The big change is that Harris, so far, has lost 9 million voters since 2020, while Trump has gained only 1.2 million. Harris’s count of lost votes will decline as the final votes come in, but the bigger story remains that Harris lost more votes than Trump gained.
Voter turnout is NOT final, but it is likely between 153 and 156 million, down from 2020 but still the second-highest percentage turnout in 100 years. At a minimum, 107 million adults did not vote (88 million of whom are “eligible” to vote). Thus, 41% or more of the adult population and 36% of the eligible voters did not vote.
Using the percentage of voter groups who voted for Trump is misleading. The news remains that the significant change is the loss of Harris voters.
Daily survival has become a serious problem for the bottom 65% due, specifically, to the inflation of grocery items and increasing mortgage payments and rent. Aggregate figures don’t reflect this reality.
Workers’ actual standard of living was worse under Biden than under Trump.
Real wages in the US remain lower than they were a half-century ago.
US electoral parties are NOT like those in Europe – they have always been a different version of bourgeois electoral systems. Both major US parties are corporations, not parties with memberships, ideologies, and programs. They are designed like a marketplace of individuals preening for the Presidency, much like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but only held every four years.
The Democrats turned over their foreign policy to the CNAS group of neo-con warmongers who will now be displaced.
The Republicans are also not an actual party; Trump proved this, and what is next for Republicans post-Trump is also uncertain.
There is a new stratification of the bourgeoisie, with billionaires as a new factor. The increasingly dominant discourse amongst the capitalist class has the wherewithal to exert its influence.
Fifty Billionaires put 2.5 billion US dollars, 45% of the 5.5 billion total, into the Presidential election. Of this, 1.6 billion went to the Republicans, 750 million to the Democrats, and the rest to both. The total spent on the election, in all races, was 16 billion, a sign of a kleptocracy, not a thriving democracy.
washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/biggest-campaign-donors-election-2024
There is a concerted effort by a section of libertarian tech billionaires, including Thiel and Musk, to have their hands directly on the levers of the state to control the race for global domination of AI. They believe that they alone should control the advances in the AI space for the world and that the initial next step is what is called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). These megalomaniacs believe this will begin the control of humans by machine intelligence and, perhaps, in their perverse dreams, the end of humanity.
A growing number of lesser capitalists, such as multimillionaires, are now being lumped into the upper middle class and the wealthiest one-third of voters. One very important trend to note is that in the last fifteen years, the richest one-third have switched allegiance from Republicans to Democrats.
Workers were worse off, wages did not keep up, and inflation left a long, lingering impact. Some of the youth vote left for economic reasons. Others were disillusioned and demoralised by the full-throated support of the genocidal war in Gaza by the Democratic Party. Muslims, while a small group, voted for a third party or Trump.
Despite the fabrications of the Democratic Party corporate handlers, Harris was, in fact, inauthentic, unlikeable, shallow, and could not mask her history as a prosecutor who spent her life attacking the rights of the poor.
Dissatisfaction with many Western elected parties is growing – Conservative in the UK, Centre Right in France, right-wing in Germany – all thrown out. Biden left a demoralised Democratic Party and left too late.
Fear-mongering about fascism was core to the rhetoric of the Democrats, even though no one knows what the term means. Some voters became annoyed at the harassment by the liberals to vote for them since they were the last rail of defence against fascism. Many people did not believe Trump was, in fact, a fascist, nor did they believe that every one of their family members who listened to Trump was a fascist.
Apathy is growing and remains a real issue.
Probably over a million stayed at home as they could not stomach the Democratic Party’s gleeful support for Genocide. Trump’s victory in Michigan was certainly due to this issue.
Harris played to and fawned over the war criminal Dick Cheney, the architect of the invasion of Iraq and a historic right-wing enemy of the Democrats. We don’t know how many voters left in disgust.
Trump took advantage of working-class dissatisfaction. Even so, he only gained less than 2 million total new votes. There is no evidence of a widescale shift of working-class votes to the Republicans in this election.
Working-class women voted for local candidates supporting abortion but voted for Trump for economic and other reasons. Others voted on local issues important to them and then voted for Trump as they felt that despite his unsavoury behaviours, he was more committed to “shaking things up”.
The billionaire class made sure that Trump had ample funds. Elon Musk’s America Pac spent $118 million handling field operations for the Trump campaign, an unusual role for a super PAC.
From 2008 to 2020, there was a decline in the percentage of voters supporting the Democrats amongst the bottom 1/3 of income earners in the US.
ft.com/content/6de668c7-64e9-4196-b2c5-9ceca966fe3f
Too little data is available now to provide a detailed answer about the relatively insignificant number of voters who voted Democrat in 2020 and Republican in 2024.
Trump’s sixteen appointments to date are all vocal supporters of genocide in Palestine. In the United States, there are both Jewish and Christian Zionists. Trump has appointed several Christian Zionists. The majority are China hawks.
When analysed from a US statecraft point of view, many are extremely underwhelming candidates. These include:
Due to some of these appointments, US stature in international affairs will likely diminish.
Trump has brilliantly dismissed the extremely dangerous Pompeo. He has made it clear that few from the first inner group of his cabinet and advisors will return. The world will not miss them. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Trump has the capacity to lead any group successfully for even an intermediate period. He is known for turning on people and turning them against each other.
A significant section of the working class understandably abandoned the Democrats in this election.
There is not a major right-wing shift in US attitudes, but there is a real base for the right.
The Democratic Party elite is completely divorced from the masses. Parading the loyal royal cultural elite like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Bruce Springsteen reeked of wealth, opulence, and tone-deafness.
Apathy should not be understated. At least 88 million didn’t vote, with a further 19 million disenfranchised.
Third parties are structurally prevented from winning even a single state in a presidential election. They are structurally locked out of Congress. The United States has locked in a two-party system. Most voters have been captured by this belief.
Small exceptions to this are wealthy candidates like Ross Perot in 1992 and Robert Kennedy Junior.
There was huge intimidation at the end against supporters of third-party candidates, which depressed their vote even more than usual. In this just-held election, the Party for Liberation and Socialism Candidate Claudia Cruz received 134,348 votes so far. Claudia Cruz’s 134 thousand votes is the highest number of votes for an explicit communist in American history. It exceeds the CPUSA’s William Z. Foster’s previous record of 120,000 votes in 1932. The 1932 vote was a higher percentage of the population as the US was smaller in 1932. These facts are a reminder of the long-term campaign of anti-communism within the US.
Capital is clearly happy with Trump’s win, as evidenced by the November 6th celebration rally on Wall Street. They disagree with the liberal hype that he will bring an end to American society.
Despite the lies of the liberals, the facts are that Trump formally initiated the New Cold War on China. His inner team are more fiercely anti-China than the Democrats, who are more bound to the Ukraine War.
Trump has fewer restraints, controlling the Senate, House, Supreme Court, and Presidency.
He could well launch a Third World War. It would be a mistake to underestimate this danger.
There is a tendency in some parts of the Global South to have a simplistic and false analysis that any enemy of the liberals is a friend of the Global South. This is a severely flawed argument. The imperialist far-right is not a good guy, a cultural conservative who wants to protect families and cultural life. Inside the US, conservative culture is tightly tied to slavery and genocide. It is misogynistic, racist, militaristic, and reactionary. We should not confuse the histories of Iran, Turkey, India, Ghana, and China with those of the US.
Welcoming divisions in the enemy camp is often entirely correct. But Communists, socialists, and true democrats do not support reactionary views and always side with the people, not the far-right ideologues.
There is also great confusion about MAGA and MAGA-Communism. First, Make America Great Again (MAGA) means returning (the second “A” in MAGA) to the full glory of the US industrial past. But what was that past? It was, in fact, the total economic, political, military, and racial subordination of the peoples of the Global South states to the US. It was the century of humiliation in China. This is not a return to be welcomed by history. MAGA is a profoundly reactionary, unacceptable outcome and concept.
One of the greatest poets in the United States is Langston Hughes. One of his poems was called “Let America Be America Again.” But this was a parody as the actual statement was made in the refrain, “America Never Was America to Me”. The meaning of this poem was the false portrayal of the United States as ever having a glorious past, which was never true for the slaves or the working class.
Second, there are a handful of personalities in the US who have taken the great word communism and sullied it with the idea of returning to this falsely idealised America. The old “strong” American industry was built on the backs of low-paid workers in the mines in Africa and elsewhere.
Desiring a real communist path is a good thing. But tying it to an imperialist past, a past of violence, with reactionary views is the opposite path taken by Lenin, Mao, and Fidel.
There is also a dangerous tendency to simply reject the liberal concepts of identity politics and embrace the values of far-right conservatism while lacking scientific thinking about the plight of women and other vulnerable groups.
The CPC led the country in the first national Soviets in Ruijin in the struggle to abolish the prejudices of feudalism and emancipate women and national minorities in China. However, these rights have not yet been achieved in many countries, as there has been no communist revolution.
True Communism is the path to advancing the overall interests of the working class in all countries, including women, national minorities, and other vulnerable groups.
The Republican voter base in class-terms is the lower-middle class, which is overwhelmingly white, suburban, rural. It is amplified by fundamentalist Christians and the Republican regional strongholds.
There are six “ideological” trends, all extreme right, in the Republican camp:
The US economy will continue to perform poorly but better than the rest of the West. It will continue to use its dollar hegemony, reinforced with sanctions, to remove hundreds of billions from the Global South and to force Europe, Australia, and Japan to subordinate their economic interests to those of the US.
The actual US budget for the military was $1.8 trillion last year. Significant cuts seem improbable.
There is now a permanent Black upper middle class that produces a Black mis-leadership. This mis-leadership group has created two decades of Black war criminals and apologists for empire. The rise of this mis-leadership gang, however, should not overshadow the fact that most blacks remain oppressed and exploited.
The anti-immigrant politics in the U.S. is directed primarily at undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
But there is a false belief that all immigrants in the US are working class and progressive – it is just not true. An important stratum of non-working-class immigrants in the US are amongst the most virulent defenders of US atrocities in the world.
There is a belief that there is a conspiracy of some secret group of members of the military and government that decide most things, which they call the Deep State. This is a lazy concept. It denies that all states have a class character and permanent army. In the US, it has been estimated that over 5 million people have security clearance, and many have near-lifetime employment. There is no need for conspiracy theories. The US does have an advanced state that functions on behalf of capital. This state manages the affairs of the often-competing large capitalists and is now increasingly primarily favouring the billionaires amongst the capitalist class. Thus, a better way to see the US State is through the lens of Mao, Lenin, and Marx and not as some inexplicable conspiracy.
