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India, United States

Photo of the day: Obama meets Modi

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The most incredible thing about US president Barack Obama’s most recent three-day trip to India, which began today, is that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi can pull off such a sincere welcome less than six weeks after citing Russia as India’s top defense partner, even as he and Obama would later announce a new US-India nuclear energy deal.India Flag Icon

Has any world leader had such a strong first nine months in office from a geopolitical strategic perspective?

Keep in mind that Modi, barred from the United States for nearly a decade due to his alleged role in the anti-Muslim riots in his home state of Gujarat, was not always particularly keen on strengthening relationships with the United States. Instead, on the basis of his work promoting Gujarat, it was always more likely that he would look to China, Japan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, where he wooed investment to his own state. With his emphasis on turfing out the corrupt and ineffective leadership of the Gandhi family, and with relatively little commentary on India’s foreign policy, no one expected Modi to build so many bridges in such little time.

Within just nine months, Modi has been the guest of honor at a state dinner at the White House, and he packed Madison Square Garden, filled with tens of thousands of North Americans of Indian descent thrilled to hear from India’s most powerful leader in three decades. By all accounts, Modi and Obama have developed a strong working relationship, unique for an American president who isn’t particularly known for his chemistry with world leaders.

Today, however, Modi has the grin of a prime minister, who, despite a decade as a pariah throughout much of the West, now revels in being suited by everyone — not just the United States and Russia, but China, Brazil, Japan, Europeans, Africans. In foreign policy, Modi is running a positive-sum game. What other countries in the world could manage to nurture such close relationships, strategic and otherwise, with Russia and the United States simultaneously? (Serbia, maybe? The United Arab Emirates? The list isn’t incredibly long.)

Modi, whose social media use has been nimble, was quick to post a photo of his warm welcome for Obama early Sunday morning. But one look at his Facebook and Twitter feeds, which often border on the campy side, show that he doesn’t just delight in Obama — in 2015 alone, he’s featured shots with German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble,  Israeli agriculture minister Yair Shamir, Astrakhan provincial governor Alexander Zhilkin, Iranian presidential adviser Akbar Torkan, Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander, Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, among many (many) others.

What’s becoming clear is that while Modi has taken only a gradual approach to reforming India’s government, slowly introducing changes to make the bureaucracy more efficient, the theme of Indian pride is constant in the Modi approach to both domestic and foreign policy. Continue reading Photo of the day: Obama meets Modi →

India

Modi showcases newly muscular Indian foreign policy

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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi took power less than five months ago, but he’s already made five major world visits, including to Japan, to the BRICS summit in Brazil and this week, Modi is sweeping through an action-packed five-day visit to the United States.India Flag Icon

His current visit to New York and Washington has the air of triumph about it, and his speech to nearly 19,000 fans at Madison Square Garden certainly marks one of the very few times that a foreign leader has drawn such genuine support from an American audience. It’s all the more amazing, given that for much of the last decade, the US government refused Modi a visa to travel to the United States, due to his questionable role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots, which took place four months after Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat state.

India’s foreign relations with major world powers like the United States, Russia and China aren’t always easy, and its relationships with other south Asian neighbors, especially Pakistan, can often be downright frosty.

Nevertheless, there are at least two reasons why Modi has such a strong opportunity to maximize India’s role on the world stage today — and none of it has to do with India’s economy, which is growing far slower than it needs to sustain truly transformational gains.

The first is the world’s growing multipolarity, which must seem especially multipolar from New Delhi’s view. Neighboring China is poised to become the world’s largest economy within a decade. India also has longstanding ties with Russia dating to the Soviet era that are now especially relevant as Russian president Vladimir Putin reasserts his country’s might in its ‘near-abroad.’ That makes cooperation with India, the world’s second-most populous country, a strategic advantage for any major power, and it gives India considerable leverage.

The second is the nature of Modi’s election in May. With 336 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of the Indian parliament, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) has the strongest majority and boldest mandate than any Indian government since 1984. While no one knows whether Modi can use that strength to revitalize India’s public sector and institute reforms to boost its private sector, the magnitude of his victory forced the world to take notice. If, as Modi promises, he can introduce robust economic reforms, a more liberalized Indian economy could birth a lucrative market of over 1.25 billion consumers, especially if Modi can lift India’s poor into a middle-class standard of living.

