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  • Kautilya, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz: A Complementary Grammar of Strategy — and Why the Indian Tradition Begins with the King’s Self-Mastery

    Kautilya, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz: A Complementary Grammar of Strategy — and Why the Indian Tradition Begins with the King’s Self-Mastery

    TPF’s Distinguished Adjunct Scholar, Andreas Herberg-Rothe analyses not only the interconnectedness between Kautilya, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz but develops a syntheised understanding that highlights Kautilya’s larger statecraft, realism, and the ethical underpinning exemplified later by one of India’s and the world’s greatest emperors – ‘Asoka the Great’.

     

    Abstract

    It is right to insist that any serious Indian debate on strategy must return to Kautilya. Kautilya is not merely one strategic thinker among others whom India happened to produce early, but the most complete account we possess of the state as a system — of war as one instrument within a standing order of economy, administration, intelligence, and alliance. Where I part company with the tendency to treat Kautilya as sufficient is this. A grammar of statecraft is not the whole of strategy. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are not rivals to be defeated or predecessors to be surpassed; each addresses precisely what the other two leave dark. Clausewitz corrects Sun Tzu’s confidence that war can be won in the enemy’s mind before the first blow; Sun Tzu and Kautilya together correct Clausewitz’s fixation on the symmetrical clash of mass armies; Kautilya anchors both in the institutional foundation on which any campaign, and any peace, must stand. I therefore argue for two theses that operate along different axes. Horizontally, the three thinkers form a complementary system in which each compensates for the others’ blind spots. Vertically, within the Indian tradition itself, Kautilya’s realism already carries the seed of its own moral limit: the Rajarishi, the self-mastered king, is the hinge on which Ashoka’s later turn to Dharmavijaya could swing. Power without an ordering purpose is self-destructive, and a moral purpose without power is defenceless. That is why I begin with Kautilya — but do not end there. In the end, I attempt to apply my brief discussion of Kautilya, Clausewitz, and Sun Tzu to India’s situation.

    Why Begin with Kautilya

    In the Western reception, there is a habit of turning to Kautilya only as an exotic confirmation of something already believed — “the Indian Machiavelli”, as though the Arthashastra were a footnote to The Prince. I want to begin with Kautilya for three analytical reasons.

    First, the order of explanation. Sun Tzu tells us how to prevail in a campaign; Clausewitz tells us what happens when force is actually used; Kautilya tells us what must exist before either question can be asked — a treasury, an administration, an intelligence apparatus, a body of allies, a food supply. His Saptanga, or the seven limbs of the state, is not a list of assets but a theory of what a polity is. If we are looking for the ground on which the other two operate, it is here. To begin with Kautilya is to begin with the state, and only then to ask how it fights.

    Second, the Indian frame of the conversation is examined. This is a dialogue conducted in and about India, and it would be a small intellectual dishonesty to use Clausewitz as the measure against which the Arthashastra is graded. The more interesting movement runs the other way: to take Kautilya as the primary text and ask what the European and Chinese traditions add to it and where they expose its limits. This is the posture I adopt throughout.

    Third, the moral question is already present in Kautilya. The reason I do not treat Kautilya as a pure realist to be balanced, from the outside, by Ashokan ethics is that the balance is internal to his own text. He opens the Arthashastra not with tactics but with the education and self-conquest of the ruler. Begin anywhere else, and one misses the seed. Begin with Kautilya, and the path to Ashoka is already visible in the first book.

    Kautilya’s State: War as One Instrument Among Many

    Kautilya’s account of foreign policy and security in the Arthashastra is a pragmatic synthesis of realpolitik and administration. It treats the relentless pursuit of the state’s interest, the management of alliances, and comprehensive security as a single problem, refusing to separate the external from the internal: domestic stability and external deterrence are the same pillar seen from two sides. Five elements carry most of this weight.

    The Mandala: geography as the map of friendship and enmity

    Kautilya reads a state’s environment as a circle of states, the Mandala, in which relations are dictated less by sentiment than by position: the immediate neighbour is a presumptive rival; the state beyond the rival is a natural ally — the ancient form of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The Vijigishu, the would-be conqueror or the home state, must work this circle continuously through diplomacy, espionage, and alliance to maintain a regional balance. What matters for my argument is that the balance is structural and permanent, not the product of a single campaign.

    The six measures (Sadgunya): policy as a spectrum, not a switch

    Toward other states, Kautilya prescribes not a choice between peace and war but a graded set of six measures, selected by the balance of power of the moment:

    • Sandhi — peace: treaties made when the opponent is stronger, to buy time and rebuild.
    • Vigraha — hostility: open conflict when victory is likely, or provocation demands it.
    • Asana — neutrality: remaining still when neither attack nor submission is advantageous.
    • Yana — the expedition: active mobilisation and the march.
    • Samsraya — shelter: seeking the protection of a stronger power under immediate threat.
    • Dvaidhibhava — the double policy: peace with one power while preparing for war against another.

    The point is the continuity of the scale. War is not a rupture of politics but one register of it — a formulation to which I will return, because it is also, in a different key, the core of Clausewitz.

    The four expedients (Upaya): force as the last of four, not the first

    Before using force, Kautilya insists that peaceful avenues be exhausted. He orders them:

    • Sama — conciliation: negotiation and treaty.
    • Dana — gift: economic inducement or concession.
    • Bheda — dissension: the covert splitting of an adversary’s alliances from within.
    • Danda — punishment: the last resort of military or economic coercion when other means have failed.

    It is easy to read Bheda and Danda as evidence of unlimited cynicism. I think that is a misreading, and the reason is the placement: coercion is fourth, not first, and it is the servant of an order it does not itself define.

    Comprehensive security: the Saptanga and the ecology of the state

    Kautilya’s Saptanga, the seven limbs — sovereign, ministers, population, fortified towns, treasury, army, and allies — treats security as an interconnected ecology rather than a military department. He counts as threats not only invading armies but also famine, disease, and economic collapse; a powerful army, he warns, is worth nothing if the treasury is empty or the population is in revolt. This is what modern strategists relabel as “comprehensive security,” and it is the element of Kautilya that the twentieth century’s narrower schools most conspicuously lack.

    Intelligence as a permanent organ of the state

    A standing, state-run intelligence network is not an accessory to Kautilya’s system but one of its organs. Its agents gather foreign intelligence, gauge public mood, detect internal dissent, and assess the capabilities of allies and adversaries alike. For Kautilya, security is dual and requires continuous vigilance — outward against the rival and inward against decay — and the two are never separated.

    Three Thinkers, Three Grammars

    Set beside Kautilya, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz look less like competitors than like specialists in different parts of a single problem. All three are realists — none mistakes war for a moral pageant — but they are not, for that reason, immoralists. They simply enter the subject through different doors.

