UN Failed West Papua 22 09 16

The UN no longer considers West Papua to be “colonized,” leaving activists hard pressed to find solutions.

 A decade ago, Herman Wainggai caused a diplomatic furor between Indonesia and Australia when he boarded a homemade canoe and crossed the Arafura Sea to the northern tip of Australia. Escaping his home in the Indonesian-controlled territory of West Papua, Wainggai feared that his campaign for West Papuan independence would soon cost him his life. In March 2006, Australia recognized Wainggai as a refugee and granted him protection. Indonesia responded by temporarily recalling its Australian ambassador.

With reports of renewed intimidation by Indonesian authorities in West Papua, Wainggai will once again embark on a controversial journey to seek justice for his people. This time, his destination is New York’s UN headquarters to lobby at its 71st General Assembly. “We want to remind the UN they can’t let West Papua be colonized for so long,” said Wainggai in a telephone interview.

But Wainggai’s task will not be easy. The UN has slumbered in its decolonization efforts, with only one state, Timor-Leste, achieving independence in the past 20 years. Added to that, West Papua is currently unrecognized by the world body as a colonized “non-self-governing territory”—it lost this designation over four decades ago, when West Papua was integrated by Indonesia through controversial means.

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This leaves West Papuan independence activists in a uniquely undesirable position: fighting to be recognized by a world body that has lost much of its ability and will to bring about decolonization.

Decolonization once defined the United Nation’s very existence. When the UN was first conceived in 1945, a third of the world’s population still lived under colonial rule and many of those territories were agitating for autonomy. Under the heat of global anti-imperial movements, colonial territories disintegrated to form independent states, and the UN’s membership doubled in size in just 20 years. In 1960, the UN General Assembly adopted United Nations Resolution 1514, which declared the “necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.” A year later, the Special Committee of Decolonization formed to carry out the UN’s mandate and help colonized nations achieve autonomy.

But this help came at a price. The UN’s decolonization mandate was often brought in and out of play by its two largest powerbrokers—the United States and the Soviet Union—so they could extend their influence in the post-colonial world. As a result, the UN’s decolonization efforts did not always make the autonomy of colonized peoples its first priority.

West Papuans became one of the first causalities of the UN’s perfidious promise of self-determination. In 1968, under the watch of UN observers and the United States diplomats, Indonesia was handed control over West Papua when its military hand-picked a fraction of West Papua’s population, and ordered them to vote in favor Indonesian annexation in the UN-supervised “Act of Free Choice.” A 2004 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School explains that “Indonesian military leaders began making public threats against Papuan leaders… vowing to shoot them on the spot if they did not vote for Indonesian control.” The United States, acting both independently and through the UN, tacitly allowed West Papua’s annexation to ensure Indonesia would not fall to communism.

In such a way, the UN’s decolonization efforts were always conditional on the whims of international politicians. As U.S. and Soviet tensions receded, so too did the UN’s ambition to guide colonized territories to independence. The U.K., U.S. and France all moved to abolish the Special Committee on Decolonization in the early 1990s, and the U.K. and U.S. formally withdrew from the committee in 1986 and 1992 respectively. Persistent campaigning from the world’s small territories was all that revived the Special Committee from its deathbed, though doing so compromised much of its function and scope.

“That really left a gap, a vacuum which still exists today,” said Dr. Carlyle Corbin, a former minister of the U.S.-controlled Virgin Islands who serves as an international expert to the UN on self-determination. Though there continues to be a need for the UN to follow its decolonization mandate, particularly in relation to its 17 recognized colonial territories, Corbin says that member states blatantly ignore this duty. Representatives from France, one of the few administrative powers that still interacts with the UN’s decolonization committee, make a point of walking out of discussions whenever the topic is French Polynesia.

UN members accept this lack of commitment since colonization is no longer seen as a modern phenomenon. “Decolonization is not on the radar,” Corbin said. “The idea is that it’s over.” Administrative powers that preside over colonial territories are able to hide behind this misconception, claiming that their dependent territories could not possibly be associated with this evil, outdated practice.

