friday, april 12, 2019 a crisis that resists hasty solutions · on april 13, 1919, baisakhi day,...
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DELHI THE HINDU
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CMYK
A ND-NDE
EDITORIAL
Navtej Sarna
Though no one was holdingtheir breath, there was someexpectation of a British apol
ogy on the occasion of the centenary of the horrifi��c Jallianwala Baghmassacre, more so since the demand came this time not from Indians alone but also from a strongcontingent of British MPs acrosspolitical parties. British Prime Minister Theresa May fi��nally cameout with: “We deeply regret whathappened and the suff��eringcaused.”
Words are important, especiallyin the heavilynuanced Englishlanguage, and those who inventedthat language certainly know howto use them. One can imagine thecareful drafting in Whitehall thatwould have gone into formulatingthe Prime Minister’s statement.For comparison, in a press conference in Brussels the next day, Ms.May said that she “sincerely regretted” her failure in delivering aBrexit deal so far. “Deeply” is admittedly stronger than “sincerely”, but the nature of contrition expressed is identical.
The second aspect of the statement that stands out is its passiveness — “what happened”, “the suffering caused”. There is no hint ofagency here; this could well be the
statement of any observer and notof inheritors of the empire thatcommitted the atrocity. Theblandness too is disturbing: onewould have expected some sympathy for the victims or their descendants and some reference tothe brutality of the massacre.
Let us recall “what happened”.On April 13, 1919, Baisakhi day, following unrest in Amritsar afterprotests against the Rowlatt Act,Brigadier General (temporaryrank) Reginald Dyer took a strikeforce of 50 rifl��es and 40 khukriwielding Gurkhas into an enclosedground, Jallianwala Bagh, where apeaceful public meeting of 15,00020,000 was being held. Immediately and without warning, heordered fi��re to be opened on thecrowd. The fi��ring of 1,650 roundswas deliberate and targeted, usingpowerful rifl��es at virtually pointblank range. The “suff��eringcaused” included several hundreddead and many times morewounded. The offi��cially acceptedfi��gure of 379 dead is a gross underestimate. Eyewitness accounts andinformation collected by SewaSamiti, a charity organisationpoint to much higher numbers.NonIndian writers place the number killed at anything between500 to 600, with three times thatnumber wounded.
More was to follow after theproclamation, two days after themassacre, of Martial Law in Punjab: the infamous crawling order,the salaam order, public fl��oggings,arbitrary arrests, torture andbombing of civilians by airplanes —
all under a veil of strictly enforcedcensorship.
A history of evasionLet us look next at what was done.After calls for an investigation, including by liberals in Britain, a Disorders Inquiry Committee, soon tobe known by the name of its Chairman, Lord Hunter, was set up. Inhis testimony, Dyer asserted thathis intention had been to punishthe crowd, to make a “wide impression” and to strike terror notonly in Amritsar but throughoutPunjab. The committee split alongracial lines and submitted a majority and minority report. The majority report of the Hunter Committee, using tactically selectivecriticism, established Dyer’s culpability but let off�� the LieutenantGovernor, Michael O’Dwyer. Theminority report written by thethree Indian members was morescathing in its criticism. By thenDyer had become a liability and hewas asked to resign his command,after which he left for England.This decision for a quiet dischargewas approved by the British Secre
tary of State, Edwin Montagu, and,after an acrimonious debate, alsoby the House of Commons. Theconservative Lords however took adiff��erent tack and rebuked the government for being unjust to theoffi��cer. Similar sentiments inDyer’s favour came from the rightwing press — the Morning Poststarted a fund for him which collected £26,000 — as well as fromconservative sections of the publicwho believed he had saved Indiafor the empire. Rudyard Kipling,who had contributed £10 to thefund put an ambivalent commenton the wreath he sent to Dyer’sfuneral in 1927: “He did his duty ashe saw it.”
Now what has already beensaid: The speech that carried theday in the House of Commons in1920 was that of Winston Churchill, no fan of Gandhi and his satyagraha. He called Dyer’s deed“an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event whichstands in sinister isolation”; privately he wrote that the “off��enceamounted to murder, or alternatively manslaughter”. Signifi��cantly, Churchill, likening the event to“Prussian” tactics of terrorism,said that this was “not the Britishway of doing things”. In otherwords, he was resorting to Britishexceptionalism: he was hangingout Dyer to dry as a rogue offi��cer,while saving the larger colonial enterprise as benign.
Dyer was certainly rogue, buthe was not alone. He was one of aline of several such — John Nicholson, Frederick Cooper, J.L. Cowan
— who resorted to severe disproportionate violence in 1857 and after the 1872 Kuka rebellion; he wasalso part of the despotic administration led by O’Dwyer (later assassinated by Udham Singh in 1940)which emboldened and then exonerated him. In 2013, then PrimeMinister David Cameron quotedthe same Churchill epithet of“monstrous”, adding that this wasa “deeply shameful event in Britishhistory” and “we must never forget what happened here.” TheQueen had earlier termed it as a“distressing example” of past history. Again, general homilies withhands nicely off�� and no admissionof a larger culpability of racialisedcolonial violence that underpinned imperialism.
