Chanakya's New Manifesto: To Resolve the Crisis Within India (23 page)

3.105  Jail terms ranging from three to seven years for public servants taking graft, is appropriate, as is a term of four to ten years for criminal misconduct. Imprisonment ranging from five to ten years for habitual offenders also constitutes sufficient deterrence. The important point, of course, is that the guilty should be punished in a timely manner. Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal draft also has a provision whereby if a business entity is a beneficiary of an offence, it can be fined up to five times the loss caused to the public. It also proposes that if a director of a company is convicted, the company shall be blacklisted from receiving any further government contracts. These are sensible proposals and should be implemented. Deterrent and timely punishment is at the core of Chanakya’s doctrine of punishment meted out to offenders for the benefit of society—dandaniti
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3.106  The larger issue of the redressal of public grievances should, for the time being, be left out of the purview of the Lokpal. The implementation of the RTPS Act across the country would take care of this issue to a great extent, especially if Citizens’ Charters are made a part of it. For the moment, it is more important not to load the Lokpal with too much responsibility so it can focus on the primary issue of corruption.

3.107  The provision in the government bill for false and frivolous complaints, stipulating a maximum term of one year of imprisonment and a fine of up to
5 lakh, is appropriate. However, this penalty should be doubled for false or frivolous complaints against the PM.

3.108  Before I end this chapter, the issue of black money needs to be touched upon. According to 2010 figures, compiled by Transparency International, India has more black money than the rest of the world put together. By some estimates, the black economy constitutes about a third of India’s GDP, which works out to
30 lakh crore ($600 billion). There is no single solution to this malaise, and this is recognized by the White Paper issued by the ministry of finance in May 2012.

3.109  Black money is a symptom of the manner in which the national architecture against corruption functions. If the architecture is flawed or weak, black money is bound to proliferate; if it is strong, the avenues for generating and hiding it are blocked, or at any rate constricted. The plan of action I have discussed in this chapter may not fully resolve the problem of black money, but it will contribute significantly to its reduction.

3.110  In addition, it is essential to recognize that bad government rules and laws force economic transactions to go underground.
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A more simplified tax structure, which encourages compliance, is one solution. The adoption of the Goods and Services Tax Act (GST) would also help. Most black money is generated in the twin areas of land and gold transactions. Intelligent rules in both these areas are needed, such as lowering stamp duties on real estate deals. The Global Financial Institute estimated in 2010 that, between 1948 and 2008, India lost, in current monetary value, $462 billion in capital flight. A lot of this was due to laws within our country which made it more profitable to send unaccounted money abroad. This was also a result of the mismanagement of the economy and the failure to resolutely follow up on economic reforms. If governance improves and if economic opportunities proliferate as a result of economic reform, including the simplification and rationalization of financial laws, the need for an underground economy diminishes.

3.111  Quite independently of what we need to do at home, every effort must be made to get back black money stashed away illegally abroad. The government has yet to prove its resoluteness in the matter. This is an important matter since the realization that it may be difficult to hide black money abroad will be a powerful disincentive for Indians to garner it in the first place. In this context, an intelligent one-time amnesty scheme, as a first step, may be relevant.

Corruption will not disappear from India overnight. However, a focused and realistic campaign against it can be effective if governments show the requisite political will to implement it. Governments very rarely act of their own volition. Pressure from every one of us must play a vital role in forcing government to act.

SECURITY

No enemy shall know his (the king’s) secrets. He shall, however, know all his enemy’s weaknesses. Like a tortoise, he shall draw in any limb of his that is exposed.

The Conqueror shall think of the circle of states as a wheel—himself at the hub and his allies, drawn to him by the spoke though separated by intervening territory, at its rim.

An enemy’s destruction shall be brought about even at the cost of great losses in men, material and wealth.

The Arthashastra

Chanakya recognized a basic truth: if the State is vulnerable or, even in a worst case scenario, ceases to exist, then everything about it is of little or no consequence. This is why he felt the security of the State was the paramount goal of all governments and societies. The modern Indian republic has not recognized this fundamental truth. Its approach to security is sloppy, ad hoc, unplanned, reactive and completely lacking in focus and will. In short, modern India has not developed a clear-cut, unequivocal, and well-thought out security doctrine. This is a matter of grave concern, and must be rectified, for if India is dismembered, or defeated, or permanently destabilized, all is lost.

There are several elements that go into the making of a security doctrine. First, it is absolutely essential to have a considered yet flexible strategic vision. Second, that vision must be backed by resolute political will. Third, goals must be laid out and the means provided to achieve them. Fourth, there must be put in place a command and control structure that can anticipate, plan, coordinate and react effectively. Fifthly, such a structure must have the jurisdiction to act in the interests of the security of the State. Sixth, it must be able to, where public interest dictates, operate in absolute secrecy. And lastly, those charged with the country’s security must remain ceaselessly vigilant for any threat to the nation.

