Hello, everyone. Good morning, afternoon or evening, and welcome to this edition of Notes from South Asia. You can find all the articles in the series here (along with my other diaries).
Today I will cover democracy in India, civil war in Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
India
Democracy
I read this piece from Ruchi Gupta on the Hindu on the broken democratic political process in India and thought it is important so share.
She makes an important point that I am sure Americans or people worldwide can appreciate. Democratic process in not about regime change or institutions. It is about the process of dialogue, consensus building and collaboration that delivers for all people in a society. Institutions and elections provide the framework for it, but it is a broader culture. If the broader culture is gone, the rest will follow soon enough.
The democratic political process in India is broken. It is not just that the institutional machinery has been captured, but that it is becoming impossible to alter the balance of power on any issue to chart a new way forward. At its heart, the democratic political process is not about regime change or “resistance”. The purpose of democratic politics is to facilitate constructive collaboration, of which capturing power and regime change is one part. Seen thus, democratic politics is about building consensus in favour of certain paths and providing platforms for collective action. But all traditional sites of consensus-building — public discourse, civil society, and political parties — have evolved to structurally impede dialectical cooperation.
This is different from the issue of institutional capture because institutions of the state are downstream of the political process. Such institutions can neither be in the business of facilitating collectives nor mooting alternatives; they instead derive their credibility from procedural integrity. What is at stake here is more fundamental to our polity and speaks to our inability to collaborate. Consequently, even on issues which have deep public resonance, we as a polity are unable to move beyond outrage, protest, or resignation. It is crucial to identify the pathologies affecting each of these sites if we are to restore the democratic potential of our political process.
And how are the three supposed to facilitate dialogue and collaboration—public discourse, civil society, and political parties arrive at a such a stage of devolution? I think her take on fragmentation of attention is particularly notable.
In a democracy, public discourse provides the space for the back and forth necessary to evolve consensus. However, three connected developments have rendered our public discourse unable to facilitate this. First, many institutional news media have lost credibility due to which they are unable to establish a baseline of facts or exercise narrative control. Second, the rise of social media has decentralised the manufacture and propagation of content making virality instead of substance the primary determinant of value. As a result, engagement is prioritised over quality or veracity. Third, with the loss of credibility of many mainstream media, there has also been a rise in hyper-partisanship wherein people are no longer interested in dialogue or deliberation and news/content is primarily a tool to promote factional interests. Finally, the proliferation of media has led to the fragmentation of our collective attention while the steady stream of “content” has made all issues transient. In this backdrop, gaining visibility and capturing attention is more important than dialogue. Consequently, the public discourse has become a site for a million individual battles to capture attention and reinforce tribal affiliation.
Civil society plays a crucial role as the voice of conscience in any polity and is the natural site to moot alternatives. However, the locus of liberal civil society action has increasingly moved towards the state and its institutional intermediaries; civil society has become dependent on a permissive state to be able to function. In this model, civil society derives legitimacy from normative purity instead of drawing strength from its representativeness. It is thus suited more to single-issue campaigns than its ability to reconcile multiple viewpoints through negotiation. Civil society groups are also marked by the proclivity to bypass the political process in favour of institutional processes, such as judicial or bureaucratic interventions, to advance their agenda.
Also noteworthy is the tendency to approach institutions rather than use the political process. Though in my opinion, both are entangled, so one has to try all. But yeah, institutions can’t save you.
The third is of course political party, which the author says is not sufficiently democratic or decentralised; where individual elected representative or party leader care less about changing policies effectively for their constituency and instead depend on patronage politics and the party symbol, national level party president and governing council for their electoral victory.
