[Uhmm…Smellin’ good, friend!]
Come January 20, 2025, Donald J Trump will be re-installed as US President after the Joe Biden interregnum. And leaders all over are wondering what their rank-order will be in his court. The first invitation sent out to a foreign leader to attend Trump’s inauguration, not surprisingly, was to the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, who visited him in his MaraLago home. Orban is a leader Trump has lauded for his autocratic ways, and whom he would readily emulate if allowed to do so by a US Congress his Republican Party controls. Except, the two Houses of the American legislature, especially the US Senate (upper house), are more respectful of their own separate and distinct identities, roles, and prerogatives. They more often stymie their own party’s president than, say, the Hungarian Országház (House of the Nation) has done Orban since he assumed office, or indeed the National Democratic Alliance, with a majority in Parliament, has done its Prime Minister in India, Narendra Modi.
President Xi Jinping of China received such an invitation yesterday. Should Xi betake himself to Washington, he could soon be busy cutting mutually beneficial deals with Trump. And this is the US the Modi regime expects to rely on for assistance against China?
By the way, Modi has yet to receive his invitation.
But the Indian government has been outfront currying favour, extolling Trump’s return to power in Washington, with the External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, claiming “a personal relationship” between Modi and the US leader, and revealing — in a self-satisfied way — that Modi’s call of congratulations after the elections was among the first three from foreign leaders that Trump answered. India, he implied, hoped to ride the American bandwagon on two counts. According to Jaishankar, India “missed the manufacturing bus in the 1990s, early 2000s” and hopes to make up for it by benefiting from the global supply chains moving away from China. Except, because of the by now trademark tardiness of the Modi government in reforming the regressive land acquisition and labour laws, most of these supply chains have already set up shop in Vietnam and Malaysia, transnational companies being impressed less by the rhetoric of “reform, perform, transform” than by the actual “ease of doing business” on the ground, where the needle has moved very little. India may thus miss the manufacturing bus once again, exacerbating the already impossible unemployment situation in the country, and keeping the country rooted in the ranks of Third World states.
And Jaishankar praised Trump for putting the Quad on the rails during his first term, and pooh-poohed Trump’s threat to punish countries for de-dollarising international trade by imposing 100% tariffs on BRICS countries, saying because the US was India’s largest trade partner New Delhi had no interest in hurting the dollar. The problem is will the incoming Trump Administration see trade in local currencies that this group is certainly pushing, to wit, the new rupee-rouble trade agreement, as undermining the primacy of the American currency? If it does, then India will get it in the neck because, unlike Russia with energy and minerals to sell, and China with every consumer item produced under the sun and, by cornering vast mineral resources all over the world, as the prime source of rare earths and minerals to sell, India has nothing to offer except its manpower. This Modi and Jaishankar have not been shy of highlighting.
But, as mentioned in the previous post, transacting in scientific, engineering and managerial talent in a buyer’s market is an iffy proposition. Any number of East and Central European states — the preferred sources of white manpower, would happily export trained engineers and scientists, were it not that Indian technical talent comes cheaper. Despite this selling point, the buyer can still set his terms. It means the US holds the whiphand, and there’s nothing India can do about it.
This is unlike China, which had the strategic foresight to emphasize from Maozedong’s time, high quality education particularly in mathematics and the sciences at the lower and high school levels until now when it has developed a solid STEM base and has emerged as peer rival to America, and India is nowhere in the picture. Because Nehru’s India, instead invested in building renowned institutions of engineering and management — IITs and IIMs, paving the way for millions of Indians graduating from these institutions over the years to settle down in the US and Europe. Meaning, these science, engineering and management graduates, their education entirely subsidized by the Indian taxpayer, were merely polished up by American universities for high-tech jobs in the post-industrial economies in the US and western Europe. A more one-sided bountiful arrangement to transfer intellectual and, potentially, material wealth from a poor India to the rich West cannot be conceived, short of the brigandage of the kind indulged in by the East India Company. Recall that the estimated wealth transferred from India to Britain in the latter’s imperial hey-day was in excess of $45 TRILLION (at current exchange rate)!!! An analyst some 50 years ago calculated that the shift of Indian technical talent to America was worth many times more than all the development and food aid amounting to $10 billion the US had given India in 1960s and 1970s.