Healing a woundDeep regret is all we may get instead of the unequivocal apologythat is mandated. The expectationcould be that time will add moredistance to the massacre, makingthese calls for apology increasingly an academic exercise. We willno doubt also be advised to forgiveand move on. The fact remainsthat there are many ways to heal afestering wound between nations,as Canada’s apology for the Komagata Maru shows; clever drafting isnot one of them.
Navtej Sarna is a writer and former High
Commissioner to the U.K. and
Ambassador to the U.S. He is a member of
the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary
Commemoration Committee. The views
expressed are personal
‘Deep regret’ is simply not good enoughBritain’s refusal to squarely apologise for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is expected but disappointing
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more letters online:
www.hindu.com/opinion/letters/
On Wednesday, 12 days afterthe U.K. had initially beendue to leave the European
Union (EU), Prime Minister Theresa May headed to Brussels to persuade leaders of the remaining 27member states to grant Britain anextension that would enable Brexitto happen by June 30 at the latest.With the ultimate decision on thislying with Brussels (and the member states, each of which has theability to veto an extension outright), it felt a far cry from the picture of a Britain “taking back control” that the government andLeave supporters had propounded in the wake of the 2016 referendum. In the end Britain’s suggested date was brushed aside as EUleaders — following an epic fi��vehour meeting — opted for October31, with Britain able to leave earlier if a deal is reached.
Amid accusations After it became clear that the original March 29 Brexit deadline wasno longer tenable, accusations over who was responsible have comethick and fast. Ms. May herselffaced a backlash from MPs whenshe appeared to blame them forthe chaos, accusing them of “political games” and “arcane politicalrows” that she and the public hadtired of. Ironically for Ms. May, hercomments were also seen as bolstering the determination of MPsto continue to block her withdrawal deal within Parliament, whichhas now thrice been rejected byMPs.
As with the results of the 2016
referendum, the causes of the current political crisis in Britain aremanifold, though the startingpoint surely has to be the openended nature of the question putto the public: “Should the UnitedKingdom remain a member of theEuropean Union or leave the European Union?” The question, whichitself was open to generous interpretation, was used as a launchpad for all sorts of arguments bythe Leave campaign, ranging fromthe need to end free movementfrom the EU and immigrationmore widely, to having the opportunity to strike trade deals independently, to ending payments tothe EU, to challenging the establishment. All these and other reasons played into the result: a Nuffi��eld study published last yearnoted that immigration was themain reason that people voted toleave, followed by sovereignty,though the economy and the desire to teach politicians a lesson also played in.
The ambiguity of the questionhas meant that politicians acrossthe political spectrum have beenable to interpret the results to pursue pretty much any vision ofBrexit. There’s Ms. May, who hasput immigration controls at theheart of her vision of Brexit. Thisposition on free movement is alsoadopted to a certain extent by theLabour party, to the fury of manyof its supporters. However, whileMs. May has insisted on endingmembership of the EU customsunion to enable Britain to forge independent trade deals on goods,Labour believes remaining in partof these arrangements is the onlyway to enable businesses to get thetariff�� and hasslefree relationshipwith Europe they require to continue thriving, while ensuring thatno hard border develops on the island of Ireland between the Repu
blic of Ireland (the EU nation) andNorthern Ireland (part of theU.K.).
Across party linesThese visions have not held acrossparty lines, with some MPs choosing to leave their parties over theirdiff��erences. While some Conservative MPs believe Ms. May’s plan totransform the relationship is excessive, there are others who havecondemned it as tantamount to abetrayal, relegating Britain to “vassal” status to the EU, particularlybecause of the backstop arrangements for Ireland that would putthe U.K. into a customs union withthe EU that couldn’t be ended unilaterally were future talks to breakdown. Labour, on the other hand,has faced critics who believe itshould be doing more to representthe 48% who voted to remain inthe EU, as well as from others whohave warned that fi��ghting Brexitwould amount to abandoningsome of the most deprived communities in northern Englandwhich voted overwhelmingly toleave. These tensions — whichhave pervaded the party membership, discussion between MPs andeven the cabinet and shadow cabinet — have made achieving political consensus on all sides particu
larly diffi��cult.But what has been particularly
striking is the government’s refusal to compromise. It had becomeincreasingly clear that the government’s vision of Brexit wasn’t onethat would pass through Parliament — indeed, 230 MPs votedagainst it in January in the biggestdefeat for a U.K. government inparliamentary history. Ms. Mayhas plodded on regardless, even assome pointed out the double standards: she insisted that she shouldbe able to bring her vote to MPs over and over again; but at the sametime she robotically insisted onrespecting the referendum result,despite the fact that so much hadchanged and so much more hadbecome known in the past twoyears.
