First India

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I have studied the American Presidency over many years to understand crowd psychology, brand building and communication. My research probes the historical evidence of what it takes to winning and holding that office. My perspective is that of a professional brand builder, storyteller and practitioner of communication. In particular, I have researched those who have occupied the office of the President since the 20th century and onwards. The list includes Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Harry Truman, F.D.Roosevelt or the more recent Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George.W. Bush, Obama or Donald Trump. To my mind, linked to the outcome of the American Presidential election is the political future of the two political streams – Democratic liberalism versus ‘Trump style Republicanism’. I have studied political communication in every major election in India, US and the UK as a project in self-education. In this capacity, my take on the underlying moral quality of any political proposition does not matter. It is the positioning and the response that it gets from the electorate that I study. My position is that President Donald Trump‘s apparent failure in getting re-elected may well lead to the cementing of a ‘Trump conservatism’ in the right-wing politics of America. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Being at the apex of the power structure in the United States of America is a serious enterprise. The world looks for substance where substance matters. Issues, ideas and directional initiatives matter most and are vitally important to holding Presidential power. President Trump had several aberrations which were unlike those of a typical political player who ascends to this level. He was an outsider with uncharacteristic traits. He was clearly loath to follow democratic norms especially in tactical decision making and railed against institutions all kinds. He also fuelled mistrust against liberals and liberalism. Trump was – on the face of it – an attacker of the established elites and he ran his Presidency like a reality show. He had political smarts and could work a crowd. He knew how to draw and keep attention. However the tenacity and mindful application of a political strategy was always missing. From day one, his administration was forever in a flux. He was thin skinned and extremely reactive. He couldn’t build a team of effective high calibre Advisers. Unlike most establishments –The Bush, Clinton and Kennedy political establishments for example – he did not create any networks of patronage. So, what are the obvious things to watch out for in an elite presidential persona? The first is cynicism. Even in a polarised world people like their president to be on the solution side and not one who continuously and cynically repeats the problem statement. Much of what Trump did to get to power he could not deliver via committed policy. He did raise the China issue effectively but it was a case of too little too late. The second obvious learning is to avoid being erratic. This is seen in terms of the talent that you attract, the policies that you follow through and how transparent you are in discussing the operations and delivery. “If you are not with me you are my enemy” cannot be a healthy way to sustain momentum and build alliances. Finally the presidential brand suffers if the incumbent is arrogant, complaining and insultingly direct. A President can’t be seen as oscillating between being a whiner or a know it all. It devastates brand aura. What is likely to be the future of Trump style politics in America? Intelligent analysis by those who understand life in Washington tends to believe that the Republicans are happy to say goodbye to Trump but retain Trump-ism As a party, they have control of the Senate and a larger presence then normal in the Congress. They also have a well-conditioned and sympathetic Supreme Court thanks to the several nominations made. Therefore, the Republicans are likely to focus on putting a more solid political mainstream person in charge of Trumpism and hope to gain ground across states. Let us not forget that no Republican has won the popular vote in the Presidential elections since 2004. A good right-wing plan will be to build on Trump’s loss, and gain leverage on whatever political crisis the next administration is unable to battle. Trump may be gone but Trumpwism is here to stay and win in an environment of “Illiberal democracy “