But America’s “Dil maange more“! Mukesh Aghi, President of the non-government US-India Strategic Partnership Forum was pretty plain in his messaging about life for the rest of the world in Trump’s second presidency. He urged India to “play a pivotal role in rebuilding America” and to “Align yourself with what Trump is trying to achieve, which is America First”!!! And, here we have the poor souls, Modi and Jaishankar and the rest of the Indian bureaucratic caboodle and the Indian military, fondly believing the US, other than compelling India to buy American weaponry, will help them build a modern and economically prosperous India!
So, may be, the people in the Indian government need to alter their sights somewhat. For no small reason because Trump has indicated where he is headed. He nominated an out and out Khalistani sympathizer, Harmeet Dhillon, to the powerful post of Assistant Attorney General for civil rights in the US Justice Department. The Chandigarh-born, newly minted Californian, Dhillon has been pretty ranty on X (Twitter) about “India’s death squads targeting diaspora Sikhs”, etc. and is something of a Republican Party activist and celebrity in the American Sikh community. If Biden’s Democratic Party officials gleefully wagged an admonitory finger at India’s record on minority rights, wait till Harmeet assumes office and sinks her teeth into American Sikh grievances against the Indian state. Who knows, she might actually charge Home Minister Amit Shah and/or NSA Ajit Doval with masterminding the alleged assasination attempt against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Khalistani terrorist and chief mischief-maker, terminating in a trice the possibility of either Shah or Doval visiting the US anytime soon lest they get arrested on American soil.
Luckily for Modi Kash Patel, a fellow Gujrati, may help out and then again, perhaps, not. Kash’s adoring father commenting, without a hint of irony, on his son’s nomination as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wrote: that until recently Kash was managing his motel or potel — as roadside inns/hotels owned by the enterprising Patels from East Africa are known, now he will be managing the FBI! Assuming he is confirmed by the US Senate, Kash as head of this agency could go one of two ways on the Khalistan issue. Other than his promise to disembowel the FBI by ridding the agency of its intelligence collecting functions, which he deems is redolent of the “deep state” in the US that Trump and his acolytes are determined to bring down, he could ‘deep six’ the case against the alleged Indian government-hired assasins — Nikhil Gupta and Vikas Yadav, and otherwise ditch Harmeet Dhillon’s efforts to embarass the Indian government. Or, he can fan the embers of Dhillon’s campaign and pretty much end Modi-Jaishankar’s official lovefest with America. Unless Trump steps in to stop the slide in bilateral relations.
But then, he my have bigger fish to fry.
Security Wise 
@BharatKarnad
“India has nothing to offer except its manpower”- but what about life saving drugs, pharmaceuticals, organic chemicals and textiles i know all these are quite small in front of minerals and energy but sir we still are exporting many critical items of significant percentage other then manpower.
Rajeev , on pharmaceuticals , we are dependent upon the Chinese for important fundamental chemicals. Ditto for textile and others. If the Chinese want they can replace India from the supply chain altogether by putting up a country like Vietnam or Mexico as preferred point of assembly.
It’s not the size of the population that matters but the quality of it. Tiny denmark, Sweden and Norway contribute far more to the scientific knowledge than us. I had read somewhere that only 0.1% of Indians are above 110 iq, and most of them leave the country at the first opportunity. Disconcertingly large swathes of our population is inutile, and will not amount to anything—a deadweight that will drag us forever.
This “inutile” population is multiplying; in a few decades from now, we will resemble the movie Idiocracy— we’re already there in large parts of the country. Only Sanjay Gandhi understood the problem and had the humane solution for it.
Chinese have been ‘selecting’ there population for a long time. Now, with the advent of CRISPR gene editing tool, they are improving their stock, whereas we are consumed by peasant quarrels.
Rajeev Mathur@ — You are calling the 99% Indians as dull headed duds and a drag on the so called “intelligent”people.
Change your views.
Professor,
GIven China’s current economic and military weakness, it is to be expected that the US will not require India as much, and will therefore try to contain both China and India. However, India realizes this and will be under no illusion. At the same time, China is still India’s biggest threat – so I expect India will first try to befriend the US as it has much to gain from its capabilities. But if the US acts too tough, I expect India to mix up the game and cozy up much more to China. That is the best way for India to manage the US. And one more thing India needs to do is not mess up its neighbourhood too much – so handle the Bangaldesh issue diplomatically and covertly than going overty aggressive, and play into US hands. And hit back at the US covertly, diplomatically and economically as well to keep things somehwat in balance.
