High Drama in the Himalayas - The Dolam Plateau standoff between India & China

On August 28^th, 2017 after more than 10 weeks of high tension, the border standoff between PLA [People’s Liberation Army] i.e. Chinese Army & the Indian Army was over. Indian soldiers disengaged from their confrontation with Chinese troops in a remote place on the Dolam Plateau [commonly referred to incorrectly as the Doklam Plateau in Indian media] in Bhutan just over the India/Bhutan border.  This standoff was not only a major talking point in the Indian media but also received quite bit of coverage in multiple news organizations around the world such as NY Times, BBC News, Washington Post, Time, Fortune, Al Jazeera, etc.

One might have several questions in regard to this story which I shall answer over the course of this blog

• First of all where in the world is this now infamous Dolam Plateau?
• If this is a dispute about Bhutan’s territory why aren’t Chinese troops being opposed by Bhutanese troop’s vs Indian troops?
• If this place is in Bhutan’s territory what are Chinese & Indian troops doing over there?
• If India’s territorial sovereignty is not being infringed upon why does India care & have to intervene in Bhutan?

The area in question (Dolam Plateau) is at the tri-junction area where borders of India (state of Sikkim), Bhutan & Tibet (controlled by China) meet.

Image: Courtesy of nytimes.com

The area of Tibet which extends to this tri-junction area is referred to as Chumbi Valley which points like a "dagger" southwards in between India & Bhutan.


TRI-JUNCTION AREA(ZOOMED IN VIEW)

As per the understanding between India & Bhutan the point where borders of all three countries is called Batang La. However China claims that the tri-junction (i.e. point where borders of the three countries meet) lies around 6.5km to the south at Gymochen or Gamochen & hence lays claim to the entire Dolam Plateau. In between both these points approximately 4km south of Batang La lies the Doka La where India stations it's troops on it's side of the border at an outpost.

Image: Courtesy of https://swarajyamag.com/defence/truths-mapped-out-india-cannot-afford-to-have-china-controlling-doklam-plateau

China since it claims the territory in south till Gymochen/Gamochen, over past several years has been building roads in Tibet not only to the actual border to Bhutan but also inside Bhutan itself. It built a motorable road around 2005 time frame (capable of  supporting big military vehicles) extending from the disputed border right up to the Doka La Pass. This was the status quo until June 15, 2017

Image: Courtesy of nytimes.com

On June 16th 2017 as per reports Chinese troops were going to start extension of this motorable road to the south towards their claimed border towards the south. This is when Indian Army soldiers at the Doka La outpost crossed over the international border with Bhutan & blocked them from proceeding with the construction. This created many firsts including the Indian Army crossing over into a 3rd country to confront Chinese troops. 

Image: Courtesy of nytimes.com
 This leads to an obvious question that why did India have to intervene on behalf of Bhutan when Bhutan's & not's India's territorial sovereignty was infringed upon. One must remember that Bhutan is a very tiny country sandwiched between two giants of Asia: India & China. Due to fears of being invaded by China, Bhutan signed a friendship treaty with India in 1949 (to avoid a fate like Tibet which was annexed by China around same time). One of the main principles of the treaty was "Bhutan agrees to to be guided by advice of India in regards to external relations". This meant that Bhutan had to compulsorily consult India on all aspects with regard to foreign relations (including with China). Bhutan is the only neighbor of China which doesn't have diplomatic relations with China. This treaty was later revised in 2007 to more looser terms saying that India & Bhutan to consult with one another on issues of national interest & not allow each other territories to be used in activities that are harmful to national security & interest of another. It is this exact wording in the India - Bhutan treaty which allows India the right to act on Bhutan's behalf for protecting not only Bhutan's but also India's own interest (more on that a bit later). Bhutan is very small nation which doesn't have a powerful army. They don't patrol the Dolam plateau regularly as it is both uninhabitable for most of year & it is of no strategic importance to them. Hence India had to take proactive action, crossing the international border & physically denying the Chinese from making any progress further south.

Next question is why would India be worried if China is intruding into a 3rd country. (Bhutan). There are 3 answer to this question : TERRAIN, TERRAIN & TERRAIN. In mountain warfare one the biggest advantage one can have over the enemy is being at a higher terrain than your enemy. This not only allows you to monitor enemy movements but makes it much harder for the enemy to dislodge you from that position. The attacker has to climb up high plus fight the defender at the same time . If the defender is in a well entrenched position he can easily inflict high casualties on the attacker. The 1999 war in Kargil & Operation Meghdoot to capture the Siachen glacier in 1984 are examples of this. Normally as per military doctrine an attacker needs a 3:1 force ratio to defeat while attacking & defeating an enemy. To mount a successful capture of a  high position held by an enemy that ratio could easily surpass 10:1 i.e. attacker would have to throw a huge amount of overwhelming manpower to achieve their objective.

Dolam Plateau (at 13,000 to 14,00 feet above sea level) is a relatively flat area surrounded by deep valleys & sharp peaks around it. These big peaks & deep valleys mean that navigating around it would be too next to impossible & the easiest way to move an army of men & vehicles would be to go right over it where terrain is relatively flat

As seen below in the next picture on the Sikkim - Tibet border (indicated by yellow line below) India controls all the peaks to the west while China controls the valley region in the center referred to as Chumbi Valley. Due to India controlling the heights all along the border up north any Chinese aggression from Tibet into Sikkim/India in this area can be repulsed due to the terrain advantage that India enjoys. India could easily deploy heavy artillery to target positions down in the Chumbi valley if their position came under threat. Additionally due to the shape/location of Chumbi Valley which is both narrow & shares a long border with Sikkim to the west it is highly susceptible to Indian counter attacks from the flanks.
After the 1962 war where India suffered big losses, India beefed up security all along the border with China including Sikkim. In 1967 Chinese troops had brief skirmish with Indian troops at Nathu La Pass (around 13-14km NW of Doka La Pass). Indian troops were able to successfully beat back the Chinese troops & hold their ground. Knowing all this it would be foolish for China to start even a small limited border skirmish in the tri-junction or eastern part of Sikkim. So how does one overcome such a issue. By launching a flanking maneuver where you can go for the enemy weak point via an alternate route. This was best exemplified in the Battle of Thermopylae where the million+ men strong Persian army were held up by a few thousand Greeks (sorry number was higher than 300 which is what the movie 300 leads you to believe) for 2 whole days.  On 3rd day they were led to an alternate route behind the Greeks back finally defeating them eventually.

 For China this flanking maneuver is going over the Dolam Plateau. Therefore it is imperative that they claim Gymochen as the "new" tri-junction point. This way they can lay their claim to the entire Dolam Plateau. Once the Dolam Plateau claimed as "Chinese" territory they can justify building their motorable road to the the southern edge of the Dolam Plateau which is Zompelri (Bhutanese)/ Jampheri Ridge. This is the proverbial "red line" that India does not want China to cross. If China got to the Zompelri Ridge it would be able climb down the foothills of the Himalayas & advance directly into northwest West Bengal (see green lines below where they could travel over the Dolam Plateau & down the foothills of Himalayas) which is just 20km from the Zompelri ridge . This would allow the Chinese to bypass the Indian defenses in Sikkim which have been strengthened over time & also where India enjoys the terrain advantage. The attack would be in northeast West Bengal where defenses are not setup as the border shared there is with Bhutan & not China.

A big worry to strategic observers in India is the threat to the Siliguri corridor referred to as "Chicken's neck". The Siliguri corridor is narrow piece of land (just 20 km wide at it's narrowest point) that connects the North-East with rest of India via West Bengal. This Siliguri corridor is just around 90km from the edge of the Zompelri ridge (as the crow fIies). In case an attack by China on this strategic bottleneck the road & rail links from North East to rest of India could be disrupted. This would essentially cut off 40-50 million people living in the North East could be cut off from the rest of India & provide China with a huge strategic advantage.

Therefore the intervention by Indian troops to enter a 3rd country Bhutan was essential. The goal was to stop the road building at around Doka La Pass across the international border . They could not allow a motorable road to be built up to the southern edge of the Dolam Plateau from where in times of war China could flank around India's strongholds in Sikkim instead attack down south in West Bengal potentially at India's weak point in the Siliguri corridor.

As seen by events in last few years in the South China Sea, China without any regard for international laws has repeatedly encroached in disputed territories with many of it's neighbors . Many of these nations either don't want to earn China's wrath by trying to block China from occupying such disputed areas or don't have the military might or resources to do so. Countries like Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia & Indonesia have protested through official statements from their governments but have been able do nothing on the ground as China gobbles up these territories with aggressive infrastructure building & intimidation/threats through official & semi official government media outlets. President of Philippines Rodrigo Duterte (referred to as Trump of South East Asia) is a strongman/hardliner has a no holds barred approach to all his opponents who he takes them on anytime & anywhere. In his bombastic style he first claimed that Philippines would extract oil from all areas under dispute with China which they claim to be rightfully theirs. He was known to never back down from a fight, but in May 2017 he shockingly overnight went soft on China once he was threatened with possible war by Xi Jinping, China's current President.