    • Kautilya — comprehensive statecraft. War is one instrument within a standing political, economic, and intelligence order.
    • Sun Tzu — the psychological and the subversive. The ideal is to win without fighting by breaking the opponent’s will and cohesion.
    • Clausewitz — the philosophy of war itself: its violence, its friction, its stubborn refusal to be dictated to by the opponent; “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”

    Reduced to a sentence each: Sun Tzu teaches how to defeat the opponent’s mind; Clausewitz how to survive the violent clash; Kautilya how to run a state so secure that its rivals are undone before they know the contest has begun. Stated that way, the three are obviously incomplete on their own, which underpins my next argument.

    The Complementary System: How Each Compensates the Other

    The three should be read neither as competing dogmas nor as ingredients to be blended into a single syncretic paste. They form a dynamic system in which each addresses, quite precisely, the blind spots of the others. This is the horizontal axis of my argument, and it is where I most respectfully qualify the claim that Kautilya suffices.

    Kautilya compensates Clausewitz: the foundation and the aftermath

    Clausewitz’s genius lies in exposing war as a duel of reciprocal interaction — Wechselwirkung — and in locating its decision in the destruction of the enemy’s centre of gravity. However, his lens narrows to the clash. He tells us that war is an instrument of policy and says remarkably little about how a state builds the economic, social, and institutional resilience to endure a long conflict, still less about how to construct a durable peace after it. Kautilya fills exactly this void. The Saptanga presents military power as the product of a whole ecology — treasury, justice, alliance — rather than a free-standing lever. For him, war is a temporary phase within a permanent condition of statecraft, and military action is subordinated to a protective, welfare-oriented purpose (Yogakshema). Kautilya thus anchors Clausewitz’s volatile escalation on a foundation that can survive it.

    Clausewitz compensates Sun Tzu: the shock of reality against the illusion of control

    Sun Tzu’s fascination with deception, intelligence, and manoeuvre culminates in the ideal of subduing the enemy without fighting. The hidden danger is the assumption beneath it: that conflict can be run like a rational game of chess or wei-qi, in which a clever enough commander reads and moves every piece. This structurally underestimates what Clausewitz called the remarkable trinity: the primordial violence and passion of the people, the play of chance and friction in the hands of the commander, and the rational calculation of the government. Clausewitz is the reality check on Sun Tzu’s optimism. The adversary is an independent will whose hostility, courage, and counteraction (Gegenhandeln) can shatter the most elegant deception the moment violence is unleashed. While Sun Tzu assumes that the theatre can be read, Clausewitz insists on the non-linearity of force once it is in motion.

    Sun Tzu and Kautilya compensate Clausewitz: beyond the symmetrical clash

    Clausewitz’s model grows from a European tradition of symmetrical clashes between mass armies; his dialectic of attack and defence is at its sharpest in the open shock of forces. He attends far less to the asymmetric, the irregular, the purely psychological — to forms of conflict that bypass the battlefield altogether. Here, Sun Tzu and Kautilya jointly enlarge the field. Sun Tzu shows how informational asymmetry and psychological paralysis can collapse an enemy before a blow lands; Kautilya details Guda Yuddha, the clandestine war of subversion, diplomatic friction, and internal destabilisation, dismantling an opponent’s cohesion from within. The most decisive victories, on this combined view, often occur long before a Clausewitzian duel can take shape.

    The Vulnerability of Deception: A Critique of Sun Tzu

    The result is a balanced matrix rather than a hierarchy: Kautilya secures the institutional foundation; Sun Tzu reduces material costs through psychological agility; Clausewitz provides the analytical honesty to confront violence when it arises. Remove any one, and the account bleeds at the seam the other two were covering.

    Perhaps the most important aspect of Sun Tzu’s strategy is deceiving the enemy. However, this approach has a fundamental problem. In order to deceive the enemy, we must make our deception so realistic that we risk deceiving ourselves.

    A personal anecdote illustrates this point. During the era of “real existing socialism”, it was customary for the population to march in large crowds past the Politburo building in East Berlin. One participant explained it to me this way: “When these ‘crowds’ marched past the podium, they turned off, walked behind the stage, and then reappeared at the front.” He added that, initially, this had been a pleasant Sunday stroll with the family, but later, people had to run at a brisk pace because there were so few participants. Everyone knew the truth, yet everyone participated in the charade.

    However, a deeper structural problem was that although the Politburo members were technically aware of the operational deception, they gradually came to believe that their performance was genuinely being mistaken for reality by the outside world and by their own apparatus. In terms of Sun Tzu’s principle of deception, it becomes profoundly self-destructive if the political and military leadership believes their own deception is effective—and by doing so, they ultimately deceive themselves. They mistook the simulation for the baseline of power.

    The Clausewitzian Corrective

    This is precisely where the matrix requires Clausewitz’s analytical honesty to stabilise the structure. Sun Tzu’s deception operates in the realm of appearance, yet it remains a dangerous epiphenomenon. If a state relies too heavily on psychological manipulation, its strategic calculus becomes hollow. Clausewitz provides the necessary antidote to this self-induced “fog of war.” By anchoring strategy in the immutable, violent friction of reality and in the strict relationship between political purpose and material means, Clausewitz forces the strategist to look beyond the theatre.

    In the contemporary context of India’s rivalry with China, this critique is vital. While China employs Sun Tzu-inspired psychological and informational warfare to project an aura of absolute dominance, India must avoid competitive simulation. Kautilya could guarantee that India’s domestic and institutional foundations remain structurally sound. Clausewitz ensures that India retains the unvarnished analytical clarity to evaluate China’s actual material capabilities—rather than Beijing’s self-deceiving theatre—while preparing for the physical reality of conflict if deterrence fails.

    The Vertical Axis: From Danda to Dharma, from Kautilya to Ashoka

    The complementarity above is horizontal — three grammars of how a state contends. There is a second axis, vertical and internal to the Indian tradition, concerning the purpose of the instruments of power. It is here that I locate my disagreement with any reading of Kautilya as merely amoral, and here that the Kautilya–Ashoka relationship, so often drawn as mere opposition, is better drawn as a sequence. Machiavelli is the useful analogy: the sharp realism of The Prince serves, in the Discorsi, the longer survival and freedom of the republic. Kautilya’s pragmatism is likewise anchored in a wider order — Dharma, the moral and cosmic law. His ideal of the self-mastered king, the Rajarshi, is not the opposite of Ashoka’s later Dharmavijaya, victory through righteousness. It is its seed.

    Self-mastery (Indriya-jaya) as a hard security requirement

    Kautilya opens not with the army but with a discussion of the ruler’s character. The Rajarshi must achieve Indriya-jaya, the conquest of his own senses and passions — lust, anger, greed, arrogance, and vanity. This is not soft counsel. For Kautilya, a ruler’s ethical integrity is a national security requirement: a leader enslaved by his passions will corrupt the state and drag it to ruin. Read this forward, and Ashoka’s remorse after Kalinga, his turn away from conquest, is the historical fulfilment of Indriya-jaya — the king conquering his own imperial ambition in the service of a higher duty.