Instead of whining about the Khalistanis; India, through sober print media, could have spent that time exposing Khalistanis as a far-right movement, not so dissimilar from the Banderites.
Democracy truly is a bane of our existence. Rule by these pygmies, in a carnivore world, will be our Achilles’ heel. In a sane world Modi, Gandhi family and all the politicos along with Media noise-makers would have been relegated to work on the farm. Chinese system and people are truly admirable in that sense.
For game theory purpose let us suppose India has nothing tangible to offer , then it can start investing its resources in being a nuisance in international affairs similar to how Mao’s China was during the 50’s and 60’s. He made China participate in the Korean War ,which pushed the Americans back to 38th parallel, supported almost every single communist insurgency at that time by training ,funding and educating the insurgents in guerrilla warfare and in process tried to turn the existing world order on its head .But the Question remains, will India do it ?…
That being said , Vietnam and other southeast asian nations have done well in manufacturing because these nation states have benefited from steady investment and low-tech technology transfer from China with their economies acting as extensions of their Chinese counterparts with their geographical proximities playing a significant role in it. For example Vietnam acts as an economic extension of Shenzhen , where the low level consumer goods exported from Hanoi fuel the service and hi-tech industries of Shenzhen.India on the other hand shares its border with Tibet , a politically sensitive region with little to no industries and no major economic value with the majority of the native population harbouring secessionist tendencies .
But Dr Karnad I don’t exactly support your views on Indian economy. We have benefitted from the recent supply chain disruptions. Taiwanese , Japanese and South Koreans are coming in our electronic(& Semiconductor) sector in a big way. Our Iphone exports crossed $10 billion last Financial Year , overtaking traditional export items like garments.The government will be imposing a form of import ban on laptops next year , which would then kickstart their domestic production . Most of the Electronic manufacturer who had applied for the PLI scheme have outdone their export targets , underlining the success of the (electronic)industrial policies of the present political dispensation.
Jaishankar ,when candidly talking about “missing manufacturing bus” with his Australian counterparts should notice the difference in the geopolitical change that took place in the 1990s and the one taking place right now. The one in the 90s was primarily the destruction of the Eastern Block , with its Western counterpart rapidly encroaching on its “sphere of influence” undergirded by Free Market Capitalism , heralding the start of Open era Globalization, where the nation state with the ability to provide goods or/and services at the cheapest price possible got investment and technology. What is happening now ,is the fracturing of the American led “West-o-sphere” world order and the end of Open era Globalization. Nations states are now pivoting away from supply changes which were created from purely economic perspective to the ones which are now created with keeping security and geography in mind. Globalization is giving way to Regionalization . With increasing levels of violence(Ukr-Rus War ,Gaza-Isreal Conflict,Burmese Civil War ),Destabalizing actions of China , Reinvigorated Radical Islam and increasing levels of socio-political disruptions carried out by Sino-Western funded and controlled new age era technologies like AI,Machine Learning,Quantum Computing ,etc may make nation states paranoid about their sense of security. This may lead to new age Garrison States( first proposed by Henrold Laswell in 1940’s). So if India wants to do well as a country , it has to transition into a net security provider in its region and narrow down it manufacturing ambition to excelling in just 4 to 5 industries and should self sufficient capability(not export oriented) in the rest.
But I wonder if the troika of Ex JNU Dr Jaishankar, Self Annointed Security “Expert” Mr Doval and Mr Modi understand such fine complexities much less do something about them.
Foodometry@ — Curious, but in arguing for a raft of disruptive policies and strategies in my 2015 book – Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet), I suggested their value was precisely in proving an enormous nuisance to the status quo powers and international and regional orders.
The trouble is, as I also pointed outg, our political and bureaucratic class think of India as an honorary status quo power — like the Japanese who were designated “honorary whites’ by the apartheid regime in South Africa!
Dr Karnad , at the panel discussion of your 2015 book – Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet) that took place at CPR(whose video is available on youtube), Dr Shivshankar Menon , said disruptive and assertive policies were signs of a declining power !!.This is coming from an ex-NSA no less. That means that our Indian “nomenklatura” not only normalises subjugation mindset but justifies it using wonky social-scientific theories. We need to invest in Institutes that produce quality social scientific theories and not the nonsense that is going on right now .
The 25 Sept 2015 launch of my book — Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet) was at the Habitat Centre, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmP7rubT3dk
Professor, the India of today is not the same as the India five years back. I think post Covid there are a couple of good examples where India has held its own course – Russian oil and how it has handled terror handlers. So to keep saying that India is a status quoist power would be an inaccurate assessment. It’s actions are changing the status quo.