After the India intervention on June 16th 2017 Chinese were taken aback as they never had expected India to intervene like this. They had never been challenged by any of their neighbors in disputes like this before. China was like a bully who was used to having his own way doing as he pleases without anyone interfering. But like when an opponent strikes back at bullies it leaves him confused as he can't have his way anymore. He starts mouthing even more crazier threats to intimidate his opponent into submission. This is what exactly happened post June 16th 2017. Both the Chinese government & media went into frenzy denouncing the Indian action as hostile. They mentioned that India had violated China's territorial sovereignty & had to unconditionally withdraw troops or face the consequences. There were regular threats of war from editorials in their state sponsored mouthpiece newspapers. They mentioned that India hadn't learnt the bitter lessons of the war with China in 1962 & that it would teach it a lesson even worse than in the 1962 war. China had basically deployed full level of psychological warfare on India to intimidate India into backing down from Dolam similar to what it does in other territorial disputes with it's other neighbors.  

China even dusted off from its archives a 1890 treaty between Chinese empire (Qing dynasty) & British India which claimed that the border between Sikkim (which was an independent kingdom under British patronage) & Tibet started at Mount Gipmochi i.e. Gymochen (vs India assertion that it started in north at Batang La). 

"The boundary of Sikkim and Tibet shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu and northwards into other rivers of Tibet. The line commences at Mount Gimpochi on the Bhutan frontier, and follows the above-mentioned water-parting to the point where it meets Nipal territory"

China to backup their claims even said that Jawaharlal Nehru accepted these claims in a letter to then Chinese PM in 1959. 

But as usual China tries to play dirty mind games where it doesn't reveal all the pertinent facts & distorts them willfully to press it claims.

1. The 1890 treaty was signed between the Chinese [Qing dynasty] & British empires. The irony here is that the treaty was related to border between 2 kingdoms: Tibet (under loose Chinese rule) & Sikkim(independent kingdom under protection by the British) who weren't even consulted on this. Furthermore Bhutan to whom this area belongs to today was not even part of discussions.
2. As per 1890 treaty the area under Tibet extends southwards till Mount Gimpochi as per Chinese claims. But this area was never fully demarcated & an official boundary was never published for the same leading to different interpretations today of where the border lies. Some historians claim that Sikkimese documents refer to Batang-La as Mount Gimpochi supporting India's claim.
3. Complicating matters, however, the Indian interpretation of the 1890 convention differs from the Chinese one in an important way and appears to be supported by geographic realities. Himalayan border delimitations in the late-19th and early-20th century, which relied on what’s known as the “watershed principle.” Effectively the border between British India and China was to be decided on the basis of the highest continuous mountain ridge line. In the case of Dolam, there is indeed a continuous ridgeline that runs from the current tri boundary point between India, Nepal, and China to the area at the center of the current standoff which appears to terminate at Batang-la, the point India and Bhutan claim as the tri boundary point, even though the convention’s text explicitly says “Mount Gipmochi.” Effectively, this puts the first sentence of the convention’s first article in conflict with the second and is likely an artifact of poor survey work in the late-19th century
4. Nehru in his letter to Chinese PM in 1959 mentioned that the issue of border between Sikkim & Tibet in the north (away from Dolam) is settled matter & there is no dispute over it. However the the boundaries of Sikkim & Bhutan do not fall within that scope. As Chinese had shown areas of Bhutan in their maps to be under Chinese claims he said that maps showing the same had to be rectified & is it is a matter to discussed along with India/Tibet boundary issue.
5. Furthermore the Indian side has underlined that the two Governments (China & India) had in 2012 reached agreement that the tri-junction boundary points between India, China and third countries will be finalized in consultation with the concerned countries. Any attempt, therefore, to unilaterally determine tri-junction points is in violation of this understanding. So even if China's claims were valid this would have to be negotiated in talks between both countries.

Another example of Chinese duplicity when it comes to dealing with treaties from the colonial times is the 1914 Simla Accord. As per this treaty in 1914 the British & Tibetans (who were free of Chinese rule after fall of Qing dynasty in 1911) decided on the border between British claimed North East Frontier Province (present day Arunachal Pradesh) & Tibet. The border was clearly delimited on a map & referred to as the McMahon Line. China refuses to accept this as a border as they mentioned that they were not part of discussions on it & continue to claim Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet & thus a part of China. 

So in conclusion 1890 treaty which might benefit them due to an interpretation is fine & should be enforced while the 1914 Simla Accord which doesn't suit them is conveniently unjust & is not valid.

Back to present day, the Indian government should be credited as it stood it's ground in face of barrage of criticism & open threats from China knowing that any change in the status quo was non-negotiable & unacceptable. Indian government tried to keep the responses to the Chinese measured with no bluster or threats but simply asking for a return to the pre June 16 2017 positions. Unlike on Pakistan where not only some in India media but also in government go over the top with chest thumping there was mostly silence from India side except some periodic statements from MEA (Ministry of External Affairs). Modi had instructed to all in his party that only MEA was authorized to speak on this sensitive issue. This was to ensure that situation is not further inflamed which could possibly lead to war. What instead the India government did was open backchannel private negotiations with the Chinese to try to resolve this issue in a peaceful manner

In the end China agreed to back down for now for few reasons. On the ground with the Indians refusing to budge the situation had reached a stalemate & winter was soon approaching (at these high altitudes). Except the use of force, China was not going to able to start road construction any time soon. A use of force meant loss of lives & possible war. With upcoming BRICS Summit in China, it would have been an embarrassment for the host China if Modi had decided not to show up due to the Dolam dispute being not resolved. With America receding from the world stage with Trump's America First policy, China wants to fill that void showing itself to be the next true global leader. An absence by a big nation like India would have caused people to poke holes in the assertion that China was a world leader who can work together with everyone. To save face for both sides, the respective governments claimed sort of "moral victory" in their official statements which weren't highly detailed: India claimed that China has agreed to go back to status quo by abandoning the road work while China claimed that Indian troops have returned back over the border to India & they reserve the right to mount foot patrols in the Dolam Plateau which they had been doing even before the crisis erupted in June.

However due to the economic growth slowdown in China as it gradually shifts from a developing to a major world economy there could possibly some economic issues for it's people. Having huge number of people in  distress could easily lead to mass protests. This could then spiral out of control & create headache for the government which believes in tightly controlling all aspects of people's lives. In such times in the future,  the Chinese government would not be averse to a brief all out war or a skirmish somewhere along the border to distract it's people with nationalism which already is on the rise in China for the past few years.

In the end most believe that India did win this round by forcing China back to the status quo situation pre June 16th 2017. Many were glad to see that cooler heads prevailed on both sides & issue was resolved without any untoward incident & also without any jingoistic rhetoric on the Indian side (which is directed towards Pakistan on a regular basis). This should however be an eye opener for India that it needs to be work doubly harder to guard India's safety interests. China was truly caught off guard by the speed & effectiveness of the Indian response in Dolam as they were under impression that no one will date oppose them like in South China Sea. The Dolam standoff is over for now but now the fear is that the Chinese might come back doubly hard having learnt the lessons of Dolam in another sector like Ladakh or Arunachal Pradesh where terrain might not be to India's advantage. India cannot afford to relax & needs to urgently upgrade all border infrastructure to match China's huge strides in border infrastructure in Tibet. This will ensure that any new Chinese misadventure is nipped in the bud.

Bhutan was mightily relieved that it's nuclear neighbors didn't go to war as it would have been caught in the middle & suffered great losses. China which doesn't have diplomatic relations with Bhutan has tried hard over the years to establish both trade & economic relations with Bhutan but all their overtures have been declined by Bhutan. In the past China has tried to negotiate directly with Bhutan for territorial disputes in other areas in addition to Dolam. They made an offer to Bhutan to settle the northern disputed areas in favor of Bhutan if they give up their claim on Dolam which is of strategic importance to China to threaten India. India needs to continue to build strong relationship with Bhutan to ensure such Faustian deals are never ever accepted by Bhutan. I know that Modi's foreign trips are constant source of  debate but if you can guess the destination of his first overseas trip consider yourself as a general knowledge genius! His first trip after becoming PM was to of all countries : Bhutan. He understood the threat from China & wanted to reiterate the special relationship that India enjoys with Bhutan.

Recently China has been pursuing the "string of pearls" strategy where they try to encircle India with establishing relationships with India's neighbors (both land border & at sea in Indian Ocean) with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal, Maldives, etc. China has been trying to project it's economic power by building infrastructure for India's neighbors. However many of these projects like the one in Sri Lanka's Hambantota port where China offers very easy credit/loans however with high interest rates . Small nations take advantage of these easy loans but when many of these projects don't pan out economically, China  instead of requesting interest payments will take over equity in these projects. This would give them control of infrastructure which could very well used in future for Chinese military purposes. India's needs to counter this policy by trying to build relationships around the India Ocean including investing time & money in these nations for peaceful purposes unlike the Chinese. Since China is playing in India's backyard (Indian Ocean) it might not be the worst idea of starting to begin working with some the aggrieved neighbors of China in the South China Sea (China's own backyard) to build new relationships to counteract China increasing hegemony in Asia in the future. India's best bet for protecting her vital national security interests is building alliances with other countries in Asia who also feel threatened by China's expansionist policies as there is some doubt whether its newer close friend USA or older close friend Russia would take sides with India in the future in case of war with China.