There is a special relationship between the US and Israel, both extreme white-settler states. In the US alone, over 30 House, Senate, and cabinet members are dual citizens of the US and Israel. Israel does not control the US, BUT they are socially a duopoly.
They are the CORE of Ring 1 of the Global North, the core of the imperialist bloc, along with the UK, Canada, and Australia.
The long-term trend is clear – bourgeois liberal democracy is failing globally.
Since 2016, the very top of the capitalist class has led and mobilised a neo-fascist movement. Increasing levels of force and lawfare will now be used internally inside the US.
Trump himself is not a fascist per se. He is super-egoistic and believes he can act with near absolute impunity.
But he is riding on, and a beneficiary of changing class phenomena.
Fascism is not so much an ideology as a structural class relationship in which the lower-middle class, which has a revanchist ideology, is mobilized by big capital during a period of internal and external disequilibrium.
The New York Times and Financial Times use the word fascism as a scare tactic to maintain their role and influence in the state. Neo-fascism is a more precise word than fascism at this moment to describe the changes in the US.
Historically, there are a few things that are necessary to define a fully fascist state in imperialist countries. One is that the state uses methods of control it would typically use only for its colonies and neo-colonies, i.e., extreme widespread violence and force. The other is that they resort to the overthrow of the constitution.
The Constitution is unlikely to be changed directly. However, the original Constitution, an eighteenth-century document, has many gaps that can be exploited.
Radical and extreme legal changes are thus probable. There will be a reversal of 70 years of civil rights.
Overall, it remains to be seen how far the capitalist class is willing to go.
State capacity in many areas other than defence and border police will be diminished. Trump 1 saw big cuts in the State Department. Even with Rubio present, it is unlikely to be refunded to its old level.
The Billionaires will play a direct role in key tasks, from meeting Zelensky to chain-sawing government departments. Some departments, like Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, are, in fact, decrepit, corrupt and dysfunctional. But a billionaire-led revamp will result in an unsavoury privatized equally dysfunctional capitalist state bureaucracy.
Trump is committed to a long-term isolationist strategy. But the US has over 900 military bases abroad. It has fully supported the expansion of Israel’s War in the Middle East, building up its military in the process.
Trump will not block the infrastructure projects that were voted in during Biden. The US recognises that its lost manufacturing capacity is a strategic deficit in military supply.
The brunt of the cutbacks will still increase the suffering of the 150 million working-class poor in the US.
The Left will be even more subjected to severe repression. Rubio is salivating.
Despite the recent Zelensky meeting, the US will probably push a cease-fire and curtail the Ukraine war. Crimea is off the table. The current military lines will be the starting point. Doing this could reduce the immediate danger of a nuclear war. In April of this year, both Vance and Rubio voted against the 95-billion-dollar US military aid bill for Ukraine.
With Israel, there are three main possibilities:
We don’t know, but option one is not impossible. Trump wants a deal with Saudi Arabia.
A few days ago, MBS was forced to call it a Genocide, a rare statement from a long-term US ally.
With China, there are also three possibilities:
On the question of Taiwan, some in the Global South fall for the liberal messaging soundbite in the West that Trump, the dealmaker, will sell Taiwan for a fee. This would bring strong resistance from the US military and large sections of the anti-communist members of his core group. This is a very unlikely case.
The world should not be confused if Trump does initiate a ceasefire in Ukraine and pressures Netanyahu to curtail the Genocide. Neither of these actions reverses the long-term trend of the US towards militarization against China. Nothing Trump does will turn around anaemic long-term US economic growth.
China is still on target to surpass the US in current exchange rate GDP within 10 years.
The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy what it perceives as the Eurasian threat. It remains committed to dismembering the Russian Federation and overthrowing the CPC. The imperialists believe this is the path to a thousand-year reign of unilateral power.
The US will continue, unabated, its strategy of seeking nuclear primacy and what is called the “counterforce” strategy, which plans on the use of a first strike or launch of nuclear weapons. Evidence of these dangerous changes in US military strategy can be seen by their unilateral withdrawal from the following treaties:
Tucker Carlson has Trump’s ear for now and is not a proponent of military conflict.
In 2023, a four-star general, Minihan, claimed that the US would be in a hot war with China in 2025. These are not accidental statements.
It is unknown if Rubio, some of the far-right libertarians, and CNAS-influenced military forces can overcome Trump’s dislike of military conflict.
The US is likely to increase its attention on Latin America and increase support for the far right like Bolsonaro and Milei.
Large-scale aid to Africa is not likely to happen. The Angola railway project is now improbable.
The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy the Eurasian threat.
The US has adopted counterforce and nuclear supremacy as its prime military strategy.
The threat of war has not changed due to a new administration. Only, perhaps, the speed at which it will be accomplished.
The economic and political assaults against the US working class will escalate, especially against progressives.
The state will continue to tighten its grip on the so-called bourgeois democratic freedoms by further restricting voting rights, civil rights, and freedom of speech.
This article was published earlier on MRonline
The article is republished underCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The irrational amounts that the Soviet Union allocated to its defense budget not only represented a huge burden on its economy, but imposed a tremendous sacrifice on the standard of living of its citizens. Subsidies to the rest of the members of the Soviet bloc had to be added to this bill.
Such amounts were barely sustainable for a country that, as from the first half of the 1960s, was subjected to a continuous economic stagnation. This situation became aggravated by the strong decline of oil prices, USSR’s main export, since the mid 1980s. The reescalation of the Cold War undertaken by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, particularly the latter, put in motion an American military buildup, that could not be matched by Moscow.
With the intention of avoiding the implosion of its system, Moscow triggered a reform process that attained none other than accelerating such outcome. Indeed, Mikhail Gorbachev opened the pressure cooker hoping to liberate, in a controlled manner, the force contained in its interior. Once liberated, however, this force swept away with everything on its path. Initially came its European satellites, subsequently Gorbachev’s power base, and, finally, the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet system had reached the point where it could not survive without changes, but neither could assimilate them. In other words, it had exhausted its survival capacity.
Without a shot being fired, Washington had won the Cold War. The exuberant sentiment of triumph therein derived translated into the “end of history” thesis. Having defeated its ideological rival, liberalism had become the final point in the ideological evolution of humanity. If anything, tough, the years that followed to the Soviet implosion were marred by trauma and conflict. In the essential, however, the idea that the world was homogenizing under the liberal credo was correct.
On the one hand, indeed, the multilateral institutions, systems of alliances and rules of the game created by the United States shortly after World War II, or in subsequent years, allowed for a global governance architecture. A rules based liberal international order imposed itself over the world. On the other hand, the so-called Washington Consensus became a market economy’s recipe of universal application. This homogenization process was helped by two additional factors. First, the seven largest economies that followed the U.S., were industrialized democracies firmly supportive of its leadership. Second, globalization in its initial stage acted as a sort of planetary transmission belt that spread the symbols, uses, and values of the leading power.
The new millennium thus arrived with an all-powerful America, whose liberal imprint was homogenizing the planet. The United States had indeed attained global hegemony, and Fukuyama’s end of history thesis seemed to reflect the emerging reality.
But things turned out to be more complex than this, and the history of the end of history proved out to be a brief one. In a few years’ time, global “Pax Americana” began to be challenged by the presence of a powerful rival that seemed to have emerged out of the blue: China. How had this happened?
Beginning the 1970s, Beijing and Washington had reached a simple but transformative agreement. Henceforward, the United States would recognize the Chinese Communist regime as China’s legitimate government. Meanwhile, China would no longer seek to constrain America’s leadership in Asia. By extension, this provided China with an economic opening to the West. Although it would be only after Deng Xiaoping’s arrival to power, that the real meaning of the latter became evident.
In spite of the multiple challenges encountered along the way, both the United States and China made a deliberate effort to remain within the road opened in 1972. Their agreement showed to be not only highly resilient, but able to evolve amid changing circumstances. The year 2008, however, became an inflexion point within their relationship. From then onwards, everything began to unravel. Why was it so?
The answer may be found in a notion familiar to the Chinese mentality, but alien to the Western one – the shi. This concept can be synthesized as an alignment of forces able to shape a new situation. More generally, it encompasses ideas such as momentum, strategic advantage, or propensity for things to happen. Which were, hence, the alignment of forces that materialized in that particular year? There were straightforward answers to that question: The U.S.’ financial excesses that produced the world’s worst financial crisis since 1929; Beijing’s sweeping efficiency in overcoming the risk of contagion from this crisis; China’s capability to maintain its economic growth, which helped preventing a major global economic downturn; and concomitantly, the highly successful Beijing Olympic games of that year, which provided the country with a tremendous self-esteem boost.
The United States, indeed, had proven not to be the colossus that the Chinese had presumed, while China itself turned out to be much stronger than assumed. This implied that the U.S. was passing its peak as a superpower, and that the curves of the Chinese ascension and the American decline, were about to cross each other. Deng Xiaoping’s advice for future leadership generations, had emphasized the need of preserving a low profile, while waiting for the attainment of a position of strength. In Chinese eyes, 2008 seemed to show that China was muscular enough to act more boldly. Moreover, with the shi in motion, momentum had to be exploited.
Beijing’s post-2008 assertiveness became much bolder after Xi Jinping’s arrival to power in 2012-2013. China, in his mind, was ready to contend for global leadership. More to the point within its own region, China’s centrality and the perception of the U.S. as an alien power, had to translate into pushing out America’s presence.
Challenged by China, Washington reacted forcefully. Chinese perceptions run counter to the fact that the U.S.’ had been a major power in East Asia since 1854, which translated into countless loss of American lives in four wars. Moreover, safeguarding the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, a key principle within the rules based liberal international order, provided a strong sense of staying power. This was reinforced by the fact that America’s global leadership was also at stake, thus requiring not to yield presence in that area for reputational reasons. The containment of Beijing’s ascendancy, became thus a priority for Washington.
However, accommodating two behemoths that feel entitled to pre-eminence is a daunting task. Specially so, when one of them feels under threat of exclusion from the region, and the other feels that its emergence is being constrained. On top, both remain prisoners of their history and of their national myths. This makes them incapable of looking at the facts, without distorting them with the subjective lenses of their perceived sense of mission and superiority.
War ensuing, under those circumstances, is an ongoing risk. But if war is a possibility, Cold War is already a fact. This implies a multifaceted wrestle in which geopolitics, technology, trade, finances, alliances, and warfare capabilities are all involved. And even if important convergent interest between them still remains in place, ties are being cut by the day. As a matter of fact, if in the past economic interdependence helped to shield from geopolitical dissonances, the opposite is the case today. Indeed, a whole array of zero-sum geopolitical controversies are rapidly curtailing economic links.