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When Modi appointed Sushma Swaraj (pictured above earlier today with Modi, former US president Bill Clinton and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton), the former leader of the Lok Sabha, as India’s new external affairs minister, it was a gesture of respect for an ally of the BJP old-guard leaders, such as LK Advani, who have largely been pushed aside in the Modi era. But it should have also been a sign that Modi, known for his micromanaging style, would take a hands-on approach to foreign policy.

Given the emphasis that Modi placed on good governance and economic reform, it might be surprising that he’s spent so much time in his first five months on international relations. Modi has so far been cautious on economic policy — for example, his first budget in July featured far more continuity than rupture, disappointing some of his booster.

So what do five months of Modi’s foreign policy tell us about what we might expect over the next five years?

Plenty — especially on the basis of his international efforts as Gujarat’s 13-year chief minister.

Here’s a look at how Modi’s efforts in reaching out to five other global powers already provide strong hints to the Indian prime minister’s worldview, and how we might expect India to engage the rest of the world for the foreseeable future. Continue reading Modi showcases newly muscular Indian foreign policy →

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A state-by-state overview of India’s election results

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It quickly became clear early on Friday morning across India that Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) were headed for a historical victory in India’s national elections, which took place across nine separate phases between April 7 and May 12. India Flag Icon

But to really understand the impact of the victory, it’s important to delve into the results on a state-by-state level. Where did the BJP massively exceed expectations? Where did it fall short? Where did regional leaders keep the ‘Modi wave’ at bay? Where did regional leaders fail? Each state tells us something about the future shape of India’s new political reality in New Delhi and about the future of state governance, which, after all, represents the most important level of government for most Indians, even in the Modi era.

For the record, here are the final results:

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The BJP, together with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 336 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the House of the People, the lower house of India’s parliament. It’s the largest mandate that any Indian party/coalition has won since 1984.

The ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) and its allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won just 58 seats. Not only did the Congress suffer the worst defeat of its history under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first post-independence prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, it’s the first time that a non-Congress party has won an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.

Regional parties and other third groups won an additional 149 seats. Continue reading A state-by-state overview of India’s election results →

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India’s election results: Modi wave largest mandate since 1984

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The results are now (largely) in for what will certainly be one of the biggest election dramas of the decade.India Flag Icon

Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister, has led the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) to its best-ever victory. In India’s post-independence history, it’s the first time that the BJP — or any party — has won an absolute majority other than the  Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).

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RELATED: In-Depth: India’s elections

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Conversely, the Congress, the party of Indian independence and the party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, has suffered its worst defeat in the history of independent India. After a decade of rule, party president Sonia Gandhi and her son, party vice president Rahul Gandhi, face a long wilderness in the Modi era.

Here’s the latest on results, via NDTV:

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The BJP, by itself, will hold 284 seats, which gives it an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा). Together with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), it will hold 340 seats. That represents the largest mandate that any governing coalition has won since 1984, when Congress won over 400 seats under Rajiv Gandhi, who was waging the fight after his mother, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her SIkh bodyguards in the wake of Sikh riots.

It’s hard to describe just what a massive landslide this was, but this NDTV map of all 543 constituencies give you a good idea:

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Continue reading India’s election results: Modi wave largest mandate since 1984 →

India, United States

Pivoting to Modi: US-India relations in the Modi era

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I write tomorrow in The National Interest about US-India relations — why they’re at such a nadir and how they could become even worse under the person that exit polls (and every other piece of evidence) say will become the next prime minister of India, Gujarat’s chief minister Narendra Modi.India Flag IconUSflag

Just six years ago, US president George W. Bush stood beside Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to hail a landmark nuclear deal that welcomed India into the global nuclear club. Though it foresaw greater technological cooperation between the United States and India, its real power was in demonstrating US respect for the world’s largest democracy — and the world’s second-most populous nation-state.

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RELATED: In Depth: India’s elections

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Much of that goodwill today is gone, unfortunately, and US-India relations could take an even more ominous tumble during a Modi-led government dominated by his conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी).

In brief, Modi (pictured above) will be a much different kind of Indian leader, who isn’t nearly as friendly to Westernization as the English-speaking elites in the ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस). It doesn’t help that Modi was essentially banned from US and European travel for much of the past decade, though US and European officials may have had good cause for shunning Modi on the basis of his role in the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.