"Love Charger" runs out of juice

This week the headlines have been dominated by the events in Sirsa, Haryana following the conviction of Gurmeet Singh (Baba Ram Rahim). It already feels like the verdict on Triple Talaq & Right to Privacy by Supreme Court was eons ago. More on the best court judgements of past few weeks later on.

Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan is the current head of a religious organization called as the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS).  I shall refer to Dera Sacha Sauda as DSS in the blog below. DSS was setup in 1948 in Sirsa, Haryana by Mastana who was from Baluchistan (Pakistan). After his death in 1960, Shah Satnam Singh took over who later promoted Gurmeet Singh(Baba Ram Rahim) as his successor. In 1990, Gurmeet Singh at young age of 23 became the spiritual head of Dera Sacha Sauda. After he took over the DSS quickly grew from a modest 25 acre complex in Sirsa, Haryana to a now mammoth 700 acre complex. DSS claims that all this increase was due to donations by supporters & no one was forced to give up land. But there have been  rumors of people being coerced to give up land. DSS went from few lakh supporters back then to today reportedly 6 to 7 crore followers or “premis” (as they like to refer to themselves). Their supporters are not only from India but also from far away countries like UK, USA & Canada.

However along with the organization’s explosive growth came the troubles. In 2002 a sadhvi who staying in the complex, sent an anonymous letter to then Prime Minister (A.B. Vajpayee),Home Minister, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Haryana Chief Minister, Sirsa Superintendent of Police, the National Human Rights Commission, newspapers and women's and social organizations. It was alleged in the letter that several girls had been subject to sexual assault/rape by Gurmeet Singh. After this matter came to light one of the journalists who steadfastly was investigating & reporting on the activities at the Dera was Ram Chandra Chatrapati, the 53-year-old editor of Poora Sach (Complete Truth), an evening daily from Sirsa, Haryana. He continued his reporting even in the face of death threats. On October 24^th 2002 two men (allegedly by two supporters of DSS) approached him a on bike & shot him at point blank range. He battled for 28 days before succumbing to his injuries. He even gave a statement before his death about who was responsible for the attempt on his life but such was the political clout of Gurmeet that the police did not register an FIR against either DSS or Gurmeet. With the sexual assault case against Gurmeet between 2002 & 2007 CBI got nowhere with case. There was huge backchannel; political pressure to close the cases against him. CBI interviewed hundreds of women who were allegedly assaulted but only two would give sworn testimony to CBI. Both women were pressured & threatened by DSS supporters to recant their statements. As per the lead CBI lead officer on the case, one day few DSS supporters surrounded & harassed one of these women & they had go rescue her from that spot.

Due to all the obstacles & interference brought to bear by Gurmeet & DSS the case proceeded at a snail pace over 15 years while Gurmeet Singh’s (affectionately called “Pitaji” by his followers) popularity & reach grew exponentially. Unlike his two predecessors who were more of the ascetic “renounce the world / stay away from worldly pleasures” type, Gurmeet was the exact opposite: flashy, desiring fame/ publicity & the materialistic type. He launched couple of movies called MSG: Messenger of God where he was not only the hero but also the script writer, director, lyricist, producer, etc.: a true one man show. He even ventured into the music business where he recorded music with Universal Music. Yes ladies & gentleman this is true & not a typo: The Company (Universal Music) whose artists include Taylor Swift, Kanye West & Adele released not 1 but 6 music albums by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. His last music album “Love Charger” was a super hit which sold 3 million copies in 3 days. All these antics earned him the moniker of “Rockstar Baba”. He also followed in the footsteps of Baba Ramdev, by moving into FMCG market. His brand was going to launch over 150 products (Honey, Bottled Water, Pickle, Noodles, Rice, etc.) in the market. On the education front he opened 10 schools, 1 engineering college & 1 management institute which is pretty impressive for the fact that is he himself is 10 standard pass. According to research by some news organizations all his enterprise were earning his Dera huge sums of money every year.

Fast forward to present where his supporters ran amok & rioted once he was pronounced guilty by the special CBI court. The images post-verdict were surreal to watch where the supporters were chasing the police instead of it being the other way round. Media was also not spared & bore the brunt of the supporter’s wrath as did common folk of Panchkula. The blame for this mess squarely lies at the feet of the local government in Haryana. In India where the policemen to population ratio are very low to begin with it is not possible to have police at all locations simultaneously to prevent untoward incidents. But this was a situation where not the only the location but also the time was known to all. Gurmeet came to the location with a 200 car convoy which meant that he had a ton of supporters already present over there ready to create trouble if he was convicted by the court. Haryana’s BJP government has made all kinds of excuses & gave bizarre statements like government made adequate arrangements but the crowd size was too huge to control, Sec 144 (which bars more than 4 people congregating in a single place at a time) was not issued due to clerical error, enough police were there or the riots would have so much worse, etc. Many people have said that the riots were engineered together by DSS in conjunction with the Haryana government under Manohar Lal Khattar which is currently close to Baba Ram Rahim & the DSS. However I would apply Occam’s razor principle [Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. the simpler one is usually the correct one]. This was more a case of negligence (maybe even criminal as lives were lost) by Manohar Lal Khattar government rather than him conniving with DSS to engineer riots. Chief Minister of Haryana Khattar who hasn’t had the best record with riots (2015 another Baba: Baba Rampal followers rioted when police tried to arrest him in a murder case & last year riots occurred when the Jats were protesting to get reservations) wouldn’t be looking to have more trouble at his doorstep. My friend who lives in Gurgaon said succinctly of the situation “We are averaging one riot per year in Haryana”, No Chief Minister however great his track record can survive in today’s hyper frenzy media world with a major riot occurring every year. What has let Khattar down is his inexperience in running affairs of the state. BJP never ruled Haryana before the inexperience of its leaders showed in the handling of the crisis. Compare this to Punjab where Congress led Capt. Amarinder Singh has been in power before & knows how to prepare for such situations. The Additional Director General of Police in Punjab said that they asked Haryana multiple times to inform them in advance of the date of the verdict. Punjab police had prior contact with Army before the verdict to seek their help if needed & called up 18,000 police personal on day of verdict. They called up Army within minutes of verdict & imposed curfew to keep situation under control as it was hard to make out among common men who is DSS supporter & who is not. This resulted in no deaths in Punjab in spite of several Dera facilities & supporters living in Punjab. Khattar’s reputation is fully tarnished at this point & the longer he stays he could very well stumble into another crisis dragging the party image down with him. Modi who was elected on the promise of good governance can’t like this distraction next door to New Delhi. The consensus cutting across various segments of society is that Khattar has to go after this debacle which has cast Haryana govt. again in poor light (which was just getting past the stalking case with BJP head’s son just a month ago). However they just can’t simply cave into opposition pressure & remove Khattar right now. This would set a bad precedent of opposition asking for resignation of a CM every time a riot would happen. In my opinion BJP would probably follow the Anandiben template from Gujarat where she was replaced not immediately after the Patidar agitation but later on when things cooled down a bit . Similarly BJP will let things settle down a bit & then push Khattar out at a later stage at a time of its own choosing. Most agree that the BJP government in Haryana will outlive Khattar as CM.  The wheels for replacing Khattar would have started turning in 11 Asoka Road in New Delhi with Amit Shah not only looking for an exit strategy for Khattar but also a suitable successor.

Another interesting fact to glean from the opposition reaction to the riots that it’s fury has solely been directed at the BJP government in Haryana. Not a word has been uttered by any opposition towards the shameful behavior of the DSS supporters who went on rampage that day destroying everything in sight. BJP government in Haryana shall bear the burden & shame of what transpired on August 25^th. However Congress & INLD parties which are in opposition today at one time in the past cozied up to Baba Ram Rahim. For the case for which he was convicted between 2002 & 2007 when INLD & Congress were in power as I mentioned earlier all efforts were made to scuttle the case. Congress was the one who gave him Z+ plus security cover (for a man under the cloud of rape & murder charges). Gurmeet Singh once was apolitical & didn’t outright ask his supporters to vote for a party but implicitly let it be known to his supporters to vote for Congress. In Punjab in both 2002 when Congress won & in 2007 when Congress lost Congress sought & received the blessing of DSS to have his supporters vote for them. Ram Rahim's son Jasmeet is married to the daughter of senior Congress leader Harminder Singh Jassi, who is a former Punjab MLA. Later on the DSS formed a Political Action Committee to form guidance on whom to support overtly for each election cycle. Mind you this is a so called NGO (Non-governmental organization) whose work was charity has a PAC to influence elections. Post 2007, DSS switch sides to BJP-Akali in 2012 Punjab elections & to BJP in 2014 National & Local elections. During the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign Narendra Modi came to Sirsa & addressed a rally where he mentioned that he had sought the blessing of their spiritual head. Later Modi congratulated Gurmeet when he participated in Modi’s pet project Swacch Bharat. Baba Ram Rahim has thus aligned with all  sides of the political spectrum in Haryana & Punjab to keep himself out of trouble until now.