The United States, which currently administers three territories listed by the UN’s decolonization committee, argues that its territories have implied self-governance and therefore should be removed from decolonization talks. Indeed, many of the 17 recognized colonial territories have some quasi form of self-governance—Guam, America Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands all have non-voting representation in the U.S. Congress, and Britain’s overseas territories maintain localized governments, with ultimate constitutional authority remaining with Britain. In some cases, such as in the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, local populations do not want to concede their dependency relationships.

But for Corbin, this is beside the point. “Colonization by consent is not self-governance,” he said, and if the UN is to follow its own resolution on the rights of indigenous people, then it should work to eradicate any remnant of colonialism, however benign.

For West Papua, where instances of state oppression by Indonesian authorities harken back to more overt forms of colonialism, the UN has still failed to support its independence. The world body does not even recognize West Papua as a colonized territory, thus effectively depriving West Papuans of UN resources to fuel their struggle for self-determination.

The result of this omission is calamitous. There is strong evidence of gross human rights violations in Indonesian-held West Papua, yet the UN is has not yet intervened in this territory. The counterterrorism squad, Detachment 88, which was developed in 2003 by funding through the United States government, is accused of being especially violent toward indigenous West Papuans.

“They can operate independently and together, intimidating, harassing, beating up, and indeed killing people,” said Peter Arndt, executive officer of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Brisbane. He made the remarks last March following a visit to West Papua. A report compiled by Arndt accuses the Indonesian government of making new, violent incursions into the region, systematically expelling Papuans from their homes in what the report calls a “slow-motion genocide.” Some 30 years ago, 96 percent of West Papua was inhabited by its indigenous population. Today, that number is closer to 40 percent.

In such a state of emergency, the solution for West Papua might be to abandon the UN’s decolonization process all together. Wainggai and other West Papuan activists have chosen to bring their plight instead to human rights organizations, like the UN’s Human Rights Council, to urge change on humanitarian grounds.

There are also regional movements to recognize West Papuan independence—the Solomon Islands and Tonga both articulated support for West Papuans at last year’s UN General Assembly, with the Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare calling for “the full and swift implementation of the 1960 declaration on the granting of Independence to colonized countries and peoples.”


Nevertheless, Wainggai remains hopeful that one day, as the UN’s member states convene for another General Assembly in New York, a free and autonomous West Papua will be included in discussions. “That’s my American dream,” he said.

The Trouble With India's Projects in Myanmar 22 09 16

India has great ambitions for infrastructure construction in Myanmar, but falls short in implementation.

Myanmar President Htin Kyaw’s recent visit to India, the first by the head of a civilian government in Myanmar in over five decades, saw the two sides focus on improving connectivity and counterinsurgency cooperation.

In addition to reaffirming their commitment to “fight the scourge of terrorism and insurgent activity in all its forms and manifestations,” and “not allowing any insurgent groups to use their soil for hostile activities against the other side,” the two sides signed four agreements, two of which are aimed at accelerating completion of the much-delayed India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) highway.

Under these agreements Delhi has undertaken the construction of 69 bridges, including approach roads on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa section of the IMT highway, and also upgrade the Kalewa-Yargi section of this highway. The new deadline for completion of the IMT trilateral highway has been set at 2020.

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The 1,400-km-long IMT highway links Moreh in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. It is the first overland link between India and Southeast Asia.

India is implementing several infrastructure projects in Myanmar. These are aimed at accessing Myanmar’s rich natural resources, improving connectivity between the two neighbors, and facilitating bilateral travel and trade.

Additionally, since Myanmar is India’s land-bridge to Southeast Asia, this infrastructure is aimed at linking India to markets in the region. It is expected to boost development in India’s economically backward northeastern states, several of which share borders with Myanmar. Importantly, Myanmar provides landlocked northeast India with an outlet to the sea, a route that is shorter than the current one via the Siliguri Corridor to Kolkata port.

