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At the WEFs India Summit
Ikram Sehgal
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Mumbai is a city of contrasts, which are never so apparent as when one comes in to land at the International Airport. High-rise developments are ubiquitous in shantytowns, ongoing construction of raised expressways snaking over slum areas to overcome the enormous traffic jams clogging the city. Dreams sometimes become reality in this sprawling metropolis, and multiple times more they have simply faded away into oblivion. It has Bollywood which is known worldwide for the popular (and populist) Hindi movies it churns out.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) normally holds its annual India Summit in New Delhi, Mumbai was an inspired choice, a unique opportunity to meet a cross-section of people: representatives of Indias mainline business community, academics, representatives of the government, the media, culture, etc. Opening the summit WEF chairman Klaus Schwab said: So many ideas, cultures, religions and ways of life have converged on Mumbai over its history that it is a gateway not only to other parts of India, but also to the world. Sushant P Rao, WEF senior director and head of its Asia chapter who successfully put the WEFs Mumbai Summit together, added: Major corporations, including Industrialists such as the Ambanis, Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, the Godrejs, Birla, Mittals, Jindal, etc., are all located here. With 60 percent of all international transactions conducted in this port city, it is a major contributor to the governments tax revenues.
Moderated by Chrystia Freeland of Thomson Reuters, the Session on the Media figured, among others, BBCs Nik Gowing, Navdeep Suri of Indias ministrys of external affairs (who was once designated as Indias consul general to Karachi) and media personality Ms Tavlin Singh. Corruption in the media was highlighted by money being widely used to slant the news and smear the opposition, whether in politics or in commerce. The general impression was of a media out of control, having little respect for the rule of law. Nik Gowing gave the example of the judicial restriction placed on the airing of footballer Ryan Giggs name and of how about 75,000 persons broke that edict within hours. Even if information about them was somehow obtained from Twitter, could the judiciary fine every one of them? Suri mentioned that when he was press counsellor in the Indian High Commission in London upscale media firms claimed frequently that renowned journalists and columnists could write creative articles favourable (or unfavourable) to the opposition for planting in credible magazines and newspapers, for a price. Tavlin Singh complained that the electronic media had changed the stakes of propriety, embellishing perception over facts, rather than practicing responsible journalism. The Media Panel decried governments in many countries using advertisement placements to influence the news, agreeing that private sector corporations do the same.
Former Indian police officer Kiran Bedi from Anna Hazaras team led the debate titled The Indian Spring Seeking Independence from Corruption. Threatening another agitation if the anti-corruption bill was not passed soon in parliament, she said that corporations were not united against corruption. Huguette Labelle, chairperson of Transparency International (TI), Germany, confirmed that India, which figured at 87 in the TIs Corruption Perception Index, was already down three rungs, and slipping further. According to a recent survey, two in four people paid bribes in India last year, compared with one in four in other countries.
Indian minister of state Ashwani Kumar expressed his displeasure at the hunger strike and agitation by Hazare and his team, We cannot have legislation under public unrest. There is a resonance in the country on corruption, but the means and ends are always important. The combative Bedi countered that the movement has only deepened democracy and when the Lokpal Bill becomes law, it would be historical as the common man had participated in the movement.
Anyone you met in India was vociferous about civilian supremacy over the military in a democracy. My question was: how, then, was the Indian Army vociferously and publicly objecting to the proposal by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to curb the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Indian-Occupied Kashmir? But the question was summarily brushed aside. Speaking in Srinagar, Lt Gen S A Hussain predicted that AFSPAs lifting would create turmoil, compelling India to grant independence to Jammu and Kashmir by 2016. Mir Waiz Umer Farooq countered that the Indian armys public condemnation of Chief Minister Abdullahs proposal was clear proof of India holding Kashmir by its military might. India cannot hold on to Kashmir even for a day without the armed forces and the black laws giving impunity to them. Rejecting Mr Abdullahs idea of creating islands of peace, Gen Hussain had claimed: While the people were demanding electricity roads, water, calls for lifting AFSPA came from Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), terrorists and secessionists. JKLF spokesman Ayaz Akbar agreed with the general that if the black laws are lifted, India wont have even a single person in J & K ready to accept its sovereignty as a peoples revolt against the occupation would erupt, (one) like nobody has witnessed.
The Indian economic cloudburst has become a steady rain of prosperity and has to be admired, even envied. The spontaneous hospitality of some special friends like Jamshyd and Pheroza Godrej, Saurav Adhikari, Ajit Gulabchand, the Nandas, etc., was overwhelming. However, the negative rhetoric about the Pakistani army and the ISI is clearly ill-informed and incorrect, and thus unpalatable. BBCs report about the ISI training the Taliban was often thrown at me. They had no answer when I gently informed them that the so-called Taliban leader had claimed that the ISIs trainers came in ISI uniforms while members of no intelligence agency in the world wore uniforms. Maybe Pierre Cardin designs ISI uniforms, and the next thing you know we may have designer explosives!
As one of those who strongly believe that with certain caveats India must have MFN status, this rhetoric rankles. No partnership can sustain such constant negative rhetoric. South Asia is going nowhere without ultimately having one economy and one currency, the political preferences of each constituent has to be respected or otherwise there can be no deal. While rich Indians are certainly living in a different orbit, if not planet, than ours, a vast majority of Indians live in conditions as bad, or worse, than ours. Only with a truly South Asian Common Market is poverty alleviation possible for the vast mass of the desperately poor in the subcontinent, an overwhelming percentage of whom are Indians. Unfortunately for some super-rich Indian businessmen, the states on Indias periphery have become akin to low caste ones; indeed, they do not seem to exist for them. Indian policymakers, in government and outside, must recognise that as the economic engine of growth they have a responsibility to the people of the other states that surround India.
As The Times of India wrote in its editorial of Nov 14, On the political front, there is no alternative to dialogue. Peace between India and Pakistan is crucial to South Asian stability and prosperity. Its time to shed the baggage of the past and work towards a vibrant economic future, with the perspective of sparking a South Asian renaissance which benefits everybody in the region.
The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com
At the WEF