    Collective welfare (Yogakshema) as the purpose of the state

    One of Kautilya’s most cited lines states this point without ambiguity:

    “In the happiness of his subjects lies the king’s happiness; in their welfare, his welfare. What pleases himself he shall not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he shall consider as good.”

    This is not the charter of a predatory elite. The state exists for Yogakshema — the security, livelihood, and welfare of its people — and coercion (Danda) is legitimate only because it holds back Matsya-nyaya, the law of the fish, in which the strong devour the weak. Ashoka adopted this protective philosophy in its entirety and expanded its radius. When he declared that “all men are my children”, he was extending Kautilya’s duty of care from a particular political community to all living beings.

    From power to righteousness: inversion, not demolition

    In Kautilya’s universe, coercion is the material instrument that upholds the moral law: without institutional power, justice cannot survive in an imperfect world, so power is subordinated to order. Ashoka’s achievement was not to dismantle the efficient Mauryan apparatus he inherited — an apparatus shaped through and through by Kautilyan principles — but to invert its priority. Recognising that conquest through raw Danda leaves generational trauma in its wake, he used the resilient vessel of the Kautilyan state to carry the universal ethic of the Dhamma. The machine was Kautilya’s; the purpose poured into it was Ashoka’s. That is why I hold that power without an ordering purpose is self-destructive, and a moral purpose without the machinery of power is defenceless — the two are complementary in exactly the same way that Kautilya and Ashoka are.

    Conclusion: A Framework for the Present Dialogue

    Ashoka’s ethical turn was not an ahistorical break; it was the flowering of a seed already present in Kautilya’s insistence on the king’s self-conquest and on welfare as the state’s purpose. This is the vertical lesson. The horizontal lesson is that no single tradition — not even one as complete as Kautilya’s — holds the whole of strategy: Clausewitz keeps us honest about violence, Sun Tzu about the mind, and Kautilya about the state that must outlast both. Put together, the two axes give a usable framework for the contemporary Indian debate: a strategy that is Kautilyan in its comprehensiveness, Sun Tzuan in its economy of force, Clausewitzian in its clear sight of what force actually is — and Ashokan in its sense of what all of it is finally for.

    My claim is only this: begin with Kautilya, by all means — but do not stop with him, and do not forget the Rajarshi who stands, self-mastered, at the very front of his book.

    Possible Strategic Implications for India’s Security Architecture

    1. Maritime Space and “Hinterindia” (Southeast Asia): Expanding the Mandala
    • The Clausewitzian/Kautilyan Baseline: Clausewitz’s Centre of Gravity (Schwerpunkt) in the Strait of Malacca cannot be controlled by India through mere operational posturing; it requires physical mass, sustained naval projection and logistical depth. This aligns with Kautilya’s insistence on Dravyaprakriti (the material resource base) and Durga/Kosha (fortifications and financial reserves) as the mandatory prerequisites for external power projection. Through the lens of India’s Act East Policy, “Hinterindia” (Southeast Asia/ASEAN states) constitutes the outer ring of Kautilya’s Mandala theory—the “neighbours of the neighbour” who share India’s existential concerns regarding Chinese expansionism.
    • The Sun Tzu Leverage & The Critique of Deception: Sun Tzu’s hierarchy of success dictates that we must “prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces.” China attempts to counter this by creating a simulated narrative of inevitable regional hegemony, seeking to deceive Southeast Asian nations into bandwagoning with it.
    • The Strategic Balance: India must counter China’s psychological narrative not with empty rhetoric but by offering a robust institutional and material alternative for Southeast Asia (e.g., defence exports such as BrahMos missile transfers and shared maritime domain awareness). By anchoring Kautilya’s Mandala in tangible material foundations, India may create a structural counterweight to “Hinterindia.” This turns Sun Tzu’s “victory without battle” into a tangible reality: China’s strategy to dominate the Strait of Malacca is thwarted because the littoral states of Southeast Asia are firmly integrated into a resilient, material balancing system led by New Delhi.
    1. The Two-Front Reality: Prakashayuddha (West) vs. Tushnimyuddha (East and Cyber)
    • The Clausewitzian/Kautilyan Baseline: India faces two fundamentally different forms of warfare that demand distinct structural foundations. On the Western Front (Pakistan), India confronts Prakashayuddha—open, visible, conventional warfare. This theatre is dominated by Clausewitz’s trinitarian element of “primordial violence, hatred, and enmity.” It is a highly emotionalised, zero-sum clash, with the danger of rapid escalation to absolute war ever-present. Conversely, in the Eastern and Maritime domains (China), the conflict takes the form of Tushnimyuddha—the silent, concealed grey-zone warfare. This involves cyber subversion, maritime encirclement, and informational pressure, aimed at eroding India’s power from within before a single shot is fired.
    • The Sun Tzu Leverage and Critique of Deception: Pakistan has historically used asymmetric deception (proxy networks and nuclear brinkmanship) to mask its internal systemic decline. Applying the critique of self-deception, Pakistani leadership became victims of their own theatre—believing their deceptive proxies could paralyse India, while in reality this strategy hollowed out Pakistan’s economic and institutional foundations (Saptanga). In the East, China utilises highly sophisticated, automated deception (AI-driven cyber operations and the “Three Warfares” narrative) to project an aura of absolute dominance over the Indo-Pacific.

    The Strategic Balance:

    • In the realm of Prakashayuddha (the West): India needs the unvarnished analytical honesty of Clausewitz to confront raw violence without allowing the conflict’s emotionality to dictate its grand strategy. India must economise on this front through unyielding, visible conventional deterrence, ensuring that Pakistan’s self-deceiving provocations do not drain India’s core resources.
    • In the realm of Tushnimyuddha (East/Cyber): India cannot counter China’s silent warfare with empty psychological manoeuvres. True resilience in Tushnimyuddha requires solid domestic, institutional, and societal foundations. In the cyber domain, this means building domestic technological sovereignty and public trust to make society immune to external fractures. By standing firmly on its own domestic ground (Saptanga), India can ensure that its political purpose (Clausewitz) remains independent.
    1. The China-USA Dilemma: Strategic Autonomy in a Multi-Polar Mandala
    • The Clausewitzian/Kautilyan Baseline: Clausewitz strictly warns that the political purpose must always remain the “original measure” of war. If India relies on the USA to balance China, it risks subordinating its political objectives to Washington’s global design and fracturing its strategic autonomy. Kautilya resolves this dilemma through the Saptanga theory, in which the state’s internal pillars (Swami-Amatya-Janapada) must be structurally robust enough to resist external co-optation.
    • The Sun Tzu Leverage: Sun Tzu warns against protracted external dependencies and conflicts that drain the state’s core resources: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”
    • The Strategic Balance: To preserve strategic autonomy between China and the US, India’s deterrence cannot be borrowed or faked—it must spring from its own Comprehensive National Power. Kautilya’s Shadgunya framework permits temporary, transactional alignments (Samsraya), strictly as a breathing space to build internal material strength. Combined with Clausewitz’s insistence on the primacy of the independent political purpose, India should use its relationship with the US not as a strategic crutch but as an institutional catalyst to accelerate its domestic economic, technological, and military foundations. Deterrence against China is thus achieved not by proxy diplomacy but by the undeniable structural weight of a self-reliant Indian state.
    1. Strategic Autonomy and Internal Emancipation: Beyond the Prussian and Meiji Trap
    • The Structural Challenge: True structural deterrence against an external adversary such as China cannot coexist with deep systemic fragmentation at home. India’s historical vulnerabilities—the persistence of the caste system, the marginalisation of Dalits, and pervasive poverty—constitute severe internal fractures (Vyasanas) in Kautilyan terms. Kautilya’s warnings against internal rebellion (Abhyantara-Kopa) explicitly state that internal fractures are far more dangerous than external invasion. A state that systematically excludes or impoverishes a vast segment of its population violates the core principle of Yogakshema (the material and moral welfare of the people).
    • The Historical Matrix: Historically, states facing existential external pressure have often resorted to a “revolution from above” to modernise their societies, as seen in 19th-century Prussia and Meiji Japan. However, both historical trajectories fell into the trap of hyper-militarism by subordinating the entire social fabric to the military apparatus, ultimately leading to catastrophic conflicts.
    • The Kautilyan Alternative: Kautilya’s Saptanga framework offers a safeguard against militaristic traps. Unlike the Prussian or Japanese models, which elevated the military (Danda) to an absolute end in itself, Kautilya strictly subordinates military force to civil governance (Amatya), as Clausewitz does, and to the material welfare of the population (Yogakshema).
    • The Strategic Balance: For contemporary India, overcoming internal problems is not a secondary moral goal but a primary strategic imperative. A just, inclusive, and cohesive society is India’s ultimate defence infrastructure. By operationalising national self-preservation and defensive modernisation as vehicles for internal emancipation—expanding technical education, institutional trust, and industrial opportunities for the most marginalised echelons of society—India can dismantle archaic barriers through the pragmatic necessity of its national survival. Securing the external realm is achieved by immunising the domestic foundation.
    1. Epilogue: The Civilizational Horizon and Intercultural Recognition
    • The Demographic Gravity of the Northern Belt: Looking beyond the immediate operational timeline towards 2050, India’s long-term geopolitical architecture cannot be detached from global demographic shifts. While the Russian Federation faces a massive population surge along its southern “Islamic belt,” from New Delhi’s geographic perspective, this same space constitutes an expansive northern and western Islamic belt. A purely militaristic and exclusionary response to this demographic reality is unsustainable. Instead, this development demands a shift from religious fragmentation to a broader civilisational paradigm. While religions, by their doctrinal nature, tend toward theological exclusion, civilisations have historically possessed the capacity for pluralistic inclusion and cross-cultural balance.
    • The Balance of Kautilya and Ashoka: To articulate a genuinely Indian contribution to the global order without falling into the ideological trap of contemporary Hindu nationalism (Hindutva), India’s strategic culture must synthesise its two foundational, dialectical pillars: Kautilya and Ashoka. Kautilya provides the unyielding institutional, economic, and structural baseline (Saptanga) necessary to preserve state survival and sovereignty. Yet this material power remains hollow—and prone to internal fracturing—without Ashoka’s ethical and universalist horizon. Ashoka’s edicts did not establish a homogeneous religious empire but rather a civilisational space anchored in Dhamma (righteousness, social ethics, and mutual tolerance), which actively accommodated diverse belief systems and ethnicities.

    Selected works by the author:

    Herberg-Rothe, Andreas, Clausewitz’s puzzle. The political theory of war. OUP: Oxford 2007. (published in Chinese in 2020).

    References to Kautilya:

    • Encyclopaedia Britannica Online; Entry: “Artha-shastra” com.

    The entry defines the Arthaśāstra not merely as a military manual, but as a comprehensive treatise on statecraft that integrates legal codes, economic management, and administrative systems into a unified standing order. It explicitly demonstrates how external warfare and foreign policy are treated as internal instruments of a highly organised, centralised state apparatus, which relies extensively on domestic stability, economic oversight, and sophisticated intelligence networks

    • Encyclopaedia.com

    “Kautilya” https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/britain-ireland-france-and-low-countries/british-and-irish-political-geography/kautilya

    This text emphasises the rigorous institutional and structural foundations of Kautilya’s polity, outlining how military campaigns are subordinate to and dependent upon a robust domestic administration. It details Kautilya’s intricate systems of taxation, social welfare, and resource regulation, illustrating that a state’s capacity for external war or lasting peace must firmly stand on its internal institutional infrastructure.”

    The article challenges the reductionist view of Kautilya as a purely amoral realist, highlighting that the Arthaśāstra is fundamentally concerned with securing the welfare and prosperity of its citizens under a just government. This underscores that the king is not an absolute despot but merely one of seven interdependent institutes of the state (Saptanga), tasked with safeguarding the good of the people in a dharma-sanctioned manner. This structural insistence on the sovereign’s self-discipline directly anchors the moral limits of power, providing the conceptual bridge to the tradition’s later ethical evolution.”

    A note on further sources about Clausewitz, Kautilya, and Sun Tzu:

    For readers who wish to check the argument against the texts rather than against summaries of them, the standard points of entry are as follows:

    • Kautilya, The Arthashastra, ed. and trans. L. N. Rangarajan (Penguin, 1992); and R. P. Kangle, The Kautiliya Arthasastra, 3 vols. (Motilal Banarsidass) — the Saptanga, the Sadgunya, and the Upaya are set out in Books 6–7, the education and self-mastery of the ruler in Book 1.
    • Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford, 1963) or Roger Ames (1993) — “to subdue the enemy without fighting” and “all warfare is based on deception” appear in chapters 3 and 1, respectively.
    • Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 1976) — the definition of war as the continuation of policy, the remarkable trinity, and friction are in Book 1; see also A. Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz’s Puzzle (Oxford, 2007).
    • On Ashoka, the Rock and Pillar Edicts in Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (Oxford, rev. ed.) — “all men are my children” is from the Separate Rock Edict at Dhauli/Jaugada.

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  • GDP data for Q3 2023–24: The mystery of a robust growth

    GDP data for Q3 2023–24: The mystery of a robust growth

    Recently released GDP figures have sprung a surprise, baffled experts and overturned the government’s own data and projections. What could be the reason

    GROSS Domestic Product (GDP) figures have sprung a surprise— showing a growth of 8.4 percent in Quarter 3 of 2023–24, on top of the previous two quarter’s growth of 8.2 percent and 8.1 percent.

    The annual growth for 2023–24 is projected at 7.6 percent. But given the growth rates in the first three quarters, it is likely to be above 8 percent, unless the economy decelerates sharply in Q4, of which there is little sign.

    The surprise

    Experts are embarrassed that how could they be so far off. In December 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had upped its projected growth rate from 6.5 percent to 7 percent.

    Various foreign credit rating agencies had revised the expected growth rate to only around 6.5 percent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected a 6.3 percent rate of growth.