It is not doing things in the manner in which you would like it to – like thermo nuclear testing, nuclear arming China’s neighbours etc., but it is doing things which are causing nuisance to the current powers and changing global dynamics. And I will bet it will do more if Trump also misbehaves with India. It would be tragic if that were to happen, but great power politics is tragedy.
Email from Dr V. Siddhartha, former Technology adviser to Defence Minister:
V Siddhartha
From:gondeeza@gmail.com
To:bharat karnad
Thu, 12 Dec at 8:07 pm
Re: “….Or, he can fan the embers of Dhillon’s campaign and pretty much end Modi-Jaishankar’s official lovefest with America.”
I so wish T.Rex does exactly that.
VS
We can not replicate the 20th century Chinese geopolitics because a) America wasn’t a sole superpower and had an actual rival in Soviet Union; b) Chinese Governing Model allowed it to secure its interest.
In 21st century, there is no rival to the American Empire. Economic, information, covert and overt warfare can be deployed against a ‘distruptor’ nation to shape its behaviour. And the more democratic it is, the easier it is to control.
Even the so called ‘BRICS Bank” is in compliance with the western sanctions on Russia. Imagine the havoc Americans are capable of causing if we were to go fully against it. Would politicians, worried as they are about relection, go against the full might of the American Empire?
A doubt completely unrelated to the topic at hand
Dr Karnad you gave a CLAWS talk on Impact of Technology on Warfare at Manekshaw Center on 6 September 2017. At the near end , You narrate an incident that took during Narasimha Rao’s time as PM.The then naval chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat asked for the 10th finance commission report with recommendations made by you but was refused.Why didn’t Narasimha Rao hand him the report ?
Apparently because someone in Rao’s PMO felt that my conclusions were explosive! In the main, I concluded that the military services invariably misspend the scarce financial resources allotted them with hardware buys, that far from forward-looking, look to fight the proverbial “previous war”!
I see ..anyways it was a great talk Dr Karnad , even after 7 years it is so insightful .
Sir, if possible publish your views on SFDR missile aka ASTRA 3 which is very crucial to secure parity with the Chinese. DRDO just conducted a – as claimed- breakthrough test. But any air to air missile has to be tested many times in many scenarios. I believe SFDR is going to take another 5 years to be ready for induction. This Astra MK3 is a magnitude more difficult than the basic ASTRA missile. From what I’ve heard, DRDO was facing problems with the functioning of the Ramjet, but I do hope the basics are solved by now. We do have the proven tech for seeker, the warhead, navigation system, rear control fin tech etc. The challenging part would be to design an encrypted data link to and fro from the fighter to escape jamming and proving the throttleable ramjet for various optimum speeds and heights.The fuze is another hurdle. Then finding out the AOA of the missiles in various scenarios is important as in this configuration the missile body can disturb the airflow to the ramjet. Whether it will do a roll to bank like the Meteor or skid is to be known. It’s clear from the official picture that it can always be converted into a long range SAM missile. I would not be surprised if this configuration has been chosen for the project kusha long range SAM.
Gagandeep — You have said a lot!
Sir on 12 September, 2012 you had written in the Asian Age : ” BJP should have honed its social conservatism to preserve and protect the composite socio-cultural fabric of the nation as the best antidote to the virus of violent dissent and terrorism in a manner Edmund Burke might have approved. And in the economic realm, the nostrums relating to self-help, minimising the state’s role, and the free market propagated by Friedrich von Hayek would have helped the BJP shape appropriate measures. Together this body of beliefs, policy guidelines, and attendant value system would have comprised a comprehensive ideology enabling tectonic changes in the state while capitalising on the people’s nationalistic spirit, entrepreneurial genius, and the inherently conservative nature of Indian society. Instead, the BJP has opted for the centrist mulch. Absent the grand themes to cotton on to, such nationalism as it is able to muster at the grassroots level inclines its cadres to Muslim-bashing and external threat-perception fixated on Pakistan – a reason for India’s great power pretensions not being taken seriously.”
How profound !
It seems those eggs of egregious anti-Muslim anti-minority rhetoric in the social media over the years are coming to roost now, with the international media including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC and others turning dead against government which in turn informs the opinion of American elites. And if India manages to antagonise American elites after China, its goose is surely cooked.
