Friday, November 27, 2009

Prof. Mattoo on the 3Ss to complement the 3Rs


Prof. Mattoo is keeping up his campaign to improve the Indian education sector. After his much discussed essay on the problems afflicting international studies in India, he has now written about school education, asking that the 3Rs be complemented by the 3Ss . . .

Prof. Mattoo suggests the need for greater Sensitivity, Security, and Spritual and Scientific temper. His essay was published in Education World and can be found here
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Sunday, November 8, 2009

N. Sathiyamoorthy on the current situation in Sri Lanka


Mr. N. Sathiyamoorthy, Director of the Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, author of a recent book on Sri Lanka and senior journalist based in Chennai, made a presentation at CIPOD on the current situation in Sri Lanka.

He drew out many of the complexities surrounding the situation in Sri Lanka. He seemed convinced that the Sri Lankan government was intent on integrating the Tamil population into the Sri Lankan national mainstream. The presentation was followed by a very lively discussion.
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Dr. Ashutosh Misra on Pakistan's Permanent Instability


On 7 October 2009, Dr Ashutosh Misra, Research Fellow at Griffith University, Australia made a presentation on ‘Pakistan’s Permanent Instability: Is Democracy the Answer?’ at CIPOD. This summary was prepared by Atul Mishra, a PhD candidate at CIPOD.


Dr Misra began by highlighting the absence of democracy and continuing political instability in Pakistan. Absence of democracy and political instability have been the features of Pakistan since its very inception. He said that Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisaged a democratic Pakistan state. But other Pakistani leaders, many of whom became members of its Constituent Assembly, were not interested in promoting democracy. Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly was primarily made of landlords with inherited feudal privilege. They were not keen on creating a democratic Pakistan because it would have undermined their economic, political and social clout. The resulting delay in framing the Constitution and the lingering debate over the role of Islam in the new state set the stage for Pakistan’s instability. Foundations of democracy in Pakistan were very weak. Also, the Muslim League, which spearheaded the Pakistan movement, was in some ways stranger to Pakistan because its leadership did not come from the places where Pakistan eventually came into being.

Dr Misra argued that the centralization of power in the formative years of Pakistan left the polity susceptible to influence and dominance of military and bureaucracy. Simultaneously, Islam was used by the elite to centralize power. The result has been a constant interplay of the influence of the military, civilian leadership nominally committed to democracy and Islamic forces in running the Pakistan state. Dr Misra argued that no ruling dispensation in Pakistan has managed to have the three elements of political longevity: power, authority and legitimacy. For instance, the military has had power but little authority and legitimacy. At various points, therefore, the military leadership has sought support from Islamic forces or pretended to democratize the political system by conducting elections. Governments in Pakistan have also been affected by a constant cycle of cooption, promotion and marginalization.

Dr Misra argued that democracy was not only desirable but also the only way to stabilize Pakistan. Despite its dilution, suspension and use for instrumental purposes, democracy has staged repeated comebacks in Pakistan. This shows that if democratic forces are given an opportunity, the possibility of Pakistan becoming a stable state would increase. He emphasized the promise that the 2006 Charter of Democracy signed between the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif offered for Pakistan’s future. The 36 point declaration could have paved the way for stable, peaceful and democratic Pakistan. But actions by individual leaders have made Pakistan suffer. Asif Ali Zardari’s quest for appropriating all channels of power and political supremacy are in line with his predecessors who have also paid lip service to democracy. His vindictive politics conducted against the Sharif brothers and autocratic style of functioning make an already fragile Pakistan even more susceptible to another military coup.

Dr Misra suggested that democracy was the answer to Pakistan’s instability. But for democracy to come about, Pakistan’s leadership would have to learn the right lessons from the country’s history and the ruling regime must have power, authority and legitimacy. Asked about India’s role in absence of democracy in Pakistan, he pointed out that India is seen as a threat to Pakistan. The sources of Pakistan’s instability, however, are domestic. Unless the role of and relations between the forces of democracy, Islam and military (and the three are not necessarily isolated from each other) are not sorted out, democracy would be difficult to sustain in Pakistan.

The post-presentation interaction with students and faculty member of CIPOD was lively, exhaustive and, as the speaker confessed, exhausting.

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India's "coercive diplomacy" against Pakistan not working, writes Happymon Jacob


Another essay by Happymon Jacob. This time he argues that India's "coercive diplomacy" towards Pakistan - which is how he characterises India's refusal to talk to Pakistan - has not worked and is unlikely to work . . .