However, Ms. May is not the only one to refuse to compromise.Some Brexiteers and the Conservative party’s parliamentary ally,the Democratic Unionist Party(DUP) of Northern Ireland, havedug in. The DUP’s intransigencewill be particularly painful for Ms.May, whose impetuous decision tocall a snap general election in 2017gave them the crucial powerfulhand over Brexit decisions. Indeed, had that election not beencalled, it is quite possible that thegovernment would not have struggled with the numbers in gettingits deal through, and Brexit couldhave happened on the scheduleddate.
Muddle alongAdvocates of a public vote toohave not covered themselves inglory. The Independent Group ofMPs who left the Conservative andLabour parties earlier this yearcourted criticism when they failedto help push the customs unionand other softer options over theline in a series of indicative votes
recently. Had they done so, MPscould have got the majority theyneeded for a road ahead to showthat there was an alternative roadto Ms. May’s, but instead they havecontinued to cling to the hope ofeither revocation or a public confi��rmatory vote.
It has been particularly unfortunate for the U.K. that given the fundamental issues that were apparent from the start of the Brexitprocess that Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union was triggered in March 2017 well beforethe type of Brexit they wanted topursue had been agreed upon.This has forced the debate to happen against the backdrop of a deadline and cliff��edge that has madeit possible for the government tothreaten, “it’s our deal or no deal”,or “it’s our deal or a long delay”,making it more into a game ofchicken than a country trying toforge the right road ahead. For thisParliament itself bears much responsibility, voting overwhelmingly to trigger the exit process backin 2017 with pretty much nothingto go on.
If the Brexit process was Britain’s fi��rst opportunity to fl��out itsprowess as a rational, independent trading nation, capable ofholding its own on the globalstage, it is a chance that has so farbeen missed by miles and thesense of frustration among EUleaders has been palpable. The October 31 deadline has given Britaintime to fi��nd the “best possible solution,” Donald Tusk, President ofthe European Council, said, urging Britain to “not waste thistime”. Whether Britain managesto do so and fi��nally comes up witha solution acceptable to Parliament and the EU remains to beseen.
A crisis that resists hasty solutions As the EU extends the Brexit deadline, it is still anybody’s guess if London will fi��nally get its act together
Vidya Ram
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Court on Rafale papersThe report, “SC rejectsCentre’s plea to keep Rafaledocuments secret” (Page 1,April 11), on the SupremeCourt’s ruling establishesthat no government isabove the law and thatinvestigative journalismcannot be stifl��ed. Thegovernment’s stance so faron documents that pertainto the deal indicates that ithas something to concealand is perhaps an attemptto buy time till the electionsare over. The verdict is alsoan opportunity to allayaspersions voiced on theintegrity of the supremeinstitution in the aftermathof its December order. Deepak Singhal,
Noida
■ It is a matter of pride thatThe Hindu’s eff��orts, throughinvestigative journalism, to
probe the Rafale deal havefi��nally yielded results to theextent that the SupremeCourt took note of it. The topcourt has once again struck ablow for the freedom ofspeech, therebystrengthening ourdemocracy. I hope thismoment will also enlightencitizens on the need to notgive up the fi��ght ofsafeguarding theirconstitutional rights. Ranjit Kumar Paul,
New Delhi
Talking peaceThe Prime Minister is leavingno stone unturned in orderto somehow or the other winthe general election. Hisrepeated references to thearmed forces and also thePulwama incident in order togarner votes gloss over thepoint that the latter was onaccount of a failure of
intelligence, for which hisgovernment is responsible.The second point is aboutwhat the government hasdone in order to restorenormalcy with Pakistan.Dialogue with Pakistan isimperative.N.G.R. Prasad,
K.K. Ram Siddhartha,
Chennai
For the young voterI am 80plus and the resultsof this election are not goingto be of very greatconsequence to me. But Iwish the vast majority of theIndian electorate, especiallythe young and vibrant, cares.And so I write this note.When I was a class VI studentin a village in Kerala, I spentelection day on the road nearthe polling booth shouting,“Every vote in the bullockcart box.” Since then, I havenot missed a single election
as a responsible voter. Ibegan my adult life inCherrapunji and had noproblem mixing with peoplefrom across India. BeingKhasi, Lushai, Naga orAssamese made nodiff��erence. When I moved toShillong, there too it was alife of acceptance. It neveroccurred to me to evenbother to fi��nd out whatreligion/caste or region onebelonged to. To me, all wereand are the citizens of thisgreat country. All theelections I experienced werebased more or less on facts.Now, things have changed.Many of us are being toldthat our religion is in danger;our culture is in danger; why,even our gods are in danger.Our nationalism was not atalking point at all because itwas as dear to every Indianas the air he or she breathed.We cherished our freedom,
says he is associated with anorganisation “in pursuit ofalternative ideas andimagination”. Of what use isthis?K. Sivasubramanian,
Chennai
Expressing ‘regret’There is a huge diff��erencebetween the words“regret”and “apology”. WhatIndia needs is an outrightapology for the JallianwalaBagh massacre and Britainshould shed its ego. Hadsuch a brutality beenunleashed on the British,Europe, America and Israelwould have shamed theoppressors every year. Thereseem to be diff��erentstandards because ithappened to “others”.T. Anand Raj,
Chennai
both intellectual andphysical, and our democraticvalues. We do not want theseto be taken away. Therefore,I request the young people ofthis land to think forthemselves. Facts and truth,and not enthralling theatrics,should guide them. Beforethey exercise their franchise,they should make sure thatthey are serving this greatland and not any particularpolitician. Dr. C.P. Damodaran,
Thrissur, Kerala
One-sidedArmchair critics can neveroff��er anything constructiveto the government but deriveimmense pleasure bycriticising people who dothings honestly. What is theuse of publishing articlessuch as “Notes on the BJP’smanifesto” (OpEd page, April11)? Incidentally, the writer
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to [email protected] must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.
