Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
Why PM Modi in Army uniform distracts from India’s real goals
Civilian leaders in military uniform are an attraction unmatched by any other clothing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has worn one every Diwali since the India-China confrontation at Doklam in 2017. This year, he spent some time with the Army and addressed troops at Jammu’s Rajouri, not far from the Line of Control. He was dressed in an Army camouflage jacket and a red-banded hat, worn by Colonels and above. He wore an Indian Army emblem as the crownpiece, so to say, in the middle of the red band around the hat. No rank badges were worn.
The Prime Minister’s oratorical skills and the speech delivered in his inimitable style would have touched the hearts of the troops and uplifted their morale. ‘We are lucky to have a leader like Modi’ would perhaps be a lasting memory for those who saw him in flesh and blood. Even for those who would see it on video, and especially for the millions of his supporters across the world, it would have had a similar effect.
Pledges at Glasgow could change the Global Distribution of Power
By Nitin Pai
This article was originally published in The Mint, as part of Nitin Pai's fortnightly column, The Intersection. India was perhaps the only big country at the Glasgow CoP-26 meeting whose commitments were entirely driven by environmental considerations, and which came at a substantial cost to its medium-term economic prospects. Other major players had upsides. The transition from fossil fuels to modern renewables, for instance, presents China with a massive economic opportunity, given its dominance in solar, battery and nuclear power. Europe can protect its domestic industries from foreign competition by imposing green standards and tariffs. Given its advanced research and development ecosystem, the US is sure to derive economic benefits from the emerging global market for green technology.While energy transition will certainly create opportunities for Indian firms and consumers, the challenge of raising the living standards of hundreds of millions of our people has become even more daunting. It is uncertain if high economic growth at the scale required to create the 20 million jobs we need every year is possible within the parameters of India’s carbon commitments.Moreover, it is hard not to be sceptical about rich countries’ promises to ease the decades of pain and sacrifice the rest of the world has to bear. The righteousness of the West’s most ardent climate advocates must be seen against their abject failure to make covid vaccines available to billions of people in need of them today. The pandemic, like climate, is an indivisible collective threat to humankind. So countries, societies and leaders who are effectively refusing to come to the aid of billions of real people in this generation can hardly be relied upon to help future generations. Talk of $1 trillion in green financing and assistance from rich countries must be taken with liberal pinches of organic salt, given that we are still waiting for them to part with the $100 billion per year they promised at Paris six years ago.New Delhi can neither rely on the rich countries keeping to their emission commitments nor on receiving compensation for sacrificing growth. Financial Times columnist Megan Greene warns that, “There are inevitable short-term economic costs that risk generating a backlash against efforts to fight climate change." Rapid decarbonization is likely to cause a supply shock, raise prices and raise public debt. It will create winners and losers, and the latter could push back, as they have done against globalization. Yet, the pain that rich country populations will suffer is a trifle in comparison to that in the developing world, where well-known growth paths are to be abandoned and unknown, risky routes embraced. Lacking power in the international system, governments of developing countries will be compelled to require sacrifices from people too weak to mount backlashes.This is only partially a story of the hypocrisy and self-serving righteousness of powerful countries. If agreements like Paris’s and Glasgow’s are inadequate and unreliable, it is because the political structure of the world is not optimized to formulate solutions for humankind as a whole. Most of the 200-odd independent nation-states that exist today do so on the basis of national self-determination, the idea that people who share a lot of things in common and have their own homeland have the right to govern themselves. Whether or not people are better off under this dispensation is debatable. We have seen nation-states trample on the liberties of minorities and individuals. Their international conduct wilfully threatens the very existence of humanity. Addressing common global challenges was not even part of the design specifications of nation-states, which is why a collective front against a virus or a holistic approach to tackling climate change is touch-and-go at best.Our failure to adopt coherent global approaches to a growing number of important issues, such as international terrorism, public health, environment, weapons of mass destruction, transnational technology platforms and cyberspace governance, is in large part due to political structures. The best we can do under the current international system is to evolve a stable balance of power that creates an global order that permits global solutions for global problems. This long chain of hope, tenuous at best, is broken in many places. Xi Jinping’s absence at Glasgow indicates that no serious effort is on to try fixing this.As unprecedented are the risks to human survival and prosperity today, so are the opportunities for overcoming them. But we need to rethink political structures. Within countries, mechanisms of representative democracy and bureaucratic administration need overhauling. Across countries, there is a case for large, thin continental federations like the Indian republic and European Union. And what do we do with the United Nations?Let us hope that CoP-26 will achieve its goal of reducing carbon emissions. But in doing so, it will exacerbate other geopolitical and economic problems. Imagine a world where some other country replaces the Gulf as the global hub of energy. Fuel we will get from the sun and the air. But the supply of technology and raw materials to convert it to electricity may be dominated by China. Such a world is a decade away and will arrive well before we update our political structures. So, in whose image will the 21st century be constructed?