Amid a dizzying amount of political change across Asia, India might prove to be the most difficult challenge for the Obama administration in its final 2.5 years:

But from the U.S. perspective, Modi’s rise could be the most challenging of all. Even though the bilateral relationship is now at its lowest point since Obama took office, its current state could feel warm and fuzzy compared to what lies ahead. Among the priorities of the Obama administration in its final two-and-a-half years, the challenge of restoring strong ties with India should lie at the top of the Asia agenda. No amount of pivoting will matter much if U.S. ties to the world’s largest democracy—and, despite its current stumbles, one of the world’s largest emerging economies—lie in tatters in January 2017.

I argue that the Obama administration needs to find a way to move past the diplomatic kerkuffle of the Khobragade affair that added so much needless tension to the US-Indian relationship, appoint a much stronger ambassador to India than the outgoing envoy Nancy Powell and work to encourage Modi’s instinct for greater economic freedom while discouraging Modi’s possible instinct to restrict India’s religion freedom.

The truth, however, is that no one knows exactly how Modi will deal with US relations: Continue reading Pivoting to Modi: US-India relations in the Modi era →

Gujarat, India

How the 2002 Gujarat riots became so important to the 2014 election

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Earlier this year, when Narendra Modi, the frontrunner to become  India’s next prime minister, decided to run from Varanasi, a city that many in India consider to be India’s holiest, many of his supporters co-opted a Hindu chant, ‘har har Mahadev,’ a traditional greeting in Varanasi among Hindus.India Flag Icon

The chant praises the Hindu lord Shiva, also known as Mahadev, and it literally means, ‘rid us of pain,’ though it was once a battle cry of ancient Hindu kings.

Modi’s supporters co-opted the chant as ‘har har Modi,’ a turn of events that even left some Hindu scholars uncomfortable. Though Modi and other leaders in his party, the conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) eventually called on supporters to desist, it’s become the most notorious ‘dog whistle’ in a campaign where religious tension is bubbling fervently below the surface.

It also confounded worries among India’s religious minorities that they might be second-class citizens under a Modi government. The overwhelming majority of Indians are Hindu, including nearly 80.5% of the Indian population, largely as a result of the 1947 Partition that created the Muslim-majority Pakistan. But 13.4% of India’s population is Muslim — another 2.3% is Christian, another 1.9% is Sikh and another 0.8% is Buddhist. In a country of 1.236 billion people, that translates to over 165 million Muslims, and that’s a fairly large group of folks that could feel threatened by a potential Modi government.

For many Indians, the key question of this year’s national elections has less to do with development or economics but rather about a series of riots in 2002 that left at least 790 Indian Muslims, and possibly up to 2,000 Muslims, dead.

Those riots, which took place in Gujarat, were one of the first crises in the administration of a new chief minister, Narendra Modi, just four months on the job. Modi had succeeded Keshubhai Patel, another BJP chief minister whose rule faltered after the loss of several by-elections and charges of mismanagement of the relief efforts from a devastating 2001 earthquake in Gujarat.

Twelve years later, Modi’s response to those riots and the lack of clarity over his responsibility for the bloodletting is at the heart of the national election campaign. Suspicion that Modi subtly encouraged the violence has dogged him ever since. Though he’s been technically absolved by the Indian supreme court, the Gujarati riots prevented Modi from receiving a visa to enter the United States in the mid-2000s and Modi himself has refused to apologize for the tragedy that took place on his watch. even as Modi has increasingly used his economic stewardship of Gujarat as the basis of his presidential-style campaign.

So what actually happened? And why has it become so central to the current election campaign?  Continue reading How the 2002 Gujarat riots became so important to the 2014 election →

Gujarat, India, Punjab, Telangana

India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 7

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With just three rounds to go between today and May 12, and just 194 seats left to fill, Indians are once again going to the polls today to elect MPs in 89 constituencies.India Flag Icon

The biggest prize of today’s voting is Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi, where his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) hopes to win the lion’s share of the state’s 26 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament.

