6 THE HIMALAYAN MAIL SUNDAY JULY11, 2021

THE EDITORIAL PAGEBlood on their hands

Julio Ribeiro

Fr. Stan Swamy is an apt candidate for the NobelPeace Prize. I appeal to my readers to support mycall to the Swedish Academy that chooses the win-ners to consider his case posthumously. If the prizeis awarded to this martyred Jesuit priest from In-dia, a representative of the Adivasi people whoserights he fought for during his now shortened life,should accept the honour for him.

The charges against him by an insensitive Statewere that he had been dancing with the bannedMaoist organisation operating in the forests ofJharkhand. The accusers obviously were unlettered!Jesuit priests and Marxists both work for the poorand the dispossessed but in diametrically oppositeways. To understand that basic fact, one has to graspthe real essence of the teachings of Christ, and byextension of Christianity.

Iranian-American writer and an accomplishedprofessor of comparative religions in the US, RezaAslan, called Jesus a ‘zealot’. He concluded that Je-sus was primarily a rebel against injustice. His tar-gets were two — the Roman conquerors who ruledover the land of Israel through a governor, and theJewish clergy, the Rabbinate that had turned reli-gion into a commercial enterprise.

All the parables that Jesus used to educate hisJewish co-religionists laid stress on love, compas-sion and justice, especially to the poor and those inneed. No resort to arms or to violence was ever advo-cated. In fact, the much-debated principle of offeringthe other cheek if one is smacked was first propa-gated by Jesus.

Marxism, and by extension Maoist, doctrine de-pend solely on guns to combat economic injustice.Christians also have to seek justice for the poor butthe methods recommended to achieve the objectiveof amelioration of living standards are intrinsicallydifferent. Fr. Swamy had sworn obedience to thePope and to his own Jesuit superiors. Catholic doc-trine opposes Marxist precepts. There is no way hewould join the Maoists in any venture where armswere to be used against State forces or State-ownedproperties. If he had contravened hierarchical or-ders, he would have been disciplined long ago. Theseverest punishment would be de-frocking, themildest expulsion from the Jesuit order. These factsmust be digested by the NIA investigators and theprosecutors if they are interested in establishing thetruth.

But, are they interested in the truth? Or, as I sus-pect, they had a goal and that goal was to put awaythis pestiferous priest who was coming in the wayof ‘development’. If the imperative was to allow ex-ploitation of tribal forests that required the tribals toconcur via a prescribed procedure and Fr. Swamywas the one who came in the way, then it becamenecessary to remove him from the path. The tribalswithout a teacher could be won over but not thepriest who understood the tricks the authoritiesplayed. He would educate the tribals about theirrights and also on what was in their interests.

The evidence built up against him to prove hisguilt of being a Maoist and a terrorist was purelydigital. Even his physical remand was not demandedfor questioning by the NIA after his arrest. It hadcollected all the material they needed to put himaway for years together without trial under theUAPA, the most undemocratic law that exists only inour country. The amendment to the Act, introducedin 2019, needs immediate judicial scrutiny. TheSupreme Court should take suo motu notice of theState-sponsored death of this gentle priest to ensurejusticiable laws, as existed in our land from ancienttimes.

There is a strong suspicion that the evidencequoted by the NIA is concocted. The US-based cy-ber crime consultants, Arsenal Consulting, and itspresident, Mark Spencer, who came off most con-vincingly on national television, opined that the cor-respondence which Fr. Swamy had entered into withthe Maoists was probably planted like it was plantedon the computer of co-accused Rona Wilson andSurendra Gadling. This is a serious allegation, whichif proved, should result in the disbandment of theNIA and the fall from grace of its political bosses.

Gwynne Dyer

Most analysts thought it would take ayear or two of guerilla war for the rebels inTigray to drive Ethiopian federal forces outof their state, but it has only taken eightmonths. “The capital of Tigray, Mekelle, isunder our control,” Getachew Reda,spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Lib-eration Front (TPLF), told Reuters on satel-lite phone on Monday.

The Ethiopian government, scramblingto disguise its defeat, immediately declareda “unilateral ceasefire” in the rebel state un-til September, ostensibly to allow farmers toplant their crops, but nobody was fooled.Tigray is gone, and other states may follow.This could even be the first act in the disin-tegration of the old Ethiopian empire.

Ethiopia is now officially a federal repub-lic, but its borders are still those of theChristian-ruled multi-national empire thatwas built by Amhara conquerors in the late19th and early 20th centuries. Four of its80-odd languages have more than 5 mil-lion speakers each, and one-third of thepopulation is Muslim.