While it is a fact that Modi’s personal equation with World leaders including Trump and surprisingly Gulf leaders too is great, it matters little when your cadres bend double over backwards to pit India as the civilisational antithesis of the Muslim World and Christiandom.
Regarding Trump’s second coming, an event like ‘Howdi Modi’ will not work anymore because Modi is no longer a new kid on the block with an overwhelming appeal and promise if the last general elections are any pointer. But what about hosting Trump in ‘Howdi Trump’ in India ? After all the leader of what hue and colour is not susceptible to ‘chamchi’ (sweet talk) and ‘chugli’ (backbiting) ?
Regarding anti-Muslim diatribe of BJP sympathisers on social media, one part of me has a contrarian viewpoint too. Pakistani social media handles loose no opportunity to show India and Indians in a bad light. A case in point is that of India’s premium fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah with an unorthodox but clean bowling action whom Pakistanis though knowing fully well that he is a genuine claimant to the throne vacated by legendary Wasim Akram loose no opportunity to project as a ‘chucker’ in an effort to mould cricketing world’s opinion by twice crying wolf. If BJP cadres won’t take on Pakistanis, won’t India lose out the propaganda war to puny Pakistan too, given that it has already ceded space to China in that realm were Praveen Sawhney’s notions to be believed ?
Coming back to Trump, I expect Modi’s personal equations and Indian market’s irresistible pull to hold a little longer which Trump after initial bravado will also come to realise and would like American companies, in your own words, “to profitably hook into”. And without a quid there is no pro !
Parallels between White enslavement of blacks and Muslim enslavement of Hindus would suggest a natural understanding of the plight of Hindus, and their Résistance. What drives some western support for right-wing Muslims and their party(Congress)? Do the westerners think the united-progressive-Hindu India would become too prosperous, similar to the united China, and, therefore, seek to inject chasms? Or, the rise of anti-semitism is in keeping with rise of anti-hindu sentiments— as a sign of emergence of White-supremacist and Muslim-supremacist alliance.
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news/story/us-immigration-customs-enforcement-ice-deportation-list-donald-trump-indians-list-around-18000-undocumented-immigrants-2649243-2024-12-13
Choicest comments from the comments section of the aforementioned;
Oct 25, Times of India : ” Between Oct 1, 2023 and Sept 30, 2024 – 90,415 Indians were were caught trying to the enter the US illegally according to US Customs and Border Protection data. Of this total, roughly *50% were from Gujarat*, sources in Indian agencies tracking illegal immigration said. ”
Please send all these desh drohi jokers back to India. Modi is eagerly waiting for them. Why are they immigrating to Christian US & European countries? Why don’t they stay in Modi’s ramrajya? Indians are the biggest group of illegal immigrants in the World but behave like rabid dogs if any immigrants come to India.
@BharatKarnad In your learned view, why has Trump invited Jinping when he’s clear about starting a trade war and imposing tariffs on the latter?
To cut a deal, as I have warned.
@BharatKarnad Jinping seems to have rejected the invite. Now what? Also, how will Trump treat Turkey/Erdogan and Aliyev/Azerbaijan? Will it be like the last time when he threw the Kurds under the bus so that Turkey could launch a military operation against them?
Why wait for Trump, the Biden Admin as already thrown their ally — the Kurds, under the bus.
Modiji cant be take decisions independently ,opposite leaders and loopholes in our law are pulling down our growth and development. .china have one man show that’s helping their power and growth.
Nice read however the article doesn’t offer any hope and make things look too depressing, our problems are too big to overcome and even maintaining status Quo requires great effort. It’s relatively simple to offer drastic solutions but very difficult to implement reforms on ground.
For example just look at a recent reform which was supposed to make it compulsory to teach Maths and Computers in Madarsas but islamic outfits resisted and stopped it.
same goes with other laws like UCC , NRC which is key to control population and illegal migration.
IMO Modi govts work is laudable in areas of defence, foreign relations etc given how fragile country is and dependent on Other Powers.
Modi’s fellow Gujarati is in big trouble in the land of Uncle Sam;
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/indians-abroad/story/indian-national-pleads-guilty-attempting-entice-13-year-old-girl-sexual-activity-undercover-agent-online-sting-operation-2652282-2024-12-19
@BharatKarnad
sir can you please write a post regarding pakistan’s demand of second strike capability from china in exchange for military use of gwadar port
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d37zg1549o
In my opinion the construction of this dam will result in earthquakes, landslides etc in Uttarakhand, Himachal furthermore China can use this Dam to flood Indian border states.