India began construction of the 160-km-long India-Myanmar Friendship Road linking Moreh with Kalewa and Kalemyo in Myanmar in 1997 to link to Southeast Asian markets and to provide a fillip to its “Look East” policy. In 2002, India, Myanmar and Thailand decided to make this a trilateral highway by extending this road to Mae Sot. Delhi now plans to extend the IMT highway to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Clearly, India doesn’t lack for ambition when it comes to infrastructure building. Where it falls short, however, is in implementing projects; almost every Indian project in Myanmar is running behind schedule.

The IMT highway, for instance, was scheduled to be ready by 2015. Indeed, a bus service on this route was inaugurated late last year only to be shut down immediately as bridges along the route that were of World War II vintage were found to be unusable. Hence the signing of agreements during Htin Kyaw’s visit that will see India repairing bridges and approach roads with a view to putting the trilateral highway project back on track.

Like India, China is engaged in upgrading ports, extracting oil, and building roads and bridges in Myanmar. Indeed the two Asian giants often compete for infrastructure projects here.

According to Khriezo Yhome, research fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation’s Neighborhood Regional Studies Initiative, “In terms of the objectives of accessing natural resources or building strategic alternative routes in and through Myanmar, there is not much of a difference between what Delhi and Beijing want to achieve.”

However, India’s investment in Myanmar is a fraction of that of China. India invested just over $224 million in Myanmar during fiscal year 2015-2016, and no new investments were made in the first four months of fiscal 2016-17. In comparison, China invested $3.3 billion in Myanmar in 2015-16.

“China has left India far behind” with regard to infrastructure projects, Yhome told The Diplomat, drawing attention to the delays plaguing India’s infrastructure projects in Myanmar. Lack of coordination among different implementing agencies, poor monitoring, and financial constraints are among the main reasons for India’s failure to meet deadlines, he said.

There are other challenges too. “In areas where some Indian infrastructure projects, particularly roads and bridges, are being implemented, feeder roads are usable only for some months due to difficult terrains,” Yhome observed. There is the question of security too. Roads linking India with Myanmar run through insurgency-wracked regions, “creating problems for smooth implementation of projects,” he pointed out.

In addition, “flawed feasibility studies are hindering timely completion of projects,” an official in India’s Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDONER) told The Diplomat. This is the case with the Kaladan multi-modal transport project, which envisages linking Lawngtlai in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram via a road and the River Kaladan to the deep-sea port at Sittwe in Myanmar’s Rakhine province.

The India-funded and executed project involves developing Sittwe to handle 20,000-ton vessels (up from the 2,000 to 3,000-ton ships it handles at present); dredging the River Kaladan from Sittwe to Paletwa (a 158 km long stretch) to improve its navigability; building an inland terminal at Paletwa where cargo will be shifted from barges to trucks; and constructing a 129-km-long highway linking Paletwa to the Indian border.

However, the Kaladan project is running behind schedule. “Every stage of the project has suffered delays,” the MDONER official said, pointing to the fact that 13 years after the project was conceived it remains incomplete.

Delhi brought the multi-modal transport project to the Myanmar government in 2003. It then took five years for the two sides to enter into a framework agreement and it was only in 2010 that construction work began. It was originally due to be completed in July 2013. Several more deadlines were set and missed.

According to the MDONER website, the Myanmar government delayed in handing over land at Sittwe and Kaletwa to India.

But also, India had to revise its plans midstream. Under the original plan, the inland terminal was to be located at Kaletwa, north of Paletwa. However, the Kaladan River was found to be unnavigable beyond Paletwa. This required the road from Lawngtlai to be extended up to Paletwa.

This “underestimation of the road length on the Myanmar side” has resulted in cost escalations. A “more thorough feasibility report” could have prevented the “inordinate delay” in the project’s completion and the added cost incurred, the MDONER official said, adding that India’s “failure to deliver projects on time” in Myanmar has eroded its credibility there.