The chief task of any Ethiopian govern-ment has always been to hold this wild mix-ture of ethnic and religious groups to-gether, and force or the threat of force hasalways played a big role in that task. Until2018, when a relatively young politiciancalled Abiy Ahmed was chosen as primeminister.

He was chosen above all because, al-

though he was an Oromo, as a very youngman in 1991 he fought in the overwhelm-ingly Tigrayan army that overthrow theDerg, the brutal Communist regime thathad oppressed Ethiopian since 1977. So hewas trusted by the Tigrayans.

This was crucial, because he was reallychosen as prime minister to pry the fingersof the Tigrayans from the levers of powerwithout starting a civil war.

Tigrayans are only seven million ofEthiopia’s 115 million people, but becausethey did the heavy lifting in ousting theDerg they totally dominated the ‘federal’government for the subsequent threedecades. The Tigrayan elite had becomeboth arrogant and corrupt, and everybodyelse knew their time was up. Maybe Abiycould persuade them to go peacefully.

It was worth a try, but it's not clear thatAbiy ever believed that himself. His ‘peace’deal with Eritrea after twenty years of hot

and cold war won him the Nobel Prize, but italso enabled him to make an alliance withEritrea against the state of Tigray if heneeded to.

The Tigrayans were predictably unhappyabout being evicted from power inEthiopia. The leaders of the TPLF gradu-ally withdrew from Addis Ababa and con-centrated in their own state, effectivelyceasing to cooperate with the federal gov-ernment.

When Abiy postponed national electionslast year because of Covid, the TPLF wentahead and held state elections in Tigrayanyway, clearly seeking democratic legiti-macy for an imminent secession. The triggerfor the outbreak of actual fighting last No-vember is disputed, but Abiy activated hissecret alliance with Eritrea and the twojointly invaded Tigray.

It looked like a walk-over, and by the endof November Abiy declared that the fighting

was over. But it was just beginning: theTPLF had decided to skip a conventionaldefence where Ethiopia’s tanks and planeshad the advantage, and go straight to theguerilla warfare that it excelled in. Ethiopiaheld the towns, and the TPLF held the rest.

There was an almost complete federalblockade on news out of Tigray in the fol-lowing months, except for occasional re-ports of massacres by Ethiopian or Eritreantroops. The real war was being foughtsilently in the back country, but the smartmoney was on the Tigrayans.

Then suddenly last Monday the TPLFwas back in the capital, Mekelle, havingchased the puppet administration out, andthe war was over. Abiy's troops are pullingout, the Eritreans are apparently goinghome, and Tigray is to all intents and pur-poses independent.

So now Abiy has a new job: to prevent therot from spreading. There are powerful sep-aratist forces in other states of Ethiopia too,many people are very unhappy at the fed-eral government’s conduct of the recentelection, and Tigray’s example could be in-fectious.

Ethiopia can survive losing Tigray, butthe wholesale disintegration of Africa’s sec-ond-biggest country would be an almostlimitless disaster. Abiy’s blunders are asmuch to blame for this dreadful situationas the obdurate and self-centred leadershipof Tigray, but he is probably now the onlyman who can hold the rest of the countrytogether. If he’s lucky.

End of the Ethiopian empire?

VK Bahuguna

Political leaders offering free-bies to lure voters to capturepower is quite common duringelection time. The Aam AdmiParty (AAP) won a thumpingmajority in the last Delhi As-sembly elections promising freewater and electricity. Now itpromises to supply the same tothe people of Punjab if voted topower in the assembly electionsdue there next year.

In a democracy, political par-ties announce their policies andprogrammes in their manifestoswhich are guiding documentsfor governance if they come topower. The opposition partiesand civil society use it to assessthe performance of the rulingparty.

However, promising freebiesfrom the state exchequer raisesmoral, ethical, and serious ad-ministrative and legal issues.The revenue is collected fromtaxpayers and set proceduresdoexist for using this money forthe welfare of the people. Is itnot a corrupt practice and lootof treasury to garner votespromising something for freewhen it requires money to pro-cure? Competitive politics maysee a party tomorrow promisefree ration for all and therecould come a time when the gov-ernment’s revenues would bededicated to only disbursing thefreebies. This will have debili-tating effects if political partiesand the Election Commission ofIndia do not intervene.