These various pathologies feed off each other to fracture our ability to come together. The media may highlight issues but moving forward requires organisation by civil society and political parties. On the other hand, the dysfunction in our information ecosystem has powered the rise of unserious individuals to positions of influence. The top-down nature of parties has altered the structure of civil society by raising the bar for grassroots mobilisation to an untenable height, leading civil society groups to direct their energies into lobbying through intermediary institutions or becoming agents for the execution of bureaucratic projects. This has depleted the organisational strength of civil society and reduced its ability to intervene in the political process for correctives. The dialectical nature of these pathologies resists easy fixes but for the world’s largest democracy, the complexity of the issue is not reason enough to not try.
To reinforce the point of our democracy being in peril, here is a report from Scroll on government work and cronyism through electoral donations (from Ragamalika Karthikeyan, Anand Mangnale , Neel Madhav & Project Electoral Bond).
In 2012, when the Supreme Court cancelled 122 telecom licences allotted by the Congress-led government, ordering that telecom spectrum be auctioned instead, media reports hailed the verdict as “a decisive blow against corruption”. The court order in what was popularly called the 2G spectrum scam contributed dramatically to the anti-corruption movement that propelled Narendra Modi to power.
More than a decade later, the Modi government laid the ground for a new revolutionary step in India’s telecom growth: using satellites to provide broadband services.
But despite the Supreme Court’s 2012 order calling for the compulsory auction of spectrum, the Modi government decided to adopt the same route taken by the Congress: discretionary allotment of spectrum.
In December 2023, it hurried a new telecom law through Parliament that allowed satellite spectrum to be assigned through an administrative order, doing away with the need for competitive auctions. It also filed a reference to the Supreme Court seeking judicial approval for the move away from auctions.
The Court did dismiss cases of corruption against the UPA II government ministers subsequently. However, the “Scam” became a big rallying point for the 2014 election.
While the satellite spectrum is yet to be allocated by the government, recently released data on electoral bonds raises troubling questions. It shows that the Bharti group donated Rs 150 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party through two sets of bonds purchased before and after the government introduced the new law that does away with the need for auction of satellite spectrum – and merely a month after the government granted OneWeb the space authorisation required to get the spectrum.
Besides Bharti Enterprises, Eutelsat OneWeb shareholders include the UK government, French Satellite provider Eutelsat, and Japanese investment bank SoftBank. Given the stringent anti-graft norms in these countries, transparency experts say the disclosures related to electoral bonds could have a wider impact abroad.
“It is fair to say that if Eutelsat OneWeb was aware of the purchase of electoral bonds by Bharti and their donation to the BJP, that would raise serious questions about their potential criminal liability under the UK Bribery Act,” said Kush Amin, a Legal Specialist at Transparency International.
That is, before applying for the spectrum, a company needs a license and authorisation both issued by the government. The government provided them after Bharti Group, one of the shareholders in the Eutelsat OneWeb, donated 150 Cr to BJP through electoral bonds.
Plus, there is also this. I thought I should share it in comments, but really it should go here.
Yet, there is not enough attention paid to this in mainstream media. The INC does not have enough funds to properly campaign in Kerala as per a Hindu report. Now, more of its funds are being blocked or extracted. This would greatly handicap its campaigning across the country. And they already had far less money compared to BJP that received the bulk of corporate campaign contributions through electoral bonds and other conventional means.
That is where we are.
The Exploitation In the Global Rules-Based Order
In other news, AP reports that the Indian shrimp industry that exports to US is exploitative (from Martha Mendoza, Mahesh Kumar and Piyush Nagpal).
India became America’s leading shrimp supplier, accounting for about 40% of the shrimp consumed in the U.S., in part because media reports including an AP investigation exposed modern day slavery in the Thai seafood industry. AP’s 2015 reporting led to the freedom of some 2,000 enslaved fishermen and prompted calls for bans of Thai shrimp, which had been dominating the market.
In India, residents told the AP newly dug hatcheries and ponds had contaminated neighboring communities’ water and soil, making it nearly impossible to grow crops, especially rice they depend on for food.