China’s hypersonic missile test got US, India racing. It exposes BMD vulnerability
China has carried out a test of a new space capability with a hypersonic missile, as reported first by The Financial Times. The test was supposedly carried out secretly in August 2021. The report relied on experts of the US intelligence community and could be a deliberate leak. It managed to touch the most sensitive cord of any nation’s strategic community—potential vulnerability.
A barrage of commentaries soon littered the information landscape. It mattered little that the development did not create a vulnerability in the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) of the US or any other nation that is deploying it. The vulnerability already existed, and all the efforts of creating a BMD system have been chasing their tail since 2001—when the US had unleashed the BMD arms race as it withdrew from the 1972 Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty with the Soviet Union. The Financial Times report indicated that the US has now been disadvantaged by China’s technological progress. It sits easily with the larger narrative of Beijing’s growing technological and military capability.
Why China’s Quest to Dominate Global Tech Standards Looks Far-fetched
By Arjun Gargeyas
The rise of China’s technological growth has created ripples in the world technology ecosystem.
The global tech markets, which were generally dominated by the West have come under immense geopolitical and geoeconomic pressure due to China’s rapid growth in developing emerging technologies. The Chinese government has created a vision for the State to dominate the global tech supply chains and eventually concentrate geopolitical power. At the heart of this vision lies technical standards and the role they play in determining the balance of power between technologically adept states.
Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace
By Aditya Pareek
A new draft resolution focusing on cyberspace is on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA)’s First Committee. The resolution is a multilateral international effort to have a consensus on behavioural norms in cyberspace – where plenty of bad actors, both state and non-state may have threatened some countries’ critical national infrastructure and stolen funds from others.
The resolution comes after years of efforts led by two separate frameworks in the UN, the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) and Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) championed by Russia and the US, respectively. As Russian business newspaper Kommersant’s foreign affairs beat journalist Elena Chernenko says in her article, the draft is “unexpected given the long rivalry between the two powers that have promoted competing cybersecurity negotiation mechanisms at the UN”. India is currently part of the 25 states in GGE and has consistently been a part of the grouping except for 2014-15. While OEWG comprises “all interested UN members”.
The debate on cyberspace norms runs in parallel to other debates on nuclear disarmament, responsible behaviour in outer space and other high-tech and asymmetric domains – where both developed and developing nations have contributions to make. While not on the list of fifty-five nations who sponsor the draft resolution, India and China, the two strategic rivals, are not irrelevant to the debate on the issue. India and China are both part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) and have strong bilateral relations and shared interests with Russia.
As a notable Russian cybersecurity and geopolitical analyst Oleg Shakirov of Center for Advanced Governance points out – China and other SCO members except Uzbekistan are currently not sponsoring the draft resolution but may do so before the voting on the resolution happens.
The draft’s earmarked as “Agenda item 95” for the first committee, and as Chernenko reports in Kommersant, it is likely to be voted on in “November, after which, in December, it will be submitted to a general vote.”
As the text of the draft highlights, it is about “voluntary, non-binding norms” which “do not seek to limit or prohibit action that is otherwise consistent with international law” in cyberspace.
