Friday, April 26, 2024

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo Credit: India PM Office

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo Credit: India PM Office

India: Can Narendra Modi Repeat His Past Election Victories This Time Too? – OpEd

April 21, 2024 0 Comments

It’s important to note that these figures are estimates, and population dynamics can change over time due to various factors such as birth rates, mortality rates, and migration patterns. The crossover between India and China reminds us of the importance of long-term planning and addressing the needs of different age groups. As India continues to grow, ensuring the well-being and development of its population remains a critical priority. This sub-continent is holding its election, projected by the famous British newspaper The Guardian, as a certain victory for current Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite world wide condemnation of his regime for the persecution of the minority Muslim community, in particular by the Muslim majority areas of the world. In a write up Michael Kugelmen in South Asia Brief in Foreign Affairs reported on the most recent events relating to elections in India.

India’s national election begins on 19th April and runs for six weeks, through June 1. At first glance, the vote may seem similar to two others in South Asia this year. Just as in Bangladesh in January and Pakistan in February, an incumbent government is favored to win, and the election is playing out against a backdrop of sidelined opposition leaders and growing crackdowns on dissent.

However, India’s election and its broader political environment stand in contrast to political trends across the region—mainly because of the striking popularity and longevity of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A recent survey put Modi’s public approval rating at 75 percent, a remarkably high figure for a head of government in office for nearly a decade. Many factors account for this popularity: Modi’s personality, his leadership model, his achievements, his ideology, and India’s weak political opposition. The main electoral uncertainty is not if Modi and the BJP will win, it’s by how much. Many of Modi’s critics say that India’s electoral playing field is unequal, but that isn’t quite accurate. They point out that India’s government has arrested opposition leaders on politically motivated charges and increased its influence over the country’s election commission, damaging opponents’ prospects.

But the BJP enjoys overwhelming support, and the national political opposition does not. Even if the Indian state weren’t targeting opposition parties, such is the strength of the BJP that the opposition’s chances of electoral success might not improve that much. Away from national politics, the calculus is a bit different. The BJP has lost a few recent state and local elections to either the main opposition Indian National Congress or smaller regional parties. But these parties can’t hold a candle to the BJP’s countrywide clout. Then there is the longevity factor. In South Asia, few elected leaders or parties have held power as long as Modi and the BJP. Nepal has had 13 governments since 2008. Pakistan has seen a series of weak coalition governments since the end of its formal military rule the same year. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe took office in 2022, after his predecessor resigned amid anti-government protests. Only Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has held office longer than Modi—since 2009—and she has benefited from polls that election observers have deemed not free or fair.

Both Modi’s popularity and the fact that India’s opposition hasn’t been able to put forward a strong, charismatic leader that can counter him suggest that the prime minister will face little threat to his political survival as long as he stays in office. Some reckoning for the BJP may not be that far off, even assuming the party wins this year. Whether Modi opts to try for a fourth term in 2029 remains uncertain. If not, the BJP will face major questions, chief among them the issue of his successor. The appeal of Hindu nationalism would help the BJP’s cause, but it would need to make headway on long-standing issues that could make it vulnerable, from widespread unemployment to the challenge posed by China. For now, Modi occupies a special status as one of South Asia’s most popular and longest-tenured leaders, with little intrigue attached to an election that is likely to bring him another huge public mandate. It’s a far cry from the volatility that has characterized polls and politics elsewhere in the region in recent years.

Rohan Mukherjee of London Assistant Professor of London School of Economics and Political Science in his article title A Hindu Nationalist Foreign Policy wrote that under Narendra Modi India Is Becoming More Assertive (dated April 4, 2024) and that he is not the first Indian leader with global ambitions. The country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also sought a leading role for India and worked energetically from the 1940s to the 1960s to promote a distinct brand of foreign policy—nonalignment with both the Soviet Union and the United States—through international institutions. But while Pandit Nehru’s efforts resonated with only a narrow domestic elite; the wider populace was too beset by poverty to care about intangibles such as international recognition. India today, by contrast, is a rising power whose population is primed for leaders to manipulate national aspirations for domestic and international gains. Narendra Modi has also successfully used a more confident and assertive society and diaspora to bolster his party’s political fortunes and to improve India’s global standing.

It is, in some respects, surprising that Narendra Modi could capitalize so effectively on foreign issues. The prime minister had minimal diplomatic experience when he took office, in 2014. Yet this lack of familiarity enabled him to craft a new way of interacting with the world, one that turned diplomacy into performance art for the masses. As a populist leader accustomed to bypassing traditional institutions, appealing directly to his supporters, and tightly controlling information, Narendra Modi (and his government) used the media and large rallies to great effect. The party is constantly reaching out to people everywhere, trying to gain supporters. Even with the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Narendra Modi has undertaken more international visits in his two terms as prime minister than his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, did in his two.

