Links: Modi's American jets, multipolarity debates and Maharashtra masala
Plus, Logan Roy & NDTV?
Thank you for voting in my reader poll two weeks ago – and thank you for all the kind emails and suggestions for formats for the newsletter that were sent in separately. An overwhelming majority of folks preferred a simple list of 10 links regularly, which will probably be fortnightly over the next two summer/monsoon months, and potentially at a quicker cadence once I’m back to Cairo afterwards.
I’ll be sending out another poll soon to ask about the interviews, but, as always, if you do have ideas for what you would like to see on India Inside Out, drop them in the comments below, reply to this email or write to rohan.venkat@gmail.com.
Foreign travels are set to dominate the next week or so of Indian headlines.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads off to the US this week for his first state visit with all the attendant highlights – a White House welcome, an address to a joint sitting of Congress and a state dinner – as well as a big diaspora event, this time at the Ronald Reagan Center in DC, which has become a standard feature of Modi visits.
He then arrives here, in Cairo, for a two-day visit that will see the two countries sign a document formally elevating the relationship to a strategic partnership – a move announced when Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was guest of honour at India’s Republic Day celebrations in January this year. The two will discuss a number of key issues, particularly the potential for further defence collaboration, how Egypt fits into India’s broader West Asian partnerships and whether there’s space for more trade ties.
Modi will also be visiting a mosque in Cairo with deep ties to the Indian Bohra community, most likely with al-Sisi. (Aside: This was the only place in medieval Cairo that caretakers at the entry immediately clocked me as being from the subcontinent, unlike the assumption of being Egyptian that I get almost everywhere in the city, until they hear my Arabic).
Expect plenty on both of those visits in coming weeks. Before we get to this week’s links however, some plugs for other things I’ve been working on:
CASI: The ‘Indispensable’ Japan-India relationship
In the third of our four-part series on India in the Quad, Sumitha Narayanan Kutty takes a look at how Modi has built the India-Japan relationship through a series of nested partnerships, at the bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral level.
“India’s networking response to its “China Challenge” incorporates such a network of overlapping strategic partnerships emphasizing both military and economic dimensions aimed at strengthening strategic deterrence against its neighbor and reducing dependence on the Chinese economy. India’s interactions with Japan form a key component of this network and, subsequently, of Indian grand strategy since the end of the Cold War.”
If you missed it, the first piece in the series featured Kate Sullivan de Estrada on how India leverages a ‘low-resolution liberal order’ in the Indo-Pacific, and the second had Aditi Malhotra explain how two concepts of role theory in international relations explain how India-US ties have grown.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, please do check out India in Transition – where I’m now a Consulting Editor – and if you are a scholar working on India and would like to pitch a piece for the publication, do have a look at the submission guidelines here, and get in touch by writing to rohan.venkat@gmail.com.
CPR Perspectives: Avani Kapur
I had a fascinating conversation with Avani Kapur, who heads the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research, as part of CPR Perspectives, a flagship interview series commemorating the CPR’s 50th anniversary this year. Kapur began as a Research Associate at the initiative as it was starting up in 2008, with a focus on producing high-quality research on Indian public welfare spending and making sure the findings of that work flow back into the system:
“A senior official from the Elementary Education Department in Purnia in Bihar summarised what we do better than we could: “The flow of funds through various levels of the government is very similar to the flow of blood from the heart to various parts of the body. If there’s a blockage somewhere, it affects the entire body. So in that regard, PAISA studies do the work of a physician.”
That is what we had hoped would happen. To diagnose where that blockage is and share that with the government because at the end of the day, all of us are trying to ensure that service delivery improves. The intent was never to point fingers, but literally emphasising that this is our problem, not just yours, and so that we can have a meaningful discussion on solutions as well.
I remember relatively early on in 2013, we got a request from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, now the Ministry of Education. They came and asked us to undertake a PAISA study for the midday meal scheme. And I remember being really confused. I had gained confidence by then to actually ask government officers questions. So I remember asking him, ‘Sir, you already have this information or even if you don’t, it’s so easy for you sitting in the ministry to collect this information. You don’t need us. You could literally pick up the phone and try and get all the other officers to collect it for you.’
And I remember so clearly that he turned around and said to me, ‘as an administrator and a researcher, we have very, very different lenses and we’re able to gather different sets of information.’ And I remember him also saying that ‘I don’t just want to hear information that people think I want to hear, but I want to be proved right or proved wrong in my own assumptions.’”
Read Part 1 of the interview here, or listen to it as a podcast here.
And check out earlier interviews in the CPR Perspectives series here.
Linking Out
As the violence continues in Manipur, Arunabh Saikia explains why the violence is being linked to Chief Minister Biren Singh’s ‘war on drugs’, which widened ethnic fault lines in the state.
Modi’s US visit comes just as DC is seeking a thaw in relations with Beijing. Mihir Sharma says the only long-term strategic logic for closeness between India and the US is a shared concern about potentially disruptive Chinese actions in Asia, which may not be the strongest foundation for pervasive ties. Vikram J Singh and Sameer Lalwani say that the two countries are about to take a big step forward in terms of defence ties, particularly with DC about to authorise GE to produce jet engines that would power Indian Tejas jets. Konark Bhandari, Arun Singh and Rudra Chaudhari look back at one year of the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, concluding that framework has acquitted itself well.
Remember our interview with Rajesh Rajagopalan on why he believes India is making a mistake by reading the world as multipolar? The debate continues.
C Raja Mohan argues that “no analysis of global distribution of power today can prove the claim that a multipolar world is upon us.” Sanjaya Baru, however, insists that “Raja Mohan’s contention that the world is once again “bipolar” — US and EU vs China and Russia — underplays the space available for the articulation of national interests of “middle powers” such as India.”A new working paper on residential segregation in India from Sam Asher, Kritarth Jha, Paul Novosad, Anjali Adukia, and Brandon Tan:
An advertisement across all newspapers in Maharashtra last week proclaimed ‘Modi For India, Shinde For Maharashtra. The dream team is loved by all.’ Vallabh Ozarkar and Liz Mathew explain why Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is feeling the pressure to justify his leadership as the Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, chafe under coalition conditions. DK Singh, meanwhile, explains why Fadnavis has taken the Adityanath approach to giving himself a more Hindutva majoritarian image of late.
Also in Maharashtra, what exactly was Sharad Pawar doing in his rejig of the top posts of the Nationalist Congress Party? Aditi Phadnis has some answers, Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari add more context.
Liz Mathew looks at the buzz being generated around a Uniform Civil Code – once a Congress objective that over time turned into a BJP promise to end religious personal laws in India. In 202, Aarefa Johari looked at why women’s groups were opposed to the idea.
Bihar’s lost libraries:
It has been three years since the Galwan clash, which led to the first casualties on the Line of Actual Control between India and China in nearly four decades. Nirupama Subramanian takes stock of where things stand.
Vijay Gokhale looks ahead to where ties between the two countries are likely to go in the 2020s. Daniel Markey explains that aims of both sides on the LAC remain hard to read, adding to volatility on the contested border. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress has a report on the strategies and methods China uses to engage with South Asia.Amrita Dutta has a fascinating piece on reading Tulsidas and the Ramacharitmanas in the age of Hindutva.
Can’t Make This Up
That’s it for India Inside Out links. Thanks for reading! Drop other interesting links or funny memes in the comments below or send them to me at rohan.venkat@gmail.com.