Like Chinese infrastructure projects in Myanmar, some of India’s projects are also opposed by activists and local communities. The Kaladan movement, an umbrella group of civil society organizations and environmental groups, for instance, has criticized India for opacity in the implementation of the project. Local communities were apparently not consulted or informed about the project’s impact. They are not being included in the project’s benefits and are being discriminated against with regard to wages. Activists are also drawing attention to the Kaladan project’s destructive impact on the environment and impacts on local livelihoods.

India has denied some of these allegations. While admitting that an environmental impact assessment was not done for the Kaladan project, Delhi argues that this is not necessary as the dredging of the river involves “minimum intervention.”

However, Yhome points out that India has been responsive to concerns raised by activists. It has “addressed these issues and been willing to discuss any issue with local protesters.”

Importantly, when activists raised environmental and social concerns over India’s construction of the Htamanthi hydropower project, with an installed capacity of 1,200 MW, and the Shwezaye hydropower project with 880 MW on the Chindwin River, India “suspended the projects at the request of the Myanmar government,” Yhome said.

This is in sharp contrast to China’s refusal to pull out of unpopular projects in Myanmar. The Myanmar government’s decision to suspend the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in response to mass protests against the project evoked Beijing’s ire. Five years after the suspension, Myanmar is still under pressure from China to reverse the decision.

Myanmar’s civilian government is reportedly keen to diversify its economic partners in order to reduce China’s overwhelming influence over the economy. This would open up greater opportunity for India to play a role in Myanmar and expand its influence there.


The question is whether India would accelerate implementation of its infrastructure projects there. Should India continue to drag its feet in this regard, it could lose future projects to western and Asian investors like Japan. The window of opportunity opening up for India will not remain open forever.

India's Health Scare Gets Worse 22 9 2016

The current outbreak of vector borne diseases lays bare the inadequacies of India’s health care system.

It’s not the best optics for Asia’s third largest economy and a country aspiring to 8 percent GDP growth — people dying of vector borne diseases, health services crippled by lack of hospital beds, doctors in short supply, and a government looking on helplessly.

As vector species rampage across India, killing and debilitating thousands, the crisis has exposed the frailties of the health system in this nation of 1.3 billion. The capital city of New Delhi, ironically, is the worst hit, where there seems to be no respite from the viral onslaught. Chikungunya cases in this city of 18.6 million have spiraled up to over 2,600, with 1,568 of them being recorded in the second week of September, according to a municipal report, marking a massive rise of nearly 150 percent from the previous count.

So far chikungunya has claimed over 50 lives in the city (though some say government figures are fudged to underreport fatalities) turning on its head conventional medical knowledge that the disease is not fatal. There’s also a mystery fever going around with symptoms akin to dengue. Last week, when a 30-year-old Delhi resident succumbed to malaria, the city recorded its first death from the disease in five years.

The rest of the country isn’t faring any better. According to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program, around 12,255 cases of chikungunya had been reported across India as of August 31, when the census was last done. Karnataka alone has recorded 8,941 cases, Maharashtra 839, and Andhra Pradesh 492.

Ironically, even as the medical calamity is unfolding across Delhi, its government — helmed by Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung — is engaged in a bitter game of political one upmanship. The CM and LG are laying the blame for the current mess at each other’s door. While Jung is holding Kejriwal responsible for not being able to manage and control the epidemics, the latter is accusing the LG of an “uncooperative attitude.”

The warring LG and CM forced the Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda to step in and stress the need for “close coordination” between the center and states to deal with the outbreak, which has affected over 60,000 people across the country. Experts say that the viral epidemic has also amplified the political dispensation’s failure to craft a concerted strategy to deal with health emergencies.

The current situation augurs ill for a country already grappling with sundry other medical woes. According to Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism nonprofit organization, millions of Indians cannot access India’s overburdened hospitals and inadequate medical facilities. The country remains nearly 500,000 doctors short of reaching the World Health Organization norm of one doctor per 1,000 citizens.