Gujarat

Modi (pictured above in a ‘selfie’ posted to Twitter after voting earlier today in Ahmedabad) has served as chief minister of Gujarat since 2001, and he’s won three consecutive elections, most recently in December 2012. Much of his campaign revolves around his own stewardship of the Gujarati economy over more than a decade. The promise that Modi, as India’s next prime minister, can bring the ‘Gujarat model,’ with its high level of development, GDP growth and investment, to all of India is an alluring prospect. But it’s questionable that there’s anything like a ‘Gujarat model’ at all — it’s probably more accurate to talk about a ‘Gujarat narrative’ that begins well before Modi took office. While Modi has worked hard to bring investment to his state, and while he may be credited with some of the state’s economic success over the past 13 years, it’s not certain just how he would effect the lessons of Gujarat’s development throughout the rest of India. 

But for today’s purposes, the governing Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस), which currently controls 11 of the state’s 26 constituencies, will almost certainly lose many of them. As in so many other states across India, Congress, under the uncertain leadership of Rahul Gandhi, seems destined to mark historical losses.   Continue reading India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 7 →

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Spring 2014 voting blitz: five days, six elections

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We’re beginning to hit the peak of what’s perhaps the busiest world election season of the past few years.

What began as a slow year with boycotted votes in Bangladesh and Thailand in the first two months of 2014 snowballed into a busier March, with important parliamentary elections in Colombia, the final presidential vote in El Salvador, parliamentary elections in Serbia, a key presidential election in Slovakia, and municipal elections that upended national politics in France, The Netherlands and Turkey.

But the pace only gets more frenetic from here.

Between today and Wednesday, five countries (and one very important province) on three continents will go to to the polls: Continue reading Spring 2014 voting blitz: five days, six elections →

India, United States

US ambassador to India resigns a week before Indian elections

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India starts its massive, nearly five-week, nine-phase general election in just seven days.India Flag IconUSflag

So you figure that US-Indian relations must be on fairly poor terms when the United States ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, stepped down on Monday after less than two years on the job.

According to reports in both the United States and India, Powell had become increasingly ineffectual due to the Khobragade affair.

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RELATED — In Depth: India’s elections

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Her resignation came amid growing reports that her recall was imminent, though US officials strongly denied that yesterday:

And at a Monday briefing, deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf strongly denied that Powell’s resignation was anything but a 37-year career diplomat retiring after serving posts all over the world….. “All the rumors and speculation are, quite frankly, totally false,” Harf said.

Powell’s decision wasn’t really Powell’s fault — she will retire in May after a 37-year career in the foreign service, having served as the US ambassador to Uganda, Ghana, Pakistan and Nepal, as an assistant acting secretary of state three times, director general of the US Foreign Service, and previously as consul general in Kolkata (previously Calcutta) in the early 1990s and political counselor at the US embassy in India in the mid-1990s.

So Powell was already one of the most experienced hands that the US state department could have deployed to India.

The Khobragade incident is essentially a minor diplomacy scandal. US officials arrested deputy consul general Devyani Khobragade in December of last year on suspicion of visa fraud — and then strip-searched and detained Khobragade. The incident initially caused a minor kerfuffle over diplomatic privileges and immunities, but quickly escalated to the point where it’s had an extremely adverse effect on the bilateral relationship. India began stripping US diplomats of certain privileges, and Indian officials made themselves increasingly less accessible to Powell.

Meanwhile, Powell had to deal with the even thornier issue of how the United States ought to handle Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat and, increasingly the frontrunner to become India’s next prime minister. Modi, who’s leading the parliamentary election campaign of the center-right, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) was denied travel visas to both the United Kingdom and to the United States, the latter in 2005, stemming from the controversy over Modi’s role in fomenting — or at least, not stopping — the worst Hindu-Muslim riots of the past two decades in 2002, which left over 1,000 Muslims dead and occurred shortly after Modi took office in Gujarat.

Following the release of a recent report from the US Congress, that policy seems almost certain to change if Modi becomes India’s next prime minister.

Powell met Modi in February, the first ambassador to do so since Modi emerged as a potential prime minister. But the Khobragade affair delayed the meeting (pictured above), and some reports from India claim that Washington faults Powell for being too close to the administration of Mamohan Singh and foreign policy advisers within Singh’s party, the Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).

Modi hasn’t spoken at length about his foreign policy, but most Indian observers believe he will be relatively more muscular vis-à-vis Pakistan, relatively more aloof with Europe and the United States, and relatively friendlier with China, on the basis of past trade-related cooperation between China and Gujarat.