From the ponds, trucks hauled the shrimp to peeling sheds. In one shed, dozens of women, some barefoot, stood on narrow wooden benches enduring 10-hour shifts peeling shrimp covered in crushed ice. Barehanded or wearing filthy, torn gloves, the women twisted off the heads, pulled off the legs and pried off the shells, making it possible for American cooks to simply tear open a bag and toss the shrimp in a skillet.
It is not precisely slavery but their economic conditions coerce them to take up low-paid jobs in terrible conditions.
Erugula Baby, 51, widowed and destitute, sold her gold jewelry — her only savings — and then took out loan after loan in her rural Indian village as her son lay dying of liver disease. Her debt topped $8,500 and her son didn’t survive. Today she’s raising her granddaughters and trying to repay the loans, help her daughter-in-law get an education and, on a good day, eat a small amount of rice. She said she works in brutal conditions, peeling, cutting and grading shrimp in a factory for less than $4 a day, which is $2 less than minimum wage.
“The working conditions are tough,” she said, wiping away tears with the corner of her red sari. “Standing for long hours in the cold while peeling and cutting shrimp takes a toll on my body.”
Baby and other workers said they pay recruiters about 25 cents a day out of their salaries just to set foot inside the processing shed. Transportation in company buses is also deducted from some workers’ salaries, along with the cost of lunch from company canteens. Many workers have no contracts, and no recourse if they are hurt on the job.
Another peeler, Penupothula Ratnam, said she suffers back pain all the time from the arduous work, for which she’s paid about $3 a day.
Is this different from US businesses employing undocumented immigrants to do arduous work?
Bangladesh
Education and the Young
The Daily Star editorial worries about the high percentage of youth in Bangladesh dropping out of education to work.
It is alarming to know that a staggering 40.72 percent of the population aged between five and 24 years were not in educational institutions last year, as revealed by a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) report. In other words, these young individuals were not receiving any form of education as they are supposed to in their formative years, thus setting themselves and the nation back significantly. This is deeply concerning.
The BBS report further said that 39.88 percent of those aged between 15 and 24 were out of education, work or training. It shows at a time when these individuals are supposed to have the most creativity and energy, society at large is failing to provide them with any scope to utilise their potential. This situation has been particularly worse since 2019 as the out-of-education population rose by 11.45 percentage points in the intervening years.
The Star says government must do better by the Bangladeshi children.
Given the realities of our country, pre-tertiary schooling is particularly essential as, without it, even getting low-paying jobs can be difficult. To achieve our vision of becoming a developed country, this situation needs to change urgently. Whatever barriers that are in the way of young people utilising their potential—such as poverty, politics, and poor policymaking—must be removed. Another important thing that the government must address is the plight of over 3.4 million street children, who must be rehabilitated and educated properly for the sake of our future.
Fire and Fire Safety in Bangladesh
Kabir Hossain writes for Dhaka Tribune: Why are fire incidents increasing in Bangladesh?
Statistics from the Fire Service and Civil Defence show incidents involving fires have been on the rise in Bangladesh over the past few years, indicating a lack of effective preventive measures.
These incidents have been reported throughout the country, particularly in Dhaka, resulting in significant losses of both lives and properties.
Based on the fire service statistics, January saw 2,372 fire incidents, while February witnessed 3,000 fires this year.
Why?
These statistics from the fire service indicate a continuous rise in the number of fires each year.
According to the fire service, several factors are contributing to this alarming trend, including not following building codes during construction, disregarding fire service policies, and using highly flammable materials in building decoration.
They have also listed the installation of low-quality and cheap electrical cables and the absence of a fire safety plan among the reasons as well.
Meanwhile, it was seen that in most fire cases, probe bodies are only formed for significant incidents.
On top of that, in most cases, the probe bodies do not submit their reports on time. Consequently, the timely identification and listing of the underlying causes behind the fires become challenging.
On April 4, 2023, a fire broke out at Bangabazar market, Four other establishments adjacent to the market were also affected by the fire.
