India remains stable amid global turmoil, from Bangladesh to Ukraine, despite minor internal unrest. In a discussion with Abhijit Iyer Mitra, we explored how external forces attempted to destabilize India, but Prime Minister Modi successfully countered these efforts. The conversation covered various tactics used, from protest toolkits to manipulated economic reports, revealing the complex strategies employed against India and how the government has maintained the nation's equilibrium in the face of these challenges.
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#AbhijitIyerMitra #Iyer #PMModi #IndiaBangladesh #Ukrainewar #Podcast #Oneindia #Oneindianews
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to this special broadcast on One India.
00:04What has transpired in the vicinity of India is something which is nothing short of a shocking
00:10news.
00:11Bangladesh is in tatters and the way there's a foreign hand is being talked about in toppling
00:18the Sheikh Hasina government, who instigated the students or whether there was more to
00:23it than what met the eye.
00:25But there has been, no democracy in the world has got untouched, has remained untouched
00:32with efforts and insinuations like these, where the governments have found themselves
00:42in hot waters because of some third forces.
00:46How India was also in such position, how Prime Minister Modi's governance in the last ten
00:50years has thwarted them, these are some of the issues that one would definitely wonder
00:55and want to prod upon, especially for a fact that how and in what ways could India prevent
01:03becoming or getting into a situation like Bangladesh.
01:06To discuss that further, I have with me Abhijit Iyer Mitra, Senior Fellow, Institute of Peace
01:12and Conflict Studies, IPCS.
01:14Abhijit, thank you so much for taking time out for One India.
01:18Thank you so much for having me on.
01:21Thank you, Abhijit.
01:22Well, Abhijit, in light of the recent incidents where foreign influence was alleged to have
01:28attempted to destabilise India, such as the toolkit during the farmers' protest, how do
01:35you assess the Indian government's response in countering these, quote-unquote, external
01:42threats?
01:43So, you know, we have to understand, first of all, two things.
01:48One is there's a difference between Ukraine, Bangladesh and India.
01:52And there's also a difference in perceptions.
01:54So the first thing is, let's separate Ukraine from Bangladesh and India.
01:58You know, Europe generally seeks American validation.
02:02Ukraine is kind of, most European countries, not just Ukraine, they've accepted to, you
02:05know, being second fiddle to America.
02:08And you know, advancing an American game, they want to be in the American orbit, which
02:14is why it is far easier for NGOs to pull off what they did in Ukraine, than what they
02:19did in India and Bangladesh, especially because, you know, India still has some very, let's
02:25say, not pleasant memories of American intervention in South Asia, especially with the Bangladesh
02:32Liberation War.
02:33And the Bangladeshis, I think, much more so since 3 million of them died in 1971.
02:39That said, there are fundamental differences even between Bangladesh and India.
02:44Bangladesh for the longest time till Sheikh Hasina stabilized their economy, used to be
02:48considered the Disneyland for NGOs, there wasn't a single NGO worth its salt that did
02:53not have outpost in Bangladesh.
02:55And it was, you know, sort of the petri dish for every NGO idea that came about and very,
03:02it wasn't great for the Bangladeshis, but it was great for NGOs.
03:05It was their biggest sort of cash cow, so to say.
03:08The second is Bangladesh is also a fairly compared to India, it's a centralized and
03:13homogeneous society.
03:14It is not a federal structure, everything is concentrated in Dhaka.
03:18And you know, it's mostly overwhelmingly Bengali, or at least the ethos, there is no acceptance
03:25of a sort of multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic state.
03:30India in that way, you know, it is precisely the fact that we have 1000 different TV channels,
03:35which these American, you know, I don't like the word deep state, but a lot of these American
03:41progressives like to manipulate for their agendas, nuances have to be different, forget
03:47from state to state, forget from language to language, even within every 100 kilometers,
03:52you know, the desires and the inadequacies change.
03:57So it becomes difficult to message, you look at American diplomats in Delhi, they're always
04:02sitting at the Italian cultural center talking in English, they only talk to interlocutors
04:06who speak to them in English.
04:07And it's a sort of 1% view of, you know, the elitist 1% Delhi, India view, it's not the
04:14Bharat view happening in India.
04:17So this makes life a lot tougher.
04:22Now we need to remember what's happening in America as well.
04:24In America, it isn't that America wants to do all these things.