My entire career has been working with global brands and companies. I have worked in great multinationals such as Unilever, Visa and Diageo. I have had the privilege of managing global brands in highly competitive categories. I am a supporter of competitive free markets that are sensibly regulated. I sincerely believe that corporations should be exposed to natural competition and the risk of failure. Otherwise they will not be efficient and the fruits of their sustained success will not accrue to society at large. Capital is the accumulated saving of society. It must fetch return. A global corporation is an important institution in the modern world. There is enormous concentration of wealth and influence in the top 1000 corporate entities of the world. Just one American company Amazon now has a market capitalization that is fast approaching the nominal GDP of India! Companies are legal entities, but they are also mortal. The average life expectancy of a multinational corporation — Fortune 500 or its equivalent is 40 years. This has been studied by many management thinkers –Jim Collins, Arie de Geus, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Richard Pascale amongst others. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Undeniably, management has focused on profits. This is what they are supposed to do. It is the fiduciary bargain that gets struck. Their creed is to maximise shareholder value. Social responsibility is mostly a matter of compliance to law. Now that thinking has to change. For corporate institutions to flourish it is important to always adapt to the context. Corporations that endure for generations have a cohesive corporate community with a strong sense of identity. They have loved brands with strong consumer communities. They are prudent and conservative in financial matters. The Fortune 500 was first published in 1955 was led by General Motors, a company that held the top position for more than 30 years. It was a pillar of the US economy. In 2009 it went bankrupt. Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the US Treasury invested a total $51 billion into the GM bankruptcy. Today, capital is abundant. The skills, capabilities and knowledge of people are scarce. Learning is tomorrow’s capital. Data is the new oil. Every company needs to grapple with continuous change. To survive and flourish -business owners, executive management, corporate boards and senior operations executives must dedicate a great deal of time to nurturing their people. The essence of wealth creation in the new economy is the deployment of creative capability. All companies desperately need high learning and innovation. Corporations have to turn into networks. They have to look beyond being limited liability companies, a legal frame dating back to the 19th-century industrial enterprises. They have to see themselves as living systems composed of other living systems — the people who worked for them and their allies and partners. A company’s success no longer depends primarily on its ability to raise investment capital. Success depends on the ability of its people to learn together and produce new ideas. The corporations that are ready to survive and thrive for long do not see themselves primarily as economic units to produce profits. Today, in the Fortune 500, the companies which consistently rise —Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, — have relatively few capital assets. The difference between their high capitalized share values and the low values of capital assets on their balance sheet represents a valuation of the intellectual capability of their human components. In the most successful companies, this valuation is comparatively high. Most of the longest surviving corporations –Unilever, Nestle, GE, Coco-Cola – now recruit top people from the outside, which they rarely did before. They have gone past the logic of growing their own timber. If society thinks of companies primarily as limited-liability organizations, with powerful fiscal legislation protecting them — and if managers have been taught at business school only about efficiency and bottom-line return on investment capital — then we will struggle with the more profound concept of work communities. We will have a hard time making the transition to a world where capital only has a secondary role to play, and where people shouldn’t pay more for capital than its market value. Conventional business must recognize that the new business reality is about people. They must see that their critical competitive success factor is producing more talented output than their competitors. They can only accomplish this by getting people to learn and to work together better. We all must pay heed to the human side of enterprise and ensure that companies must be fundamentally humane to prosper.

The history of the modern world is the story of oil and gas. That era is ending. Its end overlaps with the rise of ‘green energy’. A global race is on for ‘Decarbonisation’. The oil giant BP has said consumption following the pandemic might never again reach the heights of 2019. OPEC and the International Energy Agency cut their consumption forecasts. The US presidential elections are often seen as an ‘Oil vs. Green’ contest. This summer, Joe Biden issued his plan for US carbon neutrality by 2050. It is possible that 2021 will be the year in which the world’s three biggest polluters –US, China and the EU pledge to reach net-zero by 2050 A.D. From a global rush to control the sources and supply lines of fossil fuels, geopolitics may soon become a stampede in the reverse direction. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The stakes are changing. Solar panels will contribute one-fourth of the total renewable energy production in a net-zero carbon world. They require aluminium, copper, indium and selenium. There is a new wonder mineral – Lithium – the basis of the battery technology that will replace oil as an energy store. Bolivia has the largest lithium deposits in the Andean salt flats. Given the complex and dynamic nature of the transition, it is difficult to predict precisely how events may unfold. India, and Rajasthan needs to prepare proactively for the new energy age and its economic and geopolitical consequences. There is a crucial need to encourage innovation and investment. Amongst the major players, the United States is close to energy self-sufficiency. It is well positioned in the clean energy race. American companies hold strong positions in new energy technologies and electric vehicles. China will gain in terms of energy security. It has a leading position in manufacturing, innovation and deployment of renewable energy technologies. In the pre-covid world, it got almost half of the world’s renewable energy investment. Europe and Japan are very dependent on imported fossil fuel. They also hold strong positions in renewable technologies. In Europe, Germany leads the way with the world’s most patents in renewable energy. Why is Rajasthan a gainer? This is because renewables have moved to the centre of the global energy landscape. Technological advances and falling costs have made renewables grow faster than any other energy source. Many renewable technologies are now cost competitive with fossil fuels in the power sector. While the surge in wind, solar and other renewables has taken place mostly in the electricity sector, new technologies are enabling this transformation in other sectors. Electric vehicles and heat pumps are extending the deployment of renewables in transport, industry and buildings. Innovations in energy storage are expanding the potential for renewables. A global energy transformation is underway. Renewable sources of energy—especially wind and solar—have grown at an unprecedented rate in the last decade. Their deployment in the power sector has already outpaced other energy source, including fossil fuels -oil, coal and natural gas. The transition to renewables is not just a shift from one set of fuels to another. It involves a much deeper transformation of the world’s energy systems that will have major social, economic and political implications which go well beyond the energy sector. India is poised to overtake China as the world’s largest energy growth market by the end of the 2020s decade. India has an ambitious target of 175 GW of renewables by 2022. This represents a massive increase, since India’s total installed capacity in October 2018 was 346 GW. Rajasthan can have a large share of this surge. The exploitation of hydrocarbon fuels grew global energy use 50x over the last two centuries, shaping the geopolitics of the modern world.There was a geographic concentration in the sourcing. In an energy transformation driven by renewables, a majority of countries can hope to increase their energy independence significantly. Renewables will aid democratization because they make it possible to decentralize the energy supply. Rajasthan is prime space for solar and wind renewables besides bio gas for micro sufficiency. The following are primary aspects impacting the transition: Growth of renewables: Since 2012, renewables have added more new power generation capacity than conventional sources of energy. Solar power added more new capacity in 2017-20 than did coal, gas, and nuclear plants combined. Wind and solar now provide 6% of electricity generation worldwide, up from 0.2% in 2000. Overall, renewables account for approximately one-fourth of global electricity generation. Countries such as Denmark, Costa Rica, Iceland, Netherlands etc. generate more than half their electricity from variable renewable energy sources. Electrification: Electricity accounts for 19% of total final energy consumption, but its share is expected to grow as increased electrification of end-use sectors takes place. It has been the fastest growing segment of final energy demand, Declining cost: The steep decline in costs of renewable energy and energy storage has surprised one and all. They can now beat conventional generation technologies on cost in many of the world’s top markets, even without subsidies. The cost of lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicles, has fallen by 80% since 2010. As a result of these cost declines, investments in renewable technologies are up. Rajasthan should march ahead by benefiting from concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies and solar photovoltaics (PV). Pollution and climate change: Climate change forced governments, businesses, investors and the public to recognize the need for decarbonisation. To achieve the 90% reduction in energy-related emissions targeted in the Paris Agreement, renewables are priority. Technological innovation: New energy technologies are also being developed for energy storage ,vital for variable renewables such as wind and solar. A new era has dawned. A global energy transformation is gathering momentum and accelerating. Rajasthan can be the leader in India. Let the sun shine.

