues that science, in an ideological sense, is masculinist, marginalising the experiences of women. This interrelationship is linked to the larger normative question he seeks to address – how to ensure democratic control of technology. In order to answer this, he addresses the dual themes of the political implications of technology as well as the factors that confront us while making choices based on technology. He is not short of nuance here as well, arguing in detail how technology can result in myriad political manifestations in the respective spheres of dependence, choices, inequalities, experiences, side effects etc. The second theme of the choice of technology is conditional on institutional, evaluative and informational factors.

Setting the backdrop for the question of democratic use of technology, he examines the two prevalent contrasting political approaches to technology. Devoting a detailed section to green politics, he underlines how this brand of politics is antithetical to technology to such an extent that it has to be either renounced or radically reformed. The opposing strand of the technical fix seeks to ensure the subservience of technology to politics.

The theoretical contribution he makes to the technology-politics literature is an ‘eclectic’ third approach whereby he argues for an understanding of technological and political change in constant flux. Rather than providing definitive answers, he argues for a different approach, where he encourages the reader to question the very dichotomy between politics and technology. Using a powerful example of how supposedly technical notions like accuracy are political, he argues how technology in itself is shaped by politics. Similarly, in the context of mass communication in democracy, he argues that the democratisation of technology depends on the outcome, design and content of technology.

What makes ‘Politics and Technology’ remarkable is the sheer breadth of his analysis. This extends not only to the myriad illustrations of technology to substantiate his arguments but also to the nuances related to the technology-politics interface. The illustrations are wide-ranging and colourful, encompassing technology from mere hedges (to block protests) to the various formal dimensions of technology like medical, biotechnology, information technology, nuclear technology etc. His treatment of politics is no different – embracing a wide range of both philosophical positions from Bell to Heidegger as well as ideological standpoints from feminism to Marxism.

Those probing for definitive answers are likely to be disappointed. He addresses questions of politics and technology like a seasoned academic, exhausting the whole breadth of interactions between both while resisting simplistic conclusions. For instance, he resists the simplistic proclivity to link non-democratic regimes (e,g, Russia) to attitudes of secrecy on nuclear spillover, by highlighting contradictory attitudes of democratic regimes like the UK. He further grapples with notions like democracy, technology etc. which we take for granted, examining, unravelling and distilling nuanced, crystal-clear definitions in the process. This is evidenced by his detailed description of technology as having not merely material and intellectual dimensions, but a social aspect as well.

However, barring exceptions like Tiananmen and the Bhopal tragedy, the illustrations used are overwhelmingly skewed towards the Global North. Further, through a critical lens, one could argue that the endeavour to explain the politics of science while exhaustive and enriching in itself, doesn’t offer much in his emancipatory democratic project.

However, none of these glitches is significant enough to derail his larger project. In a society embarking on the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the looming possibilities of “an AI war”, the fundamental normative project to democratise technology remains more relevant than ever. Even from a philosophical standpoint, his project remains relevant. The post-humanist strand of thought, which seeks to fuse the human-technology assemblage to conceptualise cyborgs and its relationship vis-à-vis the social-political realm, is based on very similar assumptions of dissolving the divide between the human and technology. Thus, it is safe to argue that ‘Politics and Technology’ remains one of the most relevant and exhaustive ‘gateway’ works for students probing the myriad and complex interconnections between politics, science and technology.

About the Author:

JOHN STREET is a professor of politics in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies. He is the author or co-author of seven books and some 80 articles. The third edition of his Media, Politics and Democracy was published in 2021. He is currently the Principal Investigator on an AHRC project: ‘Our Subversive Voice? The history and politics of the English protest song. The other members of the research team are Alan Finlayson (UEA), Oskar Cox Jensen (UEA), Angela McShane (Warwick University) and Matthew Worley (Reading University).

He supervises PhD students working on a range of topics, including the politics of music, new forms of political communication, and participatory democracy. He is a member of the Political Studies Association, the Subcultures Network, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and MeCCSA. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was until recently an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

June 17, 2022