The freebie concept is alreadyhitting the financial manage-ment of the country. Before theForest Conservation Act, 1980came into existence, forest areaswere routinely encroached uponand forcibly occupied by peoplewith political support for agri-cultural and housing purposesmonths before elections. The in-cumbent Chief Ministers wouldthen promise regularisation ofsuch lands and after elections,fulfill the promise. A substantialchunk of 4.5 million hectares offorests was bartered throughregularisation of such encroach-ments. This continued after the1980 law came into being as wellbut at a reduced pace. Over 52lakh hectares of land is back

with the forest department un-der the Forest Rights Act, ofwhich encroached land consti-tutes a large portion.

These days the sops are in theform of cash subsidies at thecost of the economy.The Elec-tion Commission’s model codeof conduct comes into force af-ter elections are announced.However, as yet there is no em-bargo on political partiespromising freebies. The ECI atthe behest of the Supreme Courtin August 2013 held a meetingwith six national parties and 24regional parties to impress uponthem to stop announcing free-bies as they do not respect thelevel playing fields between par-ties. The Commission wanted

freebies to be brought under theambit of the model code of con-duct but none of the parties,ex-cept Bahujan Samaj Party,agreed to it.

If the freebie allurement is notstopped, people living in pooreconomic conditions may belured into a political trap andthat could ruin the economy ofa country like Venezuela. TheSouth American oil-rich coun-try was quite prosperous till1980 because of an oil priceboom. Successive governmentsthen began to offer everythingfree — from food to public trans-port free. The country, whichimported 70 percent of its food,faced an economic crisis soonafter oil prices started to fall.

Corruption became rampant.The governments continued towaive off farm loans furtherdamaging the economy. It tookdecades for it to recover, butnever fully.

The elections are conductedby the Election Commission ofIndia and it is their responsibil-ity to ensure that free and fairelections are held. The freebiesare just not available in today’sworld as no country can sustainthem. The voters are also happyif they get instant gratificationlike free electricity rather thanan honest promise of safe drink-ing water and health or educa-tion. So, the politicians, espe-cially the regional satraps, whowant to grab power through im-practical promises, lure peopleinto the freebie trap.

The Election Commissionmust read the provisions of theConstitution and rather thantaking the concurrence of par-ties, shouldbring freebies likefree electricity under thepurview of the model code ofconduct. It should define whatshould be listed as freebies andwhat should be listed in mani-festos — like free schooling andfree health which cannot belisted as freebies. Whenever theexecutive has failed to run theadministration effectively, theIndian judiciary has intervenedfor course correction throughthe Public Interest Litigationroute. The Commission must actdecisively or otherwise, theSupreme Court should reviewits direction of 2013 and order

Bribing the voters through freebies

NISHTHA KAUSHIKI

Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomacythrough its aggressive posturing is al-ready well established. A question thatbaffles many is how President Xi Jin-ping has taken over the Chinese societyand economy to strengthen his reign— something that his predecessorscouldnot think of.

One has to accept that when Xi tookover in 2013, the economy was muchbetter than it was previously when HuJintao had taken over. Also, becauseof Hu’s initiatives, intellectuals hadthe freedom to express their concernson serious issues, which they lostwhen Xi assumed power. Immediatedomestic issues that he faced wereemployment generation, accommo-dating the excess manufacturing out-put, environmental degradation, andfood security. The rise of the middleclass added to his woes. At the inter-national level, initiatives such as‘March West’, the OBOR, and ‘circu-lar lending’ through its debt trap poli-cies were efforts to find solutions. Asthis is a time-consuming job, it be-came pertinent for Xi to control theraising dissent voices and from therehis journey of throttling the society be-

gan.As a first response, in 2013, at the

18th Party Central Committee’s ThirdPlenum, Xi introduced “social man-agement” to bring about “law and or-der” to ensure “stability”. This led tothe establishment of a National Secu-rity Commission, and later in 2014,Social Credit System (SCS) whichworked hand in glove with one an-other. The objectives of these institu-tionalised governance mechanismswere to monitor individual behavioursto ascertain their loyalty to the regimeand party cause so that a “rule of law”could be established. Whipping fol-lowed the structural framework. Forinstance, in 2015, Xi Jinping made itmandatory for all the NGOs in thecountry to have CCP party cells thatwould work in coordination with thePSB that paved the way for CCP’s anti-corruption drives. Many liberal NGOswere either shut down or taken overby the party cadres. In the same year,Party sacked the editor of the XinjiangDaily, Zhao Xinwei, for his “inappro-priate” discussions on the policies ofthe government. Several others suchas the Chongqing party chief, Bo Xi-lai, and former Politburo StandingCommittee member, Zhou Yongkang,

were not spared and removed fromtheir positions so that Xi could get aclear path.