India follows none of the above, or at least none fully. Since ahimsa, as a conscious policy choice elaborated upon and implemented with dramatic efficacy by Mahatma Gandhi brought us freedom, independent India remained for many decades in its thrall. The choice of ahimsa against a much stronger military enemy was, when shorn of the genuine idealism animating the Mahatma, a Chanakyan stratagem. Gandhiji had the clarity and vision to adopt it as a means to victory. After 1947, non-violence in security terms, and the ineffectual pacifism that was its consequence in statecraft, was something he would have been bemused by.

Strategic vision requires the ability to adopt that policy which is best suited for a particular situation. That is why Chanakya articulated the four tools of sama, dana, danda, bheda—reconciliation, inducement, deterrent action and subversion—and the lesser known asana, or the strategic art of deliberately sitting on the fence. Each tactic had a specific use. The need for us today to have a thoroughly revamped and effective security doctrine, and the infrastructure required to support it, is self-evident given the fact that we are located in one of the most troubled regions of the world; we have two implacably hostile states as our neighbours: Pakistan and China; Afghanistan is endemically unstable; Nepal is imploding; large parts of Myanmar are under the sway of terrorists of varying hues; the entire region is in the grip of fundamentalist and violent radicalism; China’s policy of encircling India by finding strategic bridgeheads in our neighbours is known; we have the problem of externally sponsored terrorism, and now increasingly, home-grown terrorism; and, as many as 200 districts in eight states are infested with Naxal violence.

There are three principal components that make up an effective security doctrine: foreign policy, defence preparedness and an intelligence gathering apparatus. Our foreign policy establishment has been devalued to an unprecedented extent in recent times. The routine, day to day requirements of diplomacy have overwhelmed any cerebral policy making, both short term and long term, which must be the prime purpose of a foreign office. Institutions are devalued when they forget their principal focus and allow minutiae to crowd out the fundamentals. Given the complex challenges we face, a critical component of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) should be the policy planning division, which is currently near defunct. It needs to be manned by the best and brightest who, free from the routine work of diplomacy, present policy options on a continuous and dynamic basis.

It is equally important that the MEA independently provide policy inputs to aid decision making on the part of the government. This means that, as an institution, it must carefully weigh the pros and cons of any situation, and make its voice heard in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). There was a time when, at least partially, the MEA had a point of view which—even if at variance with the PMO—it was prepared to defend. This enriched policy making, and gave to the institution a sense of defined purpose. Today, the MEA has often become a mechanical adjunct of the biases of the PMO.

Not surprisingly, our foreign policy is mostly reactive. This is particularly evident in our reactions to the two most important countries in our region, Pakistan and China. China proposes, and India responds. Pakistan decides on what new tack to take, and India scurries to react. When China announces that Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh will be given stapled visas, India is taken by surprise. Our response could have been to announce stapled visas for Chinese of Tibetan origin. But we lack the guts, either to take the initiative, or to provide an appropriate response to a provocative action. Similarly, when the Chinese protest our exploration for oil in the South China Sea, we are not prepared to ask them what they are doing in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). POK is an internationally accepted disputed area; the South China Sea is not. China openly arms Pakistan when it knows that the latter’s arsenal is directed against us; it makes major economic investments brazenly in POK; but when India contemplates a ‘quadrilateral’ dialogue with the US, Japan and Australia, or a ‘trilateral’ dialogue with Japan and the US, China protests and India meekly withdraws.

China follows a policy of ‘containment with engagement’ with single-minded focus. Pakistan has perfected a policy of explosive aggression and tactical appeasement. India remains undecided on which to respond to, without a cohesive policy framework that anticipates both. There is no harm in talks or negotiations or other forms of engagement so long as we see them as the means to an end of our own making. But that is not the case. The initiative is always taken by the other party, secure in the well-justified belief that our reaction will follow predictable lines. In fact, it sometimes appears that China and Pakistan have mastered Chanakyan stratagems to the same degree that we have forgotten them. Our policy choices oscillate unpredictably, while theirs remain unwavering. After the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, we announced that we would not engage in substantive negotiations with Pakistan until the perpetrators, whose culpability was beyond doubt, were brought to book. Subsequently, step by step we retreated from this decision. After the terrorist attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001, we simulated a purposeful response by an aggressive mobilization of troops on the border, and when this was just beginning to worry Pakistan, inexplicably reduced the heat. Following the blatant aggression of Kargil, just after the friendship bus yatra of then Prime Minister Vajpayee, we invited President Musharraf to Agra; having achieved his purpose, he pretended to leave in a huff adding insult to injury. At the Non-Aligned Summit at Havana in September 2006, we actually conceded that Pakistan, the single biggest threat to our security through the sponsorship of terrorism, was itself a victim of terrorism. At Sharm-el-Sheikh, we agreed, in order to appease Pakistan, that we were culpable in the insurgency in Baluchistan. Every time we have official talks with Pakistan in New Delhi, we allow the Hurriyat leadership to meet with Pakistani leaders, even when they have declined to meet with our prime minister, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir or any Indian interlocutor. Such examples of vacillation and pusillanimity are endless.