What do you say Mr. Karnad & fellow readers?
High dams in mountains are a juicy target, as I pointed out in my 2015 book — Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), for the value in prioritising the targeting of the Three Gorges and subsidiary dams complex that would devastate much of China’s agricultural and industrial wealth-producing land downriver to Nanjing.
@BharatKarnad
professor is there any possibility on this earth that Pakistan can get an SSN or an SSBN(SSBN highly unlikely though) but at least an SSN from China in exchange for even more military access of Gwadar to China
for the past 2-3 days this topic has been discussed in the media
i know they have purchased AIP based Yuan class submarines and can fit 450km Babur SLCM missiles but can they get a dedicated delivery system like a SSN?
would love to know your views on this?
China can hand over an SSN to Pak Navy should India’s maritime opl edge get too much for PLAN to handle
yeah if Indian navy gets a edge in this region China will handover an SSN they can also say if Australia can get a SSN from USA why not Pakistan?
what should be our response then speeding up our SSN development which just started couple of months ago or giving nuclear armaments to Vietnam, Philippines
and professor i am glad that one of your long time policy recommendation is finally being implemented a deal worth $700 million for the sale of Brahmos to Vietnam is to be signed within few months .
kaveri engine approved for inflight testing does that mean for tejas or ghatak
UCAV
@BharatKarnad A former IL-76 navigator with the last name of Vaidya recently told a publication or website called AFI that the IAF should go in for the F-35 instead of the Su-57. Do you know who Vaidya and AFI are? I tried in vain to find out as there are many persons who were formerly in the IAF in ranks like Marshal with the last name Vaidya and the search for AFI didn’t yield any result. This news was posted on IDRW.org. Unfortunately, the hyperlink to AFI is protected, therefore one can’t open it.
Also, do you think Trump will try to make Modi buy F-35?
Know of no Vaidya in IAF. But F-35 for IAF has been advocated by many air force brass over the years, such as retired Air Marshal Anil Chopra, a former head of the IAF-funded thainktank CAPS! Go figure!
@BharatKarnad I didn’t understand what you meant by go figure? Can you tell me what you meant?
Speculate!
Ganesh@ — sincere advice: please don’t believe in IDRW.org it is a scam defense website(saying because i personally experienced it) half of their post are self made assumptions .It is simply not a credible website for defense news.
@BharatKarnad If like you say Biden has thrown the Kurds under the bus, then doesn’t that make Trump’s boast of eliminating the so-called Islamic State hollow? Wouldn’t then Trump have to use the US military in Syria against the IS more so since Erdogan supports IS and his puppet Al-Sharra of HTS is the dictator in Syria?
One more thing, before exiting Trump designated Houthis as FTO, Biden reversed it, now Biden has lifted bounty on Sharra’s head, will Trump reimpose it?
Who knows and who cares? Because Washington apparently does not.
@BharatKarnad
professor just now a sad news incoming former prime minister Manmohan Singh ji passed away in AIIMS Delhi may his soul RIP can you please write a post Highlighting his contributions to India during his tenure
Professor Karnad, ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is no more ! You have in the past written very bluntly on him when discussions for Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal were in progress. Won’t you post a passing obituary to him ? I would have published pick of your views on him but for the last minute hold that there should be dignity in death.
Agree. The dead deserve respect.
@BharatKarnad
Chinese just revealed their next 5.5 generation or maybe even 6th generation jet(not sure whether it is 6th gen but certainly it is an upgraded 5th gen ) in a maiden flight such a shame that we are stuck at LCA mk2 and have not mass inducted mk1 yet whereas soon our main adversary will overwhelm us conventionally considering they have already overwhelmed us in nuclear and cyber
thermonuclear weapons and reverse engineering are one of the remaining solution and our best bet to face them
Chinese are clearly on the path of replacing united states as the main superpower if not now then maybe in next 30 years
will we ever stand a chance against China in future professor would love to know your views on this latest development?
Yes Professor Karnad, in my view too you are missing out on a big event by not writing on Chinese Sixth Generation aircraft and ramifications it has for India. I understand lack of expected numbers of quality readership on blog and your busyness with your new book aren’t big inducements for writing very frequently. But there are people like me who look forward to your impartial write-ups.