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With a fresh start, expect US president Barack Obama to appoint a relatively high-profile political ambassador to replace Powell. One option he should consider is Bobby Jindal (pictured above), a two-term governor of Louisiana, former member of the US House of Representatives, a conservative Republican and an Indian American who was raised in a Hindu household, though he later converted to Roman Catholicism.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Obama recruited a sitting Republican governor for such an important post — Utah governor Jon Huntsman served as the Obama administration’s ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011.

Though the India portfolio isn’t always filled by a high-profile political official, there’s a long pedigree of important figures in the role: Continue reading US ambassador to India resigns a week before Indian elections →

Gujarat, India

What exactly is the ‘Gujarat model’? And can Modi export it nationally?

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Narendra Modi’s strongest argument in his quest to become India’s next prime minister is the record of economic growth in Gujarat, where he has served as chief minister since 2001 — and the promise that Modi can unlock the same kind of growth nationally. India Flag Icon

There’s no doubt that Indian GDP growth has slowed — despite bouncing back from the 2008-09 global financial crisis with 10.5% growth in 2010 on the strength of a surge of investment in the developing world, India has struggled with much lower growth over the past three years. That’s one of the reasons that the governing center-left, governing Indian National Congress (Congress, or भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) is so unpopular as it tries to win a third consecutive term in India’s April/May parliamentary elections.

But what is the ‘Gujarat model’? Can Modi really claim that his government’s policies are responsible for the superior Gujarati economic performance?

What’s more, even if Modi’s claims do hold up, is the Gujarat model so easily replicable that he will be able to implement nationally in the likely event that he becomes India’s next prime minister?

Though Modi and his center-right, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, or भारतीय जनता पार्टी) lead polls in India’s election campaign, the answers to those questions will determine the success — or failure — of any future Modi-led government. Continue reading What exactly is the ‘Gujarat model’? And can Modi export it nationally? →

Bihar, India

What does Nitish Kumar want?

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In a more perfect Indian democracy, the increasingly presidential-style showdown for the April/May Indian general election would not be between Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, and Rahul Gandhi, the latest scion of the long-ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.India Flag Icon

Instead, it would pit Modi, a champion of economic liberalism and Hindu nationalism against Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar state. Kumar, who’s been in power since 2005, can claim to have transformed Bihar from an economic basketcase into one of the fastest-growing states in India. What’s more, Kumar has paired the quest for high economic growth with the values of secularism and a push for greater social welfare spending. Kumar (pictured above) has been mentioned as a potential prime minister, and he certainly will be in the future — even if Modi wins this year’s elections.

But in the odd calculus of Indian domestic politics, Kumar, formerly an ally of Modi’s conservative  Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी), is increasingly marginalized in the current campaign.

At first glance, it’s odd that Kumar and Modi came to be allies in the first place, it’s odd that Kumar would leave the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) last summer just as Modi won the prime ministerial nod from the BJP’s leaders, and it’s odd that Kumar, with the strongest counter-example to Modi’s ‘Gujarat’ model, could now be squeezed out of having any national role in Indian politics.

When the BJP decided last June to anoint Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, as its prime ministerial candidate, however, Kumar promptly pulled his party, the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U), जनता दल (यूनाइटेड)), out of the NDA, depriving the coalition of its second-largest member.

That decision now looks like a mistake, because JD(U) stands to lose most of its seats in the April/May parliamentary elections. Though it currently holds 20 of the 40 seats allocated to Bihar, projections show that the JD(U) could lose around 15 (or more) of those seats.

So what happened?  Continue reading What does Nitish Kumar want? →

India

Meet Arvind Kejriwal, the rising anti-corruption star of Indian politics

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Arvind Kejriwal

Yesterday, the new government of Delhi’s national capital territory launched a new anti-graft hotline that received nearly 4,000 calls on its first day.India Flag Icon

In what was supposed to be the year of Narendra Modi’s easy rise to India’s premiership, it’s another brash new leader who’s making headlines instead — and not just in India, but worldwide.

It’s Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, आम आदमी की पार्टी), literally the ‘Common Man’ Party, which emerged as the key player in Delhi’s December regional elections as  an alternative to Modi’s conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) and the governing center-left Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) of Sonia Gandhi, the party’s leader; Rahul Gandhi, her son; and outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh. 