If the above assertion reminds one of how debates around the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) are worded, it is no coincidence. The use of cyberspace and digital communication networks is no less important than the physical access to sea lanes carrying international commerce and travellers.
One sincerely hopes that any similar mechanism for Cyberspace does not become a decades long-drawn-out process like the negotiations and debates on UNCLOS were. It is a sincere hope that these negotiations on cyberspace norms reflect modern-day digital standards instead of slow nautical speeds that concern UNCLOS.
While the progress on the draft is generally a good development, the issue of cybersecurity and the prospect of adversaries fielding offensive military capabilities in cyberspace can’t be resolved on paper. Moreover, it would be advisable for India to first formulate and publish its own cybersecurity strategy and doctrine before getting involved in any UN level multilateral agreement or treaty.
As the Indian cybersecurity strategy presumably remains a work in progress, India’s only point of reference about its conduct in both civilian and military use of cyberspace can be its allies and partners in the common Indo-Pacific littoral region. Japan has recently published and adopted its new cybersecurity strategy, which will be the general guidance across sectors and departments of Japanese society and government respectively for the next three years.
The boldest move of Japan’s latest strategy is the un-hesitant designation of Russia, China and North Korea as cyber threats – even going so far as to attribute cause for their alleged hostile actions against their targets. To paraphrase and interpret, China and Russia in Japan’s eyes are driven by prospects of perpetrating Intellectual Property(IP) theft and by a desire to achieve political goals by other means(i.e. conducting hybrid war), respectively.
India should similarly identify problematic state-sponsored and non-state actors un-hesitantly in its own prospective strategy and update the document in a similar time frame of 2-3 years. While this is a more confrontational and proactive approach consistent with Japan’s capabilities and posture in the Indo-Pacific against China recently. For India, it will require both a political will to take a similar approach and technical prowess that would be imperative to attributing and tracking cyber perpetrators. Another aspect that India can draw from the Japanese document is the “whole of ecosystem” approach, which seeks to involve and safeguard all sectors and sections of society in the quest for bolstering its security in the cyber domain.
In conclusion, India should follow Japan’s example in its engagement domestically for a cyber strategy and internationally on any prospective cyber agreements.
The above expressed views are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect the recommendations of the Takshashila Institution
What India Can Bring to COP26
By Arjun Gargeyas
As heads of different states and climate researchers head to Glasgow to attend the 26th Conference of Parties organised by the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention(UNFCCC), the question of how to tackle the threat of climate change still remains unanswered. The global climate action plan requires a massive revamp, especially post the report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a few months ago. India and its active participation at the COP26 summit remain integral in the fight against climate change.Being a responsible climate leader, India can look to play the role of a mediator between the developing and developed countries. While increasing its own ambitions of reducing net emissions and improving clean energy infrastructure, India can look to support the states which are still dependent on traditional sources of energy to provide basic amenities to their citizens. Consistent efforts to ramp up clean energy production have made India almost achieve the target of 40% non-fossil fuel electricity generation capacity with 38.5% already having been installed in the country. This timely delivery of climate goals by India can also provide it adequate clout to call out the failure of the developed world to adhere to the agreed-upon climate goals.
Ideology in Xi’s China: The role of nationalism
Through the decades of reform and opening up, the impulse of nationalism dominated popular ideological discourse. It, along with economic performance, served as the key pillars shoring-up the Party’s legitimacy. Two events were decisive in shaping this direction. The first was the Tiananmen Square crisis of 1989, which threatened the Party’s ruling legitimacy. The second was Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour, which signalled an end to internal jostling over the direction of economic policy. Growth at any cost would now become the primary policy driver for the Party. This subsequent patriotic education campaign, of course, had a key role to play in this process too, along with key domestic and international developments.Read the full article in Hindustan Times.