May be you would have made big money and secured a political office too by siding up with a political party, but you never hankered for vested readership and chose to plough your lone furrow. And we have high regard for you for that.
And I might be wrong. You must be publishing your write-ups simultaneously in leading dailies fetching you royality which I’m not aware of as I only read TOI.
Coming back to Chinese test and @adityamishra assuming that China would be no. 1 power in 30 years, Chinese avowed goal is to achieve that by 2028 and they are already No.1 economy in PPP terms. Chinese population is inspired by virtues of entrepreneurship, nation love and nation first contrary to American hedonism and Indian I, my and me first, fissured as they are by religion, regionalism and casteism. And Chinese no-nonsense system brings them in alignment with national goals whereas we haven’t yet overcome basic problems like high-end corruption, poverty, education and health.
Indian leadership just like Manmohan Singh didn’t, is again not heeding to the warnings and one more time in history military card will trump the economic card, but this time the aggressor would not be a maritime power half a globe away or a theocracy to the north-west, but a seemingly benign neighbour – benign because we are occupied by falsehood of our own invincibility or the the big wars having turned redundant with ideas of liberalism, democracy and diplomacy percolating throughout the world -across the Himalayas.
Gagandeep@ — A few points:
1) My consistent hardline-smart hard power nationalist viewpoint is not acceptable to mainline media that, like the country’s policies have an indiscriminate tilt US/West-wards that I find detrimental to national interest. What I write discomfits persons and organisations, and is inconvenient for the government and those in authority. I had columns in many media outlets. These were terminated because the outlets were queasy about what I wrote and how I wrote with a “take no prisoners”-style! And I post on ‘Security Wise’ when I think something’s of special interest to me, not on every passing development.
2) When I write (including in this blog), I write without being swayed by extraneous factors, and as a harsh equal-opportunity critic of whosoever and whatever government is in power, often biting the hand that fed me! Because I write in good faith but without malice and expectation of gain or loss, or with consideration for anybody’s sensitivities, and over the years credibility has accrued to my way of thinking and to my books and writings and, albeit, even grudging appreciation all round. My writings are accessed by people who need to read it. ‘Nuff said!
3) The fleshing of alternate policy options got me close in the years past to several open-minded, intellectually curious, political leaders who, besides personal interaction, appointed me to posts in a Constitutional body (Finance Commission) and a statutory orgainisation (National Security Advisory Board) and inserted in Indian delegations in 1+ track talks in the face of stiff resistance from babus. And there was sufficient interest in my views in the military, which continues to this day, for me to be invited to lecture at the top institutions of military training in the country (these inivitations are more sporadic now), and commissioned to conceive and conduct the first inter-agency wargame, and to participate in wargames conducted by the NSC, and to task me to conceive and conduct the annual Strategic Nuclear Orientation Course for Brigadier-level officers and up for the Defence Ministry — which I did for several years, a Course now sadly discontinued by the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies that was supposed to carry on with it.
4) Have earned almost nothing from my books and writings. And at CPR, I had just my salary. There’s no money in it, unless you are a Shobha Dey or Chetan Bhagat writing crap (TOI)! Incidentally, I am frequently approached to commercialise this blog, to run advertisements, insert certain opinion pieces, etc. — advice I have not heeded.
5) I am more fortunate than most, however, to be in a position where I owe nobody nothing, and can afford with my writings to alienate just about any and everybody! A famous line by a rock star, the late Janice Joplin, from my years in California reverbrates in my mind all the time — “Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose”!
@BharatKarnad You’ve already said some of your self-descriptions from the about section of this personal website-cum-blog of yours. Can you please tell me what you mean when you describe yourself here as India’s foremost conservative strategist and on what parameters? Also, can you tell what you mean by conservative?
Conservative strategist: No half-measures! No progressive notions of deterrence — small is good enough, etc.. And, risk-acceptant efforts and all conceivable resources on deck to realise decisive outcomes.
@BharatKarnad Is all that you’ve said here also the reason you don’t appear or get invited for debates on English TV news channels? I think I last saw you on a debate on CNN-News18 this year.
You’d have to ask the TV Cos., I am afraid!
With a little bit of poking I have succeeded in taking out of you something immensely readable, professor. Mediocrity is a virtue when one is born among the idiots. I have experienced it first hand.
In international affairs no leader is a friend. It is too naive for anyone to call Trump, Putin or Xi as anyone’s friend who would give special favours or show leniency in their national policy.
Quite so.