The growing importance of India cannot, of course, be credited entirely to Modi or his government’s initiatives (or those of past prime ministers). The country has been helped, albeit indirectly, by China. As Beijing has become a persistent threat to its neighbors in Asia and to the West, India’s stock has risen. The United States, in particular, is wooing India in an effort to constrain China’s ambitions. As long as New Delhi can help countries compete with Beijing, India will have plenty of international partners, giving it considerable room for maneuver in its external relations. But China’s story is also a cautionary tale. As Beijing arrived as a world player, it abandoned its strategy of building friendly ties with other countries based on mutual economic gain. Instead, driven by popular and elite nationalism, it began strongly asserting claims to contested territory, acting recklessly in its own region, and demanding deference from others—alienating its neighbors and virtually every major power except Russia. This path is particularly fraught because rising nationalism exacerbates routine conflicts of interest. A society and polity that take offense at even minor slights will quickly encounter pushback from other states, in turn intensifying domestic anxieties and feelings of wounded pride, leading to a vicious cycle of provocation. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan provides a case in point. Beijing described the visit as a provocation and warned the United States not to “play with fire.” Pelosi, unbowed, went anyway. China then began conducting military exercises around Taiwan, further raising the stakes in the strait. Ironically, when the dust settled, Chinese nationalists accused their government of making empty threats and not doing enough to stand up to the United States. India is still early in its trajectory as a rising power. But there are signs it may fall into a similar trap.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, New Delhi assassinated a Sikh Canadian national—officially designated a terrorist by the Indian government—on Canadian soil in 2023. Ottawa condemned the attack and demanded an explanation from New Delhi. Instead of seeking a way to defuse this crisis, it took umbrage at Canada for harboring Sikh separatists and pledged to protect India’s security (while also denying the allegations). New Delhi also moved to expel Canadian diplomats and suspend new visas for Canadians wishing to visit India. Later in the year, U.S. officials accused New Delhi of plotting to assassinate a Sikh American, sparking another dispute. When foreign policy itself becomes nationalist, it gives rise to self-defeating risks. These episodes command worldwide attention. India has come to realize that rise of China and eternal enmity of Pakistan gives little scope to India but to strengthen relations with the US.

Conclusion

As a rising power, India is still far from that level of global game of pull and increasing the countries’ influence in global affairs. A nationalist diplomacy backed by an increasingly confident and assertive public will also make such issues difficult to resolve by limiting the scope for compromise. Voters, for example, may turn against a government that—having set high expectations—falters in protecting expansive versions of the country’s interests and honor. National pride may know no bounds, but foreign policy must operate in a highly constrained environment. India’s political leadership will therefore have to work carefully to ensure that its nationalist diplomacy does not undermine national objectives. It may be relevant here to mention Indian Foreign Minister Dr Jaya Shankar’s reference to Goldilocks’ Principle relating to Western attitude of keeping India limited within bounds so that India’s proclivity to curve an independent course of its own may not affect Western policies. In any case India’s friends and partners will have to adjust to India’s assertive demeanor—in part, by making room for the country as it ascends in the international order.

Can Narendra Modi Repeat His Election Victory This Time Too?

As a rising power, India is still far from that level of global game of pull and increasing the countries’ influence in global affairs.

by Kazi Anwarul Masud

April 22, 2024

7 mins read

An elderly woman shows her ink-marked index finger after casting her vote at a polling station during the first phase of India's general elections in Nagaon district of India's northeastern state of Assam, April 19, 2024. (Str/Xinhua)

THE MOST POPULOUS NATION ON EARTH IS HAVING ELECTIONS IN APRIL 2024

India is poised to become populous nation in 2023, with an estimated population of 1.428 billion people (17.8% of the global population). By the end of April 2023 India’s population is expected to be 1’425’775,850 slightly higher than China’s population of 1.4 billion in 2022. UNFPA estimates India’s population at 1.4286 billion by mid-2023 surpassing China’s population. India’s population growth is driven by fertility levels, and together, China and India account for more than one-third of the world’s total population. It’s important to note that these figures are estimates, and population dynamics can change over time due to various factors such as birth rates, mortality rates, and migration patterns. The crossover between India and China reminds us of the importance of long-term planning and addressing the needs of different age groups. As India continues to grow, ensuring the well-being and development of its population remains a critical priority. This sub-continent is holding its election, projected by the famous British newspaper The Guardian, as a certain victory for current Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite world wide condemnation of his regime for the persecution of the minority Muslim community, in particular by the Muslim majority areas of the world. In a write up Michael Kugelmen in South Asia Brief in Foreign Affairs reported on the most recent events relating to elections in India. India’s national election begins on 19th April and runs for six weeks, through June 1. At first glance, the vote may seem similar to two others in South Asia this year. Just as in Bangladesh in January and Pakistan in February, an incumbent government is favored to win, and the election is playing out against a backdrop of sidelined opposition leaders and growing crackdowns on dissent.