The role of ideology in Xi Jinping’s China
There is an increasing sense around the world that under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party of China has doubled down on ideology. This is seen as a distinct turn away from the pragmatism that Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up had engendered. The argument goes that emerging from the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the subsequent chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Deng reoriented the Party’s mission away from class warfare and revolution towards economic prosperity. In this quest, he restructured the Party’s organisational system and redefined its relationship with the state, capital and society, loosening controls. Policies through the decades of reform and opening up, for many, had implied that China had begun transitioning to a post-ideological society, where ideological discourse provided a rhetorical connection to communism and socialism but lacked substance. This is the trend that has seemingly regressed or been rectified, depending on one’s viewpoint, with the emergence of Xi Jinping Thought as China’s guiding ideology after the 19th Party Congress in 2017.There are, of course, fundamental changes that are taking place in China under Xi Jinping. For instance, there is indeed greater discussion about inheriting red genes, the vitality of socialism and the superiority of the socialist system, and the goal of common prosperity. These are certainly also impacting policies with regard to the Party organisation, the role of private capital, approach to economic reform and social security policies. However, the argument that there is a return of ideology is epistemologically on shaky ground. Such an assessment, in fact, is a fundamental misinterpretation of the political evolution of the Chinese Party-state system. In part, this misinterpretation has been the product of the manner in which observers have approached the concept of ideology, and in part, it is a product of misreading the essential impulses that shape the Party’s ideology.Read the full article here in Hindustan Times
What I learnt about Digital India when I decided to buy a TV from defence canteen stores
India has seen a dream of Digital India. From the latest science to the latest technology, everything should be available at the tip of one’s finger.’ This is one among the many popular quotes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Eventually, what matters is the ease with which Indian citizens can fulfil their material needs. But unless the existing practices of ‘filling forms’ are simplified, the ‘Digital India’ dream cannot be realised.
The majority who are not digitally proficient and lack the means to get assistance are unable to partake of the dream. Despite extensive efforts at digitisation, the tip of the finger has to still confront old and redundant information gathering and analytical processes. Previously, the filling of forms was physical, now it is digital. The change has bypassed the fundamental purpose of change – ease of transaction. A recent experience is illustrative.
A ‘bubbles of trust’ approach
An asymmetric globalisation favouring China allowed Beijing to attain power. It is now using that power to undermine liberal democratic values around the world. The Chinese market was never open to foreign companies in the way foreign markets are to Chinese firms. This is particularly true in the information and communications technology sector: foreign media, technology and software companies have always been walled out of Chinese markets. Meanwhile, Chinese firms rode on the globalisation bandwagon to secure significant market shares in open economies. President Xi Jinping now formally requires Chinese firms to follow the political agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. But even before this, it was not possible to tell where private ownership ended and the party-state began.We are currently witnessing a global retreat from the free movement of goods, services, capital, people and ideas. But this should not be understood as a reaction to globalisation itself, but of its skewed pattern over the past four decades.Read the full article here.
चिनी हालचालींचा अंदाज
भारताच्या सीमेवर चीन जे करीत आहे, त्यामागे अनेक वर्षांचा विचार आणि पुढील अनेक दशकांचा वेध आहे. हा विचार केवळ भारतीय उपखंडाचा नाही, तर साऱ्या हिंद-प्रशांत क्षेत्राचा आहे. भारतालाही भविष्याचा वेध घेत पावले टाकायला हवीत...