Kejriwal, at age 45 one of India’s youngest chief ministers, took office on December 28, leading a minority government that, somewhat ironically, enjoys the outside support of the INC, which controlled Delhi’s government between 1998 and last December’s elections.  Congress, which was running for a fourth consecutive term in power under chief minister Sheila Dikshit, was decimated — it not only lost its majority, but now holds just eight seats, after suffering from widespread corruption allegations.  Kejriwal actually ran in Dikshit’s New Delhi constituency and defeated her by a margin of 53.5% to 22.2% (state BJP leader Vijender Gupta received just 21.7%).

Though the BJP actually won the greatest number of seats (31 to the AAP’s 28), negotiations between the AAP and the BJP failed, and Kejriwal took up Congress’s somewhat surprising offer to back his government, thereby avoiding a new round of elections.  Unlike other regional parties in India, the AAP managed to take power on a broad coalition of supporters, not on the basis of representing certain religious or class-based constituencies — it attracted Muslims and Hindus, rich and poor, Dalit and non-Dalit, and especially India’s educated younger generation.

Kejriwal, a mechanical engineer by training and a former Indian Revenue Service official, started an NGO in 1999 called Parivartan, designed to provide tax assistance and other help to Delhi citizens.  But it was as an anti-corruption official that Kejriwal first caught fire in the national spotlight, and under the mentorship of Anna Hazare, worked to demand what would eventually become the Right to Information Act (RTI) in 2005, which required government bodies to reply to citizen requests for information within 30 days or face penalties, and which relaxes many previous exemptions from disclosure under the Official Secrets Act and other legislation.  RTI replaced the much weaker, toothless and exemption-ridden 2002 Freedom of Information Act.  

In 2011, Anna and Kejriwal succeeded in pushing the government to start the process for drafting a Jan Lokpal bill, an anti-corruption law that would create the Jan Lokpal, an independent citizen’s ombudsman commission that would have the ability to investigate corruption.  Though India’s parliament pushed through a Lokpal Bill in December 2013, it’s much weaker than the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill — for example, it doesn’t protect whistleblowers, it doesn’t provide for any real punitive actions or the ability to prosecute corrupt bureaucrats, and it doesn’t provide investigative independence to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation.  Kejriwal took the final leap into elective politics when he founded the AAP in November 2012 with the intention of contesting Delhi’s local elections.

Having now swept to power in Delhi (literally on the image of a broom ‘sweeping’ corruption away), Kejriwal wasted no time in announcing a 50% cut in power rates and free water to Delhi residents within hours of taking power.  He’s already working to implement the AAP’s anti-corruption agenda with the anti-graft hotline, and he’s pledged to introduce a Jan Lokpal bill specifically for Delhi soon.AAP broom

There’s good reason for Kejriwal to be in a hurry — with the AAP’s momentum spreading from Delhi to other parts of India, it could be in a position to make a splash in national politics with the upcoming elections for the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament, which are due before May 31.  That gives Kejriwal some time to lay the foundation for what the AAP might be able to accomplish on a grander scale, a down payment on what a national anti-corruption party could enact.

After a decade of rule under Singh’s Congress-led governments, Indian voters are weary with Congress .  Its prime minister-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi seems unexciting and disinterested.  Indians are displeased with Congress’s reform record and the state of India’s precarious economy.  Meanwhile, the AAP has highlighted a growing disenchantment over bureaucratic corruption.

Though Modi, the decade-long chief minister of Gujarat state, promises to lead a BJP government that will bring Gujarat’s high economic growth rates to the entire country, there are doubts both about the extent to which Modi’s ‘Gujarati model’ is responsible for his state’s growth and how (and whether) such a ‘Gujarati model’ could even be translated to a much more diverse national economy.  Moreover, the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat continue to blemish Modi’s record.  Though he recently spoke out for the first time disclaiming any role in the violence, the riots, which resulted in the death of over 1,000 Muslims, will continue to haunt Modi’s campaign and the notion that he can be a trustworthy prime minister for India’s religious minorities.

So what damage might Kejriwal inflict on the status quo? Plenty.  Continue reading Meet Arvind Kejriwal, the rising anti-corruption star of Indian politics →

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14 in 2014: India parliamentary elections

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6. India parliamentary elections, expected in May.

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In the spring, the country of 1.24 billion people faces a decision — either award a third term to a listless, relatively corrupt center-left government with uninspiring leadership or take a chance on a controversial center-right government that promises economic transformation, but which could inflame India’s Muslim population.