04:28It's just that you have a president who's absent, who's essentially a walking zombie,
04:34and a vice president who is considered unserious, she's not read into most of the important
04:39things and things like that.
04:41In that particular case, you have several silos within State Department, which keep
04:46in with each other on different kinds of things.
04:48I can tell you Defense, the Department of Defense is almost monoblock solidly behind
04:53India.
04:54State, there are some silos which are, you know, which get the nuance of what's happening
04:58in India and things like that.
05:00There are several more who do not.
05:02The third issue, of course, is the inadequacy of our own foreign service.
05:05You know, we don't engage with these people, we keep say criticizing USCIRF, the Committee
05:10on Religious Freedoms reports, which are based on newspaper clippings.
05:15But when is the foreign ministry ever done, you know, aggressive news conferences, dismissing
05:21those news reports, they never call news reports for being inadequate and things like that.
05:28Nor do they engage on a systematic basis with foreign diplomats in pointing out certain
05:33things to them, and dispelling myths.
05:37So it's a very complex thing.
05:39Is there a toolkit?
05:40Absolutely.
05:41But I would say it's more a case of, there is no deep state, it's a sort of convergent,
05:47corrupt interests of individuals within the State Department, who then make their personal
05:53priorities the priorities of their particular silo, who also do because, you know, it's
05:59a revolving door kind of thing in US government, you come to US government, and then when the
06:02government changes, you go into an NGO or into a think tank or into a university and
06:09things like that.
06:10And it's sort of their own retirement packages in that sense, by listening to them on what
06:15to do, and then by carrying out their agenda.
06:19Right.
06:20Right.
06:21You see, what we have seen in the past also, what you talk about is the bigger picture,
06:28definitely.
06:29There have been incidents when a few names like George Soros has come to the fore, you
06:35know, in a way, bulldozing the India's economy, you know, hitting it where it hurts the most,
06:42the sentiments of the investors to the sentiments of the people of the country.
06:48How do you see for a country as big as India to hold its fort, not go haywire?
06:55And how do you think the current administration has handled the situation so far, as far as
06:59the economic front is concerned?
07:00See, the economic front has been handled extremely well, because, you know, we're not that vulnerable
07:05because we're not an export dependent economy.
07:08On one hand, you know, you can't just, we're not that vulnerable to sanctions in the first
07:12place.
07:13The second thing has been because you have lots of regulatory powers, so on, so forth,
07:18you're able to control, you're able to prevent a lot of the kind of runs on the stock exchange
07:23runs on the stock market and things like that, which some of these toolkit types try to do.
07:28And in this, I'd like to specifically point out not just Soros, but also Omidyar and those
07:32Hindenburg guys.
07:33Now Hindenburg, for a company that keeps insisting on transparency, they're exactly zero transparent
07:39about themselves.
07:40We don't know what the ownership structure is, we don't know who's in, who's running
07:44it, anything of that sort.
07:47Yeah.
07:48The issue is, we've always been very, almost, I would say defensive in how we deal, we react,
07:55we are not proactive.
07:57So for example, what really prevents you from putting out an arrest warrant and primary,
08:01secondary and tertiary sanctions on Soros?
08:03See Soros can induce a run on the stock market.
08:07But if you put primary, secondary, tertiary sanctions on anybody who has investment from
08:12Soros or associates with him, what do you think is going to happen to Soros?
08:17It really affects the portfolio very badly, right?
08:20You can do the same, both Soros and Omidyar front some particularly hostile propaganda
08:26press in India.
08:27That thankfully has been curtailed.
08:29Because if you remember, either last year or last to last year, there was this thing
08:33that newspapers cannot get foreign funding, it has to be approved by government by a select
08:38committee of government secretaries, I think, have to approve it and things like that.
08:42Some things have been done, there is a lot more that can be done, which is not being
08:46done.
08:47There are always restrictions, you know, you can't go the whole hog and then fall into
08:52the trap of seeing, be seen to be the sort of dictator or whatever.
08:57But this isn't a question of dictatorship.
08:58This is a question of external influence on your democratic processes, just like the so
09:04called Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
09:07As we now know, never really happened.
09:10Whereas here you have demonstrable chain of what is happening, right?
09:20You have clear direct foreign investment in newspapers, in news outlets or whatever, which
09:27should have never been allowed.
09:28There is a rule which says that a foreigner cannot be the editor of a newspaper, why?
09:32You should also make sure you can't be doing advertisement and investment and things like
09:37that as well.
09:38Right.