India in general & especially Haryana & Punjab have a high number of these so called Babas/sects. Shekhar Gupta in his recent article has wonderfully articulated the many sects/babas operating in this region. The strangest case of all these babas was of someone who was referred to “Freezer Baba”.  Ashutosh (who hailed from Bihar far away from Haryana/Punjab where he operated) died in early 2014.  His followers believe that one day in future he will come back from the dead. Hence they put his body in a freezer waiting for him to resurrect back to life & refused to cremate him. There is a case ongoing in court to force the cult to cremate him. Many of these babas/godmen are working genuinely to help the needy & poor with philanthropy & charity work. However many like Ram Rahim are in it looking for more: be political fixers, land grabbing, amassing wealth & most importantly allow them to escape the wrath of the law in all types of cases against them. This unholy nexus of politicians & some of these so called babas/holy godmen is a symbiotic relationship where both benefit from each other. In elections in small states like Punjab & Haryana sometimes the votes of these diehard supporters could make the difference between winning & losing. No one wants to be on the wrong side of these godmen & hence politicians visit them & pander to them making sure that they get their vote in the next election.

Since the violence, many have wondered what causes these fanatical followers to not see their leader as a criminal who exploited women & killed off opponents as a demon but rather a loving father figure (they affectionately called “Pitaji”). It is believed that 70% of DSS supporters are from lower castes of society. These are the people who are ostracized by higher castes & daily face discrimination in all walks of life. They also feel neglected by their own government who they don’t believe does enough for their well-being. This toxic mix of government apathy + discrimination + illiteracy creates a fertile recruiting ground for such babas to recruit followers to their cults. The followers in many cases see these babas as “messiahs” who give them refuge from the problems of outside world be it something as simple as shelter/food/jobs or something higher like a purpose in life/self-belief to carry on against all odds .Many of these sects are involved in some kind of social service which mostly benefits this underprivileged class. For these people a whole new support ecosystem is created by these babas. Thus these followers in many cases have total devotion towards their babas who they think that can do no wrong. Babas in turn use this army of steadfast supporters to establish a parallel quasi governmental state. They start to operate outside the law many times with illegal activities as they think that due to their charity work & political clout no one can touch them. Time for another weird Gurmeet story which will highlight the extreme loyalty of his supporters who are ready to do just about anything for him: One of the most bizarre cases against him was that he ordered few hundred of his male supporters to castrate themselves so that they will feel closer to God. As with many other cases against him CBI is still investigating this case. It is rightly said that “Truth is indeed stranger than fiction”. His die hard supporters see the cases against him as outside interference by government & a conspiracy against Baba Ram Rahim. This coupled with their blind & unflinching loyalty to their baba is what would make them burn down an entire city & bring 2 whole states to their knees.

What BJP did recently with him was probably no conspiracy but rather simply a case of classic vote bank politics of pandering to a huge voting bloc. Baba Ram Rahim is gone for now but until this politicians-godmen link is severed for once and all there will always be another Baba Ram Rahim waiting in the wings to fill this vacuum.

It is a testament to the persistence of the CBI officers & an independent judge that he got convicted after 15 long years despite wielding so much influence over successive local governments in 2 different states. Finally the law caught up with Gurmeet Singh i.e. In the end the "Love Charger" ran out of juice.

Coming back to best high court judgements of past few days one can argue for either Triple Talaq or Right to Privacy but best in my opinion was the High Court’s ruling that a list of all movable & immovable properties of DSS is to be created to figure out how to pay for all the damage caused in the riots. Too often have groups created mayhem without bearing the financial cost of the damage done by these riots which are mostly borne by the common man. This is a welcome step by High Court to ensure there are financial consequences to any damage done by rioters.

Putramoh, Ghar Wapasi & a Pyrrhic Victory

I usually write blogs around the time of major elections in India be it state or national. But two seismic events in Indian politics over the past couple of weeks: Nitish’s return to the NDA & Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat forced me :) to type up a midseason blog one on the current state of affairs in Indian politics.

“Putramoh” & “Ghar Wapasi”

To better understand the events in Bihar over the last fortnight it is essential that one takes a look at history of Bihar’s top 2 politicians: Nitish Kumar & Lalu Prasad Yadav. As you know already by now (from my previous blogs) I mostly prefer to narrate history linearly i.e. chronologically. To tell you the truth I am never a big fan of movies that tell the story in “flashback mode”.

Nitish Kumar along with Lalu Prasad Yadav were both students at Patna University when they joined Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement in 1975 & both went to jail during the Emergency period. In 1990 Janta Dal came to power in Bihar & Lalu was elected as the CM. Nitish Kumar was dubbed as Lalu Prasad's "Chanakya" helping in strategizing the Janta Dal win. With Lalu’s rise to power, the Yadav’s (caste to which Lalu belonged) began to dominate all aspects of life in Bihar from reservations to government contracts to real estate to official IAS/IPS postings, etc. Soon the backward castes other than the Yadavs such as Koeris & Kurmis (caste to which Nitish belongs) realized that this had led to the marginalization of the non-Yadav OBC(Other Backward Classses) castes. In 1994 in protest of this new kind of discrimination, Nitish walked out of the Janata Dal to form the Samta Party along with George Fernandes. Lalu once entangled in the fodder scam decided to break away from the erstwhile Janata Dal & formed his own local outfit called RJD (Rashtriya Janta Dal). Nitish was routed by Lalu when he tried to fight the election in 1995. Towards the end of 1990’s he gravitated towards a coalition with BJP. His Samta Party later merged with another old Janta Dal alumni Shard Yadav’s outfit to become his current party Janta Dal - United [ JD (U) ]. He got elected as MP & was inducted in the Vajpayee cabinet first as minister of agriculture & later as railways & surface transport minister. In 2000 when Bihar voted again, NDA was still unable to break Lalu’s stranglehold on Bihar. Finally in late 2005 (during a 2nd election within space of 6 months as 1st one in 2005 ended in hung house) the BJP & JD(U) were victorious at last, ending the 15 year reign of RJD rule in Bihar. Nitish had promised to end the so called “jungle raj” under Lalu which had led to rampant lawlessness & corruption especially by the RJD party rank & file. This was best epitomized by Lalu Prasad Yadav himself who was embroiled in the fodder scam. During this time there was also was politicization of all fields by Yadavs which led to corruption where a few enriched at the expense of the remaining causing Bihar’s stagnation under the Lalu regime. Elections in India are always a complex math in alliances. Unlike Lalu who nurtured his famous Muslim – Yadav combination, Nitish’s Kurmi base is very small (~6% of Bihar’s population). For political survival he knew he had to expand his base while breaking Lalu’s to have any success. Koeri’s (another small caste left behind in the Yadav years) were a natural ally. He also reached out to various Extremely Backward Class Mahadalit castes. The Pasmanda caste of Muslims in Bihar are overwhelmingly the descendants of middle and lower caste Hindus who had converted to Islam in different phases of history. However, most of the benefits when Lalu was in power were gotten by the upper caste Muslims. (Yes even Muslims have caste hierarchy which I didn’t know earlier as one usually associates castes with Hindus). Ali Anwar established the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM) to fight for the rights of these Pasmanda Muslims. Sensing an opportunity to further chip away at Lalu’s alliance Nitish wooed them over to his fold & rewarded Ali Anwar by nominating him to the Rajya Sabha in 2006.