The April 9 parliamentary elections in Israel have
underscored the structural shift in the country’s
democracy — the right wing reigns supreme.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had faced serious
challenges during the campaign. He faces corruption
allegations that could lead to his indictment. The Blue
and White party, formed a few weeks ahead of the elec
tion, had quickly risen to become the principal opposi
tion force, giving Mr. Netanyahu a scare. He had lost
some allies even before the elections. In the event, Mr.
Netanyahu has emerged victorious. While both Mr. Ne
tanyahu’s Likud party and the Blue and White got 35
seats each (after 98% of the votes were counted), he
could become Prime Minister for a fi��fth time with sup
port from rightwing parties. Likud has markedly im
proved its performance from 2015, when it had won 30
seats and still formed the government. The orthodox
Jewish parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, which
won seven and six seats respectively in 2015, secured
eight each this time. The Union of Rightwing Parties
and the rightnationalist Yisrael Beytenu have won fi��ve
seats each, while the centrist Kulanu has got four. With
the support of these potential allies, Mr. Netanyahu
would have the backing of 65 MPs, well past the halfway
mark in the 120member Knesset.
Mr. Netanyahu ran a contentious, ultranationalist
campaign to drum up support for Likud and its allies.
He had publicly aligned with Jewish Power, a fringe par
ty known for its racist, antiArab views. If Mr. Netanya
hu had said there wouldn’t be any Palestinian state un
der his watch during the 2015 election campaign, this
time, a few days ahead of the poll, he said he would an
nex parts of the West Bank to bring Jewish settlements
under Israeli sovereignty. He also exploited the security
concerns of Israeli voters by presenting himself as the
only leader capable of keeping them safe from “Palesti
nian terrorists” as well as Iran. Mr. Netanyahu is credit
ed with stabilising the Israeli economy and, more con
troversially, clinching major diplomatic coups such as
the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and
the occupied Syrian Golan as Israeli territory, thanks to
American President Donald Trump. Mr. Netanyahu is
now set to become the longestserving Prime Minister,
overtaking David BenGurion, the country’s founder.
But the Israel he leads today is totally diff��erent from
what even BenGurion and the early socialist Zionists
had imagined. With Mr. Netanyahu showing no interest
in the peace process and the occupation of Palestine
being deepened both militarily and through Jewish set
tlements in the West Bank, Israel, which is described by
a Basic Law passed last year as “the nation state of the
Jewish people”, is a de facto apartheid state. Given his
record, there is little reason to hope that Mr. Netanyahu
will break the status quo during his next term.
Netanyahu’s Israel As he tries to clinch a fi��fth term as PM,
hopes for peace in Palestine dim further
The ban on civilian traffi��c for two days a week on
the 271km stretch of National Highway 44 bet
ween Udhampur in Jammu and Baramulla in
Kashmir, which came into force on April 7, is an illad
vised move. The ban, which is to last till May 31, is sup
posedly to enable the orderly conduct of the Lok Sabha
elections in Jammu and Kashmir, in the light of the trag
ic February 14 suicide attack on a CRPF convoy on NH
44 at Pulwama, that killed 40 personnel. On Sundays
and Wednesdays, between 4 a.m. and 5 p.m., only pre
determined categories of civilian traffi��c will be allowed
on the highway with clearance from the authorities. For
the rest of the time, the highway will be given over to
the movement of troops. As a measure to prevent
another Pulwamatype attack, this is draconian. NH 44
is the lifeline of the State — it is vital to move goods (in
cluding perishable agricultural produce), and along it
lie many educational and medical institutions. In many
cases, avoiding the stretch would greatly multiply the
time and distance between two points. The govern
ment is at pains to emphasise that exceptions are in
place for those in medical emergencies, lawyers, doc
tors, tourists, government employees, students, and so
on. But such a system of permits and bans militates
against the freedom of movement at the heart of a de
mocratic society. To be sure, even before the ban, civi
lian traffi��c has not moved on the highway unfettered by
checks. Such is the security challenge in J&K. But to offi��
cially segregate civilian traffi��c is to put people’s lives at
the mercy of a calendar, and to invite confusion about
the organising principles of Indian troop deployment.