POPULARITY OF NARENDRA MODI AND HIS POLITICAL PARTY

WEAK OPPOSITION PARTIES ARE NO MATCH FOR BJP

APPEAL OF HINDU NATIONALISM IS HELPING NARENDRA MODI

UNDER NARENDRA MODI INDIA IS BECOMING MORE ASSERTIVE

NARENDRA MODI’S SURPRISING GRASP OF FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES

CHINA’S MUSCULAR ACTIVITIES AND INDO-US RELATIONS

WESTERN CRITICISM OF INDIAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE ASSASSINATION OF A SIKH CANADIAN NATIONAL

CONCLUSION

Does The Islamic World Have Any Responsibility Towards the Palestinian People?

by Kazi Anwarul Masud

April 25, 2024

11 mins read

People line up to get free food in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on March 18, 2024. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Did Adolf Hitler Have a Blueprint for the Extermination of Jews in the Potsdam Conference?

Is it because Harry Truman not only recognized Israel as an independent country and as such gave cover to Israeli airspace during the short war with Egypt when Anwar Sadat could have given a death blow to Israel but for the US cover of Israeli airspace? Lawrence Rees, historian, and author, in his newest book published in March 2024 titled The Holocaust, wrote that “The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler,” he explained that “Even as far back as 1921, Hitler said that solving the Jewish question was a central question for National Socialism.

Historian Lawrence Rees and His Book Published in 2024

And you can only solve it by using brute force.” Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust at that point, says Rees. But he did have a pathological problem with Jews. “Hitler believed that something needed to be done,” Rees explains, “and that evolved and changed according to circumstances and political opportunism.

An intriguing part of Rees’s book is his determination to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Final Solution became official Nazi policy. It’s a question that doesn’t come with a straightforward answer, Rees maintained. What is clear, though, is that in the summer of 1940, there was still no concrete plan in place for the extermination of Jews. Furthermore, up until that point, Rees argued, the Nazis were still clinging to the belief that in the long term, the way to solve what they called “the Jewish question” was by expulsion and hard labor. At that point, mass murder was still not the preferred option.

By the summer of 1942, however, a sea change had taken place. By that time, the Holocaust was in full swing. Therefore, within the previous two-year period, Rees points out, there were several milestones on the road towards mass extermination. But trying to pinpoint an exact moment where the decision was taken to commit to mass killing is very difficult, says Rees — especially since much of the planning was done in secret without written records.

Hitherto, many historians, filmmakers, and writers have pointed to a single meeting where plans for the Holocaust were finally decided upon in the power structures of Nazi officialdom. This was known as the Wannsee Conference. It was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January of 1942 and involved several mid-ranking Nazi officials devising a plot to murder Jews over a shorter timescale and in more efficient ways. But even then, Rees says, no final plans were resolved at the infamous conference. He also points out that key figures from the upper tiers of the Nazi hierarchy — Himmler, Goebbels, and Hitler himself — were not present.

“I cannot see how there can have been a decision in 1941,” said Rees. ‘By that stage, you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been decided upon. The moment of no return for the Holocaust, said the historian, was in the spring and early summer of 1942 when a decision was taken to kill all of the Jews in the General Government in Poland — a German-occupied zone established by Hitler after the joint invasion by the Germans and Soviets in 1939.“By that stage, you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made,” said Rees.

Hungary was beautiful to the Nazis, given the number of Jews that resided there. The Jews were transported to Auschwitz between May and July of 1944, where they were murdered. This plan for cold-blooded murder was deviously orchestrated by Adolf Eichmann, who at the time was stationed in Budapest.

Adolf Eichmann and Hannah Arendt

In April 2024 issue wrote on American scholar Hannah Arendt who published a series of articles that became one of the most controversial books of the 20th century: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The articles dealt with the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who coordinated the logistics of transporting millions of European Jews to their death during World War II.

Arendt portrayed Eichmann and other Nazi criminals not as hate-filled, anti-Semitic monsters but as petty bureaucrats and spoke openly about the role played by Jewish councils in the deportation and destruction of their own people. Arendt’s central insight into what she called “the banality of evil”—that great crimes can arise from mindless conformity and thoughtlessness about the humanity of others—came paired with sharp criticism of Israeli insensitivity to legitimate Palestinian claims and disregard for the rights of minorities and neighbors.