Facebook has been accused of bias and manipulation by those at either end of the political spectrum in India. They allege that Facebook edits flagrantly biased content selectively and favours the other side’. It doesn’t matter whose side Facebook is on. Pay attention to the larger issue. Can the algorithm game democracy’? This is a post-truth world. If the main parties in India accuse Facebook, surely it is an important thing to examine. The repercussions are very grave. Our society is indeed polarised. There is hardly any middle ground. But, this is endemic and unique to the human species. Nature itself has no polarity. It has predator and prey but even they comprise parts of one organic ecosystem. What is unique about human society is that we are in a position to form an opinion and proselytise it. The work of physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi is about networks – metabolic and genetic networks, social networks, internet networks and ecological systems as a web of interdependent species. By investigating the topology of the World Wide Web, Internet, cellular and social networks, he has discovered that networks follow a common blueprint, having scale-free characteristics. To that extent, Facebook and others are being accused of using the scale to artificially prompt a false sense of reality. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The presumed eventual ‘near monopoly’ of WhatsApp-Facebook -Instagram is a concern for many. Yet, it’s very hard to break these companies on the basis of old industrial anti-trust benchmarks. The Guardian’s US correspondent Ganesh Sitaraman wrote this about the book ‘Zuck: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe’ by Roger McNamee. “An early investor in Facebook and an advisor to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, McNamee’s central argument is that Facebook is a threat to the economy, public health, and democracy. It is being used to stoke confusion and division. The economic critique rests on the problems of monopoly capitalism, including, for example, Facebook’s ability to buy up potential rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp before they might have had a chance to challenge its dominance. Democracy cannot survive without debate and deliberation. ButNewsFeed pushes us into bubbles, so we increasingly are cut off from different opinions. And that is in addition to the trolls and bots, fake pages and groups, misinformation and outright lies.” The growth of online networks has not been a democratic force beyond the loud expression of divisive opinion. You hear more of what you like. Your opinion is heard by folks whose thinking and views are similar. This system is run by an algorithm. It’s that algorithm which has concentrated power beyond our comprehension. In America, these concerns have been voiced loudly. A huge percentage of American voters –almost half -rely on their social media feed as the primary source of news and opinion. The alleged manipulation of what gets served as news is the biggest threat to participative democracy. The algorithm can be tweaked. It is subject to commercial considerations, That is very serious power. Regulation of social media as publishers of content ought to be a universal requirement. Don’t forget that unlike a TV channel or a newspaper, Facebook has your data too. Social media companies must be accountable to the democracies that make their businesses possible. Major technology companies- such as Facebook, Twitter, Google – define the information ecosystem in much of the world. Barely regulated and hardly accountable, these companies are completely transforming the public sphere. Will we be condemned to be subjects of motivated machine intelligence that learns incomparably faster than us and has no restraint upon it? This is a classic ‘input-output’ issue. We, as a mass cohort, are gullible enough to believe the output but we have no visibility or understanding of what, or who is on the input side. This networking power is operating above national sovereignty.  These corporations –Facebook, Amazon, Google – are so huge that no national government can hope to individually control or restrict their behaviour. This includes the government of the United States of America. This is the grid on which surveillance capitalism operates. James Lovelock – the scientist who developed the “Gaia Theory” about Earth’s life and climate and who turned 100 this year -along with Bryan Appleyard has written ‘Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence’ a brief but thought-provoking book that predicts that cyborgs may eventually evolve to supplant carbon-based humankind. If you don’t like that eventuality, take charge and hold your social networks accountable for a start.

The political history of the state of Rajasthan, in its present form, is closely interwoven with that of the Indian National Congress. Though in the years since independence, Rajasthan has also been a proving ground for the Swatantra party and its people have embraced the BJP, as an alternative, and voted it into power on fouroccasionsnevertheless the Congress remained in a pole position. Rajasthan is a two party political fray. There have been multiple attempts at forming a third front but none could prove successful. No other political formation has nearly been as central to Rajasthan’s past and present as the Congress. But, will it be so in the future? [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The Congress, led the freedom struggle and the people’s movements in various princely states and won us independence. It laid the foundations for legislative democracy. As the original party in power, it encompassed every shade of public opinion and gave representation to the full spectrum of communities in the state. Its electoral dominance was based on a concrete set of achievements in the social as well as political sphere. It could claim credit for industrial growth, land reforms, growth of basic infrastructure, extension of educational facilities and provision of public services. There was a fullstress on pro poor programs and redistributive justice. The