The U.S., particularly during the Biden administration, chose to contain China through a regional architecture of alliances and by way of linking NATO with Indo-Pacific problems and selective regional allies. The common denominator that gathers them together is the preservation of the rules based liberal international order. An order, threatened by China’s geostrategic regional expansionism.
However, China itself is not short of allies. A revisionist axis, that aims at ending the rules based liberal international order, has taken shape. The same tries to throw back American power and to create its own spheres of influence. This axis represents a competing center of gravity, where countries dissatisfied with the prevailing international order can turn to. Together with China two additional Asia-Pacific powers, Russia and North Korea, are part of this bloc.
Trump’s return to the White House might change the prevailing regional configuration of factors. Although becoming more challenging to Beijing from a trade perspective, he could substantially weaken not only the rules based liberal international order, but the architecture of alliances that contains China. The former, because the illiberal populism that he represents is at odds with the liberal order. The latter, not only because he could take the U.S. out of NATO, but because his transactional approach to foreign policy, which favors trade and money over geopolitics, could turn alliances upside down.
The rules based liberal international order, which became universal over the ashes of the Soviet Union, could now be facing its sunset. This, not only because its main challenger, China, may strengthen its geopolitical position in the face of its rival alliances’ disruption, but, more significantly, because the U.S. itself may cease to champion it.
Feature Image Credit: www.brookings.edu
Despite all the real political problems we face, it is essential for the twenty-first century to defend the equality of all people, regardless of biological differences such as gender or ethnicity. It is not our biology that defines us as human beings, but our morality.According to Dominique Moisi, the Western states are consumed with fear of decline, the Islamic-Arab world is full of despair at unfulfilled promises, and East and Southeast Asia are full of hope for a better life. These global political sentiments are largely responsible for the escalation of conflicts, the disintegration of social cohesion and the spread of violence.
At its core, however, the new right is about undermining human equality – in its view, we are only equal to our own nation or religion and gender. This exclusionary equality only with one’s own kind is at the heart of the right’s cultural revolution, whose ideal model is itself based on hierarchical notions, a graded dignity. Such attempts to undo the gains of the struggle for equality in a counter-revolution can be found all over the world – whether in nationalism, ethnocentrism, misogyny, cultural relativism (“they just have a different culture”) or thinly veiled racism.
That Israel, in addition to being an apartheid state, has gone completely rogue is no longer in doubt. As Israel digs itself into a deeper hole, in the belief that it can kill its way to success, it finds that this year its GDP has collapsed from 4.8% in 2022 to 1.5%, with over 46000 small businesses having shut down. By some estimates, between 500,000 to 1 million Israelis have permanently emigrated.
Approximately 7 million Jewish Israelis and an equal number of Palestinians live cheek-by-jowl between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The area encompasses Israel, the occupied territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Nominally, the Palestinians in the West Bank do have limited self-rule, but defacto have no control over the movement of people and goods, or taxes. Agreements signed in the 1990’s, permit the Israeli Government to collect taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which it then disburses to the PA for its use. These taxes make up over 65-70% of the PA’s public budget and have a critical impact on the quality of life of ordinary Palestinians.
As has been the norm with Israel, it has used every means, including financial control, to inflict collective punishment on the Palestinians at any attempt by them to free themselves from Israeli occupation. In May this year, for example, it withheld disbursal of all taxes collected over the past three months on grounds that Spain, Ireland and Norway had announced they would recognise the Palestinian State. This resulted in the breakdown of municipal services and widespread loss of jobs. Subsequently, in June it indulged in blatant blackmail when it agreed to disburse withheld funds, provided the PA retroactively approved five settlements in the West Bank that had been illegally established earlier, despite condemnation by Palestinians and the international community.
While the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, especially their despicable actions against women, children and civilians, has been widely condemned, the fact that over half of the 1200 Israelis killed, were by their own military in pursuant of the reprehensible “Hannibal Directive”, continues to be glossed over. Oddly enough, over the course of that year, prior to the attack, the fact that over 200 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli military and settlers for a variety of reasons has simply been ignored by the international media and not been seen as the immediate provocation for the attack, especially its ferocity.
It now emerges, that the numbers of Palestinians killed by the Israeli response has been grossly underestimated. As per a study dated 10 July 2024 in the Lancet, a respectable and authoritative medical journal, an estimated 186000-200,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, directly or indirectly. This is approximately 9% of the total population, the overwhelming majority of them being women and children.
The Israeli response to this attack was disproportionate, to put it mildly, but it still continues to receive full support from Western Governments. It now emerges, that the numbers of Palestinians killed by the Israeli response has been grossly underestimated. As per a study dated 10 July 2024 in the Lancet, a respectable and authoritative medical journal, an estimated 186000-200,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, directly or indirectly. This is approximately 9% of the total population, the overwhelming majority of them being women and children.
The difference between these estimates and the official figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry, which presently stands at approximately 43000, is explained by the fact that the Ministry only accounts for bodies that have been found and not for those remaining under the rubble, that the cities have been reduced to. Nor does it account for the indirect deaths due to hunger, non-availability of medical help etc. Studies suggest that these tend to be between 5-10 times higher than the official figures.
Israel’s inhuman and deliberate response has been decried by experts, governments, United Nations Agencies and NGOs. They have gone on to accuse Israel of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, and more recently, in the West Bank. What is even more horrific, if that is even possible, are the accusations made by Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon, on his return from Gaza. In his devastating op-ed in The New York Times, titled “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza”, he recounts harrowing stories from dozens of healthcare workers and CT scans of children shot in the head or the left side of the chest. The Times called the corresponding images of the patients too graphic to publish. In his words, “44 doctors, nurses and paramedics saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza… He personally identified 13 such cases in his two weeks there”.
That Israel, in addition to being an apartheid state, has gone completely rogue is no longer in doubt. In July this year, for example, a video was leaked of the gangrape of a male Palestinian prisoner by guards of the IDF at the Sde Teiman detention facility in Southern Israel. Commentators in Israel referred to this video as just the tip of the iceberg, but what followed is instructive. Ten soldiers were arrested and faced trial for this act, but not before a mob, led by government ministers, attempted to free them forcibly from detention. Another minister demanded an investigation to identify the individual who had leaked the video so that he could be tried for treason. An MP from the governing Likud Party defended the actions of the guards in Parliament, responding to a question by an Arab-Israeli MP with “If he is a Nukhba (Hamas militant), everything is legitimate to do! Everything!” Even the Minister responsible for Prison Services, Ben-Gvir, told Israeli media on the day of the reservists’ arrest that it was “shameful for Israel to arrest our best heroes”.
This race to the bottom doesn’t end there of course, and as the saying goes, the best is yet to come. As is well known, the Holy City of Old Jerusalem is home to the “Temple”, or as it is now known the Temple Mount. It refers to the two existing Islamic religious structures, the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, collectively known as Haram al-Sharif, and considered the third holiest site in Islam. However, according to the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, prior to these structures, the ‘First Temple’ was supposedly built on that very site in the 10th century BCE by King Solomon, and stood for five hundred years before being destroyed by the Babylonians. Almost a century later, it was replaced by the ‘Second Temple’ built by Cyrus the Great, only for it to be destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The New Testament holds that important events in Jesus’ life took place in the Temple, and the Crusaders attributed the name “Templum Domini” to the Dome of the Rock.
However, many Jews see the building of a “Third Temple” in Jerusalem as an object of longing and a symbol of future redemption, as it would announce the arrival of a new Messiah who would unite the flock and lead them to salvation. Incidentally, the promised land would incorporate the whole of Palestine, along with parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Thus the religious significance and sensitivity of Temple Mount cannot be underestimated. Fortunately, as things stand Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter the two structures, while Jews are only allowed to pray at the Western Wall that runs along the side of the hill and is thought to be a remnant of the Second Temple. However, many Jews see the building of a “Third Temple” in Jerusalem as an object of longing and a symbol of future redemption, as it would announce the arrival of a new Messiah who would unite the flock and lead them to salvation. Incidentally, the promised land would incorporate the whole of Palestine, along with parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
But before its construction can be undertaken, it would require purification of the site and of the construction crew. That would, however, only be feasible, by sacrificing a red heifer, specifically bred to meet stringent biblical requirements. It would be required to be burnt alive at the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Al Aqsa Mosque, and its ashes used to consecrate the holy ground and the people. The stuff of hopes and dreams for a tiny minority, with little hope of fulfilment in the modern world, or so one thought.
These cows represent a tangible step towards the construction of the Temple and fulfilment of the prophecy. The next obvious step in this tragedy will be the demolition of the Haram al-Sharif, for which dry rehearsals have already been undertaken. The consequences of such a step in the region are not difficult to visualise, but will it stop the extremists? Very unlikely.
However, in September 2022, an unprincipled collaboration between extreme Zionist religious leaders, Right-Wing Christian Evangelicals and the present Israeli Government allowed for five red heifers to be flown from Texas to Israel. Ironically enough, despite the Evangelicals being well-known for their antisemitic beliefs. Brought in as pets, to avoid existing restrictions on livestock, they are now kept in an archaeological park in Shiloh, an illegal Israeli settlement, near the Palestinian city of Nablus. These cows represent a tangible step towards the construction of the Temple and fulfilment of the prophecy. The next obvious step in this tragedy will be the demolition of the Haram al-Sharif, for which dry rehearsals have already been undertaken. The consequences of such a step in the region are not difficult to visualise, but will it stop the extremists? Very unlikely.
As Israel digs itself into a deeper hole, in the belief that it can kill its way to success, it finds that this year its GDP has collapsed from 4.8% in 2022 to 1.5%, with over 46000 small businesses having shut down. By some estimates, between 500,000 to 1 million Israelis have permanently emigrated. In addition, it finds itself short of weapons, ammunition, tanks and manpower as heavy casualties in the ongoing conflict have taken their toll. Yet, its arrogant leadership refuses to pay heed to that one cardinal rule about tackling insurgencies; they are a political problem and can only be resolved politically.
The question that it raises for us is do we really need such friends, and more importantly, are our commercial interests so important that we are willing to forego all that we hold sacred?
Clearly, if Israel refuses to change direction its days are numbered. After all its most steadfast ally, the United States, can only support so many losing causes. With Ukraine on the brink, an ascending Russo-China coalition to deal with and Taiwan increasingly under threat, an intransigent Benjamin Netanyahu is a liability, who may well find himself the target of a drone, be it American or Iranian. This is very likely despite Trump’s victory to become the 47th President of the United States. The question that it raises for us is do we really need such friends, and more importantly, are our commercial interests so important that we are willing to forego all that we hold sacred?