Arendt suffered ferocious personal attacks that continue today, 37 years after her death. Criticism of her Eichmann book inevitably incorporates some variant of the assertion that she felt herself to be more German than Jewish and was a self-hating, anti-Semitic Jew—a strange charge against a woman who worked on behalf of Jewish organizations most of her life.

The 50-year battle over Arendt’s reputation has pitted her defenders against those who would deflect her criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish, thus turning people away from her ideas about democratic pluralism and regional cooperation without having to discuss them. Soon after the Eichmann pieces began to appear, civil rights activist Henry Schwarzschild warned Arendt that Jewish organizations in New York were furiously planning a campaign against her and that she should expect to be the object of great debate and animosity.

Siegfried Moses, a friend from Arendt’s youth who had immigrated to Israel and risen to the position of state comptroller, sent a note to Arendt on behalf of the Council of Jews from Germany, declaring war on her and her Eichmann book. Moses then flew to Switzerland to meet with Arendt and demanded that she stop the book’s publication. She refused, warning him that the intensity of criticism was “going to make the book into a cause célèbre and thus embarrass the Jewish community far beyond anything that she had said or could possibly do.” Indeed, literary critic Irving Howe would describe the vitriolic public dispute that ensued as “violent,” while novelist Mary McCarthy would liken it to a pogrom. It began on March 11 with a memorandum distributed by the Anti-Defamation League alerting its members to “Arendt’s defamatory conception of Jewish participation in the Nazi Holocaust,” by which they meant her reporting that evidence at the trial showed that leaders of Jewish communities across Europe had negotiated the orderly demise of their communities with Eichmann.

The ADL followed up with a pamphlet, “Arendt Nonsense,” which called the Eichmann articles evil, glib, and trite. On May 19, 1963, The New York Times published a highly critical review of Eichmann in Jerusalem by Michael A. Musmanno, a retired Navy rear admiral who had served as a judge at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals and was then a sitting justice on Pennsylvania’s supreme court. Musmanno had also appeared as a witness for the prosecution at the Eichmann trial. In her book Arendt had disparaged Musmanno’s testimony that Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop told him at Nuremberg that Hitler’s madness had come about because he had fallen under Eichmann’s influence. Even the prosecution knew this was a fabrication. Musmanno wrote in the Times that Arendt was motivated by “purely private prejudice. She attacks the State of Israel, its laws and institutions, wholly unrelated to the Eichmann case.”

That summer New York intellectuals weighed in. A review by playwright and critic Lionel Abel in Partisan Review accused Arendt of having portrayed the Nazis as more aesthetically appealing than their victims. Journalist Norman Podhoretz’s review in Commentary concluded that Arendt had exemplified “intellectual perversity [resulting] from the pursuit of brilliance by a mind infatuated with its own agility and bent on generating dazzle.” Zionist activist Marie Syrkin wrote in Dissent that Eichmann was the only character who came out better in the book than he went in and accused Arendt of manipulating the facts with “high-handed assurance.” Arendt had published often in all three journals. More measured criticism came in a letter from Gershom Scholem, a friend from Arendt’s youth and then a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He affirmed his “deep respect” for Arendt but characterized the tone of her book as “heartless,” “flippant,” “sneering and malicious,” replacing balanced judgment with a “demagogic will-to-overstatement.”

He could never think of her, he wrote, as anything other than “a daughter of our people” but admonished her for insufficient love of the Jewish people: “In you, dear Hannah, as in so many intellectuals who come from the German Left, I find little trace of this.” Arendt replied that she came not from the German Left but from the tradition of German philosophy and that of course she was a daughter of the Jewish people and had never claimed to be anything else. In the full flush of the attack, Mary McCarthy stepped forward as Arendt’s champion. Writing in the Winter 1964 issue of Partisan Review, she observed that the hostile reviews and personal attacks on Arendt were written almost entirely by Jews. She dismissed Lionel Abel’s assertion that Arendt made Eichmann aesthetically palatable: “Reading her book, he liked Eichmann better than the Jews who died in the crematoriums. Each to his own taste. It was not my impression.” Marie Syrkin accused McCarthy of intellectual irresponsibility and ignorance, and writer and historian Harold Weisberg characterized her defense of Arendt as wholly lacking in charity and logic.