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  • Analyzing the Union Budget 2023-24 to Unravel its Underlying Strategy

    Analyzing the Union Budget 2023-24 to Unravel its Underlying Strategy

    Introduction

    Any budget is complex consisting of many things of varying importance. Often, people focus on things of their direct interest but miss the wider implications that affect them indirectly and may undo any benefit they may get directly. Thus, it is not only important to look at the trees but also the forest. So, it is important to analyse the Macroeconomic strategy of the budget.

    Further, the budget is based on three things. First, analysis of the current economic situation, second, the scenario likely to prevail in the coming year and finally, what direction policy makers may want to give to the economy. It also needs to be kept in mind that there are lags. Announcements do not mean that what is being said will immediately happen. Even after implementation begins, it takes time for the results to follow. But it is always possible that the expected results may not follow due to a variety of reasons.

    Thus, a budget needs to be analysed both for its short term and long term impact. Any contradictions between the short and the long term policies leads to their failure. For the country, the long term is critical but politically the ruling party may find the short terms gains more compelling. This article attempted to present an analysis of the Union Budget 2023-24 with these features in mind.

    Current Economic Challenges

    There are internal and external challenges facing the economy. Externally, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the `New Cold War’ are adding to India’s problems. Nothing much can be done with regard to these except making the economy more resilient. A stronger economy will be able to better deal with the external challenges.

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  • U.S. Hegemony and its Perils

    U.S. Hegemony and its Perils

    This analytical report on the perils of US hegemony was released by China on the 20th of February 2023. It is evident that much of the world is now alienated by the USA and the West. This is particularly so after the Ukraine-Russia conflict that erupted a year ago. The majority of the world remains non-commital but certainly does not support the US or Ukraine in this conflict nor do they condemn Russia. In effect, the non-western world has openly indicated that this unnecessary war is caused by the aggressive actions of NATO and the US to provoke Russia. The constant interventions and wars waged by the US and NATO in the name of democracy and disregarding the UN are now being questioned. China has cleverly utilised this sentiment to time its publication. The paper is very well analysed, crisply argued, and has flagged real questions to the world community. In short, the paper implies that the US and its allies pose the gravest threat to global stability and peace, and more so to the sovereignty of all countries.

    This paper was published earlier in fmprc.gov.cn

     

    Introduction

    Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

    The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “colour revolutions,” instigate regional disputes and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”

    This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

    I. Political Hegemony – Throwing Its Weight Around

    The United States has long been attempting to mould other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

    ◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practised a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “colour revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

    In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”

    Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.

    The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “colour revolutions” – the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”

    In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

    ◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek the unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

    The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”

    ◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

    ◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

    II. Military Hegemony – Wanton Use of Force

    The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded $700 billion, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

    According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.

    ◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

    Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

    ◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives, with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

    The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fighting, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on November 9, 2018, that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

    The two-decade-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered “pure looting.”

    In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

    The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

    III. Economic Hegemony – Looting and Exploitation

    After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centred around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations, including “approval by 85 percent majority” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.

    ◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a $100 bill, but other countries had to pony up $100 worth of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

    ◆ The hegemony of the U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hikes, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies, such as the euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury, John Connally, once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, “The dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”

    ◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions for assisting other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

    ◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan and control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, the yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”

    ◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of a liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

    IV. Technological Hegemony – Monopoly and Suppression

    The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

    ◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

    In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed a larger market share.

    ◆ The United States politicizes and weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, for nearly three years.

    The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

    The United States has also practised double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

    ◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs of technology, such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high technology and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build a technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

    ◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyberattacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyberattacks and surveillance, including using analogue base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

    U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States, such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation,” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said, “Do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honour or respect. There is only one rule: There are no rules.”

    V. Cultural Hegemony – Spreading False Narratives

    The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

    ◆ The United States embeds American values in its products, such as movies. American values and lifestyle are tied to its movies, TV shows, publications, media content and programs by government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article “The Americanization of the World,” John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion, Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

    There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skillfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

    ◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favour of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

    The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on December 27, 2022, that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavourable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

    The U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.

    ◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences the media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media, such as Russia Today and Sputnik, from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related content.

    ◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

    The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries and has built an industrial chain around it; there are groups and individuals making up stories and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

    Conclusion

    While a just cause wins its champion-wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

    Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics and rejects interference in other countries internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.

    Feature Image: Photograph by M Matheswaran

    Cartoon: canadiandimensions.com    Caricature showing Uncle Sam lecturing four children labelled Phillippines (who appears similar to Phillippine leader Emilio Aguinaldo), Hawaii, Porto (sic) Rio, and Cuba in front of children holding books labelled with various US states. In the background are an American Indian holding a book upside down, a Chinese boy at the door and a black boy cleaning the window. Originally published on p. 8-9 of the January 25, 1899 issue of Puck magazine.

  • Role of Merchant Marine in Indian Maritime Security

    Role of Merchant Marine in Indian Maritime Security

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    Introduction:

    The Merchant Marine plays only a modest role in contributing towards securing India’s maritime neighbourhood or for that matter for any nation. On the other hand, its indirect contribution to security- largely through the economic dimension is significant.

    This paper seeks to explore the economic dimension of merchant ships and in doing so, endeavours to bring out the resultant contribution to maritime security.

    With my domain knowledge, I hope to cover global maritime, and its current scenario in India. I have spent 28 years at Sea of which 18 years in Command as Captain and an additional 25 years ashore in Senior Management positions. I have recently relocated back to India after 5 years in Sri Lanka and a year in Seychelles. So, I do consider it a privilege to share my experience.

    Global Maritime:

    Shipping is the life blood of global economy.  Without shipping, intercontinental trade, the bulk transport of raw materials, and the import/export of affordable food and manufactured goods would simply not be possible. The international shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade. Seaborne trade continues to expand, bringing benefits for consumers across the world through competitive freight costs. Thanks to the growing efficiency of shipping as a mode of transport and increased economic liberalisation, the prospects for the industry’s further growth continue to be strong.

    There are over 58,000 merchant ships trading internationally, transporting every kind of cargo. The world fleet is registered in over 150 nations, and manned by over 2 million seafarers of virtually every nationality. Ships are technically sophisticated, high value assets (larger hi-tech vessels can cost over US $200 million to build), and the operation of merchant ships generates an estimated annual income of over US $1.2 trillion in freight rates.

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    Feature Image Credits: Financial Times

  • Challenges of the Indian Economy and Banking Under the Sway of Global Capital

    Challenges of the Indian Economy and Banking Under the Sway of Global Capital

    Introduction

    In a modern day capitalist society, finance (vitta) is of crucial importance. It can help the individuals but also marginalize them since finance is not only complex but becoming more so and even educated people barely understand it. So, most people follow the herd mentality and often that leads to mistakes.

    Any analysis of the world of finance in India requires one to understand the nature of the current Indian Economy and its changing philosophical moorings. The problem is compounded by the rapidly changing technology in the world which is hard to keep track of, even for the experts, much less for the common person. Before one has understood the implications of a technology a new one arrives. For instance, in India, the advent of plastic cards has been quickly overtaken by electronic transactions and now the cryptos are threatening banks and even Central Banks.