The Pulwama attack was a wakeup call about the se
curity drills in place to prevent terrorist strikes. It de
manded an appraisal, so that the lives of soldiers and ci
vilians alike can be secured. To throw civilians out of
gear — as they were on the fi��rst day of the highway ban,
on April 7 — defi��es logic. It also positions the administra
tion against the people, as has become clear from the
political and legal challenges to the traffi��c restrictions.
In a State that is already under President’s Rule, it has
pushed the political class and the administration farth
er apart. The State’s parties such as the National Confe
rence and the Peoples Democratic Party have led the
voices of protest. Petitions have been fi��led in the J&K
High Court arguing that the restrictions violate Articles
14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. The eff��ect of any res
ponse to the Pulwama attack ought not to be an in
creased alienation that places troops and local people
in an usversusthem timetable. It must, instead, be a
doubling up of the security protocol to make life more
secure and hasslefree for civilians and soldiers alike.
Closed roadThe ban on civilian traffi��c on the Udhampur
Baramulla highway must be rescinded
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THE HINDU DELHI
FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2019 9EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
CMYK
A ND-NDE
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A new defence plan is being formulated to cover 196974 inview of the rephasing of the Fourth FiveYear Plan over this period. This takes into account “the continuing hostility of Pakistan and China” towards India, “their strategic and militarycapabilities and the possibility of their acting in concert”against India. This has been revealed in the annual report ofthe Ministry of Defence for 196869. The report also outlines adefence expenditure of Rs. 1,110 crores for 196970, whichworks out to be 3.46 per cent of the gross national product.This is against the defence expenditure of Rs. 1,051.38 croresfor 196869 which was 3.4 per cent of the gross national product. A new factor which has arisen during the year, the Ministry said, is the possibility of supplies of military equipment toPakistan from the Soviet Union. Such supplies in addition tothose coming from other countries at concessional rates including China are bound “to move Pakistan towards a postureof even increased intransigence and would certainly makenormalisation of relations more diffi��cult.”.
FIFTY YEARS AGO APRIL 12, 1969
Rs. 1,110 crore defence spending
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FROM ARCHIVES
Shortly after 730 on Thursday [April 10] evening, a seriousmotor car smash took place on the Napier Road [in Calcutta]resulting in the death of Captain W.J. Simmons of the steamer“Actor” and serious injuries to a carter named Golwar and hisattendant Lutna. So far as could be learnt last night CaptainSimmons with two friends left the docks at about 730 P.M. in amotor car. One of the Captain’s friends was driving while Captain Simmons and another European were seated behind.While the car was proceeding along the Napier Road the driverin order to avoid a straw cart which was in front of himswerved to his right when the wheels skidded and the car raninto an empty bullock cart which was in front of the straw cart.Captain Simmons sustained serious injuries on his head andwas at once taken to the General Hospital where he died atabout 1 o’clock this morning [April 11] without regaining consciousness. The driver of the cart and his attendant who werealso seriously injured were removed in a motor ambulance tothe Medical College Hospital.
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO APRIL 12, 1919.
Motor Smash.
For Indians, the massacre that evokesstrong emotions is not Nader Shah’sslaughter of 30,000 people in Delhi in1739 but Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar,where, a century ago, on April 13,troops commanded by General Dyer
fi��red into an unarmed crowd, killing hundreds.The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, like later ones in Lidice
(1942) and My Lai (1968), was relatively small. It was nothingcompared to the hundreds of thousands killed by the Japanese army in Nanjing in 193738 or by Indonesian soldiers inEast Timor 1975 onward.
Jallianwala Bagh’s importance lies not in the numberskilled but in what preceded it and in what followed. TheAnarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, betterknown as the Rowlatt Act, came into force a month beforethe massacre in Jallianwala Bagh. It shocked most Indianswho had expected to be rewarded, not punished, for willingly fi��ghting alongside the British in the First World War.
The massacre, followed by the feting and rewarding of itsperpetrator, General Dyer, by the British public, removed allillusions about benign British rule in the country. It alsomarked the start of a liberation struggle like no other underMahatma Gandhi.