Before May 31, Indians must choose the entire membership of Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament — it currently has 545 members, but can have up to a maximum of 552.

On the left is the familiar Indian National Congress (Congress, or भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).  This is the party of Jawaharlal Nehru. And Indira Gandhi, his daughter. And Rajiv Gandhi, her son. And Sonia Gandhi, his Italian-born wife. And now Rahul Gandhi, their son.  With 206 seats, Congress is the largest party in the Lok Sabha today, and it leads the United Progressive Alliance, which holds a total of 226 seats.

After a decade in office, India’s first Sikh prime minister, economist Manmohan Singh, will step down no matter who wins the elections — and he’ll do so with an economy in the doldrums and a record of having achieved few of the economic and social reforms that Indians expected when he came to power in 2004.  Though he pushed through   reforms to liberalize India’s retail sector earlier this year and a law strengthening punishment for rape after the brutal gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi in December 2012, Singh’s record as prime minister has been panned — much in contrast to his record as finance minister between 1991 and 1996.  GDP growth is expected to rise in 2013 to around 5% after falling for three consecutive years — from 10.5% in 2010 to 6.3% in 2011 to just 3.2% in 2012.  But that comes after the Indian rupee fell nearly 25% in value against the dollar throughout 2013 — and still remains around 13% lower than it was in January 2013.

Sonia Gandhi, Congress’s party leader throughout Singh’s administration, is expected to continue in that role, with her and her son Rahul (pictured above) leading Congress’s campaign.  But Rahul’s relatively lackluster performance on the campaign trail has led some commentators to wonder whether he really cares if Congress wins or loses in 2014.  Rahul recently tried to create some distance between himself and Singh, but it remains to be seen whether Rahul has the political skill to become India’s next prime minister.

On the right is the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी), which last held power between 1999 and 2004, when it lost a disastrous ‘India Shining’ campaign that seemed to disregard the majority of Indians who weren’t pocketing the gains of India’s economic boom at the time, despite GDP growth of around 8%.  This time around, the BJP has embraced Narendra Modi, the thrice-elected chief minister of Gujarat, home to one of India’s strongest regional economies.  He’s popular, not least of which because he’s seen as impervious to corruption, but he hasn’t explained yet how he would translate his Gujarati economic model to the entirety of India.  What’s more, he’s plagued by his role in controversial anti-Muslim riots in 2002 that left over 1,000 Muslims dead.  Modi’s role remains murky, but it was enough for the United States to deny Modi a visa in the 2000s.  It’s a handicap for Modi’s national ambitions, in light of a population of 176 million Muslim Indians who largely mistrust Modi, who got his political start in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing, Hindu paramilitary group.

Today, Modi seems like the odds-on favorite to become India’s prime minister, but he and the BJP face challenges.  It’s no secret that former BJP leader and deputy prime minister LK Advani has clashed with Modi in the past, and that Modi’s rise to become the nominal head of the BJP remains controversial.  What’s more, he starts the campaign with just 117 seats in the Lok Sabha.  The second-largest member of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, the Janata Dal (United) (जनता दल (यूनाइटेड)), a center-left party with 20 seats that controls India’s third-most populous state, Bihar, when that state’s chief minister Nitish Kumar pulled out of the NDA in June 2013 over differences with Modi.

The BJP thrived in a set of state assembly elections in November and December 2013 in a wide swath of north-central India — it retained Madhya Pradesh (India’s sixth-most populous), retained Chhattisgarh and gained Rajasthan (India’s eight-largest).  But it lost its sole foothold in India’s south when it lost control of the government of Karnataka in May 2013.  There’s also no indication that the BJP can make inroads in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where it placed third in February 2012 state elections behind two UPA-friendly parties, the Samajwadi Party (समाजवादी पार्टी, Socialist Party), which holds 22 seats, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP, बहुजन समाज पार्टी), which holds 21 seats.  In West Bengal, India’s fourth-largest state (and one of its poorest), chief minister Mamata Banerjee has a lock on politics after her center-left All India Trinamool Congress (সর্বভারতীয় তৃণমূল কংগ্রেস) took power in 2011, defeating the even more communist Left Front (বাম ফ্রন্ট), which also has a strong influence in Kerala in India’s southwestern corner.  Both parties belong to neither the UPA nor the NDA after Banerjee pulled her party out of the UPA in 2012.