    Thus, the financial sector itself faces unprecedented challenges with new financial instruments appearing in rapid succession. Since their impact on the financial system is little understood, risk has increased and that is leading to growing instability. To take care of the risks in the system newer instruments have emerged and they add to the instability. For instance, the global financial crisis of 2007-09 was triggered by the sub-prime crisis, growth of shadow banking, Credit Default Swaps, etc.

    So, the issues facing the world of finance today need to be understood in both the global context and historically.

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  • On China and Economy, Dialogue Is the Need of the Hour

    On China and Economy, Dialogue Is the Need of the Hour

    The strength of democracy is that debate and dialogue provide society with a self-corrective mechanism.

    The news of Chinese transgression in Tawang on December 9 is disturbing. The opposition has repeatedly demanded a discussion in the parliament but the government has not agreed. The government’s stock reply is that the matter should not be politicised and that we should have full faith in our army and our brave soldiers.

    This is diversionary since no one is saying that our soldiers are at fault or are not fighting valiantly. The issue is about policy and India’s political stance vis-à-vis China because of which the brave soldiers are suffering. A full discussion in parliament will help clear the air in this regard.

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  • India’s Unorganised Sector Is Being Engulfed, Further Marginalised

    India’s Unorganised Sector Is Being Engulfed, Further Marginalised

    The organised sector must consider how much can the unorganised sector be run down without hurting its own interest.

    The corporate sector is doing well, as indicated by the stock market which reflects its health. But the corporates represent only a few thousand businesses out of the crores operating in the country. Ninety-nine percent of the businesses are in the unorganised sector and reports suggest that they are declining. The official GDP for Q1 of the current financial year 2022-23 was 3.3% above its pre-pandemic level. Yet, the stock markets are close to their historic high achieved in 2021. This disjuncture between the stock market and the economy reflects the surge in corporate profits in a stagnant economy – and there is a story behind it.

    The Reserve Bank of India data on around 2,700 non-government, non-financial companies released in August 2022 shows that the sales of these companies surged 41% and net profits increased by 24% over the last year. Even if these figures are deflated by the wholesale price index (WPI) which has been rising at above 10% during this period, the corporate sector surge far exceeds the growth of the economy. If one component of the economy is rising so rapidly, the other part, the non-corporate sector in industry, must be shrinking. The difficulty with the official data is that it does not independently capture the decline of the unorganised sector (it is proxied by the growing organised sector). If the true rate of growth could be obtained, the disjuncture between the official growth rate and the rise in the stock market would be even greater.

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  • Right to Work: Feasible and Indispensable for India to be a Truly Civilized and Democratic Nation

    Right to Work: Feasible and Indispensable for India to be a Truly Civilized and Democratic Nation

    Executive Summary of
    Report of People’s Commission on Employment and Unemployment
    Set up by Desh Bachao Abhiyan

    Introduction

    When society faces a problem and is unable to resolve it, it implies that something basic is wrong. One needs to look for its basic causes to solve the problem. The causes may lie in the system that has evolved over time and which conditions the dominant social and political thinking in society. The onus of finding the solution and rectifying the problem is on the rulers. Their failure to do so over time implies a lack of motivation/commitment to solve the problem.

    All this applies to the issue of employment generation and unemployment in India which has been growing over time and affects the vast majority of the citizens.

    The Basic Issue

    Gandhi said that India is the only country capable of giving a civilizational alternative. The time has come to take this seriously since unemployment has become a critical issue that needs to be urgently tackled. The issue is multi-dimensional since it is a result of multiple causes and has widespread implications. It impacts the growth of the economy, inequality, poverty, etc. It has a gender dimension and impacts the marginalized sections adversely reflecting a lack of social justice. It is entrenched among the youth. The more educated they are greater the unemployment they face. Consequently, it has political and social implications, like, social relations.

    The rapidly growing incomes of the top 1% in the income ladder indicate that the economy has the resources but they are mal-distributed. The rich at the top has created a system that enables them to capture most of the gains from development with little trickling down to the rest.

    This Report presents a framework that spells out the causes, consequences, and possible remedies. Further, it looks at the historical process underlying the evolution of policies so as to understand how they can be changed.

    If any form of distortion persists over a long period, as unemployment in India, its origins lie in society’s perceptions and priorities. In India, these can be traced to the adoption of state capitalism and persisting feudal tendencies of the elite policy makers who in their own self-interest adopted a trickle-down model of development.

    Further, Capitalism has globally taken the form of marketization which promotes `profit maximisation’. But is it then legitimate to keep workers unemployed? It implies loss of output and therefore reduces the size of the economy which leads to a lower level of profits. So, by the logic of individual rationality, the system should create productive employment for all.

    The market’s notion of `efficiency’ is status quoist since it seeks to perpetuate the historical injustice in society. `Consumer sovereignty’ implies that individuals should be left free to do whatever they wish. The collectivity should not intervene in their choices no matter how socially detrimental they may be. It promotes the notion that if I have the money I can do what I like. The ratio of incomes is 10,000 times and more between the big businessmen and the poor workers. The market sees nothing wrong in this; in fact, society has come to celebrate it.

    Marketization is determining society’s choices through its principles penetrating all aspects of society. One of these principles is the `dollar vote’. The policy makers accept it and prioritize the choices of the well-off over those of the marginalized. The well-off dictate the social judgments of policy makers. Consequently, not only equality is not on the agenda even equity is not.

    With marketization stripping off the social aspect of life, individuals become automatons. Their individual distress and situation in life are no one’s or society’s concern. Unemployment becomes just a switching off of a machine. No social concern need to be attached to it. In fact, capitalists welcome unemployment as an efficient’ device to discipline labour and neo-classical economics considers it as natural. Inflation further weakens large numbers of workers as they lose purchasing power.

    In essence, whether or not society should aim to give productive employment to all reflects its view of individuals. Society needs to choose what is more important – profits or the welfare of the marginalized majority. The Gandhian view, largely rejected by the Indian elite, was `last person first’ which defined what the priority should be.

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  • Rural Agriculture and the new wave of Migrant Workers to Rural Space

    Rural Agriculture and the new wave of Migrant Workers to Rural Space

    Abstract

    Home, belongingness, and identity bring comfort to human existence, but local communities are challenged and become highly volatile by the sudden influx of people from different regions in search of livelihood and survival. Some migrate in their quest to find new opportunities in education, employment, and better living conditions from their home state, but some are displaced due to loss of livelihood, low employment, and lack of safety. This article analyses internal migration toward Tamil Nadu. The migrant population in Tamil Nadu accounts for 18.85 lakh according to the 2011 census, whereas other state migrants account for only 6.2% (Radhakrishnan & Vasanth, 2019). Most migration in the past has been towards the cities for chances of better livelihood and stable jobs. However, migrant workers travelling towards rural areas have been increasingly found working as agricultural labourers. S. Irudaya Rajan, a professor at the Centre for Developmental studies in his work, points out the importance of migrants to this economy as there is a constant outflow of the young population, with reservation wages in this region being high (Radhakrishnan & Vasanth, 2019). A report by the Federation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Association suggests that over 8,67,582 farmers have stopped agricultural practices, and the market has been taken over by private players who require agricultural labourers (Sreemathi, 2019). This demand can attract migrant workers to rural areas. This article examines the migration pattern in Tamil Nadu to understand the inflow and outflow population, the reasons behind the outflow of farmers from the system and the new wave of migrant workers to rural Tamil Nadu.    