It took Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore to capturethe full import of the outrage at Jallianwala Bagh. In his letter of protest renouncing the knighthood conferred on him,he wrote: “The accounts of the insults and suff��erings by ourbrothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence,reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony ofindignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers — possibly congratulating themselves forwhat they imagine as salutary lessons.”
Many massacres in history fade while some linger as grisly curiosities. The killing of every male inhabitant of the Persian town of Kernan in 1794 by Agha Mohammed Khan isbetter known for the latter’s insistence that the eyeballs bebrought to him in baskets and poured on the fl��oor.
Most massacres that endure in public memory are thosefor which countries are responsible. Like Jallianwala Bagh,they are never forgotten or forgiven but unfailingly recollected through generations with deep loathing for their perpetrators. No Pole can talk about the 1940 Katyn massacreof over 20,000 Polish soldiers and civilians by the Russians,with equanimity. Another, and more recent, the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnians by breakaway Serbians, iscommemorated by a vast sombre memorial that doubles upas a cemetery comprising over 6,000 graves in Srebrenica.
Massacres are often lifted to immortality by art. Picasso’s‘Guernica’ and M.F. Husain’s ‘Bhopal’ speak for massacrespast and those that are very likely to occur in future. Theseworks are also reminders of what the powerful, given achance, will infl��ict on the weak, Jallianwala Bagh being justone example.
The writer taught public policy and contemporary history at IISc.Bengaluru
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SINGLE FILE
Refl��ections on a massacre Jallianwala Bagh’s importance lies inwhat preceded it and in what followedUday Balakrishnan
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Campaign expenditure
Limits on campaign expenditure are meant to ensure a levelplaying fi��eld for everyone contesting elections. The ElectionCommission of India imposes limits on campaign expenditureincurred by a candidate, but not by a political party. Expenditure by a Lok Sabha candidate is capped at between ₹��50 lakhand ₹��70 lakh. For Assembly elections, the ceiling is between₹��20 lakh and ₹��28 lakh. Candidates must mandatorily fi��le atrue account of election expenses with the EC. An incorrectaccount, or expenditure beyond the ceiling, can attract disqualifi��cation for up to three years. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that many candidates in India spendmuch more than the ceiling.
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On April 1, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched a PSLV C45 rocketwith a payload of 29 satellites. Daysbefore this, on March 27, in an operation called ‘Mission Shakti’, the Defence Research & Development Organisation demonstrated India’sability in off��ensive defence capability, using a missile to destroy a satellite in Low Earth Orbit. In a discussion moderated by V. Sudarshan,D. Raghunandan and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan look at India’s options and its role in the global governance of outer space. Excerpts:
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan:The antisatellite (ASAT) test hasbeen in the making for more than adecade actually. Ever since the fi��rstChinese antisatellite test in January2007, there has been concern overIndia’s own space assets and whatkind of damage and destructioncould happen should China decideto shoot down or temporarily disable one of our own satellites. Thatwas the fi��rst time we recognised theimportance of preserving outerspace in a big way. A second important factor is that we did not want torepeat the experience of what happened in the nuclear domain. Wedon’t want a Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons orNPTlike mechanism to come aboutin the space domain that would actually lead to a ban on India’s futureASAT tests.
Raghunandan, how doesknocking out a satellite in LowEarth Orbit actually promotedeterrence?
D. Raghunandan: My own feelingis the U.S., Russia and China havecome to realise the somewhat limited nature of deterrence off��ered byantisatellite weapons. None ofthem has developed large inventories of ASAT missiles or targeted awhole range of satellites of adversary nations. One must understandthat all these nations have a fewhundreds of satellites up in spacewhich are used for military or dualpurposes.
How many satellites are you going to target and is knocking out onesatellite going to really be a deterrent? Is it good to continue with kill
er missiles or are there other waysto disable adversary satellites? So Ihave my doubts about the deterrentcapabilities of ASAT missiles, particularly as you may have noticed thatall nations are extremely cageyabout blowing up satellites in orbitbecause of the debris created. And ifyou have multiple such things goingon, then you are obviously going tocreate multiple sets of problems. Ifthe confl��ict between nations were toreach a stage where you are knocking out each other’s satellites, then Ithink it would have already reachednuclear weapon threshold and thenwe are in a diff��erent ballgame entirely.
Rajeshwari, is the deterrence inspace as complex asRaghunandan says it is?
R.P.R.: It is. And I would start withthe fact that, so far, the establishedspace players who have demonstrated the ASAT capability have notadopted deterrence as part of theirspace policy. So we are still in a goodspace right now where states havenot made space a part of their deterrence policy. So that is an encouraging sign and that must be continued.
D.R.: I agree.