Nitish worked hard to overcome this gross neglect of Bihar under the previous regime & provided a good account of his governance. His good work led the NDA government [BJP + JD(U)] to win ~80% of seats during the next election in 2010. Later that year when BJP hosted its national executive meeting in Patna, Modi announced a 5 crore donation (also with an advertisement in newspapers) to Bihar to help with flood relief. Stung by this so called promotion by Modi, a fuming Nitish cancelled his dinner invite for the senior BJP leadership in protest. In June 2013 he walks out of the NDA alliance as BJP was soon going to announce Modi as its PM candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Nitish on the record mentioned about the fear among minorities pertaining to Modi as the reason for ending his long relationship with the BJP. But many suspect that the real reason was that he had his eye on a higher prize: Prime Minister of India. He knew that Congress wouldn’t return to power & that NDA which had been underperforming in previous 2 elections would continue to do so which would lead to a hung parliament. In that case he could emerge as the “compromise PM” candidate with support from a group of like-minded regional parties with support from either of the big national parties. Modi however swept the 2014 election & dashed his faint hopes of becoming PM. Facing an assertive BJP in 2015 he simply made mends with Lalu’s RJD in 2015 & established the so called Mahagathbandhan along with Congress to remain in power. Lalu was eager to get back in action after 10 years in the political wilderness. All the years of constantly bashing Lalu for Bihar’s misfortune were forgotten in an instant. In late 2015 Bihar bucked the trend of state after state going saffron with the Mahagathbandhan sweeping the hustings & Nitish again being elected as CM. Many then knew that despite the huge success of this alliance it would not last as Lalu & Nitish were as different as chalk & cheese. Even though RJD won more seats than JD (U) Lalu honored his commitment to Nitish to let him continue as CM. However Nitish was helpless to stop Lalu from installing his two sons (political novices) into the cabinet. They got plum ministries and the heir apparent to Lalu, Tejashwi Yadav was made Deputy CM. Nitish as CM was supposed to be the man in charge of running the government & controlling its future destiny. However over time Nitish grew vary of the interference from Lalu. Lalu once even mentioned about the need for his generation to retire & pass the buck to the next generation i.e. an euphemism for Nitish to make way for Lalu’s son Tejashwi (f.y.i. Nitish’s son by the way doesn’t take part in politics). He knew that sooner or later Lalu was going to come for his “pound of flesh” & force him to install his son as CM of Bihar. Gangster Mohammad Shahabuddin when released from prison undermined Nitish’s authority by openly saying that Nitish was a CM only because of "circumstances" & Lalu was his leader. In the meanwhile BJP with its machinations on ripping apart this alliance had Sushil Kumar Modi (who was Deputy CM to Nitish in their days together) dig up information on the Lalu family in Patna regarding shady real estate deals with proxy shell companies. Central investigating agencies in Delhi like CBI, ED, etc. probed dealings when Lalu was Railway minister during his tenure in UPA-I. All this was done to make life for Nitish unbearable in the Mahagathbandhan from which he had only a single recourse for his political survival – come back to BJP/NDA fold. Nitish asked the Yadav’s to explain the charges against them to preserve his government’s clean image. Lalu simply brushed them aside saying they are “farzi” (fraudulent) charges & this was done by Modi government to harass his family as part of political vendetta. Together with this to add to Lalu’s already expanding list of troubles the fodder scam case was reopened against Lalu. In a superb inside scoop by Marya Shakil from CNN-News 18, Nitish quietly reached out to an old friend Arun Jaitley (Finance Minister) to study provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2016. Going through it he realized that in the cases against the Yadavs it was checkmate.

Nitish who had carefully crafted his image on being an honest politician & efficient administrator was now seeing his image & credibility taking a hit from all sides due to his association with RJD. The proverbial “final straw that broke the camel’s back” came when Lalu & his aide Prem Gupta met few BJP leaders in secret in Delhi to get “help” regarding all these cases against the Yadav clan. It was alleged by government insiders in Delhi that Lalu even offered to pull down the Bihar government if need be to make sure that the cases are put away. By Indian standards where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend Lalu was never going to align with BJP after pulling down Nitish. He has consistently been one of most staunch anti BJP guy right from the day he got L.K. Advani arrested during Rath Yatra in Bihar in 1990 perpetually endearing him to the Muslims in Bihar. BJP had also nothing to gain by this by seen to be aligning with RJD. This back door secret meeting completely shocked Nitish who could feel that the end was near & privately he asked Tejashwi (Lalu’s son) for resignation. RJD on cue from Lalu went into bunker mentality circling the wagons around their first family. Now even Nitish’s own partymen implored to cut ties before they go down with the sinking ship. Nitish usually has good intuition on when to pull the trigger on something. He waited for the exact day that Lalu would be out of the picture in Patna before pulling the plug on this alliance. On July 26th Lalu had to travel to court to Ranchi in neighboring Jharkhand for hearing in his corruption case which was to be held in the morning the next day. Lalu even cancelled his flight when Nitish resigned & instead decided to travel by road to stay longer in Patna. He however couldn’t just cancel his trip as otherwise he would be in contempt of court. Eventually late at night he had to go no matter how severe the crisis unfolding in Patna was. Things were moving at rapid pace in Patna where Nitish resigned, got congratulatory tweet from PM in an hour & got BJP support with matter of few hours. They jointly went to the Raj Bhavan at night went to stake claim to form new government barely hours after the fall of the previous one. Lalu being on the road could not effectively direct his RJD party men over the phone like he could otherwise in person on the ground in Patna. He asked Tejashwi to go to Raj Bhavan late at night to stake claim to form the next government as the single largest party in the assembly but the game by then was well & truly up. This led to angry accusations from both Lalu that Nitish had back stabbed him & this quick patch up with BJP was a “fixed” game. But some of the blame lies with Lalu himself. This isn’t the first case in Indian politics & it certainly won’t be the last one in Indian politics where “putramoh” blinded a father to the happenings around him. Everyone who followed politics closely including yours truly could notice that Nitish even though he walked away from BJP, in past couple of years did drop the subtlest of hints from time to time about possibly joining hands with them in future (support for demonetization, Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate, etc.). I always had a lively discussion with my sources/BJP supporters (who had inside knowledge in BJP) as to when was Nitish coming back to NDA fold. These regular dropping of hints by Nitish were to keep Lalu in check from subverting his authority by implicitly threatening to walk away from alliance at any time if he felt that his power was eroding. Many have said that the whole Tejashwi episode was simply an excuse for Nitish to take the “moral high ground” to walk away. Lalu if he saw through this ruse could have simply asked his son to resign & easily installed one of cronies in his place. This would take away any pretense that Nitish might have to break the alliance. Also one must remember the fact that the ministry had two of Lalu’s sons. If one did resign on moral grounds, Lalu did have another son who would still be in cabinet & so would still be able to wield power in cabinet by proxy. But Lalu was too strongly bonded by family loyalty & sacrificed his party’s future probably at expense of his family (another recurring theme in Indian politics). Part of the blame also should lie at the feet of the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi claimed after the breakup that he knew that Nitish would walk away 3 months before it actually happened. This so called declaration only makes it look worse that as the 3rd party in the alliance despite knowing the possible outcome way in advance could not play a more aggressive part as a mediator in the Lalu-Nitish dispute. Nitish even visited Rahul to impress upon Lalu to move Tejashwi aside but nothing came of that meeting.

Nitish has been probably called everything under the sun for his latest flip flop: opportunist, naked pragmatist, traitor, turncoat, amoral, backstabber, etc. I would much prefer the moniker survivalist. Remember Nitish for all his prowess as a highly regarded CM (by all sides alike) & one who has been running one of India’s largest states is not political heavyweight who could win mandates by himself. He has always required an alliance partner to come to power. As I explained earlier he doesn’t have a huge natural social/caste base which can project him to power automatically. That’s why over his political career he has run the whole gamut of political spectrum as allies: from far left with CPI(ML) in 1995 to far right with BJP. Nitish rightly mentioned some time ago both privately & publicly that to oppose Modi the opposition has to come up with a coherent strategy & plan. The current plan of opposition to have sporadic outbursts is not working. Simply opposing Modi for whatever steps he takes is not a strategy that is resonating with the electorate, something learned by Arvind Kejriwal the hard way over the past couple of years. His aim post 2015 was that opposition unites which can then challenge Modi in 2019 for which he said that Congress has to lead the charge as it was single largest opposition party. Rahul the reluctant leader has not yet been aggressive in setting the tone for the united opposition to counter Modi with a clear strategy. Nor was he going to consider declaring someone like Nitish who had the image & gravitas for being a credible alternative to Modi in 2019 as the leader of the opposition parties. So with the opposition being scattered, clues less & rudderless he saw the BJP juggernaut winning election after election including UP. He knew that the opposition was in no position to challenge BJP’s hegemony any time soon & decided it to jump back to the BJP/NDA fold. Nitish might have once called for Sangh Mukth Bharat but read the tea leaves correctly that aligning with BJP was politically expedient right now as the more likely Mukth Bharat in near future could be “Opposition Mukth Bharat”. He put his national ambitions in the cold freezer for now & decided to instead focus on continuing his rule in Bihar. If BJP somehow stumbles in 2019 which looks highly unlikely as of today he can always pitch himself as the “compromise PM” candidate who would be acceptable to both BJP & other regional parties. Secondly another major factor in Nitish’s decision is caste. The RJD (Yadavs) & JD(U) (Mahaldalits & Non Yadav OBC’s alliance was always an awkward to begin with. Yadav’s (now once back in power) being the more dominant caste had cases of extortion, land grabbing, harassment, corruption, etc. many of which were against Mahadalits & other OBC’s. This as I mentioned earlier was one of the reasons for Nitish to break away in 1994. This manifested during the 2015 where the RJD won more seats due to the solid support for the alliance from Yadavs/Muslims but some of Nitish’s base were turned off with the alliance with Yadavs/RJD. The longer Nitish stayed in the alliance his support base which already was small to begin with would further erode. Modi’s demonetization which was very popular with the extremely poor was further shrinking his small support base among the poorest of the poor. This could easily lead to RJD becoming the more dominant in the next election in 2020. With JD(U) playing second fiddle to RJD, Lalu was likely to install his son as CM leading to possible irrelevance for Nitish. To counter this Nitish simply reverted to the older alliance with BJP/upper castes which formed a better chemistry than the uneasy alliance with Yadavs which was good arithmetic on paper but not good chemistry. His OBC/Mahadalit voter base will now come back but he is at risk of losing the Pasmanda Muslim vote (that I mentioned earlier) due to association with right wing BJP. Ali Anwar has already expressed displeasure at this alliance with BJP as has his fellow party man Sharad Yadav. If indeed there are defections this will weaken Nitish greatly compared to 2010. Nitish might have saved his skin by his “Ghar Wapasi” to the NDA fold but with the BJP being in a much dominant position now they can dictate terms to him.