भारतीय लष्कर आणि चीनची 'पीपल्स लिबरेशन आर्मी' यांच्यात अलीकडे प्रत्यक्ष ताबारेषेच्या चिनी बाजूकडील मोल्डो येथे कोअर कमांडर पातळीवर चर्चेची तेरावी फेरी पार पडली. पूर्व लडाखमधील हॉटस्प्रिंग्स येथील १५ क्रमांकाच्या गस्ती ठाण्यावरून दोन्ही बाजूंच्या फौजा मागे घेण्याचे उद्दिष्ट त्यात होते; परंतु या फेरीत कोंडी फुटली नाही. चीनच्या पश्चिम थिएटर कमांडच्या प्रवक्त्यांनी भारताकडून अवास्तव मागण्या होत असल्याचा आरोप केला. गेले १७ महिने दोन्ही लष्करे पूर्व लडाख सीमेवर अनेक ठिकाणी समोरासमोर उभी ठाकली आहेत. सप्टेंबर २०२०मध्ये प्रत्यक्ष ताबा रेषेवर ४५ वर्षांत प्रथमच गोळीबार झाला. पँगॉग सरोवराच्या दक्षिण तीराजवळ भारतीय लष्कराने भविष्यातील हालचालींचा वेध घेत काही मोहिमा केल्या. या पूर्वी अरुणाचल प्रदेशातील तुलुंग ला क्षेत्रात भारतीय गस्ती मोहिमेवर 'पीएलए'ने हल्ला चढविला; त्यावेळी भारत-चीन सीमेवरील गोळीबाराची घटना ऑक्टोबर १९७५मध्ये झाली होती. गेले १७ महिने चीन ज्या प्रकारे ठाण मांडून बसला आहे, त्याची व्याप्ती पाहिल्यास 'पीएलए'ने अशा झुंजीसाठी बरीच आधी तयारी केली असावी. सन २०२०च्या प्रारंभी तिबेटमध्ये सुरू झालेल्या मोठ्या लष्करी युद्धसरावातील सैनिक व प्रशिक्षणार्थी (कॉनस्क्रिप्ट्स-सैन्यातील अनिवार्य सेवेचे तरुण) यांच्या फौजा पूर्व लडाख सीमेकडे वळवण्यात आल्या. त्यातून हा झुंजीचा प्रसंग उभा राहिला. सीमेवर चीनने ज्या कारवाया सुरू केल्या, त्यांचा आवाका बघता भारतीय मुलकी व लष्करी गुप्तवार्ता यंत्रणांना धक्का बसला. या पूर्वी गेल्या दीड दशकात किमान तीन वेळा चीनने सीमा तंट्यावरून काही प्रदेश काबीज करण्याचा प्रयत्न केला होता. या घटना पुढील पेचप्रसंगाच्या निदर्शक होत्या. त्यातून भारतीय संरक्षण दले आणि सामरिक समुदायाला चीनचा पवित्रा बदलत असल्याची चाहूल लागायला हवी होती.
China’s Border law: The Why, What & What Next
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) passed a new law on October 23 for strengthening China’s border security management. The Land Border Law of PRC aims to improve coordination between the national, regional and local level authorities to maintain China’s national security and territorial integrity. It standardises how China patrols its massive 22,100 km land boundaries and borders with 14 countries. The law was first proposed in March 2021, approved at the closing meeting of the legislative session this Saturday and will go into effect by January 1, 2022.What is the law?With 62 clauses in seven chapters, the law underlines that “The PRC’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are sacred and inviolable and the state shall take measures to safeguard them.” It creates a legal framework for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and the border defence units to counter any invasion, encroachment, infiltration or provocation across its land borders.The article was originally published in the Times of India
US-China Missile Rivalry opens up New Opportunities for India
China has been showing off its hypersonic missiles for the past several years. That Chinese scientists have been publishing papers reporting their advances in such a sensitive field indicates that Beijing wants the world to know that it is developing these weapons. The US government is quite obviously aware of this. So one would not expect Washington to be greatly surprised to find that China has tested hypersonic missiles a couple of times this year.Yet, reports in the Financial Times and elsewhere have had US officials expressing shock at this development and comparing China’s hypersonic missile tests to a “Sputnik moment", a Cold War reference recalling how the Soviet Union surprised the world in 1957 by being the first to put an artificial satellite in orbit. We do not have the full details and Beijing’s missile is bound to be innovative in some ways, but the official reaction in Washington seems to be exaggerated.Read the full article on The Mint
The Geopolitics of the Arctic: What it Means for the EU, Russia and India
Cooperation on researching the melting permafrost in the Arctic region can bring together the EU, Russia and India
Why India, Taiwan should strengthen ties
By Arjun Gargeyas
As the world gets back on its feet from the Covid-19 pandemic while reeling under a global chip shortage, Taiwan has become an important geopolitical focal point. Taiwan’s stranglehold over the semiconductor industry and its overall technology expertise have demonstrated its strategic importance in the global world order.Taipei’s New Southbound Policy was envisaged by President Tsai Ing-wen to enhance cooperation between Taiwan and other major states in Southeast and South Asia. India, on the other hand, formulated the Act East Policy as a major diplomatic initiative to promote economic strategic relations with other states in the Indo-Pacific region.With both India and Taiwan looking to deepen diplomatic ties in their respective regions, now would be the opportune time for the two states to forge an alliance built on common interests.