Feature Image Credit: Middle East Eye
Image – De Gaza: reliefweb.int
Children of Gaza Image Credit: Middle East Eye – How Israel’s Genocide in Gaza sparked a protest movement in the UK.
Wailing Wall and Al Aqsa Mosque: Tourist Israel
Red Heifer Sacrifice Ritual Image: thetorah.com
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson have been awarded the Nobel (really the Riksbank prize) in economics “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” Daron Acemoglu is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Simon Johnson is a professor at the same university. And James Robinson is a professor at the University of Chicago.
Here is what the Nobel judges say was the reason for winning:
Today, the richest 20 percent of countries are around 30 times wealthier than the poorest 20 percent of countries. The income gaps across countries have been highly persistent over the past 75 years.39 The available data also show that between-country disparities in income have grown over the past 200 years. Why are the income differences across countries so large and so persistent?
This year’s Laureates have pioneered a new approach to providing credible, quantitative answers to this crucial question for humanity. By empirically examining the impact and persistence of colonial strategies on subsequent economic development, they have identified historical roots for the extractive institutional environments that characterize many low-income countries. Their emphasis on using natural experiments and historical data has initiated a new research tradition that continues to help uncover the historical drivers of prosperity, or lack thereof.
Their research centers on the idea that political institutions fundamentally shape the wealth of nations. But what shapes these institutions? By integrating existing political science theories on democratic reform into a game-theoretic framework, Acemoglu and Robinson developed a dynamic model in which the ruling elite make strategic decisions about political institutions—particularly whether to extend the electoral franchise—in response to periodic threats. This framework is now standard for analyzing political institutional reform and has significantly impacted the research literature. And evidence is mounting in support of one of the model’s core implications: more inclusive governments promote economic development.
Over the years (or is it decades?) I have posted on the work of various Nobel winners in economics.
What I have found is that, whatever the quality of the winner’s work, he or she (occasionally) usually got the prize for their worst piece of research, namely work that confirmed the mainstream view of the economic world, while not actually taking us further into understanding its contradictions.
This conclusion I think applies to the latest winners. The work for which they received the $1m prize is for research that purports to show that those countries that achieve prosperity and end poverty are those that adopt ‘democracy’ (and by that is meant Western-style liberal democracy where people can speak out (mostly), can vote for officials every so often and expect the law to protect their lives and property (hopefully). Societies that are controlled by elites without any democratic accountability are ‘extractive’ of resources, do not respect property and value and so over time do not prosper. In a series of papers applying some empirical analysis (ie correlating democracy (as defined) with levels of prosperity), the Nobel winners claim to show this.
Indeed, the Nobel winners argue that colonisation of the Global South in the 18th and 19thcenturies could be ‘inclusive’ and so turn the likes of North America into prosperous nations (forgetting the indigenous population) or ‘extractive’ and so keep countries in dire poverty (Africa). It all depends. Such is the theory.
This sort of economics is what is called institutional, namely that it is not so much the blind forces of the market and capital accumulation that drives growth (and inequalities), but the decisions and structures set up by humans. Supporting this model, the winners assert that revolutions precede economic changes and not that economic changes (or the lack thereof before a new economic environment) precede revolutions.
Two points follow from this. First, if growth and prosperity go hand in hand with ‘democracy’ and the likes of the Soviet Union, China, and Vietnam are considered to have elites that are ‘extractive’ or undemocratic, how do our Nobellists explain their undoubted economic performance? Apparently, it is explained by the fact they started out poor and had a lot of ‘catching up’ to do, but soon their extractive character will catch up with them and China’s hyper-growth will run out of steam. Perhaps now?
Second, is it correct to say that revolutions or political reforms are necessary to set things on the path to prosperity? Well, there may be some truth in that: would Russia in the early 20thcentury be where it is today without the 1917 revolution or China be where it is in 2024 without the revolution of 1949? But our Nobellists do not present us with those examples: theirs are getting the vote in Britain in the 19th century or independence for the American colonies in the 1770s.
But surely, the state of the economy, the way it functions, the investment and productivity of the workforce also have an effect? The emergence of capitalism and the industrial revolution in Britain preceded the move to universal suffrage. The English Civil War of the 1640s laid the political basis for the hegemony of the capitalist class in Britain, but it was the expansion of trade (including in slaves) and colonisation in the following century that took the economy forward.
The irony of this award is that the best work of Acemoglu and Johnson has come much more recently than in the past works that the Nobel judges have focused on. Only last year, the authors published Power and Progress , where they pose the contradiction in modern economies between technology driving up the productivity of labour but also with the likelihood of increased inequality and poverty. Of course, their policy solutions do not touch on the question of a change in property relations, except to call for a greater balance between capital and labour.
What you can say in favour of this year’s winners is that at least their research is about trying to understand the world and its development, instead of some arcane theorem of equilibrium in markets that many past winners have been honoured for. It’s just that their theory of ‘catching up’ is vague (or ‘contingent’ as they put it) and unconvincing.
I think we have a much better and more convincing explanation of the processes of catching up (or not) from the recent book by Brazilian Marxist economists Adalmir Antonio Marquetti, Alessandro Miebach and Henrique Morrone who have produced an important and insightful book on global capitalist development, with an innovative new way of measuring the progress for the majority of humanity in the so-called Global South in ‘catching up’ on living standards with the ‘Global North’. This book deals with all the things that the Nobel winners ignore: productivity, capital accumulation, unequal exchange, exploitation—as well as the key institutional factor of who controls the surplus.
The USA has followed targetted assassination strategy since WW II days. It has cooped its allies such as Israel, Australia, and the UK. Targetted killings in the Middle East has been led by Israel with active intelligence support by the USA. With modern ISR capabilities, targets can be monitored or looked for on 24/7 basis for all 365 days of the year. A world that is integrated by common communications protocols and digital standards for ease of normal business becomes vulnerable to intelligence agencies by the same process of commonality.
On July 31, 2022, Osama bin Laden’s successor as the global head of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, stepped out onto the balcony of his Taliban safe house in Kabul’s tony Wazir Akbar Khan area to catch a breath of fresh air and a bit of sunshine. About 40,000 feet above an American Predator B (aka Reaper MQ-9) drone, loitering to get a glimpse of him, caught him in its camera, and after its operators in Nevada, USA confirmed it with facial identification technology, ordered it to fire its single Hellfire R9X missile. The Hellfire is a small 100 lbs and five feet long air-to-ground missile (AGM) that races down a reflected laser beam with unerring accuracy. It costs about $ 150,000. The R9X, which was developed at the express request of Barack Obama, who wanted to minimise collateral damage due to an explosive charge, is a kinetic weapon that unsheathes multiple blades from its fuselage as it approaches the target at almost 900 mph like a whirling swordsman. Al-Zawahiri didn’t stand a chance.
The USA and some other countries have bevvies of space satellites orbiting at preselected trajectories to watch over areas of interest. These satellites not only listen to targets but also track them and identify faces and vehicles by their plates. Osama bin Laden never looked up while on his morning walk at his Abbottabad residence but he was recognised by his height and the length of his shadow at the time of the day and by his gait. Al-Zawahari was either careless or underestimated America’s appetite for his head. He still had a $ 25 million reward, appetising enough for any informants.
The number of active mobile phones worldwide exceeded 15 billion, which means that many people have more than a couple. Of these 7.2 billion are smartphones connecting people with huge reservoirs of information and content. India has 1.28 billion and China has 1.9 billion phones. The USA follows with 327 million and a dysfunctional country like Pakistan has 125 million. Even in countries with little semblance of a government or a state, like Somalia and Afghanistan or Mali or Libya, there are functioning mobile phone networks.
As of June 30, 2021, there were about 4.86 billion internet users worldwide. Of these 44.8% were in Asia, 21.5% in Europe and 11.4% in all of North America. India was one of the last countries operating a telegraph service and as of end 2021, even that is in the past. Literally, it’s all up in the air now.
But since data exchanged on cellular and internet networks fly through the ether and not as pulses racing through copper wires, they are easier to net by electronic interception. But these nets catch them in huge numbers. This is where the supercomputers come in. The messages that are netted every moment are run through sieves of sophisticated and complex computer programs that can simultaneously decode, detect and unravel, and by further analyzing the incoming and outgoing patterns of calls and data transfers for the sending and receiving terminals or phones, can with a fair probability of accuracy tell the agency seeking information about what is going on and who is up to what?
The problem is that since this information also goes through mobile phone networks and Internet Service Providers (ISP), and the data actually gets decoded from electronic blips into voice and digital data, the private players too can gain access to such information.
A few years ago we had the case of the infamous Amar Singh CDs, which titillated so many with their graphic content and low-brow conversations featuring the likes of Anil Ambani, Jayaprada, Bipasha Basu and some others. Then we had the episode of the Radia tapes where we were privy to the machinations of Tata’s corporate lobbyist in the national capital fixing policy, positioning ministers and string-pulling media stars. But more useful than this, a mobile phone, by nature of its technology, is also a personalised GPS indicator. It tells them where that phone is at any instant it is on. The Al Qaeda terrorist and US citizen Anwar el-Awlaki was blasted by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA Predator drone flying over Yemen with the coordinates provided by Awlaki’s mobile phone.
Since a mobile phone is usually with you it tells the network ( and other interested parties) where you are or were, and even where you are headed. If you are on a certain street since it reveals where exactly you are and the direction of your movement, it can tell you where the next pizza place is or where and what is on sale. This is also a breach of privacy, but often useful to you. But if you are up to no good, then a switched-on mobile phone is a certain giveaway.
That’s what gave away Osama bin Laden in the end. A momentary indiscretion by a trusted courier and bodyguard and a name gleaned from a long-ago water-boarding session was all it took. To know what happened next see “Zero Dark Thirty” by Katherine Bigelow (now on Netflix and YouTube).
The NSA is all hi-tech. NSA collects intelligence from four geostationary satellites. These satellites track and monitor millions of conversations and the NSA’s banks of high-speed supercomputers process all these messages for certain phrases and patterns of conversations to decide if the persons at either end were worthy of further interest.
The NSA’s eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both from various organisations and individuals, the internet, telephone calls, and other intercepted forms of communication. Its secure communications mission includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications. The NSA is all hi-tech. NSA collects intelligence from four geostationary satellites. These satellites track and monitor millions of conversations and the NSA’s banks of high-speed supercomputers process all these messages for certain phrases and patterns of conversations to decide if the persons at either end were worthy of further interest. Link this information with the data from the CIA’s spinning satellites watching the movements of groups, individuals and vehicles, and you have a broad picture of what the people are doing.