    Introduction

    Millions of people move every year hoping for a better livelihood and future, but the reality may be bitter for some. Nine million people have been migrating annually between states as per the Railway’s data from 2011 to 2016. Around 30% of the Indian population represents the varied level of the migrant population (Migration, 2022). Various factors have contributed to migration. The pull factors which attract people towards the destination include better living conditions, better employment, quality education, absence of violence and high wage rates. The push factors, on the other hand, include the lack of welfare activity, discrimination towards a community, lack of employment and lower wage rates. In both instances, economic ambition occupies the centre space. Thus, it is crucial to form a developmental economy for the residing population and the migrating one. The pull factors usually replace the push factors when the socio-economic condition in the country facilitates good life. People have been moving towards cities, hoping to find better employment and livelihood in the globalised world, making cities the hub for development. In Tamil Nadu, the movement toward the city area was triggered by early industrialisation in the 1980s, when manufacturing capacity accounted for around 26% of its GDP, higher than the national average of 15% (Mahambare & Dhanaraj, 2021). The 1990s liberalisation policy created mobility and development by expanding the economic horizons to telecom, software and banking (Migration to Chennai, 2010). This socio-economic mobility has greatly impacted the state’s rural economy and continues to be one of the few contributors to migration from agriculture. In recent times, farmers are selling out their lands and changing their occupations or working as agricultural labourers. The agricultural sector requires a considerable labour population. This demand for labour forces along with the lockdown during the Covid pandemic has fuelled a new wave of migrant workers in rural areas in south India. However, it is essential to study the causes of the movement of the traditional population from the industry, which helps understand the patterns that need to be avoided.

    Migration out of Agriculture

    Agriculture has long been a community practice in Tamil societies, but the migration of farmers continues to challenge the status quo. A report by the Federation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Association mentions that over 8,67,582 farmers have stopped agricultural practices (Sreemathi, 2019). Lower wage rates, discrimination, heavy workload, lack of welfare and crop failure are the main reasons for displacement. Since the agricultural sector is seasonal, the wages are decided by workdays, seasons, and piece/ quantity rate, which leads to an unsteady wage rate based on the season, with fewer or no jobs in some seasons. People, thus, prefer to work non-farm jobs for a steady income throughout the year. Some have been living as labourers for generations on the farm since only a handful of the population possess larger farmlands. A study by Sato Keiko (2011) traces this class difference, farmland size, and the employment status of migrants from a rural village in Madurai. He points out that the village’s upper-class children with larger farms migrated to the city and acquired white-collar jobs. The middle class and the marginal groups, on the other hand, usually landed in blue-collar jobs.  Interestingly, he notes that the aspiration to educate and climb the socio-economic ladder has recently been high among the latter (Keiko, 2011). This aspiration leads them to migrate to cities and take up factory jobs, which are comparatively better than being engaged as farm labourers. Educational aspiration attempts to shake the traditional class structure and disparity that exists with it. 

    Additionally, only 27.1% adolescent population and 24.18% of the youth population were involved as agricultural labourers in 2014 (Sivakumar, 2014). Another reason for the migration is crop failure induced by unpredictable heavy rainfall and drought. Farmers who cannot profit or make ends meet when the crop collapses, end up falling into debt.  

    More than 85% of people working in the state under MGNREGA are women, higher than the national average of 56% and 28% of the Dalit population (Ramakrishnan, 2017)

    The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Scheme has been argued to be one of the major reasons behind the declining numbers of farm labourers When the scheme started, it provided the rural population with a higher income of Rs. 100 compared to farm jobs which offered Rs. 40 a day (In Tamil Nadu labourers, 2010). MGNREGA acts as a precursor for the high wage rate in agriculture as it competes with the scheme to attract more people for work. In 2020, the wage rate for agriculture labourers had increased to Rs. 392, and the notified MGNREGA stood at Rs. 273, which was lower than the farm wage (Aditi, 2021). However, along with steady wages and less workload, MGNREGA has continued to be a source of economic empowerment for women. It enables pathways to formal financial institutions and personal saving habits – “I would be working like a bonded labourer again under any big landowning agriculturist, if there was no Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)” (Ramakrishnan, 2017). These interviews collected by Ramakrishnan, senior journalist for The Hindu, shed light on the women’s attitude and discontent toward farm jobs. More than 85% of people working in the state under MGNREGA are women, higher than the national average of 56% and 28% of the Dalit population (Ramakrishnan, 2017). These marginal groups are frequently abused and sexually harassed by employers and landowners. In this regard, MGNREGA has provided them with a space to work with dignity. However, some experts like Vijayanand, former Secretary of the Union Minister of Panchayat Raj, opposed the arguments favouring MGNREGA arguing that the scheme did not provide jobs throughout the year and phased out the jobs in accordance with the lean season (Radhakrishnan, 2017). 

    Involvement of Migrants in Agriculture

    Tamil Nadu is a growing economy which renders a stay to 18.85 lakhs migrants, of which 6.2 % are from other states. The origin states of these migrant workers are Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chattishgarh and states of Northeast India. Some tribal communities migrated from areas with rich mineral resources like the Santal areas of West Bengal, MP and a few other areas in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh because of the prevalent mining practice and dam building. Also, tribal people were displaced because of the settlement of non-tribals in the region and deforestation. In some areas, low human development indicators have led to their displacement. Apart from these push factors, Tamil Nadu has a lot to offer in terms of its higher wage rates, better living conditions and political, religious and social freedom (Sami, Crossin, Jayapathy, Martin, et al., 2016). Once they migrate to Tamil Nadu through contractors, migrants are channelled to Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruvallur, Tiruppur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu to work in manufacturing factories and construction sites. These migrants fill the state’s requirement for 3D jobs, as Dr Irudaya Rajan from the Tiruvananthapuram Centre for Developmental Studies mentioned (Radhakrishnan & Vasanth, 2019). These jobs are mostly dirty, demeaning and dangerous. Since the wage expectation of the state youth is high, the desperation to take up these jobs is low and job positions are thus occupied by migrant workers (Vasanth & Radhakrishnan, 2019).