Yet another worry is the recent rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (आम आदमी की पार्टी), a new party that rose to prominence in Delhi’s state elections in December and that leads Delhi’s new minority government with outside support from Congress.  Whether you think the Aam Aadmi Party marks a cynical brand of populism or an important moment in the fight against corruption in Indian government, its leader (and new Delhi chief minister) Arvind Kejriwal is a suddenly unexpected key player in India’s national elections.

Taken together, it could mean Indians deliver more votes to third parties in 2014 to either Congress or the BJP — but whether they do so in a way that could actually transform Indian governance is less certain.

Photo credit to AFP / Prakash Singh.

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Is there a potential parliamentary path to amending Section 377 in India?

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Sonia Gandhi, the leader of India’s largest party, and a massively influential voice in Indian government, has strongly denounced the Indian Supreme Court’s ruling on Section 377 of the Indian penal code, which effectively re-criminalized same-sex relationships yesterday.India Flag Icon

The Supreme Court rejected the earlier 2009 decision of the Delhi High Court, which had interpreted that Section 377 violated several rights guaranteed under India’s constitution, thereby effectively decriminalizing same-sex conduct.  India’s Supreme Court yesterday instead ruled that it was up to India’s parliament, not its judiciary, to address Section 377.

Gandhi forcefully called on India’s parliament to take up the issue by amending Section 377 in a way that makes it clear that she believes same-sex conduct should not be criminalized:

“The High Court had wisely removed an archaic, repressive and unjust law that infringed on basic human rights enshrine din our Constitution. This Constitution has given us a great legacy, a legacy of liberalism of openness, that enjoin us to combat prejudice and discrimination of any kind. We are proud that our culture has always been an inclusive and tolerant one. The Supreme Court also suggested another course. I hope the Parliament will address this issue and uphold the constitutional guarantee of life and liberty to all citizens of India, including those affected by this judgement.”

As the leader of the governing Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस), her strong condemnation makes it possible that India’s parliament just might enact a legislative fix.

Gandhi’s statement cleared the way for several high-profile members of India’s government to attack the decision.  Finance minister P Chidambaram said he was extremely disappointed with the decision, and he argued that the decision, by upholding a law enacted in 1860, embodies  colonial-era reasoning.  Kapil Sibal, India’s minister for law and justice, after a somewhat non-committal statement yesterday, today issued a call clearly supporting government action to neutralize the Supreme Court’s decision:

“I am disappointed, and, it is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has upheld the legality of Section 377. The High Court was right on this issue. Right now, there are several options before the government, and, we are exploring all of them. This government believes in firm and quick action, and, we will do that. We will adopt a policy that will provide relief at the earliest,” he said.

Congress, which likes to wrap itself in its legacy as the party that delivered Indian to independence in 1947 under Jawaharlal Nehru, a leader of the independence movement and later, India’s first prime minister, would jump at the chance to attack Section 377, above all, as a relic of Victorian-era repression inflicted upon India by its British colonial rulers.

Fresh off its massive political victory in regional elections earlier this month in Delhi, the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also announced its disapproval of the decision and its support for repealing or amending Section 377.

In contrast, the center-right Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) and Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state, and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in next spring’s parliamentary elections, have been silent since yesterday’s decision.  Sushma Swaraj, the BJP opposition leader in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament, has called for an all-party meeting to determine whether there’s support to amend Section 377 in the Lok Sabha.

While Muslim and Christian groups have been more active on Section 377 in India than Hindu groups, the conservative BJP doesn’t exactly fit the mould of a party willing to take a progressive stand in favor of LGBT rights.  Baba Ramdev, a top Indian yoga guru, and a leading Modi supporter, has been outspoken in his virulent opposition to homosexuality.

Either way, Gandhi and Congress will find that time is rapidly running out, with the Lok Sabha expected to be dissolved next spring in advance of parliamentary elections that must be held before May 2014.

While Congress could push to amend 377 through legislative action, there’s a chance that the government could also support a ‘curative petition’ that calls on the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling — such petitions rarely succeed, but such petitions rarely have the full support of Sonia Gandhi behind them.

Both the Congress-led government and the BJP have at least some reason to pull together to support legislation essentially decriminalizing same-sex conduct (once again) in India.  Continue reading Is there a potential parliamentary path to amending Section 377 in India? →