According to the Washington Post, “every day, collections systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.” The NSA and CIA together comprise the greatest intelligence-gathering effort in the world. The overall U.S. intelligence budget is now declared to be $62.8 billion.
Feature Image Credit: E-International Relations
Article Image Credit: www.twz.com
Introduction
Water is the basis of biological sustenance, without which no civilisation can sustain. Access to clean and safely managed water is therefore a human right, not a privilege.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) —
One in four people still lives without safely managed water services or clean drinking water. Approximately 4 billion people live with severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year, and about half a billion people face water scarcity year-round.
The water crisis is not an isolated issue but a global challenge. It calls for effective governance not just within the local governments and authorities of a country but transnationally as well.
International Water Governance refers to this process of decision-making, formulation, and implementation of policies pertaining to the use, management, and distribution of transboundary water resources.
Peace and cooperation on matters of conflict over water are hard to reach and much harder to maintain. Treaties, multilateral agreements and conventions often govern transboundary waters; one such example of a successful bilateral water-distribution treaty is the Indus Water Treaty (the IWT) of 1960 between India and Pakistan over the regulation and use of the Indus River Basin and its tributaries.
Indus Water Treaty
The Indus Water Treaty was signed in 1960 in Karachi between India and Pakistan as facilitated by the World Bank (erstwhile International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or IBRD). It demarcates the sharing and usage of the Indus River and its major tributaries, categorised into “eastern” and “western” rivers for Indian and Pakistani use, respectively.
The Indus River flows mainly from Tibet and the Himalayan regions of India’s Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and across Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh before emptying into the Arabian Sea through Karachi.
Of the six major tributaries of the Indus River— the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej are the “eastern rivers” and the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum are the “western rivers”. The former is for India’s exclusive use after Pakistan’s permitted water use, and the latter is for Pakistan’s exclusive use after the criteria of India’s permitted use are met.
As a result, the split was made in the ratio of about 20:80 of the total water flow from the Indus system in favour of Pakistan. Pakistan has unrestricted access to the waters of the western rivers for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes.
India too is permitted to use a limited amount of water from these rivers, apart from the eastern rivers, for specified purposes, such as irrigation and power generation. It also lays down detailed regulations for India in building projects over the western rivers.
Historical context and Security concerns
As the partition of British India took place on religious lines instead of geographic factors, the division of the historically integrated water system in a manner satisfactory to both countries was a challenging feat. Although most of the river naturally flows through the regions of Pakistan, it primarily originates from India before it enters the former. Hence, Pakistan is the downstream nation of the Indus River. This places Pakistan in a vulnerable position, exposed to the risks of India causing artificial droughts or flooding of its arable lands, which may be used as leverage to control water and food security in times of hostilities.
According to Pakistan, it was entitled to all the waters of the Indus and its tributaries due to its historical right before or until the partition, also highlighting the threat of severe water scarcity without the continuous flow of the rivers. Whereas India insisted that the waters be equitably distributed on a new post-partition basis by proposing for the first time the separate rationing of the western and eastern rivers between the two nations. Ergo, paving the way for arguably one of the most successful, long-standing bilateral agreements struck between any two agnostic states.
Provisions and Objectives of IWT
In 1952, with the World Bank as the mediator, a Working Party consisting of Indian, Pakistani, and World Bank engineers was formed to draw up a cooperative plan for the use, allocation and distribution of the disputed waters. After almost eight long years of negotiations, the Indus Water Treaty was finally ratified in 1960.
The main provisions of the IWT are as follows:
India and Pakistan received approximately 30% and 70% of the total waters of the Indus rivers located in India. India’s eastern rivers have a mean annual flow of 40b/m3 while the western of Pakistan have an MAF of 100b/m3.
Use of waters of the eastern and western rivers are explicitly demarcated between India and Pakistan while limited usage of the other country’s rivers is also permitted for specific purposes that are of non-consumptive nature, like hydropower generation, fishing, etc.
According to IWT, although the liberty to use unutilized water of the other country exists, the right over the water is not forfeited over time, even in case of repeated underutilization.
A Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) comprising commissioners from both India and Pakistan is provided for by the Treaty. The PIC serves as a forum for the exchange of hydrological data, information, and views on the implementation of the treaty and the resolution of disputes.
Aftermath
The treaty has survived several border skirmishes, terror attacks including the 26/11, and even two full-fledged wars in 1965 and 1971. The terms of water sharing as agreed upon have been adhered to despite such hostilities.
After the 2016 Uri Attack on an Indian Army base in Jammu and Kashmir and the 2019 Pulwama Attack, threats of revoking the Treaty have been made by India but never materialised, as the Treaty continues to remain intact. However, according to the IWT, the bombing or destroying of dams, barrages, power stations, etc. located in the Indian part of the Indus basin by Pakistan violates the Treaty which can lead to its abrogation.
Despite Pakistan’s repeated violation of the Treaty by using groundwater of Ravi and Sutlej areas of India for various uses before they cross into its area, and by constructing river training works to reduce river flooding in Pakistan and enhance flooding in India’s Great Rann of Kutch area; no concerns have been raised by the latter hereto.
With the Treaty in place, several projects have been undertaken on the allotted rivers, India has constructed the Bhakra-Nangal and Salal dams for hydroelectric power generation. Pakistan constructed the Tarbela and Mangla Dams for water storage, irrigation, and hydropower generation.
Shahpur Kandi and Ratle Projects:
The Shahpur Kandi project of India over the Ujh river has been objected to by Pakistan for diverting waters of Ujh, a tributary of Ravi, an eastern river exclusive for India’s use. The dam was officially completed in February 2024.
India’s ongoing Ratle Hydroelectric Project on the Chenab also made headlines, for Pakistan’s objection to its construction in the Indian area after its funding was finally approved in 2021. The dam would have an 850 MW generative capacity, for which a limited reserve of water is required to be reserved. This alarmed Pakistan as it claimed it would pose a risk of possible weaponization of water supply by India in wartime situations. Disagreement over the summoning of a Neutral Expert or a Court of Arbitration as authorised by the Treaty for dispute resolution was settled in 2016 by the World Bank’s decision to let both motions proceed simultaneously. Later, India was allowed to construct the dam by the World Bank despite objections by Pakistan. The project is scheduled to commence operations in 2026.
A Blueprint for Transboundary Water Cooperation
The success of the IWT sets an example of how countries can overcome their political differences and contribute to an efficient system of shared resource governance. It successfully helped the Indian subcontinent evade a potential war between the two nuclear-armed states over the river basin, a model for other regions struggling with water scarcity and competition to follow.
Climate change coupled with the construction of dams and barrages for water storage and regulation carries heavy ecological repercussions like the disruption of river ecosystems, aquatic habitats, and biodiversity of the concerned region. Consequently, endangering the livelihood of the nearby occupants, even forcing them to relocate. Hence, such a cooperative regulatory mechanism must be in place to facilitate constructive dialogue towards incorporating environmental considerations into water management strategies to tackle and mitigate any negative repercussions.
The Indus Water Treaty has demonstrated its efficacy as a significant diplomatic agreement between the two neighbouring states, consistently withstanding various challenges over time. The treaty primarily emphasises the importance of cooperation and diplomacy in resolving transboundary water disputes while also establishing a foundation and providing scope for potential future collaboration in numerous domains of shared governance.
Proposals for its abrogation have been deemed impractical for both parties, as the treaty has endured for six decades. Nevertheless, there is a recognised need to re-examine, renegotiate, revise, and amend the long-standing Treaty to better address contemporary issues, including new ecological and climate change concerns, as well as evolving terms of negotiation.
References:
ET Online, (2024, February 26). India completely stops Ravi River water flow to Pakistan. Historical context and significance. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-completely-stops-ravi-river-water-flow-to-pakistan-historical-context-and-significance/articleshow/107980936.cms
Gupta, M.S. (2024, February 25). Shahpurkandi dam complete after 3 decades, will help check unutilised Ravi water flowing to Pakistan. The Print. https://theprint.in/india/governance/shahpurkandi-dam-complete-after-3-decades-will-help-check-unutilised-ravi-water-flowing-to-pakistan/1978380/
Gupta, S [The Print]. (2023, January 31). Understanding the Indus Waters Treaty & why India is pushing Pakistan for changes [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/pVp93u2IgSg
MEA Media Centre, (1960, September 19). Bilateral/Multilateral Documents: Indus Waters Treaty. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (MEA, GOI). https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/6439/Indus
Samantha, P.D. (2023, January 31). The Indus Question: India, Pakistan and rivers of concern. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/analysis-india-pakistan-looking-to-exploit-resources-for-more-electricity/articleshow/97462196.cms
Times Now Digital, (2018, November 7). Pak ‘diplomatic sabotage’ busted: India to go ahead with Ratle hydroelectric project, govt to send team to J&K. Times Now. https://web.archive.org/web/20190225224015/https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/pakistan-india-ratle-hydroelectric-project-indus-water-treaty-agreement-chenab-shahpur-kandi-dam-project-ujh-multipurpose-project-jammu-and-kashmir/310636
The recently concluded BRICS summit confirms the process of inevitable transformation of the international order. The US-led West, since the fall of the USSR, has increasingly demonstrated intolerance to their view of the world. The ongoing conflicts in UKraine and Gaza has exposed their duplicity and the entire Global South have come to realise the anamolies in international order and the so-called rules-based system. The West’s unabashed support to Israel’s genocide and babarism in Gaza, despite their peoples’ opposition makes the claims of democracy and humanism in the West sound hollow. Thierry Meyssan dealt incisively with this duplicity of the West, primarily the Ango-Saxon powers, in his speech last year in Magdeburg (Germany), at the conference organized by the magazine Compact, “Amitie avec la Russie”, on November 4, 2023.
We reproduce the text of Thierry Meyssan’s speech, translated by Roger Lagasse’, and published earlier in voltairenet.org
In it, he explains what, in his view, constitutes the fundamental difference between the two conceptions of the world order now clashing from the Donbass to Gaza: that of the Western bloc and that to which the rest of the world refers. The question is not whether this order should be dominated by one power (unipolar) or by a group of powers (multipolar), but whether or not it should respect the sovereignty of each. He draws on the history of international law, as conceived by Tsar Nicholas II and Nobel Peace Prize winner Léon Bourgeois.
– Team TPF
What International Order?
Thierry Meyssan
We’ve seen NATO’s crimes, but why affirm our friendship with Russia? Isn’t there a risk of Russia behaving tomorrow like NATO does today? Are we not substituting one form of slavery for another?
To answer this question, I would draw on my successive experience as advisor to five heads of state. Everywhere, Russian diplomats have told me: you’re on the wrong track: you’re committed to putting out one fire here, while another has started elsewhere. The problem is deeper and broader.