political system was managed well andMohan LalSukhadiaremained Chief Minister for an unbroken 17 years. The Congress split in 1969. Indira Gandhi began to act against the old guard labelling them as conservative reactionaries. It amounted to a radicalisation of the Congress and led to the centralisation of power. A true ‘high command’ emerged. In Rajasthan, the new Congress leadership took place of the old but the caste equations were generally kept in place. Like elsewhere, the Congress party atrophied due to a command and control type authoritarian set up. This cost the party dearly when its uninterrupted rule of three decades endedin 1977 and the Janata Party an amalgam of the Jana Sangh, BharatiyaLok Dal, Congress O and the Socialist party rose to power. It won 151 of the 200 seats in the Rajasthan assembly. On the national stage, it was a blow from which the Congress never truly recovered. The anti-Congress coalition politics eventually paved the road to Delhi for the BJP led NDA and then the BJP’s single party majority victories in 2014 and 2019 In Rajasthan, despite the definitive changes in politics, economics and social realities the Congress adapted and carried on. It remained one out of the two alternatives that could be voted into power. Unlike in most states of the Hindi heartland where the Congress party was nominally alive, in Rajasthan its presence on ground was disarrayed but never destroyed. When we look back in history, the most significant moment for the post Indira Congress was 6th December, 1992 at the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. It marked the shift in the centre of gravity in Indian politics. It was a movement that led the BJP to become the party with energy and elevated it to power at the centre in 1998. The Ayodhya Ram temple movement redefined politics especially in North India. It spiralled out of the control of the Congress party. It made religious identity key to politics. In Rajasthan, Congress never recovered its ideological credentials. It was here onwards solely an ‘Anti BJP’ alternative. This mix of over centralisation, weakening on ground presence, rabid factionalism, smaller residual fiefdoms, erosion of the politics of policies and ideologies was generically true for the Congress and specifically true of the party in Rajasthan. The importance given to personal loyalty disabled the formation of a critical mass of effective leaders on ground. Lack of localisation of talentweakened the organisational fibre. Large chunks of its base were cannibalised by the BJP. Anticipations of revival were high, whatever may have been the probability, when the Gehlot government was sworn in with Pilot as deputy. But the advantage was totally frittered away with no delivery to show. The role of the organization was minimised or de-clutched from government. To my mind, it is a remarkable feature of Congress tacticsthat it has learnt to be flexible to emerging situations only by moving away from ideology! What doesit stand for? They cannot give aconvincing answer excepting mouthing clichés on secularism and social justice. The BJP, in contrast, has both ideology and strategy. The Congress should think hard and rightly blame itself. It shouldn’t have come to this.

A sign of relative economic underdevelopment in a state is that its politics dominates its economics and not the other way around. Rajasthan is currently in a frenzied swirl thanks to manoeuvres of power politics. It seems to be all about the ‘ease of forming government’ rather than the ‘ease of doing business’! Irrespective of how the politics shapes up, the economic heartbeat does not and must not stop. Rajasthan is the land which has given in this country exceptional leadership in the area of enterprise, entrepreneurship and business leadership. In every corner of our vast country, the mark of Rajasthan’s entrepreneurs can be seen. Unfortunately, the homeland has not reaped a rich harvest. In Rajasthan, economics has taken a backseat. It can get even more dismal. One glance at the  ‘post-Covid’ world scenario can tell us that .Travel and tourism at a standstill. New economic activity devastated. Large capital infusions improbable. Profitability badly squeezed. Tax revenues much poorer. One can visualise how difficult things may become for Rajasthan. We need a political leadership obsessed with growth and economic expansion. Economic growth is a matter of objective realism. Going beyond individual competence and charisma, it is about a relay race where separate institutions and individuals run for the same team. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] I am a corporate professional, marketing expert and have handled business operations across diverse industries. I look at ‘Brand Rajasthan’ from an investor’s eyes and ask what is the state of affairs? How should we judge the economic performance of a Chief Minister? The easiest way would be to rank performance according to aggregated statistics during a CM’s administration, such as the growth of real GDP, revenues and employment. Have major corporations set up operations in the state and has domain concentration grown? However, given that some Chief Ministers may face a larger economic crisis as against others who may govern in more favourable times it is important to also take note of the national conditions with reference to inflation, financial health and overall investment climate. The fruits of economic liberalisation in India ever since 1991 have gone in disproportionate measure to states such as Maharashtra , Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Why did Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad become hubs for Indian IT? Why not Jaipur? Why is there not a  booming culture industry -media, art and leisure pursuits- in the state? Why are Goa and Kerala gaining and edge in holistic tourism? Why does Haryana have such a large manufacturing base compared to us? It needs a will and ability to lead reform, drive catalysis through institutions, laws and regulations. Politicians are not trained economists or business professionals. Therefore, observe how the Chief Minister is