With more than 740,000 active doctors at the end of 2014 — a claimed doctor-patient population ratio of 1:1,674, worse than Vietnam, Algeria, and Pakistan — the shortage of doctors was one of the health-management failures cited by the report of a parliamentary committee on health and family welfare, which presented its findings to both houses of Parliament on March 8, 2016.

Dr Pavitra Mohan,  co-founder of Basic Health Care Services and director of health services at Aajeevika Bureau, writes in The Wire that India’s “public health systems are in disarray: about 15,000 doctor positions at primary health centers are lying vacant, and 4,000 out of 5,000 community health centers do not have even a single obstetrician.”

India’s poorer states have health indicators that are worse than many nations in sub-Saharan Africa while the country’s healthcare spending is the lowest among BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations, as are its health indicators.

Experts blame many of the country’s current health problems on its abysmal spending of 1.4 percent of GDP on public health, one of the lowest rates in the world. China spends three percent while the figure for the U.K. is eight percent  Even the world’s poorest countries, like Burundi in Africa, for instance, invest around nine percent in public health. As per world health statistics published by WHO, the per capita government expenditure on health in India was $18 in 2012, as compared to countries like Germany ($3,618), France ($3,592), Japan ($3,932), the U.K. ($3,019) and the United States ($4,153).

Specialists recommend that at least 2.5 percent of GDP be marked for public expenditure on health because of the huge burden of diseases in India. In addition to the current chikungunya outbreak, India is also highly vulnerable to yellow fever in view of its highly susceptible population and the abundance of the mosquito vector species, Aedes aegypti.

Higher spending on health is all the more critical for India as a UN report predicts that non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer could cost the Indian economy a whopping $6.2 trillion during the 2012-2030 period due to its rapid urbanization.

“Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) present not only a threat to human health in cities, but also have significant economic implications,” said the GLOBAL REPORT ON URBAN HEALTH jointly released by the WHO and the UN Human Settlements Program earlier this year.

The WHO states that more than 5.2 million lives are lost annually in India and the death rate in urban India is expected to rise by 42 percent by 2021. While one person dies of a stroke every minute in India, every sixth patient below 40 years is a victim of cancer and cardio vascular disease.

Another crucial measure, which determines the impact of a health emergency on a family’s welfare, is what proportion of health expenditure is paid out of a citizen’s pocket, as opposed to state provided healthcare. In India, that figure is a staggering 62.4 percent, as against a world average of 18.2 percent.

Experts predict that India cannot become a knowledge economy or a global superpower with its current quality of healthcare. “Governments must spend more on preventive public health measures, such as providing clean drinking water and being proactive in controlling epidemics such as the current one. At the same time, it also needs to raise its number of healthcare professionals and adopt a decentralized approach to medical governance,”  advises Dr. Arvind Purohit, head of internal medicine at Max Hospital, NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh.

It’s not as if India is incapable of getting its act together. It has some of the finest doctors in the world and its prowess in medical technology is world class. The country also boasts of some remarkable achievements in public health such as significant declines in infant and maternal deaths. In 2014, India averted 126,000 deaths among children under five years of age, according to data released by the Registrar General of India. The survey indicates an 8.16 percent decline in under-five mortality during 2013-14, more than the decline of 5.76 percent during 2012-13.

A change in governmental attitude is also visible. As per the 12th Five Year Plan document, total public funding on core health is envisaged to increase to 1.87 percent of GDP by the end of the plan. The Draft National Health Policy 2015 also plans to progressively raise the public health expenditure to 2.5 percent of the GDP.

However, if India fails to adopt these measures, or register a quantum increase in health allocations, the outcome can be dire. As Dr. Pavitra Mohan writes,  the country “will remain ailing, and large numbers of its citizens, who cannot afford expensive private healthcare, will remain diseased and undernourished.”