(Re)Defining Social Media as Digital Communication Networks
This article originally appeared in TheQuint with the headline 'We Need a Better Definition for Social Media To Solve Its Problems.' An excerpt is reproduced here.
The Need For a New Term
There’s nothing wrong with an evolving term, but it must be consistent and account for future-use cases. Does ‘social media platforms’ translate well to the currently buzz-wordy ‘metaverse’ use-case, which, with communication at its core, shares some of the fundamental characteristics identified earlier? Paradoxically, the term ‘social media platform’ is simultaneously evolving and stagnant, expansive yet limiting.This is one of the reasons my colleagues at The Takshashila Institution and I proposed the frame of 'Digital Communication Networks' (DCNs), which have three components — capability, operators and networks.Read More
Neither MoD nor MHA can resolve the unacceptable state of affairs on Indo-Tibetan Border
The Indo-Tibetan border continues to be actively problematic and the trajectory of the current geopolitical events seem to indicate that politico-military tensions will endure. The lack of progress in the 13th India-China Corps Commanders talks and the two military incidents in Tawang and Barahoti are but symptoms of the continuing tensions. Conflict in its varied forms is on the cards. Yet, India’s political leadership and national security practitioners seem to be blind to the dangers posed and opportunities missed in effectively manning the active border.Read the full article in ThePrint
India needs a framework to regulate the use of artificial intelligence
The White House Offiice of Science and Technology Policy called for a new Charter of rights for the 21st century last week, aptly titled the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bill of Rights. These rights are envisioned as the first step to ensure the protection of established norms of civil rights, and aim to direct the development and use of technology in ways that are compatible with constitutional mandates, furthering the interpretation of the Bill of Rights in today’s world of data and algorithms.Such initiatives are gaining momentum across the world. The European Union (EU) proposed the Artificial Intelligence Act this summer, initiating conversations on regulating the development and use of AI. The objective was to create conditions for the effective functioning of the EU’s single market, adhering to standards of safety and governance while creating legal certainty.Read the full article on Hindustan Times
Make Public India’s Doctrine on use of Force, it’ll Dispel notion that we are Non-Committal
The strategic community might have received more cud to chew on when an independent and multidisciplinary Indian group released a Discussion Document titled ‘India’s Path to Power – Strategy in a World Adrift’. on 2 October. In 2011, several members of this group were associated with Non-Alignment 2.0. It says: “The guiding premise of the present document is that India’s external and internal environments are now being shaped by tectonic shifts—incipient trends that require thinking afresh and calibrating India’s strategy on a broad front. A new world needs new ideas from time to time….This document is an effort to focus our attention on the need for concentrated strategic thought and encouraging a debate about the hard choices that confront India in the decade ahead.”
Adopting the perspective of a decade, the strategic compass of the document attempts to steer India’s path to power through the realisation of its potential in a world adrift in the waters of growing geopolitical tensions that could severely test India’s statecraft. Adopting a strategic approach is imperative and doing the right things paramount in contrast to just doing it right. The writings on India’s geopolitical wall are seemingly ominous, and what the country decides about the role of force may take centre stage. Without it, India’s development of military power and its application could cost us dearly.
Read the full article in The Print.
Leaked Documents open a Pandora’s Box of Issues
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a non-profit organisation based in the United States. It is fully funded by donations, and donor details are available on its website, as are its annual reports. Its 2020 annual report says that its annual expenses were $4.7 million (about Rs 35 crore). The ICIJ has a small, core group of 280 investigative reporters who operate through various offices worldwide and is also supported by a network of members from more than hundred countries.Read the full article in Free Press Journal