going about making economic decisions. Who are the advisors? Who are the people chosen to head vital institutions and departments? Are they empowered to make decisions that have a bearing on economic growth? Successful Chief Ministers employ macroeconomic tools such as tax policy, labour policy and dip into fiscal and monetary broad stream to avoid crunches, foster real GDP growth and maintain economic stability. Secondly, we should consider whether the leadership improves the economic infrastructure of the state? Are they looking at good social policy as a precursor to good economic policy? Are they aware of the cost structures of doing business in the state?Dothey notice the conditions that impact productivity and strengthen competitiveness of businesses based in Rajasthan? Short term policy making can end up imposing excessive costs, reducing productivity, weakening of the state’s competitiveness and the decelerating long-term growth of real GDP for the state. What any CM must provide is political will and a social contract. Rajasthan ought to be known as a state that is active in those sectors where there is great growth, vibrancy and energy. Automotive, Telecom, Information Technology, Commercial Agriculture, Financial Services – these are boosters for job creation. When a chief minister reforms the economic infrastructure, it leads to economic freedom and fairness, revives confidence and provides support to those who seek growth. It is also crucial that poor, depressed classes in Rajasthan , particularly those who may have suffered from past discrimination, are participating fully, freely and energetically in the economy and enjoying the fruits of their labour. Of course Rajasthan’s backwardness has structural reasons but we must also reflect on whether political leadership in Rajasthan has done enough? Is our political leadership genuinely interested in business and economics? When these questions become part of public thought, Rajasthan will advance.

In 1948, in one of the last moves he made before his assassination, Mahatma Gandhi proposed the dissolution of the Congress as a political party and recommended its transformation into a social service organisation –the Lok Seva Sangh which would be devoted to the task of social regeneration and economic uplift through voluntary rural programmes. He wanted Congressmen to leave electoral politics, government and administration. Those interested in political power could leave the Lok Seva Sangh and join political parties or form them. Gandhi Jiwrote in his diary of May 21, 1947 (quoted by H.V.Kamath in Parliament on May7,1962 : Lok Sabha Debates ,Third Series,Vol II, cc 2931-32) as follows: [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] “The Congress has gained the trust of the people on account of its many sacrifices and penances. But, if at this moment it were to let the people down by becoming their overlord instead of their servant and arrogate to itself a position of master, I venture to prophecy on the strength of my experience of long years that though I may be alive or not, a revolution will sweep over the country and that the people will pick out the white capped ones individually and finish them and that a third power will stand to gain by this” The Congress not only stayed on in politics for the pursuit of power, it defined it. Amongst other things, its modus operandi included a brilliant management of power arithmetic through defections ever since the watershed election of 1967. If today its political opponents are beating it at the same game, the Congress cannot complain since its name is indelibly associated with the institutionalising of this practice .The phrase “Aya Ram, Gaya Ram” is the stuff of legend. The politics of defection is a game of thrones. The Indian constitution doesn’t even recognize political parties. Yet, we have one of the most stringent anti –defection laws in force whereas it is interesting that none of the democracies in the West legally bar defections. Defection amounts to transfer of loyalty. However, it is pertinent to note that the words defection and dissent have distinct meanings and one may not use them synonymously. Political ‘Bossing’ can only survive with the support of vested interests and ‘status quo-ists’. The larger issue is not caste or group factionalism, polarisation or the lure of office. The underlying basic issue is the lack of ideological commitment. The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, “Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.”  Moreover, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong. This is true both for those who leave a formation and those who stay on. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has explained how the need for affiliation affects beliefs, “People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.”  Changing beliefs to feel secure in belongingness is understandable. False beliefs can be useful in a social sense, the facts be damned! In a representative democracy, the primary loyalty of a representative is to the electorate. The very idea of incorporating provisions to enable defections implies a recognition of such a thing as free will and action. However, principled defections, as acts of conscience, are as rare as the sightings of the Yeti. Power is almost always seen to be the sought after prize. It is seen by the electorate as an immoral, opportunistic breach of faith. It negates the electoral outcome. The Constitution’s 52nd Amendment Act, 1985 and the 91stAmendment Act, 2003 -often referred to as the Anti-Defection Laws(s) – recognized that managing floor arithmetic is intrinsic to a democracy. But, the anti-defection pesticide has failed to prevent the rot. It has merely changed the rules and increased the stakes. The continuing contempt for the electorate shows us that the numbers game in representative institutions is only for grabbing and holding on to power. The politics of defection subverts the soul of constitutionalism. Yet, it is a reality. As a democracy, we must deal with the virus and not leave it to the constitutional doctors to attend only to the patients.