    The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data from 2018 to 2020 shows a sharp increase in employment in agriculture from 42.5 % in 2018 -19 to 45.6% in 2019-20 (CMIE, 2021)

    In the pre-Covid job market, population movement was constantly moving from rural villages to urban spaces in search of white and blue-collar jobs. However, Covid has shifted the employment market. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data from 2018 to 2020 shows a sharp increase in employment in agriculture from 42.5 % in 2018 -19 to 45.6% in 2019-20 (CMIE, 2021). Most people who changed jobs were formerly employed in construction and manufacturing. While the existing population migrates to cities in search of skilled labour, migrant workers find the farm jobs more appealing. Tamil Nadu provides an average salary of Rs. 392 per day for farm workers, which is higher than the national average of Rs. 348. Most states from which the migrants are displaced have far fewer wage rates; for instance, Jharkhand offered Rs. 258 in 2020 while the wage rate was Rs. 234 in Chhattisgarh (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, 2021). While their movement is unexpected, these migrant populations can contribute to the agricultural sector and rural development, but that cannot be done without good government policies. The GDP contribution of agriculture reduced from 55.3% in the 1950s to 21.8% in the 2000s (Gothoskar, 2021). Most government budgets have little concern for the agricultural economy. Thus, it is essential to implement policies for the existing agrarian population and the migrants. Also, there has been increasing distress caused by the growing movement of the migrants to farmland which continues to be heavily unorganised. Dr Irudaya Rajan, in his interviews, warns that this unexpected surplus labour availability in rural areas cannot accommodate everyone in the existing jobs, which may result in increased poverty and starvation (Nirupama, 2020).

    Furthermore, it backfires on the urban economy once industries open up completely and face a shortage of labour (Viswanathan, 2020). To know the current situation of migrant workers, state-level data collection is needed. Tamil Nadu collected the migrant database only once in 2015, following the fall of the Moulivakkam multistorey building. While Thangam Thennarasu, the Tamil Nadu Minister of Industries, mentioned collecting data on migrant workers in a press release, the agriculture sector was not mentioned (Kumar, 2021). Data collection is vital in formulating policies to accommodate the migrant workers in rural economies and avoid unexpected problems. 

    Measures to be taken

    Since the Agricultural sector offers seasonal employment, other sources of organised employment or schemes to assure livelihood during times of distress should be in place. While farming requires work like ploughing and harvesting, which is to be done all year-round, the revenue can be earned only in a particular season. If affected by climate calamities and crop failure, people are most likely to end up in debt. Hence, it is essential to employ migrants during the off-season and distress times in sustainable jobs. Most agricultural products are exported as raw materials or semi-processed to other countries, and therefore, the MSMEs in the rural areas can be focused on enhancing the exporting sector of agriculture.

    MOUS between states: The Tamil Nadu government has fewer memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on migrants, with focus mainly placed on Sri Lankan refugees. Thus, signing MOUs with the source state can improve the conditions of migrants and help governments to maintain a database of migrants (Sreelakshmi,2021). The databases can help in formulating policies.

    Welfare policies – Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a central-run health insurance scheme for people working in the unorganised sector and for those below the poverty line, has to be implemented appropriately, and the records should be maintained. Quality schooling for children of migrants working in rural spaces should be provided. Some states have offered regional language subject notebooks and learning kits through MOUs. Tamil Nadu should recruit staff in the favoured language. Further, skill enhancement training for the migrants should be provided.

    Conclusion

    Agriculture and rural development go hand in hand since 70% of rural households depend upon agriculture for their livelihood. Still, there is an increased pattern of traditional farmers moving out of the business and choosing other industries or being employed as agricultural labourers. This shift, accompanied by the Covid lockdown, has triggered an increased flow of migrant population back to farms as agricultural labourers. Unlike industries, the agricultural sector is unorganised and seasonal, making it highly vulnerable. Thus, it becomes essential to build a safety net for the traditional population and the migrants. These migrants, without proper policies and data entries, can be stranded; lacking identity, rights and political representation. Further, this sudden labour surplus cannot be accommodated immediately, creating a labour shortage in urban areas.  It is, thus, important to record migrant workers who return, the sector they are involved in, their security nets and most importantly, their availability in rural agriculture.

    Reference

    Aditi R. (2021, May 16). MGNREGA workers in Tamil Nadu allege underpayment and wage disparity. The times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/mgnrega-workers-in-tamil-nadu-allege-underpayment-and-wage-disparity/articleshow/82673961.cms

    Dhanaraj Sowmya & Mahambare Vidya (2021, March 31). Tamil Nadu left Punjab, Bengal far behind. Here’s what it needs to do now. The Print. Retrieved from https://theprint.in/opinion/tamil-nadu-left-punjab-bengal-far-behind-heres-what-it-needs-to-do-now/631213/

    Directorate of Economics and Statistics. (2021). Agricultural wages India: 2019 – 20. Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers welfare. 

    Gothaskar Sujata. (2021, May 12). To Fully Understand the Migrant Worker Crisis, We Need a Larger Perspective. The Wire. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/rights/migrant-worker-crisis-larger-perspective-farm-land-industry

    In Tamil Nadu labourers choosing NREGA over farms. (2010, Nov 29). NDTV. Retrieved from https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/in-tamil-nadu-labourers-choosing-nrega-over-farms-440546

    Keiko Sato. (2011). Employment structure and Rural-Urban Migration in a Tamil Nadu Village: Focusing on difference by economic class. Southeast Asia Studies. Vol.49. Pg.22-51.

    Kumar Vijay. (2021, July 26). Tamil Nadu to create a databank of migrant workers. The Hindu. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/databank-of-migrant-workers-soon-says-tamil-nadu-industries-minister/article35530808.ece

    Migration to Chennai follows industrial growth, but quality. (2010, April 13). The Times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/migration-to-chennai-follows-industrial-growth-but-quality-of-life/articleshow/5798687.cms

    Radhakrishnan V & Vasanth B. A. (2019, September 08). Migrants in Tamil Nadu: case of much ado about nothing? The Hindu. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/migrants-in-tamil-nadu-case-of-much-ado-about-nothing/article29364682.ece

    Ramakrishnan T. (2017, February 05). Job scheme, a mixed bag for rural labourers. The Hindu. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/Job-scheme-a-mixed-bag-for-rural-labourers/article17197043.ece

    Sami Bernard. Crossin Sebastian, Jayapathy, Martin. P. O. (2016). A survey on Interstate migrants in Tamil Nadu. LISSTAR & Indian Social Institute. 

    Sivakumar B. (2014, November 02). Most of Tamil Nadu’s adolescents, youth live in rural areas, shows census. The times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/most-of-tamil-nadus-adolescents-youth-live-in-rural-areas-shows-census/articleshow/45008956.cms

    Sreelakshmi Anjana. (2021, November 07). Distress Migration: A case study KBK districts in Odisha. The Peninsula Foundation. Retrieved from https://admin.thepeninsula.org.in/2021/11/07/distress-migration-a-case-study-of-kbk-districts-in-odisha/

    Sreemathi M. (2021, November 23). Migrants now enter agri fields in Nellai. The New Indian Express. Retrieved from https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2021/nov/23/migrants-now-enter-agri-fields-in-nellai-2386930.html

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