At the height of the scandal, however, Hannah Arendt was assured that she would emerge with her reputation intact: any fair-minded person who read the Eichmann book would see her seriousness of purpose, honesty, fundamental goodness, and passion for justice. “A time will come that you will not live to see, when Jews will erect a monument to you in Israel, as they are doing now for Spinoza,” he wrote. “They will proudly claim you as their own.” Now, as the debate began to subside, Jaspers wrote that though she had suffered greatly, the critical uproar was adding to her prestige. Arendt wrote back that she had been warmly received by the mostly Jewish students who had turned out in substantial numbers for her lectures on politics at Yale, Columbia, Chicago, and other universities. “The funny thing,” she told people that after speaking her mind openly she was once again “flooded with invitations from all the Jewish organizations to speak, to appear at congresses, etc. And some of these invitations are coming from organizations that I singled out to attack and named by name.”

In the next few years she would collect a dozen honorary degrees from American universities and be inducted into both the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which awarded her its Emerson-Thoreau Medal for distinguished achievement in literature. For a long moment, which lasted another quarter-century after her death in 1975, Arendt had beaten back her detractors, with her reputation intact. New Yorker editor William Shawn wrote that Arendt’s death had removed “some counterweight to all the world’s unreason and corruption,” that she had been “a moral and intellectual force that went beyond category,” and that her influence “on intellectuals, artists, and political people around the world was profound.”

The Request Made to the US by King Abdullah of Jordan, Emanuel Macron of France, and Abdullah Sisi of Egypt to the United States

The world cannot and should not ignore the resounding words of King Abdullah of Jordan. Emanuel Macron of France and Abdullah Sisi of Egypt. In plain words these eminent people said, and I quote The U.S. can’t afford to wait to fully embrace the world’s most effective weapon. As we urge all parties to abide by all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, we warn against the dangerous consequences of an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge. Such an offensive would only bring more death and suffering, heighten the risks and consequences of mass displacement of the people of Gaza and threaten regional escalation.

We reiterate our equal respect for all lives. We condemn all violations and abuses of international humanitarian law, including all acts of violence, terrorism and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Protecting civilians is a fundamental legal obligation for all parties and the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. Violating this obligation is absolutely prohibited. Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but famine is already setting in. There is an urgent need for a massive increase in the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance. This is a core demand of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 2720 and 2728, which emphasize the urgent need to expand aid supplies. U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, and humanitarian actors play a critical role in relief operations in Gaza. They must be protected and granted full access, including in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We condemn the killing of humanitarian aid workers, most recently the attack against World Central Kitchen’s aid convoy.

Consistent with international law, Israel is under an obligation to ensure the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, a responsibility it has not fulfilled. We reiterate the Security Council’s demand to lift barriers to humanitarian assistance and for Israel to immediately facilitate humanitarian assistance through all crossing points, including in the North of the Gaza Strip and through a direct land corridor from Jordan, as well as by sea. We, the leaders of Egypt, France, and Jordan, are determined to continue stepping up our efforts to meet the humanitarian, medical and health needs of the civilian population of Gaza, in close coordination with the U.N. system and regional partners. Lastly, we underline the urgency of restoring hope for peace and security for all in the region, primarily the Palestinian and Israeli people.

We emphasize our determination to continue working together to avoid further regional spillover, and we call on all actors to refrain from any escalatory action. We urge an end to all unilateral measures, including settlement activity and land confiscation. We also urge Israel to prevent settler violence. We emphasize the necessity of respecting the historical and legal status quo at Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, and the role of the Jordanian Waqf under the Hashemite custodianship. We stress our determination to step up our joint efforts to effectively bring about the two-state solution.

The establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of the two-state solution, in accordance with international law and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, to live side by side in peace and security with Israel, is the only way to achieve true peace. The Security Council must play a role in decisively reopening this horizon for peace.

Conclusion

It is well known that Benjamin Netanyahu reacted sharply by canceling the visit of an Israeli delegation’s visit to the US incensed by the US abstention of voting in the United Nations which Netanyahu had expected that the US would exercise its veto. How far it will affect Israel-US relations remains to be seen. One, however has to remind oneself the harsh criticism by the US House majority leader, himself a Jew and the first time a Jew has been elected to the post, that Israel should go for a fresh election to choose a leader, preferably in the place of Netanyahu and his right-wing colleagues who are beating the drum of war in the name of extermination of Hamas regardless of the cost to the US-Israeli relations and also an improbable return of Donald Trump and his demand that the Europeans should pay for the protection being provided by the US ever since the US, tilted so-called “rules based” world, more often broken than honored by the US for fifty years. Indubitably, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had broken international law providing sovereignty of countries to rule their territories according to their rules and regulations. But the question the world may keep on asking, now that Saddam Hussein is long gone, whether the US itself is not guilty of breaking international law.