I would therefore like to describe the difference between a world order based on rules and one based on international law. This is not a linear story, but a struggle between two worldviews – a struggle we must continue.
In the 17th century, the Treaties of Westphalia established the principle of state sovereignty. Each is equal to the others, and no one may interfere in the internal affairs of others. For centuries, these treaties governed relations between the present-day Länder, as well as between European states. They were reaffirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when Napoleon I was defeated.
On the eve of the First World War, Tsar Nicholas II convened two International Peace Conferences (1899 and 1907) in The Hague to “seek the most effective means of assuring all peoples the benefits of a real and lasting peace”. Together with Pope Benedict XV, he prepared them on the basis of canon law, not the law of the strongest. After two months of deliberation, 27 states signed the final proceedings. The president of the French Radical [Republican] Party, Léon Bourgeois, presented his thoughts [1] on the mutual dependence of states and their interest in uniting despite their rivalries.
At the instigation of Léon Bourgeois, the Conference created an International Court of Arbitration to settle disputes by legal means rather than by war. According to Bourgeois, states would only agree to disarm when they had other guarantees of security.
The final text instituted the notion of “the duty of States to avoid war”… by resorting to arbitration.
At the instigation of one of the Tsar’s ministers, Frédéric Fromhold de Martens, the Conference agreed that, during armed conflict, populations and belligerents must remain under the protection of the principles resulting from “the usages established between civilized nations, the laws of humanity and the dictates of public conscience”. In short, the signatories undertook to stop behaving like barbarians.
This system only works between civilized states that honour their signatures and are accountable to public opinion. It failed, in 1914, because states had lost their sovereignty by entering into defense treaties that required them to go to war automatically in certain circumstances that they could not assess for themselves.
Léon Bourgeois’s ideas gained ground, but met with opposition, including from his rival in Georges Clemenceau’s Radical Party. Clemenceau did not believe that public opinion could prevent wars. Nor did the Anglo-Saxons, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Lloyd George. At the end of the First World War, these three men substituted the might of the victors for the fledgling international law. They shared the world and the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman empires. They blamed Germany alone for the massacres, denying their own. They imposed disarmament without guarantees. To prevent the emergence of a rival to the British Empire in Europe, the Anglo-Saxons began to pit Germany against the USSR, and secured France’s silence by assuring her that she could plunder the defeated Second Reich. In a way, as the first President of the Federal Republic, Theodor Heuss, put it, they organized the conditions for the development of Nazism.
As they had agreed among themselves, the three men reshaped the world in their own image (Wilson’s 14 points, the Sykes-Picot agreements, the Balfour Declaration). They created the Jewish homeland of Palestine, dissected Africa and Asia, and tried to reduce Turkey to its minimum size. They organized all the current disorders in the Middle East.
Yet it was on the basis of the ideas of the late Nicholas II and Léon Bourgeois that the League of Nations (League) was established after the First World War, without the participation of the United States, which thus officially rejected any idea of International Law. However, the League also failed. Not because the United States refused to join, as some say. That was their right. But firstly, because it was incapable of re-establishing strict equality between states, as the United Kingdom was opposed to considering colonized peoples as equals. Secondly, it did not have a common army. And finally, because the Nazis massacred their opponents, destroyed German public opinion, violated the Berlin signature and did not hesitate to behave like barbarians.
As early as the Atlantic Charter in 1942, the new U.S. President, Franklin Roosevelt, and the new British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, set themselves the common goal of establishing a world government at the end of the conflict. The Anglo-Saxons, who imagined they could rule the world, did not, however, agree amongst themselves on how to go about it. Washington did not wish London to meddle in its affairs in Latin America, while London had no intention of sharing the hegemony of the Empire over which “the sun never set”. During the war, the Anglo-Saxons signed numerous treaties with Allied governments, including those in exile, which they hosted in London.
Incidentally, the Anglo-Saxons failed to defeat the Third Reich, and it was the Soviets who overthrew it and took Berlin. Joseph Stalin, First Secretary of the CPSU, was opposed to the idea of a world government, and an Anglo-Saxon one at that. All he wanted was an organization capable of preventing future conflicts. In any case, it was Russian conceptions that gave birth to the system: that of the United Nations Charter, at the San Francisco conference.
In the spirit of the Hague Conferences, all UN member states are equal. The Organization includes an internal tribunal, the International Court of Justice, responsible for settling disputes between its members. However, in the light of previous experience, the five victorious powers have a permanent seat on the Security Council, with a veto. Given that there was no trust between them (the Anglo-Saxons had planned to continue the war with the remaining German troops against the USSR) and that it was unknown how the General Assembly would behave, the various victors wanted to ensure that the UN would not turn against them (the USA had committed appalling war crimes by dropping two atomic bombs against civilians, while Japan… was preparing its surrender to the Soviets). But the great powers did not understand the veto in the same way. For some, it was a right to censor the decisions of others; for others, it was an obligation to take decisions unanimously.
Except that, right from the start, the Anglo-Saxons didn’t play ball: an Israeli state declared itself (May 14, 1948) before its borders had been agreed, and the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy to oversee the creation of a Palestinian state, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated by Jewish supremacists under the command of Yitzhak Shamir. Moreover, the seat on the Security Council allocated to China, in the context of the end of the Chinese Civil War, was given to Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang and not to Beijing. The Anglo-Saxons proclaimed the independence of their Korean zone of occupation as the “Republic of Korea” (August 15, 1948), created NATO (April 4, 1949), and then proclaimed the independence of their German zone of occupation as “Federal Germany” (May 23, 1949).
The USSR considered itself fooled, and slammed the door (“empty seat” policy). The Georgian Joseph Stalin had mistakenly believed that the veto was not a right of censure, but a condition of unanimity of the victors. He thought he could block the organization by boycotting it.
The Anglo-Saxons interpreted the text of the Charter they had drafted and took advantage of the Soviets’ absence to place “blue helmets” on the heads of their soldiers and wage war on the North Koreans (June 25, 1950) in the “name of the international community” (sic). Finally, on August 1, 1950, the Soviets returned to the UN after an absence of six and a half months.
The North Atlantic Treaty may be legal but NATO’s rules of procedure violate the UN Charter. It places the Allied armies under Anglo-Saxon command. Its Commander-in-Chief, the SACEUR, is necessarily an American officer. According to its first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, the Alliance’s real aim was neither to preserve the peace nor to fight the Soviets, but to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans under control” [2]. In short, it was the armed wing of the world government that Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to create. It was in pursuit of this goal that President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany.
At the Liberation, MI6 and OPC (the future CIA) secretly set up a stay-behind network in Germany. They placed thousands of Nazi leaders in this network, helping them to escape justice. Klaus Barbie, who tortured French Resistance coordinator Jean Moulin, became the first commander of this shadow army. The network was then incorporated into NATO, where it was greatly reduced. It was then used by the Anglo-Saxons to interfere in the political life of their supposed allies, who were in reality their vassals.
Joseph Goebbels’ former collaborators created the Volksbund für Frieden und Freiheit. With the help of the USA, they persecuted German communists. Later, NATO’s stay-behind agents were able to manipulate the extreme left to make it detestable. A case in point is the Bader gang. But as these men were arrested, the stay-behind came and murdered them in prison, before they could stand trial and speak out. In 1992, Denmark spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel on NATO instructions, just as in 2022, Norway, another NATO member, helped the USA sabotage Nord Stream…
Returning to international law, things gradually returned to normal, until in 1968, during the Prague Spring, the Ukrainian Leonid Brezhnev did in Central Europe what the Anglo-Saxons were doing everywhere else: he forbade the USSR’s allies to choose an economic model other than their own.
With the dissolution of the USSR, things began to get worse. The US Undersecretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, drew up a doctrine according to which, to remain masters of the world, the United States had to do everything in its power to prevent the emergence of a new rival, starting with the European Union. It was in application of this idea that Secretary of State James Baker imposed the enlargement of the European Union to include all the former states of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. By expanding in this way, the Union deprived itself of the possibility of becoming a political entity. It was again in application of this doctrine that the Maastricht Treaty placed the EU under NATO’s protection. And it is still in the application of this doctrine that Germany and France are paying for and arming Ukraine.
Then came Czech-US professor Josef Korbel. He proposed that the Anglo-Saxons should dominate the world by rewriting international treaties. All that was needed, he argued, was to substitute Anglo-Saxon law, based on custom, for the rationality of Roman law. In this way, in the long term, all treaties would give the advantage to the dominant powers: the United States and the United Kingdom, linked by a “special relationship”, in the words of Winston Churchill. Professor Korbel’s daughter, Democrat Madeleine Albright, became Ambassador to the UN, then Secretary of State. Then, when the White House passed into Republican hands, Professor Korbel’s adopted daughter, Condoleeza Rice, succeeded her as National Security Advisor, then Secretary of State. For two decades, the two “sisters” [3]patiently rewrote the main international texts, ostensibly to modernize them, but in fact to change their spirit.
Today, international institutions operate according to Anglo-Saxon rules, based on previous violations of international law. This law is not written in any code, since it is an interpretation of custom by the dominant power. Every day, we substitute unjust rules for International Law and violate our own signature.
For example:
• When the Baltic States were created in 1990, they made a written commitment to preserve the monuments to the sacrifices of the Red Army. The destruction of these monuments is therefore a violation of their own signature.
• Finland made a written commitment in 1947 to remain neutral. Joining NATO is therefore a violation of its own signature.
• On October 25, 1971, the United Nations adopted Resolution 2758 recognizing Beijing, not Taiwan, as the sole legitimate representative of China. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek’s government was expelled from the Security Council and replaced by that of Mao Zedong. Consequently, China’s recent naval manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait do not constitute aggression against a sovereign state, but the free deployment of its forces in its own territorial waters.
• The Minsk agreements were intended to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from harassment by “integral nationalists”. France and Germany vouched for them before the Security Council. But, as Angela Merkel and François Hollande have said, neither of them had any intention of implementing them. Their signatures are worthless. If it had been otherwise, there would never have been a war in Ukraine.
The perversion of International Law reached a peak with the appointment, in 2012, of the American Jeffrey Feltman as Director of Political Affairs. From his office in New York, he oversaw the Western war on Syria. Using the institutions of peace to wage war [4].
Until the United States threatened it by stockpiling weapons on its border, the Russian Federation respected all the commitments it had signed or that the Soviet Union had signed. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obliges the nuclear powers not to spread their nuclear arsenals around the world. The United States, in violation of its signature, has been stockpiling atomic bombs in five vassal countries for decades. They train allied soldiers in the handling of these weapons at the Kleine Brogel base in Belgium, the Büchel base here in Germany (Rhineland-Palatinate), the Aviano and Ghedi bases in Italy, the Volkel base in the Netherlands and the Incirlik base in Turkey.