Putin tightens his grip

The outcome of Russia’s parliamentary election was never in question. The United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin has dominated the political landscape ever since it was founded in 2001. Even so, the margin of the victory was unexpected. The September 18 Elections  were held against the backdrop of a protracted economic crisis, tensions between Russia and the West, and a war of attrition in the country’s neighbourhood. Lower oil prices and western sanctions have hit ordinary Russians hard. Russia’s economy contracted by 3.7 per cent last year and is expected to shrink further by 0.7 per cent this year. Conventional wisdom suggests that economic hardships trigger anti-incumbency sentiment. But in Mr. Putin’s Russia just the opposite has happened. When the results were declared, his party won more than three-quarters of the 450-member Duma. The Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party have retained some presence in the national Parliament, while the Yabloko and the Parnas, the two liberal parties critical of the Kremlin, failed to even enter the Duma. This could partly be because of the lack of a united opposition in Russia. The Communists and Liberal Democrats are hardly opposition parties, and agree with the Kremlin on most policy decisions. The anti-Kremlin parties have failed in, or been hindered from, building a broad base among the electorate. Alexey Navalny, the leader of the popular anti-government protests of 2011, has been barred from contesting elections. Boris Nemtsov, another popular opposition leader, was shot dead last year in Moscow. At present, there is no opposition leader in a position to challenge the personality cult of Mr. Putin.

In any case, memories of the anarchic pre-Putin era may still be prompting Russians to stick by him. Mr. Putin is largely credited with fixing the economy and providing a stable political leadership to the country. Under his watch, Russia has come out of its self-imposed strategic retreat and started playing an active global role. Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and a combative foreign policy in Syria and elsewhere have proved popular among his domestic constituents. But the Russian economy continues to be heavily dependent on energy exports. If crude oil prices remain low for long, economic pain will persist. Though the muscular foreign policy is popular at home, Moscow has had to pay a heavy price for it. Whatever Mr. Putin had done in his first and second terms to rebuild ties with Europe, particularly with Germany, lies in a shambles in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. If Mr. Putin wants to rebuild Russia as a credible global power, a persistent economic crisis and a stormy neighbourhood are not going to help.

Questions for the Day 18/9/16

1.Describe and assess the economic factors including internal colonialism as responsible for ethnic movements.

2.Critically examine the contrasting perspectives of human rights of the Communist East and the Democratic West.

3. Evaluate  Plato's  Theory  of  Justice  is  the  light  of  the  prevailing  theories of  justice. 

A New ‘Proactive’ Indian Foreign Policy under Modi?

Eight years ago, the late K. Subrahmanyam, one of India’s leading strategic thinkers, began one of his many book chapters with a quote from George W. Bush on the U.S.-India nuclear deal at a press briefing in March 2006. “What this agreement says is things change, times change, that leadership can make a difference,” Bush said at the time.

Even if most of us accept Bush’s general premise, few – perhaps even Subrahmanyam himself – could have foreseen the burst of activity and pace of change in Indian foreign policy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ushered since his election last year.

Modi has now visited over 20 countries in an official capacity, unprecedented for any Indian prime minister in so short a time. Apart from the miles he has clocked, the inroads he has made thus far have also been impressive – from revitalizing India’s ties with smaller states in its immediate neighborhood to engaging the world’s major powers (See: “What’s Next for US-India Defense Ties with Obama’s Trip?”). A land boundary agreement with Bangladesh, an energized U.S.-India relationship, and rescue and post-disaster operations in Yemen and Nepal respectively are just some of the initiatives that have that we have seen thus far.

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Yet even as these developments have been afoot, experts have been debating exactly how much continuity and change there is in Modi’s foreign policy relative to his predecessors. The topic recently took center stage at the launch of a new book by C Raja Mohan – one of India’s most internationally recognized strategic thinkers – at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

During the event, Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, Subrahmanyam’s son and a close friend of Raja Mohan, made arguably the clearest and most concise case that the Modi government was pursuing a new ‘proactive’ foreign policy (See: “India Needs a More Ambitious Foreign Policy, Says Country’s Top Diplomat“). In terms of content, Jaishankar noted that, among other things, a reasonable but at times firm neighborhood first policy, the forward momentum on the nuclear deal with the United States, and a coherent Indian Ocean strategy now in the works were all examples of changes from the previous government led by Manmohan Singh.