09:39FDI and media.
09:40Very big question there.
09:41Definitely, Abhijit.
09:42Now, we're talking about, you know, geopolitically, if we look at India, obviously surrounded
09:51by quite challenging adversaries there, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, you have down south,
09:58you know, Sri Lanka, obviously with Chinese interest there, with, you know, a porous northeast
10:04with Jammu and Kashmir, which has been troubled by the Pakistani intruders, Pakistani army
10:13and terrorists.
10:15How do you think that India so far has performed in the last 10 years, I would say, specifically
10:22during Prime Minister Modi's tenure?
10:25How these strategies or policies have been effective in maintaining the stability generally
10:30in the country?
10:31Very effective, in fact, you know, you might see some temporary reverses here or now.
10:38But when you change policy of 70 years, you know, you're bound to get some ups and some
10:44downs.
10:45But overall, it's been going in the right direction.
10:47Let's separate, say, Pakistan from China, right?
10:49With Pakistan, you had this standard, it was the sort of musical chairs in Pakistan, where
10:55one party would come to power, they'd make peace talks with India, the moment the peace
10:59talks were going well, there'll be some protests, and then they'll be removed, then the army
11:03will come, the army will then, you know, have peace talks with you.
11:07And then there'll be some internal coup within the army where you will be removed, etc, etc,
11:11and things like that.
11:12So, you know, this was they never wanted to sort Kashmir out, let's be clear about it,
11:17the Pakistanis, because the moment you remove Kashmir from the friction table, you know,
11:23the whole, the reason for the Pakistan army's existence itself evaporates.
11:28So, you know, solving Kashmir is like telling the Pakistan army, please dissolve yourself,
11:33which is not really going to work.
11:36And then, you know, you have these local politicians who would be echoing the same line that the
11:40Pakistanis wanted.
11:41People like Omar Abdullah and Abu Bahufdil say, talk to the Pakistanis, they are stakeholders.
11:45But since when did Pakistan become a stakeholder in our territory?
11:51Right?
11:53So these people were essentially parroting what the Pakistani line was, while claiming
11:58to be great patriots and things like that.
12:00We should also remember the PDP is the sort of, if you take an Irish example, Sinn Fein
12:06was the political party, which was not banned.
12:08IRA was the military wing, which was banned.
12:10Here, it's a triple wing, there's the Jamaat-e-Islami, the PDP and the Hizbul Mujahideen.
12:15The Hizbul Mujahideen is the military wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
12:19And the PDP is the political wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which considers itself the
12:22intellectual wing of both of these things.
12:25Right?
12:26So this was a thing.
12:27Now, with the abrogation of 370, and you know, the cracking down of the entire money laundering
12:30black economy route out there, that has been comprehensively ended.
12:35We need to remember the insurgency in Kashmir has ended, there will be terrorism, we need
12:41to remember even after the insurgency in Punjab ended, there was that bomb blast, which killed
12:46the chief minister, Bayant Singh, well after the insurgency had ended, you will see spectacular
12:52terror attacks happen.
12:54But that does not mean that there is a state of insurgency in Kashmir anymore, which means
12:58the leverage of Pakistan on you has been removed, they can no longer say settle with us and
13:04then you will have peace.
13:05Not that land for peace has ever worked.
13:07I mean, look at what's happening in Israel, the whole basis of that settlement was land
13:10for peace, the Oslo agreements.
13:13I mean, really, if Gaza looks like peace to you right now, well, congratulations.
13:23So that has been handled very, very well.
13:25We have the border defences in place, which are very good.
13:28You know, no border defences like you saw on, you know, the 7th of October in Israel,
13:33no border defence is completely foolproof.
13:35So there will be leakages that happen, but that doesn't mean that kind of, you know,
13:40before the border was literally like a sieve, anybody who wanted to come through could come
13:44through.
13:45That has comprehensively ended.
13:47Now let's look at China, what the whole point with China was, China would keep building
13:52infrastructure on their side of Tibet.
13:55And we built nothing in the belief that, you know, if we build infrastructure, the Chinese
14:00will overwhelm us and the same roads we built from say Delhi to Leh will be used by the
14:05Chinese army as a highway to come in back to Delhi.
14:09That has stopped comprehensively.
14:11The infrastructure building is amazing.
14:13The Border Roads Organization, which used to be one of the most corrupt organizations
14:17around has been the kind of construction you're seeing within every single year is more than
14:25what you've seen in the cumulative 40 years preceding that, right?