As Jacob argues, "India’s strategy of compellence has never really worked against Pakistan. And it is unlikely to work in the future." The essay was published in The Hindu. You can also read it at Jacob's blogpage here.
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Happymon Jacob wants PM Manmohan Singh's speechwriter changed


Happymon Jacob has a radical solution for Kashmir: change PM Manmohan Singh's speechwriters . . .

Jacob thinks that the pace of India's bureaucratic decision-making process is too slow for the Kashmiris. The essay was published in the Greater Kashmir on November 3, 2009. You can read the full analysis from his blog here.
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Prof. Swaran Singh on Sino-Indian relations


Prof. Swaran Singh was recently interviewed by the Global Times on Sino Indian relations.

Regarding the recent troubles on the border, Prof. Singh suggested that "Time will be the great healer."

Read the full interview here.
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Prof. Mattoo on liberating India from Pakistan


Yet another essay by Prof. Mattoo on the India-Pakistan-Kashmir tangle in the Financial Express. He has provided, I think, a better explanation and argument for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent initiative towards Pakistan than the government's spinmeisters have.

Prof. Mattoo suggests that India should work towards constructing Jinnah's model of Pakistan: Muslim, moderate and modern. He suggests an Indian policy based on deterrence of asymmetric attacks, strengthening forces in Pakistan who have a stake in better India-Pakistan relations and weakening those who are opposed.

Read his full essay here.
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Monday, November 2, 2009

Atul Mishra on some recent works on Hobbes


Atul Mishra, a CIPOD PhD candidate, has contributed a nice little essay to the CIPOD Blog. Read on for Atul's comments on a couple of recent essays on Hobbes . . .


Atul:

Revisions are in order. Global power shifts to the East. And history has become curiously interesting again, for the nth time. The New Historians in Israel are questioning the foundations of conventional national history. Some in Russia are trying to resurrect (or reestablish) Stalin. Armenians are trying to dig out a history the Turks claim never happened. It is not just recent events which are set for retelling. We are also being told that Henry V’s victory at the Battle of Agincourt, fought all those years ago in 1415, may not have been so splendid and heroic after all. The subcontinent is no stranger to revisionism in history either. Two recent articles have sought to revise – or at any rate add to – our understanding of Thomas Hobbes, the author of Leviathan (the book and the idea).


Corey Robin, who teaches at CUNY and has earlier written a very readable history of fear, has reviewed Quentin Skinner’s Hobbes and Republican Liberty for The Nation. Corey interprets Hobbes, in the light of Skinner, as one of the first of the modern counterrevolutionaries. Indeed the very first. Hobbes’s prescription and preference of establishing order in situations of civil war is well known. More interesting is the way the article establishes Hobbes’s counterrevolutionary credentials.


Much against the prevailing (and evolving) ideas of republicanism and democracy, Hobbes ingeniously argued that the sovereign’s absolute and undivided power emerges from the contract individuals enter with one another. This theory of consent is well known and so is its basic problem: the apparent irreconcilability of fear and freedom.


Not so, says Robin. Hobbes redefined the idea of will as voluntary. Which means: “If I chose security over rights, then the fact of choosing this is an expression of my will – voluntary and free.” It’s a complex argument Robin makes. An engaging wordplay – “democratic distemper”, “the counterrevolutionary is a pastiche of incongruities” are examples – and his efforts to contextualize Hobbes for modern times make it a good read.


The other article, “More Revisions in Realism: Hobbesian Anarchy, the Tale of the
Fool and International Relations Theory” is by Giulio M. Gallarotti of Wesleyan University and has been published in the latest issue of International Studies. If you thought the likes of C.B. Macpherson, Leo Strauss and Skinner had read all that was apparent and hidden in Hobbes, revise your thoughts.


Gallarotti argues that a close reading of the section on the tale of the fool in Chapter 15 of the Leviathan renders Hobbes’s logic of anarchy more problematic than has been appreciated. With the help of game theory, he suggests that cooperation is possible even in Hobbesian state of nature. Implications of this new interpretation are that there are reasons to see Hobbes as the first early modern neoliberal and constructivist. This synthesis of the realist, neoliberal and constructivist elements in Hobbes can lead us towards a new vision of international relations. Gallarotti’s term for it is Cosmopolitik.
Note: You would need subscription to read Gallarotti's article online.

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Prof. Mattoo on India Today's BEST


India Today has set up a panel of experts they call BEST (Board of Experts on Security and Terror). CIPOD's Prof. Amitabh Mattoo is a member of the group, which met recently to discuss key national security issues . . .


A part of the transcript is available here from the India Today website. The rest will apparently be posted on their website later.

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