Ever since it came into existence as a free country, India has not been challenged like in the present face off with China. This is because in our past conflicts – the two wars we fought with Pakistan and the one with China in 1962  -India did not face an opponent that could become an existential crisis. A nuclear armed India now takes on a China that is the undisputed number 2 power in the world. Or is it ? India must see the world as it exists for us -by role and relevance- and decide who matters ? First is the EU and USA representing a liberal order where security is guaranteed by military might but even more so by economic interdependence and the force of law. It is our largest economic partner bloc. Second comes the Islamic world consisting also of the Wahhabi fundamentalist forces which feed terrorism. Our dependence on Arab and Iranian oil makes it critical. Russia with its deep state run power apparatus is an important military supplier and partner. And then there is China! China is a vast country with economic dynamism, focused leadership and military might. It also sees India as an adversary. China, unlike the other world powers, has not promoted a worldview. While there is endless comment on its economic, political and military affairs but no one has seen it as a powerhouse of “ideas”. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] China – love or hate it – is an inexhaustible force whose economy rose fast enough for it to become the world’s largest economy in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms. It dominates the world supply chains and has managed to drag 400 million people from rural poverty to prosperity in less than 40 years. The ‘Made in China’ label was acquiring clout, till the Covid crisis began. The scale, speed and impact of material progress is prompting a deeper question. Will China rise to rule the world as a hegemon? Will India inevitably face ruinous conflict with China? As a professional marketer, content maker, business manager ,socio-economic observer and writer my assessment is that China lacks the soft power to dominate the world. It is acting aggressively and is being acquisitive but it does not inspire deep adoration. The world is wary of China. We remain uninspired by its intellectual output. Can we name even five contemporary Chinese writers, thinkers and artists ? China has got richer but has it got enriched holistically? China has not accommodated itself to the rules of a globalised world with democracy, privatisation and collaboration at its core. China’s government is a mega state business enterprise. This is what allows China to have the confidence to be a military aggressor and a political despot. State economics is their engine. On 15th April 1989, a memorial march for the former communist party Secretary General HuYaobang turned into a mass protest for political reform, workers rights and an end to official corruption. It dominated the heart of Beijing for six weeks but was abruptly crushed by soldiers and tanks on 4thJune 1989. The crackdown was a human tragedy and it showed us that China is ‘all economics no politics’. Deng Xiaoping  – China’s supreme leader after Mao Tse Tung had made his directive clear – “Tao guang Yang Hui” literally meaning “hide brightness, nourish obscurity”. The state media has officially translated this as “be patient and build capability“. Now China has decided that its time has arrived. However it still does not have “Soft power”. The Chinese state’s establishment rues its lack of exportable cultural dominance that they call “RuanQuan Li” This is where- I believe- currently India has a decisive edge over China. India is an intellectual power with credits to several large impact ideas and new cultural content that appeals to a larger world. We have a freedom of expression that leads to widespread dissemination. In my opinion China’s path to superpower status is not smooth. Beijing is formula of state capitalism, open market but a closed political system will not last the course of its attrition with powerful liberal democracies. Soft power will beat hard power eventually.