“So let me ask you: does this look like diplomacy as usual?” Jaishankar said.

To some, Indian foreign policy under Modi does indeed look a little more familiar than the picture Jaishankar painted. Indeed, before Jaishankar spoke, Shashi Tharoor, currently chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and a member of parliament with the opposing Congress Party, noted that several of the initiatives under the Modi government were ones that Congress had earlier pushed when it had power but the BJP had thwarted. These included the land boundary agreement and the nuclear deal.

Of course, this dynamic is an all-too-familiar one hardly limited to just Indian politics. And indeed, Jaishankar himself, to his credit, conceded that while some of these were new developments, others were “decisive conclusions to an otherwise unfinished national agenda.”

But beyond the content of Indian foreign policy, Jaishankar seemed to suggest that the bigger shifts were in how India was conducting itself on the world stage and the tools of statecraft it was using in this process. In terms of conduct, Jaishankar seemed to suggest that India’s added confidence and larger footprint was indicative of a new proactive foreign policy in the works focused on actively shaping and driving events as opposed to just reacting to them; on being active and nimble rather than neutral and risk-averse.

What exactly is this proactive foreign policy? Though he did not explicitly define it, he said it was based on a clear sense of its priorities, an integrated view of regions, and a more vigorous effort directed at confidently pursuing multiple relationships simultaneously and making a global impact. This was in contrast to a more reactive approach which sought a lower profile and adopted a more siloed approach, often associated with the country’s tradition of non-alignment.

Jaishankar then went on to a more detailed list of five “innovations” in the way India was using the tools of statecraft to further this proactive foreign policy – narratives; lexicon and imagery; soft power; the Indian diaspora; and the link between foreign policy and national development. First, the Modi government was developing a narrative as part of a transition to making India a leading power. For instance, Jaishankar said, attention to India’s sacrifices in WWI, or its record in peacekeeping operations, strengthens its position for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

Second, the creation of a new lexicon and imagery – whether it is from a “Look East” to “Act East” policy or the image of a “first responder” in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief –  has been critical in signaling and driving foreign policy change (See: “Modi Unveils India’s Act East Policy to ASEAN in Myanmar”). Third, the Modi government has emphasized the use of soft power in Indian foreign policy, as evidenced by the International Day of Yoga and its links with the country’s culture and heritage.

The fourth “innovation” is related to the Indian diaspora. While their achievements have long been broadly appreciated, the Modi government has been more direct thus far in engaging with overseas Indians, as evidenced by the turnout at Madison Square Garden during his visit to the United States earlier this year. Fifth and finally, there has also been a more explicit link made between diplomacy and national development efforts, with India working hard to leverage its international relationships to bring resources, technology and best practices to further its own development such as through the Make in India initiative.

Here too, one can quibble with how innovative each of these individual points is. For instance, Modi is far from the first Indian premier to speak about the link between foreign policy and economic development. But taken together and seen as part of Modi’s overall foreign policy approach, once can indeed see the outlines of something quite new as Jaishankar suggested.

Of course, this is not to suggest that Indian foreign policy under Modi has not encountered its fair share of challenges thus far in Modi’s first year. On some fronts, New Delhi has been a little too ‘proactive,’ as with its unilateral incursion into Myanmar in a cross-border raid (See: “The Truth About India’s Militant Strike in Myanmar”). India’s Pakistan policy has also at times seemed more rudderless than resolute. Though the Modi government is hardly the only one to struggle with India-Pakistan relations, that also dents the case for change and the advent of a reasonable but firm neighborhood first policy.