On April 11 of that year, a probe body formed by Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) over the fire identified that the fire originated from either a mosquito coil or a cigarette on the third floor of the market.
Another probe body formed by the fire service also said the fire originated from a mosquito coil.
On April 15 of the same year, 226 shops were gutted in a fire at Dhaka New Super Market.
According to the market owners' association, the fire caused a loss of Tk350 crore.
According to the fire service investigation committee, the fire broke out due to an electrical fault (short circuit).
Investigations have confirmed that the fire was caused due to the use of substandard electrical equipment and a lack of regular supervision.
Bangladeshis and the Revolutionary War
Mahfuz Anam writes for the Daily Star about The war that we need to know so much more about. It is book review.
It was my extreme privilege to be one of the millions who participated in our Liberation War. Even after 53 years and having read a considerable number of books on it, many of us feel that we still have so much left to learn about the war which gave us our independence.
Our Liberation War is something we are proud to talk about, read about, and reminisce about but have not done much research on. The books that we have, and they are all very relevant and useful, can broadly be categorised in two: of the autobiographical nature, filled with reminiscences and descriptions of authors' personal involvement and actions; and those which deal with the overall history of the war, focusing on the big picture of social, economic, and cultural reasons as to why the war became inescapable. But what we feel terribly in need of are books that focus particularly on the nine-month-long war, with all its complexities and challenges. Bangabandhu was our leader and he did call upon us to prepare "with whatever we had," but there was no time for any preparation. So when the genocide began, we responded with courage and patriotism but not any preparation. All our responses were spontaneous and filled with raw courage. How that initial response became an armed war and how we organised ourselves into a functioning force is the story that not many books have included.
The newly published Bangla translation of 1971: Resistance, Resilience and Redemption, by Major General Md Sarwar Hossain, fills a significant gap in this respect. The book is special in many ways. It is a product of meticulous research conducted over 17 years. It is objective and free of the personalised accounts that mark many of the books on Bangladesh's Liberation War. The book concentrates on the war itself and nothing much else, giving details of every aspect of it. That makes it a very special text. [...]
The book describes in detail the resistance at various points in Dhaka city and around the country. The resistance was spontaneous and, by definition, unorganised. What shines through is the spirit of the people. For the most part, they didn't have the slightest idea of what the enemy's strength was. Secondly, they had no notion of how to face a well-organised, highly disciplined, and trained force which was armed with the most lethal weapons of the day and was thoroughly brainwashed to hate us. The sporadic resistance, organised within the shortest possible time, had its own shortcomings. But what this initial resistance did was sow a seed in the hearts and minds of the people that the Pakistani army, however powerful, was not invincible and could be struck against. This opened up our hearts and minds. The enemy, however powerful, was not invincible and we, howsoever not trained to handle arms, could attack, harass, and sometimes defeat the enemy. This newly found confidence was most crucial. It greatly contributed to a transformation of our mindset.
Myanmar
Civil War Updates
Hein Htoo Zan reports for Irawaddy that Kachin Rebels Claim China Border Trade Town After Ousting Nine Myanmar Junta Battalions
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and allies are poised to capture a Myanmar-China trade route after seizing nine Myanmar battalion headquarters and over 50 outposts in Kachin State in 21 days, according to the KIA and allied armed groups.
The KIA, Kachin People’s Defense Force (PDF), Arakan Army (AA), and other groups launched their offensive in Kachin State on March 7, seizing bases and outposts in Tanai, Sumprabum, Waingmaw, Momauk, Mansi Township and Dotphoneyan sub-township.
The latest push brought the capture this week of six outposts around the border-trade town of Lwegel (Lweje) in Momauk Township, the KIA said. Among them were major junta positions at Yaw Yone, Mada Bum and Lodmon, it added.
Lwegel is one of five official Kachin border trade posts with China.