I couldn’t just end the blog on just Bihar & had to write about the political events in my home state of Gujarat over the past one month.

Pyrrhic Victory

DEFINITION: A victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way, though the heavy toll negates a true sense of achievement or profit.

Rajya Sabha elections are usually so called “done deals” where the result is usually known to most in advance. These are the boring exercises in Indian democracy. There is very little suspense as to the outcome as the voters are the MLA’s themselves (vs the electorate in Lok Sabha/Vidhan Sabha elections) who follow their own party whip on whom to vote for. Never before I my life had I seen the level of drama that was seen on August 8th over the 3rd Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat. Rajya Sabha seats mostly get proportionally allocated in accordance with party’s strength in local Assembly. Since BJP controlled 119 seats & Congress 57 seats BJP was in line for 2 seats & Congress the one remaining seat. BJP nominated Amit Shah & Smriti Irani for the 2 seats while Congress nominated Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel. Rather than conceding the 3rd seat to Congress BJP’s master strategist Amit Shah went to work. Shankersinh Vaghela the ex-BJP leader who was with Congress for past 19 years on not getting declared as CM candidate for upcoming assembly elections rebelled & had 6 of his supporter MLA’s resign, thus bringing down the Congress’s effective strength to 51. He then had his relative file nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat as an independent that would get support from the remaining Congress rebels & outside support from BJP. Reports then started coming in of more possible defections from Congress to BJP. Congress wary of further defections then moved the remaining 44 loyal Congress legislators to Karnataka to avoid them being poached by BJP ahead of the vote. There were allegations from Congress about money & muscle power(the usual staples of horse trading in Indian politics) being deployed to engineer more cross voting from Congress MLA’s. Many wondered why the BJP & Amit Shah would expend so much energy & political capital for this solitary Rajya Sabha seat for which the odds were not stacked in their favor to begin with. The reasons are manifold as I will explain below.

1) Amit Shah has openly said many times that they were in the business of contesting & trying to win every single election be it national election or a low level nagarpalika election. Many a times in the past Rajya Sabha seats were simply a walkover for a distinguished leader of opposition as a courtesy. Now under Amit Shah no such courtesy is to be granted & BJP was going to follow a policy of “give up no quarter” to the opposition.

2) Despite majority in Lok Sabha , NDA doesn’t have majority in the Rajya Sabha which makes it hard to pass any important legislation. Even with Nitish’s JD (U) votes, BJP is still not close to majority & from time to time requires third parties like AIADMK, Biju Janta Dal & others to pass legislation. Hence to control Rajya Sabha winning every single seat matters a lot.

3) Ahmed Patel being a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi was supposed to have been a behind the scenes manager during the 10 years of UPA government. Amit Shah believes that Ahmed Patel was pulling the strings when he was booked in the police encounter cases & subsequently sent out of exile from Gujarat. Working to defeat Patel was to not only embarrass Sonia Gandhi & Congress party but also as political vendetta for all the legal hassles faced by Amit Shah.

On election night 43 of the 44 Cong MLA’s voted for Patel needing him to secure one more vote. There was suspense in the last few days leading upto the election as to how 3 of the other party MLA’s: 2 NCP (Sharad Pawar’s party) & JD(U) MLA’s would vote. The story on how the party instructions on whom to vote for kept constantly changing as there were internal power struggles between various factions of NCP & JD(U). In the end it is believed that one of the 3 casted the decisive vote that helped Patel sail through by the slimmest of margins. Cong initially unsure of the result hence complained to Election Commission about 2 of their rebel MLA’s showing their votes to BJP thus trying to get them disqualified. In the evening there were multiple Congress & BJP delegations reaching EC office to explain their stand & as to why these rebel MLA's should or shouldn't be disqualified. It was even jokingly mentioned that one point in evening that half of Modi’s cabinet was in the Election Commission’s office. Finally late at night the 2 Cong MLA’s votes were disqualified & Ahmed Patel declared the victor. In the end the 2 disqualified votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome but due to all sorts of claims by various MLA’s on all sides on how they allegedly voted or cross voted it wasn’t clear till EC declared that Patel had indeed won by the skin of his teeth. Cong did rightly celebrate a rare victory against the BJP after a long time but the euphoria from this victory is expected to be short lived due to the upcoming assembly elections by end of year. Ahmed Patel urged the party to rally to win the assembly elections but that comment sounds hollow due to current position of Gujarat Congress. Last time Congress won an election by itself in Gujarat was 32 years ago (1985) & last time it was in power in an alliance was 19 years ago (1998). Such a long time on the sidelines would have decimated any other political party. However due to the bipolar nature of politics in Gujarat means that they have simply survived by default. Most people would be shocked to know that in spite of their regular failings in recent elections they still get a little less than 40% of the overall vote. The huge 10% difference in their vote share vs BJP in a bipolar contest explains why BJP manages to capture approximately 2/3 of all assembly seats. They did have success in the panchayat elections in 2015 but that was due to the Patidar anger against BJP. One would think that this time around with a host of factors such as anti-incumbency for almost 20 years, absence of popular administrator like Modi from local scene & with the Patidar (Hardik Patel), Thakor (Alpesh Thakor) & Dalit (Jignesh Mevani) movements, Congress would be able to close the vote share gap & give BJP a serious run for its money. However Congress is riddled with massive factionalism to take any possible advantage of BJP’s weaknesses. Congress in Gujarat is a mix of erstwhile Congressmen,  ex Janta Dal members & also ex BJP members like Shankersinh Vaghela. The multiple power centers do no good to the party at a time when Congress requires a strong campaigner who could resonate with the masses on why they should chose them over the BJP. Many lower Congressmen have privately groused that for the past few elections Shankersinh Vaghela, Shaktisinh Gohil, Bharathsinh Solanki & Arjun Modvadia play a round robin game among themselves. After leading Congress to a defeat one resigns & hands over the baton the next who then passes 3rd one & so on & so forth just among the four of them. This time around Shankersinh Vaghela tried to get the Congress high command to get the party to announce himself as the party’s CM candidate. Vaghela reportedly even had support of a majority of MLA’s in this regard. Vaghela an ex – BJP man knew the tactics of BJP & was a street fighter who could possibly give the BJP a tough fight this time around. But Vaghela believes that party high command especially Ahmed Patel was not in favor of declaring him as their CM candidate. Maybe it was his past RSS background or due to the pressure from other factions in the party. Vaghela like Nitish dropped enough hints about his displeasure in this regard. Congress party insiders convinced Patel that there was less than half a dozen MLA’s siding with him & if he left it wouldn’t be an issue. Realizing that he was getting nowhere with his demands Vaghela hit back at Ahmed Patel & the Congress party. Vaghela who himself is no stranger to defections broke the BJP in Gujarat in 1995 to form his own party to capture CM’s chair along with Cong help. Life came full circle when with the mass defections & resignations he brought down the strength of Cong MLA’s in the assembly. Only belatedly did Congress realize how badly it had miscalculated the strength of Vaghela’s support inside the party. Congress did move 44 MLA’s to Karnataka to avoid having them poached by BJP. But doing so when the state was hit with the worst floods in a decade caused very bad optics where MLA’s were holed up in a five star resort when at the same time people in rain affected districts were struggling to deal with the aftermath of floods. In the end the rebels & BJP together did made Patel sweat it out for his seat till the end but even though they were unsuccessful in defeating him the damage was already done. Ahmed Patel in the fight of his life was able to outfox his bete noir Amit Shah but as one Cong insider said that this was “pyrrhic victory” as the 1 Rajya Sabha seat came at cost of 14 MLA’s. Not for the first time in the recent past when Congress could have put up a good fight in a state where it had some favorable winds blowing it’s way, it could well end with an “own goal” . This most likely cost the Congress its best chance in decades of finally wresting power back from the BJP in Gujarat.

UP Elections 2017 - BJP's stunning landslide victory in UP & story behind it's making

On March 11^th Uttar Pradesh (UP) delivered the biggest landslide to any single party since 1977. . The aftershocks of this massive landslide for BJP will be felt for years to come.During my conversations with folks who had connections with workers inside BJP, I was told that this time around they were quietly hopeful of netting 250+ seats, a number which I myself was a bit skeptical of. The whopping number (325 seats i.e.80+% of all seats) of seats won by the BJP & its smaller allies was surely beyond the expectations of even the most ardent BJP supporter.  The genesis of this political tsunami or what some in the media have called “Tsu- NaMO” is a fascinating story in itself.