14:29The kind of tunnel we're building out there, the access points we're building, the helipads
14:33we're building, the military bases we're building out there, why?
14:37Because, you know, this thing of let's not talk about our differences, let's not demarcate
14:42our lines, means that the Chinese could keep using salami tactics coming slice by slice
14:47by slice in and keep pretending it didn't happen, which is why Sham Saran, you remember
14:51came up with the report, because he's an avid hiker himself.
14:55And then he had to distance himself from the report and say, Oh, no, no, no, I didn't mean
14:58all of that.
14:59Which showed that so much of land had been lost to the Chinese between 62 and 2014.
15:07And all of that has essentially stopped.
15:08Is there going to be small salami slicing here and there?
15:11Yes, but the overwhelming majority again has been stopped.
15:14And you know, these are the kind of red herrings that keep getting spread.
15:17Either 5 meter chala gaya, it's the same as 5000 square kilometers lost.
15:21Now, you see, five meters is not 5000 square kilometers, right?
15:27One was used to justify the classic spraying of red.
15:30So it's been managed very, very well.
15:32Has it reached the end goal yet?
15:35No.
15:37Are we well on our way to the end goal?
15:39Yes.
15:40Absolutely.
15:41It sounds reassuring.
15:42Thank you so much.
15:43One final question, coming home, basically the internal matters.
15:47How do you evaluate India's success in avoiding a descent into an anarchy?
15:54What lessons can other countries also learn from India's approach, if I may ask?
16:00Look, it's a mixed bag.
16:03There's good and there's the bad, right?
16:05The good is, you know, things like we discussed, the stopping of foreign investment into news
16:10outlets, especially shady news outlets of the type Soros and Omidyar Love.
16:17On the other hand, I think, you know, the first thing you're taught about security is
16:22that you do not act when people assemble on the road.
16:26You act preemptively even when 10 people have assembled before assembling on the road, when
16:32they're ready, getting ready to get into the tempo to come to the assembly ground.
16:35We have not been doing that, you know, we've had this sort of very laid back approach to
16:42preemptively tackling unauthorized demonstrations, riots, even when riots happen, for example,
16:47like on, you know, on Republic Day, two, three years back, where the farmers stormed the
16:52Red Fort.
16:55Yes.
16:56Yeah, we did not.
16:59In fact, you saw the shocking visuals of the police were covering and one side being
17:02beaten up by the rioters and things like that.
17:04Yes.
17:05We fundamentally need to change that you see, the counter to that is, oh, look at Sheikh
17:10Hasina.
17:11She shot down protesters and look what happened.
17:14You see, there is no one specific rule of dealing with these things.
17:19You prevent had Sheikh Hasina not allowed the congregation to happen in the first place,
17:24you would have not even had to need to shoot them.
17:28Because you deal with it before the protesters see after 10,000 people assemble, it's very
17:33tough to do the game is lost.
17:35But when you deal with them, when they're five or 10, getting on their tractors setting
17:38off for something, it is much easier to deal with them without any violence, right?
17:43What happens with violence is you can't control it, then it becomes a Tiananmen Square, which
17:46would be an unmitigated disaster, correct.
17:49So there are there is a lot of lessons for us to learn.
17:52I think generally, the government's soft touch policy has yielded results till it does
17:59not yield results, which is what we saw with Sheikh Hasina, you see, she had a soft touch
18:03policy.
18:04If you notice for a single year, in the last 15 years, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the BNP
18:09have brought Dhaka to a standstill sometimes several times every year.
18:12There hasn't been a single year where there haven't been mass protests like this.
18:16And it was always handled well till the time it wasn't handled well.
18:20And see, you can't leave these things up to chance.
18:22That is why you need to be extremely proactive.
18:26So has it worked?
18:27Yes.
18:28Can we, we can pray for it to continue working, but will something go wrong at some point?
18:34Almost certainly yes.
18:35Yes.
18:36That's how, you know, the Mafia's law would also have it.
18:40But nonetheless, Avijit Iyer Mitrande, Senior Fellow, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies
18:45IPCS.
18:46Thank you so much, Avijit, for taking time out.
18:49This must have been the first time on One India, but trust me, it is not going to be
18:52the last time.
18:53We would love to host you more on shows like these.
18:56Thank you so much.
18:57Thank you so much.
18:58Take care.
18:59Bye.
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