Resistance groups said there are only two more junta positions to be seized on the 90-kilometer road that runs west-east between Bhamo and Lwegel.
Meanwhile, fighting broke out in the Shan state where there was a China-brokered ceasefire.
Fresh fighting broke out between regime troops and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) on Tuesday near Lashio in northern Shan State, where the military’s Northeastern Command is based, according to residents.
Tuesday’s clash was the first military confrontation since mid-January when the regime and the Brotherhood Alliance – a military alliance of the MNDAA, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Arakan Army – agreed to a ceasefire in northern Shan following talks brokered by China.
Junta troops and the MNDAA clashed for nearly 45 minutes in a rural area some 16 kilometers southeast of Lashio on Tuesday morning, according to reports.
The clash broke out after troops from Infantry Battalion 55 deployed in Kone Nyaung village on the outskirts of Lashio Town advanced into MNDAA territory, according to a villager.
Military’s Diminished Parade
Maung Kavi reports that Myanmar Military was forced to scale back its annual parade thanks to the war.
With junta forces losing ground across the country, the Myanmar military was forced to scale back its annual parade as it celebrated the 79th Armed Forces Day on Wednesday.
The first three editions of the annual event held under military rule following the 2021 coup were lavish displays of military equipment featuring large numbers of troops, but this year’s parade was scaled down, with mechanized units noticeably absent.
Citing high temperatures due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, the regime held the parade at sunset. It featured an unusually large proportion of female personnel.
Though previous parades included female soldiers, observers said their numbers were higher on Wednesday than at any previous commemoration. The number of male troops was visibly smaller than in previous years, based on a live broadcast of the parade.
This year’s aerial display was also modest compared to last year’s. Apart from a few choppers, the only aircraft taking part were three fighter jets (two Su-30 SMEs and one MiG-29)—a far cry from last year, when the skies were filled with at least 19 aircraft including FTC-2000G, K8W and Yak-130 jets, among others.
The fact that fewer troops took part in this year’s parade, and the large proportion of women, suggests that the military has been seriously depleted by casualties in its daily clashes with resistance forces since a major anti-regime offensive was launched in November last year.
The War’s Effect on Rohingya
Sarah Shamim writes for Al Jazeera about Myanmar’s civil war’s effect on Rohingya.
The Rohingya are yet again bearing the brunt of renewed fighting and military air strikes in Myanmar, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned this week.
The latest wave of fighting by armed groups who want to overturn the country’s 2021 military coup flared up at the end of October last year. The military extended the country’s state of emergency in January and announced a new, mandatory conscription programme in February, which many fear may also disproportionately affect the Rohingya people.
Not only are the Muslim-majority Rohingya being bombed “indiscriminately” but they are also being forcefully drafted into the army even though they are not recognised as citizens and have long been subject to persecution by the the Myanmar authorities, particularly the military.
Here’s what we know so far:
The article gives a history of the coup and resistance and then moves onto the condition of Rohingya.
The military has responded with force. Many of the country’s remaining Rohingya live in camps in Rakhine where their movements are severely restricted.
“The Myanmar junta has been indiscriminately bombing Rohingya areas in different townships in Rakhine state,” said Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, a global network of Rohingya activists.
Quoting local sources, Nay San Lwin said 23 Rohingya, including children and a religious scholar, were killed on Monday during the bombardment of western Minbya township. Additionally, 30 Rohingya were injured. “These attacks on Rohingya are happening everywhere,” said Nay San Lwin.
Other factors, such as a declining economy and depleting natural gas reserves, which are a crucial revenue source for the military regime, have further undermined its legitimacy.
A recent mandatory conscription order has triggered panic throughout Myanmar, with many residents looking for ways to escape. For the Rohingya, however, avoiding the draft is particularly difficult due to their restricted mobility.
That is it for today. Until, next Friday everyone. Stay safe. Be well. Take care.
May the proponents of violence (all forms) diminish and those of just peace increase.