R.P.R.: As Raghu mentioned, thereare other technologies available. Increasingly, the electronic and cyberwarfare capabilities, any number oftechnologies that can be usedthrough cyber through lasers tocreate temporary disruptions, anddisabling somebody else’s satelliteand communications services tocreating more permanent damage.So there are many ways of addressing this issue.
Raghunandan, in terms ofevolution of our space militaryposture, how integrated are wein our capabilities?
D.R.: Fortunately, ASAT capabilitieshave not fully been weaponised byall the countries. And, therefore, Ithink it aff��ords a good opportunityto move forwards towards demilitarisation of outer space. The second aspect is that while India hasarticulated a doctrine with regard tonuclear weapons, which includes a
declaration of nofi��rstuse and soon, we do not as yet have a strategicdoctrine with regard to the weaponisation in space. I think it would begood if India develops a doctrine forweaponisation in space as well as anintegrated security doctrine whichbrings together nuclear, space andother advanced technologies so thatyou do have an integrated posture.The third point is that there is an added complication with regard toASAT weaponry. That is, not allcountries have their own dedicatedmilitary satellites which a thirdcountry can knock out and therefore disable that country’s networkcentric platforms and weapons systems. Many countries use thirdparty satellites. Many countries usedual purpose satellites. So it is not atall clear, for example, if India shootsdown ‘x’ number of satellites belonging to a country, we have disabled that country’s military communications. And this applies to anycountry.
Where are we in terms ofdisparities between us andChina? What are we up against?
D.R.: India has barely begun development of ASAT missiles. China hasbeen at this for more than a decade.They are believed to have workedon missiles targeting high latitudesatellites at 36,000 km above theearth whereas we have only conducted the test at the Low Earth Orbit. China has also been doing considerable work experimenting withlaserbased weaponry and cyber
weaponry which are likely to proveto be more eff��ective than a wholebattery of missiles targeting satellites. We are way behind.
Isn’t there an inherentcontradiction between ourposition on no weaponisationof space that we have adoptedand a steady accrual of militaryassets in space that we are alsodoing at the same time?
D.R.: There is, in the sense thatthese two impulses are contrary.But I think that the real question tobe asked is whether India’s statement about weaponisation in space,wanting to dial back weaponisation,is more for public consumptionthan for actual pursuit of deweaponisation in space. If India is seriousabout wanting to deweaponisespace, then India should take activemeasures in the conference on disarmament along with other countries like Russia or China which havealready initiated some proposalsthere. All of these have been completely stonewalled by the U.S.,which disagrees with even the term‘weaponisation of space’ and has resisted attempts to look for deweaponisation of space, claiming thatany moves in that direction denies
the U.S. the ability for selfdefence.But if India is serious, India shoulddeclare nofi��rstuse of the ASATweaponry as we have done for thenuclear [weapons], and adopt astrong domestic doctrine on weaponisation of space just as we have adeclared doctrine for nuclear weapons.
We are launching a lot ofsatellites for other countries.How much do you think ourmilitary programmes are beingcross-subsidised by theselaunches?
D.R.: I doubt it is very much. Themajor reason why India is popularas a launch destination is because ofits lower costs. The incomes alsowill be correspondingly not veryhigh. The second aspect is that allsatellites we have launched havebeen Low Earth satellites. The realmoney in international launcheslies in the communication satellites,the heavier satellites at 36,000 kmabove the earth. That’s where themoney is for telephony, televisionand the rest. We haven’t yet brokeninto that league in terms of satellitelaunching.
Rajeshwari, can you give us anoverview of what we are upagainst in terms of theirmilitarisation in terms ofspace?
R.P.R.: China has shown it hasmuch greater space competitiveness. For the longest time, India wasjust doing four to fi��ve launches peryear; on the other hand, the Chinese were doing this on an averageof 20 a year. That has a certain consequence not just for the overallcompetitiveness in terms of thelaunch market... but when you lookat the global commercial space market that is available (and that youdon’t want to lose it completely)and if you are not able to increasecompetitiveness, that’s a seriousproblem. Second, there is anotherimportant component which isabout how much of the growing requirements of the military are fromthe security sector within India thatISRO will be able to provide.
There is a capacity gap. Even asChina talks the language of peacefuluses of outer space, the reality hasbeen that there is a fl��ourishing military programme under the PLA leadership. The Chinese are also set
ting up a space station some time inthe 20222024 time frame when theInternational Space Station is possibly winding down. This also leads toconcerns as to how space activity inthe future might shape [up].
Is there is a contradictionbetween the impulse towardsdisarmament and the impulsetowards militarisation?
R.P.R.: Again I would emphasisethat our deterrence capability is nota warfi��ghting capability. We are stilllooking at a nonweaponisation ofspace. On militarisation I want torefer to a point that Raghu mentioned. Raghu said we need to prevent space militarisation. I like theidea of preventing space militarisation but I think there is a big diff��erence between space militarisationand space weaponisation. And Ithink these two concepts are usedin a very interchangeable manner.Space militarisation is somethingthat has happened from the 1990s.