Second, Xi transformed ‘UnitedFront’ to ‘Great United Front’ and tar-geted to broaden the range of party in-fluence in various sectors of the society.Aiming for social control, in 2015, CCPconvened its first conference, and eversince then it is unstoppable. Underthis initiative, Xi has attempted toreach out to the “non- Party intellec-tuals” who comprise students, mediaprofessionals, and businesses of Chi-nese origin. It aimed to ‘developfriendship’ through “pairing up” by es-tablishing linkages between CCPworkers and “non-Party intellectuals”through a patron-client relationship,which the experts call a “clientelisticstate corporatism”. This was supple-mented with an introduction of a newmodel of social governance in 2017that emphasized “collaboration, partic-ipation, and common interests” inwhich it was affirmed that the “Partycommittees exercise leadership, thegovernment assumes responsibility”.

In 2018, Xi abolished the term limitsto his presidency consequently towhich he now stands virtually as a per-manent President. To attain the safety

and security of his reign he furtherplaced the People’s Liberation Armyreserve forces under his direct controland the Central Military Commission,a move that slashed the powers of thePLA and the local governments. Thefunctioning of this structure allowsthe CCP to place their representativesin almost all business houses and alsoopen up their financial balance sheetsand other important databases forscrutiny by the CCP officials at anytime. Students, especially the researchscholars studying abroad have beentasked to bring in information so that itcan be of help to China.

Third, the use of Chinese Intelli-gence Services (CIS) towards the‘thousand grains of sand’ theory tolink the cause of Xi to the citizens bymaking it inescapable for them towork for the cause of state objectivescomplicates the situation still further.Working in the framework of “multipleprofessional systems” seems to be aninexpensive method of getting coop-eration and loyalty from the people.The 2017 National Intelligence Lawobligated the citizens, companies, andorganisation under Articles 7 and 14to undeniably support the state intelli-gence agencies. Further, the law also

gives sweeping powers to the intelli-gence agencies to “investigate” foreigncompanies, organisations, and indi-viduals on its soil. Such laws combinethe civil and physical defence to punishany dissenting voices and are unheardof in democratic countries.

Fourth, the closure of certain thinktanks organisations such as the Unir-ule Institute of Economics that pro-moted political liberalization alsospeaks volumes of tighter controls.Nevertheless, media censorship hasalso played an important part in Xi’sconsolidation of power. The Cyberse-curity Law that was introduced in2016 directed the service providersthat the data of its citizens shouldn’tbe stored outside China. Also, the ban-ning of the Signal end-to-end encryp-tion messaging app and the systemicpressures to shut down Apple Dailythat used to provide neutral access tothe foreign and security policy raisesconcerns of tighter academic and in-tellectual controls under Xi. With var-ious social media such as Twitter,Youtube and Facebook alreadybanned, the social unrest of the youngChinese might feel claustrophobicwhich is not good for Beijing. The inte-gration of the “Great Firewall” and

“Great Cannon”—responsible for theinflow and the outflow of informationthrough the internet and propagandawarfare respectively — is also an area ofconcern for the world. The death of LiWenliang, the Chinese whistle-blowerof the Corona epidemic, is yet anotherexample ofthe alarming conditions.

Fifth, even the judicial systems havenot been spared. In 2020, the CentralPolitical and Legal Affairs Commis-sion which is responsible for overlook-ing China’s police and law enforce-ment agencies came under the ambit ofthe “education and rectification” cam-paign to “remove tumors” or the “two-faced men”. Such programs encour-age mandatory self-reporting andideological indoctrination to confirmthat only those loyal to the leader andits style of functioning remain withinthe system thus resulting in a majorshuffling of its staff. Supposed to belasting till 2022, one can easily com-prehend the role of such an initiative inthe upcoming 20th Party Congressscheduled next year.

Finally, one can confidently putacross the view that it wouldn't be amajor surprise next year if Xi Jinpingcontinues to be in command of Chi-nese affairs.

Understanding China’s domestic political reforms

So now Abiy has a new job:to prevent the rot from

spreading. There are power-ful separatist forces in otherstates of Ethiopia too, manypeople are very unhappy at

the federal government’sconduct of the recent elec-tion, and Tigray’s example

could be infectious.