Then they say, by virtue of their coups de force, that this has become the custom.
Now, the Russian Federation, considering itself under siege after a US nuclear bomber flew over the Gulf of Finland, has also played with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and installed atomic bombs on the territory of Belarus. Of course, Belarus is not Cuba. Placing Russian nuclear bombs there changes nothing. It’s just a message sent to Washington: if you want to re-establish the Law of the Strongest, we can accept that too, except that, from now on, we’re the strongest. Note that Russia has not violated the letter of the Treaty, as it is not training the Belarusian military in these weapons, but it has taken liberties with the spirit of the Treaty.
As Léon Bourgeois explained in the last century, to be effective and lasting, disarmament treaties must be based on legal guarantees. It is therefore urgent to return to international law, failing which we will plunge headlong into a devastating war.
Our honour and our interest lie in re-establishing international law. It’s a fragile construction. If we want to avoid war, we must re-establish it, and we can be sure that Russia thinks as we do, that it will not violate it.
Or we can support NATO, which brought its 31 defence ministers together in Brussels on October 11 to listen to their Israeli counterpart announce, via videoconference, that he was going to raze Gaza to the ground. And none of our ministers, including Germany’s Boris Pistorius, dared to speak out against the planning of this mass crime against civilians. The honour of the German people has already been betrayed by the Nazis, who ultimately sacrificed you. Don’t let yourselves be betrayed again, this time by the Social Democratic Party and the Greens.
We don’t have to choose between two overlords, but to protect peace, from the Donbass to Gaza, and, ultimately, to defend International Law.
Source: “What international order?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 7 November 2023, www.voltairenet.org/article219965.html
Republished under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND
On 23 September 2024, Reuters published a news item quoting unnamed sources that said that India had ‘ invited political and military opponents of Myanmar’s ruling junta to attend a seminar in New Delhi. Even as the lack of corroboration of such a report puts it in the realm of conjecture, it is worthwhile mulling over the motivations or otherwise for such a seminal event to be even contemplated, especially in the light of implications for India’s Act East Policy.
TPF Occasional Paper: 10/2024
Recalibrating India’s Act East Policy: New Realities in Myanmar and Bangladesh
Maj Gen Alok Deb (Retd)
On 23 September 2024, Reuters published a news item quoting unnamed sources that said that India had ‘ invited political and military opponents of Myanmar’s ruling junta to attend a seminar in New Delhi’[i]. The item went on to specify that the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and ethnic minority rebels from the states of Chin, Rakhine and Kachin bordering India had been invited to a seminar in mid-November, to be hosted by the Delhi-based Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), a foreign policy think tank funded by the Government of India. The piece was also carried by some major Indian newspapers with its origin attributed to Reuters. At the time of writing, there has been no acknowledgement or rebuttal of this report by any government agency. Neither has the ICWA posted this on its website as a forthcoming event. Even as the lack of corroboration of such a report puts it in the realm of conjecture, it is worthwhile mulling over the motivations or otherwise for such a seminal event to be even contemplated, especially in the light of implications for India’s Act East Policy.
A Summary of India’s Act East Policy
India’s ‘Act East’ policy of 2014 is an initiative that takes off from its earlier ‘Look East’ policy. ‘Act East’ envisages initiatives at multiple levels with the nations of ASEAN and the wider Indo-Pacific region. These initiatives are to be taken forward through a process of continuous engagement at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels, thereby providing enhanced connectivity in its broadest sense, including political, economic, cultural and people-to-people relations.[ii]
To successfully implement the ‘Act East’ policy, the Indian government is working to make the North East its strategic gateway to ASEAN. Accordingly, it has increased the allocation for the region’s development by more than four times over the last 10 years.[iii] The North East is also poised to benefit from initiatives from countries like Japan which earlier this year had proposed developing an industrial hub in Bangladesh with supply chains to the North East, Nepal and Bhutan.[iv]
As the North East becomes India’s gateway to ASEAN, the centrality of Myanmar to our Act East becomes apparent. It is the key link in the road connectivity between India’s North East and other ASEAN nations whereby the free flow of inland goods, services and other initiatives to and from these nations to India can be ensured. The success or otherwise of Act East is thus directly affected by the security environment in Myanmar. Instability here will negatively impact our North Eastern states sharing borders with that country. The internal situation in Myanmar therefore becomes an area of prime concern for India, warranting close attention.
For similar reasons, another neighbour, Bangladesh, is equally important for the success of India’s Act East Policy. India’s North East has benefitted from good ties with Bangladesh, both security-wise and economically. Militancy in the North East has reduced over the last decade and a half. With Bangladesh agreeing to provide access to its ports in the Bay of Bengal for the movement of Indian goods, the North Eastern states have a shorter route to the sea. Additionally, states bordering Bangladesh such as Assam and Meghalaya have developed trade links with that country for mutual benefit. The BBIN (Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal) Motor Vehicle Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal and Cargo Vehicular Traffic was signed in 2015 to ‘ promote safe, economically efficient and environmentally sound road transport in the sub-region and … further help each country in creating an institutional mechanism for regional integration’ is another mechanism for implementing our Act East and Neighbourhood First policies[v]. The role of Bangladesh here is pivotal.
State of the Civil War in Myanmar
Fighting in Myanmar is now in its fourth year. The military junta continues to suffer reverses on the battlefield. Large portions of Rakhine State and certain portions of Chin State are now under the control of the Arakan Army (AA). International Crisis Group has recently averred that ‘..in just a few months, the Arakan Army has created the largest area in Myanmar under the control of a non-state armed group – in terms of both size and population – and is now on the verge of securing almost all of Rakhine’[vi].
In Shan state to the North, the Three Brotherhood Alliance (TBA) of three Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) had by December 2023, captured over 20,000 square kilometres of territory, including key border crossings and trade routes between China and Myanmar in Operation 1027[vii]. On 07 March 2024, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) launched Operation 0307 and successfully captured certain military posts across Kachin State close to the Chinese border. This forced the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) to redeploy, further thinning out forces[viii]. Fighting also continues in other states and regions across the country, notably Sagaing and Kayah.
Associated Press deduces that ‘.. the announcement of the measure on state television amounts to a major, though tacit, admission that the army is struggling to contain the nationwide armed resistance against its rule..’.The Junta has since conscripted Rohingya youth and deployed them against the Rakhines.
Notwithstanding these losses, there is no let-up in the Tatmadaw’s efforts to combat the rebels. The Junta has resorted to conscription to stem rising attrition, activating an old law in this regard. Associated Press deduces that ‘.. the announcement of the measure on state television amounts to a major, though tacit, admission that the army is struggling to contain the nationwide armed resistance against its rule..’ [ix] To further contextualise, the same article stated the rebel National Unity Government’s (NUG) claim that more than 14,000 troops have defected from the military since the 2021 seizure of power. The Junta has since conscripted Rohingya youth and deployed them against the Rakhines. The Chins fear that they too will be acted upon similarly.[x]
To overcome the asymmetry of force especially in artillery and airpower, the rebels have acquired large numbers of drones. These are being used to bomb military positions, contributing significantly towards the successes of the CNA’s operations[xi]. To summarise, Myanmar’s civil war continues to see-saw with no signs of ebbing. The Junta continues to make periodic peace overtures to the NUG with conditionalities that the latter is unwilling to accept[xii]. With the multiplicity of actors and issues involved, there are no clear indications of how and when the conflict will be resolved.
Impact of the Myanmar Conflict on India’s North-East
The impact of Myanmar’s internal situation on India’s border states has progressively worsened. Initially, after the Junta takeover, it was Mizoram which bore the brunt. The state government citing common ethnicity and humanitarian concerns accepted the influx of Chins from Myanmar as a moral responsibility and initiated rehabilitation measures. These refugees along with earlier refugees from Bangladesh recently joined Kukis from Manipur, number around 44000 and continue to remain in refugee camps.[xiii] The Central government has had to reconcile its policy of preventing infiltration across borders with the societal realities of Mizoram. A positive outcome of this approach is that there has been no violence in Mizoram.
In Manipur, by September 2024, the 18-month-long ethnic conflict had resulted in over 225 deaths and some 60,000 people displaced.[xiv] The administration has been derided by both sides, more so with recent warnings about impending threats to law and order[xv] followed by retractions[xvi]. People of either community have been uprooted from their homes and moved to safe areas separated by buffer zones guarded by security forces. So great is the mutual suspicion that on the clamour of the Meiteis to replace the Assam Rifles, two battalions of this central force have been withdrawn and replaced by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), against the wishes of the Kukis[xvii].
Voices for an independent ‘Kukiland’ for the Kuki Zo peoples are being raised,[xviii] which are variously interpreted as a demand for greater autonomy within Manipur or for a separate union territory. The current happenings also dredge up the old ghost of ‘Zale’n-gam’ or Kuki nation, comprising the Chin Kuki Zomi peoples (including Mizos) residing across India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Zale’n- gam has few takers and appears restricted to a YouTube channel[xix]. Today both sides fight each other with a variety of weapons including improvised rockets and drones. Hostage-taking is the latest tactic that has been adopted.[xx]
Tension between the Nagas of Manipur and other communities is discernible with some reports of violence against the former.[xxi] As of now Nagas have kept out of the Kuki-Meitei dispute; also, other than the insurgent National Socialist Council of Nagaland ( Isak Muviah) faction (NSCN-IM) that is observing a ceasefire with the Centre, no other party has demanded integration of all Naga inhabited areas in India ( Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur) and Myanmar – the idea of Greater Nagalim.
At the state level, the responses of Mizoram and Manipur to the Myanmar crisis vary. This can be best seen in their reactions to the Centre’s recent notification to fence the entire 1643 Km Myanmar border and its earlier decision to end the Free Movement Regime that permits movement on both sides of the border for up to a distance of 16 km.[xxii] While the Mizoram government and tribes living in both states oppose the decisions, the Manipur government clamours for its implementation. Currently, only around 30 Km of the border has been fenced.
Since the Tatmadaw now has limited control over its border areas, it has become imperative for India to commence a structured dialogue with other warring parties in Myanmar’s border regions. This, with a view to restoring the situation in Manipur (and on the border) through mutually acceptable solutions at least for the short to medium term, is necessary. Only then can a modicum of security on the border be guaranteed. This involves navigating a maze of ethnic, religious, historical and societal issues with great sensitivity. The importance of such a dialogue cannot be overemphasised, more so because of recent developments in Bangladesh.