In the fi��rst Gulf War, for instance,you actually saw technology playinga major role in warfare. Since then,most militaries around the worldhave come to recognise and acknowledge the possible use of spaceassets for military operations. Whatthey call intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance, militarycommunications, drone programmes. We cannot go back on allthese developments. But what weare trying to prevent today is theearly trend towards weaponisation.We don’t want to weaponise outerspace. For that again we do not haveto put weapons in outer space.
ASAT capabilities are the best example. That is warfare, that is weaponisation and that is something weare trying to see — if that can bestopped, that process can be halted.But again, we have been going backand forth, there are diff��erent understandings of what a space weaponis. How do you defi��ne these terms?There are major diff��erences ofopinion.
Now that India has demonstratedthis capability, India needs to playan even more active role in the global governance of outer space. But Ihave a slightly diff��erent opinionwhen it comes to who we partnerwith if India feels that we alone cannot go out into the global domainand create new rules of the road.We can certainly partner with likeminded countries.
Is India’s antisatellite test a gamechanger?India must help shape the global governance ofouter space
PARLEY
D. Raghunandanis with the Delhi
Science Forum, a
nonprofi��t think
tank on science and
technology policy,
where he works on
defence, aerospace
and strategic aff��airs
Rajeswari PillaiRajagopalan is the head of the
nuclear and space
policy initiative of
the ORF and also
technical adviser to
the UN group of
governmental
experts on the
Prevention of an
Arms Race in
Outer Space
Scan the QR codefor the full interviewonline
<> Even as China talks the
language of peaceful uses
of outer space, the reality
has been that there is a
fl��ourishing military
programme
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some lodges which provideonly lodging. If you ordercoff��ee or tea, it is broughtfrom a nearby eatery.
Once extremely backward in education, Dharmapuri, as a district, is nowthe topper at the State levelwith regard to the gross enrolment ratio for secondary education. The district has 1,620 schools with1.85 lakh students. It hasmore than 110 preprimaryschools. There are six engineering colleges, includingone governmentrun college, says M. Vadivelan,who runs an engineeringcollege and whose offi��ce islocated opposite the campus of the GovernmentMedical College that started functioning six yearsago.
All these changes lookimpressive, given the trackrecord of the district. Butconversations with a crosssection of people in the district underscore the importance of the caste factor inelections. They made me
Visible signs of change canbe deceptive. This waswhat I found in my recentvisit to the Dharmapuri district in the western part ofTamil Nadu, a place regarded at the allIndia level aschronically backward.
I was visiting Dharmapuri town after nine years.There are some shoppingcomplexes and a fl��ashy hotel in the core part of thistierIII town which werenot there earlier.
Connectivity, in terms ofphysical infrastructure andcommunication, is no longer an issue. In 2006 whenI went to the town for thefi��rst time on an assignmentto cover the Assemblypolls, it was still a sleepyand dusty town with oldfashioned shops and restaurants.
Not many changes hadtaken place four years laterwhen I was there to assessthe situation for a byelection. Even today, there are
wonder about the chasmbetween visible changesand identity consciousnessamong the people.
Over timeLess than 10 km away fromthe town is Cholakottai village where P. Sukumar, amiddleaged owner of apetty shop, is not unaff��ected by the changes. All hischildren go to school. Atthe same time, he talks vividly of how a bridge wasbroken and a public transport vehicle burnt downyears ago “in support of thecause” of his community,the Vanniyars. He says thecommunity will steadfastlysupport Anbumani Ramadoss, the nominee of thePattali Makkal Katchi (PMK)and former Union Minister,also a Vanniyar.
A. Govindan, who isfrom Periyapallipatti village nearby, spent 27 daysin jail for his participationin an agitation by the PMK.“Regardless of what theparty has done for me, I
will vote for Mr. Ramadoss,” he says. Sukumarand Govindan do not fail topoint out that it is becauseof their stance that Scheduled Caste voters will support the Dravida MunnetraKazhagam’s nominee.
“Who else will I support?” asks Lenin, an autorickshaw driver who belongs to the SC communityand is living in governmentprovided accommodationnear Morappur, about 35km from Dharampuri.
He is a man of fewwords, but when hespeaks, it is not without reference to the 201213 tragicepisode around an intercaste marriage, which isstill fresh in the memory ofthe public in this part of theState.
I wonder how long people, despite being similarlyplaced economically andeducationally, continue tobe divided by identity.When will changes in physical infrastructure breakthe hold of caste?
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In Dharmapuri, still divided by identity politicsTracking the hold of caste amid the visible signs of changeT. Ramakrishnan
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