The story begins not as one might expect in Lucknow (capital of Uttar Pradesh) but rather 555 kms away in New Delhi on a cold & foggy morning (typical winter weather in Delhi). This however wasn’t just any other day in the nation’s capital but was January 26, 2015, India’s 65^th Republic Day. It has been a tradition that on this day a high level foreign dignitary is invited to be the chief guest for the annual Republic Day parade in India. In the early years the chief guests tended to be pretty much political “lightweights” either from regional neighbors or 3^rd world nations. Mind you the recent invitee list was impressive with names like King Abdullah (2006) Presidents Vladimir Putin (Russia) in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (France) in 2008 & Lee Myung Bak (South Korea) & Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Japan) in 2014. But Narendra Modi who had just completed 8 months in office after coming to power in huge landslide victory in 2014 managed pull off the biggest scoop of them all (in terms of chief guests for Republic Day) when he succeeded in getting Barack Obama (then sitting US president) to be the chief guest in the annual Republic Day parade. This being the first parade since the change of guard in New Delhi plus the maiden visit of Barack Obama to India led to huge frenzy/hype in the media with wall to wall coverage of the event. Modi turned up at the parade in monogrammed, pinstriped suit. The suit instantly made headlines because of a specific feature - its stripes were made of repetitions of a single motif: the Prime Minister's name, Narendra Damodardas Modi. The narrative of this historic meet was to be the increased bilateral co-operation in various areas such as trade, security, terrorism, etc. between the world’s largest democracies & gradual warming of ties between 2 nations that had once an adversarial relationship during the Cold War. All this was turned on its head once sections of India’s now (famous/infamous) sensationalist media’s focused only the suit. If you ask most people what they remember the most from that day, the answer would neither ne Obama’s visit nor what happened when they met but just the suit that Modi was wearing. Modi tried to put to rest this “suit controversy” a month later when the suit was auctioned off for charity however this ghost would come back to haunt him later.

Fast forward to April 2015, Rahul Gandhi while participating in a debate on agriculture crisis in the Lok Sabha, openly mocked Narendra Modi saying “yours is a Suit-Boot ki Sarkar", a reference to the PM's monogrammed suit. He alleged that the BJP government had frozen minimum support price for crops and had diluted the land acquisition law to weaken the farmers in favor of industrialists. The speech (one of the very few Rahul Gandhi had given to this point: just 5 in 11 years) was one of the most hard hitting blows delivered to the Modi government. The opposition’s allegations against Modi such as “Only few big industrialists have benefitted from Modi’s rule in Gujarat & not the common man” which earlier during the 2014 campaign had failed to stick to Modi had now hit close to home beginning to dent Modi’s image. Rahul’s speech was looking to stress on Modi being "pro-business" and "anti-poor/anti-farmer". Modi government was immediately put on the back foot by this attack. BJP was in a minority in Upper House Rajya Sabha where they required support from other parties to pass any type of legislation. The Land Acquisition Bill had given the opposition something to rally around against Modi. Sensing the stiff opposition to this bill driven by these “suit boot ki Sarkar” comments, Modi had to (in one of the few major pullbacks) drop the Land Acquisition Bill by end of August 2015. Electorally also the juggernaut set in motion with the win in 2014 & in state elections thereafter came a screeching halt with the loss in Delhi (Feb 2015) & more importantly in Bihar (Nov 2015) in that same year. These defeats were huge setback for Modi, especially the Land Acquisition Bill which was one of the several “big bang” reforms he wanted to implement to speed up investment, growth & development in India. He knew that he had to immediately shed this moniker associated with him of being “pro-business” both for the good of his & BJP’s electoral future otherwise both of them would be finished. There was no better than person than Modi who understood this newer “aspirational” & young (India 2/3 of India’s population is below 35 years of age) Indian voter who was seeking a betterment of their lives currently stuck in poverty and/or hardship. Any failure in helping the poor would mean a possible desertion by the same “aspirational” voters that brought him to power in 2014.

He then started to work earnestly to transform his image to overcome this negative perception of his. He started to work on multiple schemes (some of which were started before 2015) geared towards the poor which formed a huge chunk of the Indian electorate. Most famous of them was the Jan Dhan Yojna which was to open bank accounts for all, especially the poor people who had no access to banking system before. In the past money from welfare schemes used to doled out to the poor through actual transfer of cash but what used to happen in practice is that the corrupt middle man through which money was routed to the poor took his own “cut” short changing the needy recipient. Now by directly depositing money into the bank accounts of the poor, Modi has removed the need of the poor to “grease the palms” of the corrupt middle man to receive their benefits. Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana & Suraksha Bima Yojana were just 2 small examples where BPL(before poverty line) families could get life & accident insurance of upto 2 lakhs at highly nominal rates of just a few rupees per month. One of these schemes which has been a silent factor in the huge win in UP is Ujjwala Yojana. It is a scheme where BPL families got free LPG connections. This has been proven to be a big hit with the womenfolk in UP where 5+ million got benefit of this scheme. Now that LPG cylinders are very common in the cities, we tend to underestimate the hardships with associated with running an old wood fired “chullah”: laboring every day to collect wood, inhaling the toxic smoke that comes with burning it, etc. By getting these LPG connections these women were able to break free of this for the first time in their lives. All these schemes slowly built up goodwill for the Modi regime over the course of its current term. But the master stroke at the end was of course demonetization. A problem described by people from all walks of life which affects them the most in India today is the rampant & unchecked corruption. During the last 3 years of UPA-II government hardly few months went by without any new corruption scandal breaking out. However no one inside or outside government had any idea on how to tackle the menace of corruption. Modi vowed to tackle this head on during the campaign in 2014 which many thought to be a hollow promise to which was made to simply get elected. Opposition leaders constantly reminded him of his promise in 2014 to deposit 15lakhs in account of every Indian by forcing all the black money stashed abroad to be returned to India. On Nov 8^th 2016 by demonetizing the 1,000 & 500 rupee notes overnight he sent a clear message to the masses that the status quo will not be maintained & that his government is taking concrete steps to tackle this issue head on. There were issues like the goals of doing this as explained by the government changed quite a few times a.k.a. “shifting of the goalposts”. In addition the economic benefits of demonetization are debatable due to various factors as majority 97% of the cash found its way back to the banks, etc. but the social implications are not at debatable. As an experiment when I was in Ahmedabad & Mumbai in January this year I tried to get a sense of mood of the people post demonetization. I tried to strike up conversations about it with people from all walks of life from businessmen, retirees, white collar workers, servants, drivers, etc. The striking feeling I got that what I read in the newspapers & online while in the US regarding massive anger among people, opposition leaders protesting everywhere, etc. was completely divorced from the reality on the ground where it was massively popular with few exceptions here & there. Many economists & opposition politicians cried foul about the massive shock to the Indian economy & pain felt by especially the poor. But they missed the general point that this move was wildly popular was the general masses. The masses especially the poor saw the corrupt businessman/politicians/mafia nexus as the source of all corruption. In their mind this was a lesson taught to the corrupt by Modi to set them straight & hence they were willing to bear some short term pain for it. After decades of suffering, apathy & inaction on corruption, Modi was the first politician taking firm action to solve the issue (inspite of what the actual benefit/result was). This is similar to Brexit & Trump election phenomenon where the masses tired of the status quo support radical moves which “gives the appearance of someone wanting to change things around ” even if it doesn’t always lead to any actual benefit on the ground. As I mentioned in my blog before the UP results that with this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor Modi had overnight solidified the change in BJP’s image from a middle class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party. This was meant to win over the poorest of the poor who weren’t traditionally BJP supporters. All these welfare schemes + demonetization + surgical strikes across the border with Pakistan have gradually built up the narrative of Modi being a resolute leader working for the betterment of the nation with unwavering zeal. On the ground in UP where citizens on being asked by various reporters (across various media outlets) on why did they liked Modi the most common answer by far was that  “Modi is a decisive leader”. This was a stark contrast to some previous leaders who made simply made promises but did very little once elected. All the moves by Modi’s government  looks much different from the so called “policy paralysis” in 2^nd half of UPA-II government which was beset with scandals & everyone including bureaucrats scared of taking any major decisions for fear of being implicated rightly or wrongly at a later point in time.

 As it rightly said that even the most successful politician needs a great backroom operations manager. Amit Shah is the “Chanakya” to Modi’s “Chandragupta”. He led the massive mobilization of BJP/RSS Cadre on the ground in UP planning meticulously right from the booth level up to each constituency. This level of detailed organizational planning missing from any of the other opposition party puts them at a serious disadvantage when trying to turn out the vote. In 70 seats where BJP was weak he “imported” leaders from other parties to fight elections mind you in face of fierce opposition from local BJP leaders. With the traditional BJP upper caste vote solidly behind him solidly he identified the weakness of the opposition’s coalition’s (non-Yadav OBC’s for Samajwadi Party) & (non-Jatav Dalit’s for Bahujan Samajwadi Party). Both Akhilesh & Mayawati rode to power in Lucknow based on broad support from OBC’s & Dalit’s respectively. However once in power their own sub-caste’s (Yadav’s & Jatav Dalits) have to seem to be benefited the most (at expense of other sub castes) in many people’s eyes. This leads to resentment among the non-Yadav OBC’s & non Jatav Dalit’s that this was a new form of discrimination against them (which in the past was done to them by upper castes). As Shekhar Gupta has pointed out that new young Indian voter is no longer bound by caste & he wants to break free of this mold & aspire for a betterment of his lifestyle. Amit Shah tapped into this anger by fielding a record 150 non-Yadav OBC’s & several non-Jatav Dalits. This social engineering packaged along with Modi’s popularity & OBC credentials created an unbeatable combination. Modi & Shah also tapped into another type of discrimination anger: favoring of Muslims for various benefits by the previous SP government. With the “shamshan/kabristan” comments from Modi reverse polarization was achieved as people perceived that the SP was openly favoring Muslims at the cost of the remaining Hindus. This result overall was seen by many as a backlash against the identity politics practiced by both SP & BSP who when in power favored a few at the expense of all others. BJP knew that with 20% of Muslim population never voting for it + hardly any support from the BSP’s 10% Jatav Dalit & 10% SP’s Yadav OBC’ base it had to simply capture a majority of the remaining 60% of the electorate (which they did by winning 40% vote share). For the last 30 years with the mushrooming of innumerable regional parties in the mutli-polar contests the threshold for majority was much lower & hence one won elections by simply consolidating the votes among your main communities/castes + disenchanted floating voters from others. Amit Shah by creating this “rainbow coalition” across castes means in a form of a Hindu consolidation has blown up this old school “Mandal school politics” of pandering to just your own communities which doesn’t work anymore. Also importantly gone are the days when BJP simply asked for votes simply in name of Ram Mandir. BJP knows that with the issue stuck in courts there was no need for this to be the main focus of campaigning as they would not be able to fulfil it & at the end of their term pay the price for not fulfilling their promise.