The Impact of Bangladesh’s ‘Second Liberation’
The events of 5 August 2024 that witnessed the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s government have proved to be yet another watershed in India-Bangladesh relations. India has invested more in the India-Bangladesh relationship than with any other neighbour in South Asia. A glance at the website of our Ministry of External Affairs[xxiii], where details of various agreements and summaries from the last Prime Ministerial meeting in Delhi in June 2024 are provided, will suffice to show just how strong and all-encompassing this relationship has become.
Persons or organisations associated with the previous regime have either fled the country or been placed under arrest and assets confiscated. A few have been killed by mobs. Bank accounts of others have been frozen. Jamaat e Islami which collaborated with the Pakistan Army in 1971 has been resurrected. Extremists with proven murder charges against them have been freed from prison, as have political prisoners.
At the time of writing, it is two months since the interim government headed by Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus assumed charge. The country continues to make efforts to reestablish the rule of law. All wings of the armed forces have been given magisterial powers[xxiv]. The functioning of the judiciary, higher civil services, local administration, police, security agencies, banking, economy, and higher education, is under review. Persons or organisations associated with the previous regime have either fled the country or been placed under arrest and assets confiscated. A few have been killed by mobs. Bank accounts of others have been frozen.[xxv] The Jamaat e Islami which collaborated with the Pakistan Army in 1971 has been resurrected. Extremists with proven murder charges against them have been freed from prison, as have political prisoners. Commissions have been set up to suggest reforms in the constitution, electoral system, police, judiciary, public administration and in tackling corruption. Elections do not seem to be on the horizon yet. The advisers ( as the ministers are currently known) are new faces, not well known in India.
While this paper does not attempt to be a study of India-Bangladesh relations, the polarised politics in that country coupled with a perception that the misdeeds of Sheikh Hasina’s government were conducted with impunity because of Indian backing, is sure to impact India’s portrayal here.
With the removal of Sheikh Hasina, the India-Bangladesh relationship is undergoing a major reset. Statements of certain public figures and sentiments of a section of the population in that country suggest that a different perspective on the evolution of Bangladesh as a nation from 1971 onwards is emerging. While this paper does not attempt to be a study of India-Bangladesh relations, the polarised politics in that country coupled with a perception that the misdeeds of Sheikh Hasina’s government were conducted with impunity because of Indian backing, is sure to impact India’s portrayal here. This will make it an arduous task for both countries to go back to the trusted, cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship that existed. As mentioned, the list of achievements for both countries is far too numerous – settlement of land and oceanic borders, road, rail and riverine connectivity (including use of ports), economy and business ( both government and private), education including educational scholarships, technology, disaster management, border management, maritime security, military to military cooperation, improved people to people contacts, culture and health. As per records, of the 16 lakh visas issued by India for Bangladesh nationals in 2023, 4.5 lakhs were for medical treatment alone[xxvi]. Economies are so embedded that everyday necessities like onions are exported regularly to Bangladesh ( approximately 6 to 7 lakh tonnes annually).
Even as the new regime provides assurances on the security of minorities and acknowledges India as an important neighbour, the enthusiasm with which it has interacted with official interlocutors from a host of nations worldwide especially China, Pakistan and the US is noteworthy and indicates where its newfound priorities might lie.
A parallel reality, however, is that negative perceptions about India have historically found space in sections of Bangladesh’s polity. These have received a huge fillip after the change of regime with even settled agreements prone to misunderstanding. A recent example pertains to a tripartite agreement dating back to the Hasina period whereby electricity is to be imported from Nepal via India to Bangladesh. The agreement was signed in Kathmandu in the first week of October 2024. Newspaper reports from Bangladesh indicate that there is palpable resentment over the condition that Indian transmission systems inside Indian territory be utilised for this purpose since it increases costs per unit of electricity in Bangladesh.[xxvii] Another issue currently bedevilling relations is the state of minorities in Bangladesh who have faced attacks on their homes, businesses and religious places with some loss of life, since the protests in July. India’s concerns in this regard have been conveyed at the highest level. Even as the new regime provides assurances on the security of minorities and acknowledges India as an important neighbour, the enthusiasm with which it has interacted with official interlocutors from a host of nations worldwide especially China, Pakistan and the US is noteworthy and indicates where its newfound priorities might lie.
Larger Implications for India
Bangladesh and Myanmar are pivotal for India’s Act East policy from the security, economic and connectivity angles. The issues pertaining to Myanmar and Manipur have been brought out earlier. A common concern affecting both nations and India is the Rohingya crisis. Despite international pressure and requests from Bangladesh for China to intercede with Myanmar on its behalf, there has been no positive response from Myanmar. Bangladesh, which currently hosts close to one million refugees,[xxviii] has publicly expressed its inability to accommodate any more Rohingyas and asked for a speedy ‘third country settlement’ [xxix]. A detailed report of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in October 2023[xxx]provides details of activities of militant organisations like the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) which are involved in drug running from Myanmar along with Bangladeshi syndicates for sale of the product in that country. Their participation in violent crime and other illegal activity has become a pressing concern within Bangladesh. Rohingyas have infiltrated into India as well, and have been identified as far North as Jammu. The security implications of such migration for both Bangladesh and India are apparent. The insensitivity of the Myanmar Junta on this account is heightening security risks for India and Bangladesh and merits diplomatic intervention.
With the situation in Bangladesh evolving by the day, it is prudent for India to take a strategic pause as it weighs its options for pursuing its Act East policy. While giving the new regime in Bangladesh its due, India has to consider the impact of resurgent forces aided by inimical powers that aim to derail the India-Bangladesh relationship beyond repair. Even as both countries attempt to reestablish strong ties, the old adage preached by educated Bangladeshis in the context of support to Sheikh Hasina’s regime that ‘India should not put all its eggs in one basket’ resonates. While Myanmar geographically cannot provide the singular advantages that Bangladesh can, it is time for India to press for securing Myanmar’s cooperation to complete pending projects in that country, such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Port Project (KMMPP) via Sittwe and Paletwa, that provides an alternate route to our North East, as well as the Trans Asian Highway (TAH) that provides connectivity with the rest of ASEAN, amongst others.
To summarise, two possible reasons for inviting rebel Myanmar groups to Delhi could be: first, the relative viability of either Bangladesh or Myanmar to help implement the Act East policy in light of the emerging situation in Bangladesh and the state of the civil war in Myanmar. The second, ensuring security on the India-Myanmar border, to prevent aggravating the situation in India’s border states.
Notes:
[i] ‘Exclusive: India extends unprecedented invite to Myanmar’s anti-junta forces, sources say’ Wa Lone and Devjyot Ghoshal Reuters September 23, 2024
[ii] ‘Govt aims to make Northeast gateway of ‘Act East Policy’: President Murmu’ Press Trust of India 27 June 2024.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] ‘Japan to tie landlocked Northeast India with Bangladesh’ Saleem Samad The Daily Messenger 05 March 2024.
[v] Press Information Bureau Government of India Ministry of Shipping note dated 10 June 2015
‘Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicle Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal and Cargo Vehicular Traffic amongst BBIN’
[vi] ‘Breaking Away: The Battle for Myanmar’s Rakhine State Asia Report N°339 | 27 August 2024’ International Crisis Group (Executive Summary).
[vii] ‘As Myanmar’s Junta Loses Control in the North, China’s Influence Grows’ Jason Tower, United States Institute for Peace, August 1, 2024.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] ‘Facing setbacks against resistance forces, Myanmar’s military government activates conscription law ‘ Associated Press, February 12, 2024.
[x] ‘India’s ‘Forgotten Partition’ and the Myanmar Refugee Crisis’ Swapnarka Arnan The Diplomat 11 May 2024.
[xi] ‘We killed many … drones are our air force’: Myanmar’s rebels take on the junta from above. Aakash Hassan and Hannah Ellis-Petersen The Observer 20 January 2024.
[xii] ‘Armed Groups Snub Myanmar Junta ‘Peace’ Offer’ The Irrawaddy 28 September 2024
[xiii] ‘Centre provides 1,379 MT rice to Mizoram for Manipur, Myanmar, B’desh refugees’ Morung Express 25 September 2024.
[xiv] ‘Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed’ Tora Agarwala Reuters September 7, 2024
[xv] ‘900 Kuki militants infiltrated Manipur from Myanmar, says Security Advisor’ India Today NE September 20 2024.
[xvi] ‘Input on infiltration by 900 Kuki militants could not be substantiated on the ground, says Manipur security advisor’ Vijaita Singh The Hindu 26 September 2024.
[xvii] ‘Kukis call removal of Assam Rifles from 2 Manipur areas ‘biased, appeasement’, Meiteis call it ‘victory’ Ananya Bhardwaj The Print 04 August 2024.
[xviii]‘ Manipur: Kuki-Zo organizations hold rallies, demand separate ‘Kukiland’ for peace by Northeast News
August 31, 2024.
[xix] YouTube channel titled ‘Zalengam Media’.
[xx] ‘Kuki militants seek release of ‘secessionist’ in Manipur’ Prawesh Lama and Thomas Ngangom Hindustan Times Sep 30, 2024.
[xxi] ‘Keep us out of your war, Manipur Naga body warns two warring communities’ The Hindu Bureau 06 February 2024
[xxii] ‘Government sanctions ₹31,000 crore to fence Myanmar border’ The Hindu
Published – September 18, 2024
[xxiii] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India website mea.gov.in.
[xxiv] ‘Navy, the air force also granted magistracy powers’ The Daily Star September 30 2024
[xxv] ‘Bank accounts of Joy Putul Bobby frozen’ Dhaka Tribune 30 Sep 2024.
[xxvi] ‘Indian High Commission in Dhaka, facing protests & threats, returns 20,000 visa applicants’ passports ‘ Ananya Bhardwaj The Print 29 September 2024.
[xxvii] ‘Bangladesh delegation in Nepal to sign the contract to import 40 MW electricity’ Dhaka Tribune 30 September 2024.
[xxviii] Operational Data Portal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for Bangladesh.
[xxix] ‘Bangladesh calls for faster resettlement process for Rohingya’ Ruma Paul Reuters September 8, 2024
[xxx] ‘Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Limiting the Damage of a Protracted Crisis’ International Crisis Group Autumn Update 04 October 20223.
Feature Image Credit: What does Sheikh Hasina’s resignation mean for India-Bangladesh relations? – aljazeera.com
Map Credit: National Online Project
Bangladesh Parliament Image: The Shattered Identity of a Nation: From Liberation to Chaos – borderlens.com
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Statue: Bangabandhu to Toppled Statue: Mujibur Rahman’s contested legacy post Bangladesh upheaval – Economic Times