Today when the world is watching China’s aggressive transgressions on the Line of Actual Control with India, rarely does anyone know the historical context of how this border emerged in the first place. It was due to an intrepid military genus called Zorawar Singh Kahluria. The treaty of Chushul signed in 1842 between ‘Sri Sarkar Khalsa Ji’ (the Lahore Darbar) and the Dalai Lama of Tibet not just marked the conclusion of the campaign, it defined and demarcated the border between India and Tibet in modern times. This campaign into Ladakh and Tibet was led by Zorawar Singh, a Dogra Rajput general in the service of Raja-i-Rajgan Gulab Singh of Jammu, who was a subordinate ruler owing allegiance to the Sikh ruler at Lahore. But the army marched under the sovereign banner of Sarkar Khalsa Ji of Punjab and its then Maharaja Sher Singh son of the legendary Sher-e-Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Indian history books barely do any justice to Zorawar Singh’s desire and persistence to acquire the Western Tibetan territory, and thus his role in defining the critical northern Indian border. Zorawar Singh had expressed his readiness to ‘kindle the fires of voctory’ and take possession of Tibet when he met the then Maharaja, Ranjit Singh, in village Jandiala Sher Khan in March 1836; a request which was politely declined by the Maharaja. This has been documented by Sohan Lal Suri who wrote a history in 5 volumes, a monumental work in Persian called Umdat ul Tawarikh keeping record of all important events at the Lahore court. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s apprehension can be understood from the letters of French botanist Victor Jaquemont which give insight into his conversations with the Maharaja. The wily monarch quizzed him on Tibet. Victor described it as a poor country with cold weather and barren land where subsistence was very difficult. This and other intelligence made Ranjit Singh mentally write off the adventure. But ambition motivated Zorawar Singh and he remained adamant in his desire of acquisition and glory. Following the victory over Ladakh in 1836, he again sought permission of the Maharaja to attack Tibet and annex it to the Khalsa Sarkar, which was declined again citing it as being an inopportune time for the invasion. The astute Maharaja was well aware of the problems such an invasion may lead to given the difficult terrains and long lines required for logistics. Zorawar Singh had better luck with Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s successor Sher Singh, who agreed to his long-pending proposal of wanting to invade Tibet, and the rest is well, not very well documented history. None of the Indian books on Zorawar Singh mention that he led Sikh soldiers in his campaign to Ladakh and Tibet. In his book ‘Footprints in the Snow: On the Trail of Zorawar Singh’ the then Brigadier GD Bakshi, gives credit to Sikhs for revival of military spirit in the region and acknowledges Maharaja Ranjit Singh as a ruler with a vision who modernize his army. It says, “The Dogras under Gulab Singh and Zorawar Singh were part of this Sikh military renaissance”. The Ladakh and Tibetan campaign of Zorawar Singh and the subsequent treaty eventually formed the basis of the McMohan Line, the border agreed by British India and Tibet in 1914. China disputes its legal status and on that basis has occupied the area of Aksai Chin which belongs to India. At the time of the campaign in 1841 –China had no role, militarily or otherwise. Zorawar Singh is not seen as an aggressor by Tibetans but remembered in a more positive light because his campaign and the subsequent treaties between Tibetans and Lahore Darbar proves even now that Tibetans had a legitimate claim of sovereignty. It is perhaps time to rewrite the campaigns of General Zorawar Singh by incorporating Tibetan and other non-Dogra sources. The Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, an infantry regiment of Indian army, celebrates 15th April every year as Zorawar Day to commemorate the birth and career of the legendary commander who is considered as an architect of this regiment, which now takes recruits from J &K and Himachal Pradesh. Zorawar Singh is duly credited with the conquest of Ladakh, which remained, culturally, Tibetan Buddhist. Zorawar later led a successful campaign against Gilgit-Baltistan (now part of Pakistan administered Kashmir) in 1839-40. However he is mostly remembered for his daring campaign in Tibet in 1841 and enjoys an iconic status among Hindu Dogra community of Jammu.