 Akhilesh has marketed himself a popular leader pursuing development above the stereotypical lawlessness associated with his SP party. But he simply couldn’t overcome the years of built up negative perception of “goondagardi” of his government & many ministers. His alliance with Congress failed to materialize any tangible benefits as the Cong vote share simply collapsed. Many SP leaders now question the benefit of going with Congress in the first place as they didn’t got many votes transferred from Congress to their kitty. Talking to a friend about this SP – Cong alliance I jokingly said that “25 + 0.5 is still only 25.5” i.e. not much difference to SP by adding the negligible Congress votes. Akhilesh if he reforms his party & win over the intra family squabbles can surely comeback to power some day in future as he is young & the future of the Samajwadi Party. Mayawati’s future on the other hand is bleak. She has failed to develop the next generation of leaders, remains inaccessible from both media & her supporters, and spends most of her time in New Delhi rather than on ground in Uttar Pradesh. Add to that the fact that she got routed so decisively in UP this time around that she lacks the requisite no. of MLA’s to renominate her to Rajya Sabha when her term ends in 2018. Her ranting in a press conference about EVM’s being supposedly hacked by BJP without offering any proof was downright bizarre. Her Dalit base is being slowly poached away by BJP while her experiment of giving tickets to Muslims to woo them to her side also failed miserably. The Mandal politics of getting votes based just based on caste of SP & BSP have been neutralized to a large extent. Modi & Amit Shah have been successfully creating a pan Hindu coalition (vs BJP being a just upper caste party in the past) breaking across all caste barriers. The worst situation that any opposition party finds today in is the Congress party. They have lost elections after elections in the past 5 years (barring a few exceptions like Punjab) & are getting dangerously close to getting wiped off the map in major states across India. Except North East they control only 3 states: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh & Karnataka which goes to polls next year. They have been supplanted by BJP as the new pan India national party. Their base is massively shrinking with passage of time & there is no section of the society which today then can call as reliable voters for Congress. Their base which at one time used to be the poor is being lured away in all directions by other parties: by Modi with his new pro welfare schemes & by Aam Aadmi party by its promise of free electricity & water.  They can’t seem to be giving out the standard response “introspection is required” after every successive loss. The party appears completely rudderless without the stewardship of their president Sonia Gandhi. They are failing on providing even a credible opposition to the policies of Modi government like demonetization, etc. Sonia’s ill health preventing her from campaigning in UP this time around foretells that she might not be even around in 2019 for the next Lok Sabha elections. Hence the burden of dragging the party out of the doldrums simply rests with Rahul Gandhi who has been proven until now to be a completely ineffective leader. Many people including some leaders in his own party simply don’t understand his infrequent engagements in discussions on important issues (followed by long periods of silence on sidelines), lack of focus & vision, bizarre comments like “being little down in UP “when in fact they were even behind the tiny Apna Dal outfit in terms of seats, unexplained absences away from party affairs & reluctance to lead from the front. One of the most interesting stories which will touch upon most of the above factors was when the ex-Congress politician Himanta Biswa Sarma went to meet Rahul Gandhi. Himanta Biswa Sarma was the de-facto no. 2 in Assam govt. below Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Initially both men were close but started drift apart due to rising popularity of Himanta & Gogoi trying to promote his son as his successor. Himanta went to meet Rahul Gandhi to implore to him that Tarun Gogoi who was fighting 15 years of anti-incumbency was deeply unpopular in Assam. He stressed that to win elections again Gogoi needed to be replaced by someone else which necessarily didn’t have to be him (Himanta). Rahul during the meeting apparently didn’t even listen to him & according to Himanta was busy playing with his dogs, feeding them biscuits & looking at his phone. Himanta frustrated with this, quit the Congress party. Amit Shah brought him over to the BJP where he worked to thrash the Congress in the assembly elections last year & subsequently also worked towards the BJP’s maiden win in Manipur last week. The fact that the Congress candidate stood 4^th in Amethi portends to the fact that it wouldn’t be a complete shocker if he were to lose from Amethi in 2019 Lok Sabha polls (in absence of any pre poll alliance). As many journalists like Ruhi Tewari & Sagarika Ghosh have noted that he needs to take accountability & work 24 x 7 instead of being a part time politician or otherwise step aside for the good of the party.  Right now Modi & Shah are not only popular but simply outworking Rahul Gandhi by the sheer amount of work they put in every single day to plan for the future. As seen in UP even a master strategist like Prashant Kishore in UP can’t save Congress from a debacle if the electorate is not buying what the Congress party is offering right now. When reporters who travelled UP extensively asked about Congress for most of the voters the question seemed more like a joke as they didn’t care at all about the Congress party. Question for Congressmen is that if he doesn’t step aside will they rebel to force change or are they simply not doing it right now out of respect for Sonia Gandhi. However if they wait too long for either Rahul Gandhi to change or force a change at the top, the damage to the party might be unmitigable. Congress does have a role to play in national politics as the primary opposition to BJP to keep the government’s power in check & keep them honest. If it doesn’t mend its ways soon, Congress tally in 2019 will be even lower when it could theoretically cede the title of main opposition party to some other regional party who has more seats.

Modi & Amit Shah has transformed the BJP into an unstoppable snowball rolling down the hill for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Even opposition leaders like Omar Abdullah have openly commented that if the current situation persists then opposition should forget about 2019 Lok Sabha elections & instead start planning for 2024 elections. One thing opposition has been guilty of many times is personally attacking Modi which does no good to their own fortunes. Cheesy one liners similar to those seen in 80’s Bollywood movies like “maut ke saudagar” doesn’t work anymore. Modi is able to masterfully spin these personal attacks to his benefit sometimes even playing the “victim card”. Opposition needs to come up with a better & a coherent strategy to combat Modi on issues that affect the common man (like seen with the Land Acquisition Act). They have look beyond the usual wooing of certain sections of society as their vote banks as it invariably helps the Modi - Shah axis to masterfully create reverse polarization. Modi’s popularity especially among the youth as reported from the ground in UP is very high. Hence they have to rethink their old time tested strategies which might have work with older voters in the past but which is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day as more & younger voters joins the electoral rolls. Shekhar Gupta has eloquently said that the new young voter doesn’t vote like his fathers & grandfathers based on caste or past history of party but rather on basis of “what have you done for me lately”.

Modi has created this new broad arching sense of nationalism packaged with welfare schemes for poor independent of caste & creed. Modi for his part once he achieves close to majority in Rajya Sabha in mid-2018 he should be able to pass legislation much easily & move his development agenda forward without much resistance. Failure to provide growth will lead to resentment among the people & we have seen in the past that the “aspirational” voter can get restless very easily & throw you out of power if his/her situation is still the same after 5 years. Also the thorny question of how to have inclusive growth that uplifts along with others the Muslims also remains to be seen. BJP might not have given tickets to Muslims in UP due to what they say was the “winnability” factor. But at same time they can’t afford to be seen what other parties did in the past i.e. working for betterment of only some & not all. They will have figure out how to work for all 100% of the population without leaving behind the 20% Muslim population in UP.

Currently with the opposition appearing disjointed & dispirited, Modi looks to continue his electoral success in 2019. Biggest impediment to a repeat BJP win is taking things for granted/ overconfidence which has been the downfall of many popular governments in the past. BJP has to simply look back at last time it was in power for 5 years at Centre & how its “India Shining” campaign flopped miserably. Modi who has transformed his image successfully to project himself as the “messiah” of the poor right now has no equal in Indian politics & has been called the tallest leader in Indian politics by many. Some have even compared his popularity to the massive popularity that Indira Gandhi once enjoyed. This blast from the past should however accompany with a statutory health warning. Indira Gandhi who at the zenith of her popularity in 1971 coined the “Garibi Hatao” slogan (similar to the pro poor agenda by Modi today) came crashing down 6 years later post Emergency due to hubris & abuse of power.