Challenges could also lie ahead, especially since this is just Modi’s second year in office. Shyam Saran, India’s respected former foreign secretary, said that while he saw promise in Modi’s active foreign policy, he was also worried about the capacity of the Indian government to implement the many commitments it had made. “We need to really put the accent now on the nuts and bolts of how to get foreign policy actually implemented,” he said.

The Court Fails the Citizen - Sedition Issue 18/9/16

The Supreme Court order dismissing Common Cause’s writ petition seeking directions against the misuse of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is a monumental abdication of the judicial function. In choosing to summarily dismiss the concerns raised by the petitioner over the abuse of the sedition law, the Court has shut its eyes and ears to the events that are taking place just outside its gates. It has chosen to continue to live in a make-believe world where a precedent laid down in 1962 interpreting the sedition law continues to be understood andapplied by the police in good faith, with no pressure from the state or central governments. The honourable judges seem to be in a fantasy land where dissent faces no retribution in the form of abuse of process by a vengeful government.

Whether it is the first information reports (FIRs) againstprotestors at Koodankulam or the recent complaints against Kanhaiya Kumar or Amnesty Inter­national, Section 124A has been used by governments of all shades to stifle dissent. The relatively small number of cases should not hide the intention of the government—to have a chilling effect on dissenting speech. Save for rare cases, an FIR almost inevitably follows the complaint, the criminal justice system proceeds to grind down the accused, who no matter how obviously innocent, is forced todefend herself and run from court to police station to clear her name. Even when a court ultimately finds that the complaint and the FIR were entirely frivolous, there is no remedy or compensation offered to the exonerated for the blatantly illegal acts unless she wants to once again run from court to court seeking compensation. The simple relief claimed by Common Cause, and refused by the Supreme Court, was for a judicially created oversight mechanism to prevent such straightforward abuse of process.

On its own, the order of the Supreme Court seems perplexing. However, seen in the context of recent decisions, it is indicative of the Supreme Court’s views. In the last two years alone, the Court has upheld the constitutional validity of criminal defamation laws by placing the right to reputation above the right to free speech, has invented a new ground not found in the Constitution for restricting freedom of speech (defamation of famous personalities), taken up public interest litigation on regulating jokes against the Sikh community and is considering how to impose a ban on pornography in a manner beyond the existing law.

Far from carrying out its constitutional duty of protecting fundamental rights, the Court seems to think its role is to find new ways to restrict this right, get into freewheeling and absurd litigation by busybodies to help restrict others’ rights and take the side of the government as well as the rich and the powerful who want to curb the right to free expression of views. Increasingly, its path-breaking decision in the Shreya Singhal v Union of India case, in which the Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 declaring it unconstitutional, seems like an outlier. Apart from giving full effect to the right to free expression under the Constitution, the Shreya Singhal judgment was also willing to take into account the actual, real world impact of a law in curtailing freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the Court has repeatedly rejected this enlightened approach. Indeed, there is not a single case in the last two years where the Court has cited the Shreya Singhal judgment with approval.

If this presents a bleak picture of the Court’s antipathy to the freedom of speech in India, it is entirely intentional. The coverage of the Supreme Court by the mainstream media has also played a role in arriving at this situation with its focus on casual and stray observations made from the bench, and the routine hearing and disposal of cases involving politicians and celebrities. This has not allowed for a proper critique of the Supreme Court as an institution, its ideology, and its manner of functioning save for the tired tropes of judicial activism that are trotted out whenever a controversial judgment is delivered without ever adding insight into what the Court should or should not be doing.

The recent trend in the apex court’s jurisprudence in the context of freedom of expression suggests a court that is increasingly out of touch with reality on the threats to free speech in India. Whether it is in the context of abuse of criminal defamation laws or sedition laws, the Supreme Court has been happy to hand out homilies from the bench while keeping in place the structure that allows for the abuse of these laws. As an institution that has been given the constitutional duty to defend citizens’ rights against encroachment by the state, if the Supreme Court’s claims to independence and autonomy from the government are to be taken seriously, it must show that such independence and autonomy is for the benefit of the people at large and not for its own institutional ends.