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11THE HINDU SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 2014

NOIDA/DELHI

COMMENT

>>The last paragraph of a report, “HJC working to divide anti-Congress vote:BJP” (August 29, 2014) said that the BJP won eight of 10 Lok Sabha seats inHaryana. It should have been seven.In the same paragraph the name of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)candidate from Hisar was mentioned as Dushyant Hooda instead of DushyantChautala.

>>The United Kingdom’s first referendum was held in 1973, erroneouslymentioned as 1975 twice in the Editorial, “Risky, if not reckless” (August 27,2014). The 1975 referendum was the first U.K.-wide one.

>>An article “Fading promise of India Spring” (Comment page, August 29,2014) gave the date of the two by-elections in Punjab as August 22. It shouldhave been August 21.

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

Google’s secretive research lab-oratory is trying to build a fleet

of drones designed to bypass earth-bound traffic so packages can be de-livered to people more quickly.

The ambitious programme an-nounced on Thursday escalatesGoogle’s technological arms racewith rival Amazon.com Inc., whichalso is experimenting with self-fly-ing vehicles to carry merchandisebought by customers of its onlinestore.

Amazon is mounting its own chal-lenges to Google in online video, dig-ital advertising and mobilecomputing in a battle that also in-volves Apple Inc.

Google Inc. calls its foray intodrones “Project Wing.”

Although Google expects it to takeseveral more years before its fleet ofdrones is fully operational, the com-pany says test flights in Australiadelivered a first aid kit, candy bars,dog treats and water to two farmersafter travelling a distance of roughlyone kilometre two weeks ago.

Besides perfecting their aerialtechnology, Google and Amazon stillneed to gain government approvalto fly commercial drones in manycountries, including the U.S.

Amazon last month asked theFederal Aviation Administration(FAA)for permission to expand itsdrone testing. The FAA currently al-lows hobbyists and model aircraftmakers to fly drones, but commer-cial use is mostly banned. — AP

Google building fleet of package-delivering drones

It is the policy of The Hindu to correct significant errors as soon as possible.Please specify the edition (place of publication), date and page.

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Recently, I had the opportunityto give an hour-long talk on thepolitical doctrines of Gandhi,Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lo-

hia and Jayaprakash Narayan with AamAadmi party volunteers at one of themany volunteer training camps orga-nised by the party in Uttar Pradesh. Fol-lowing the discussion, a senior partymember from the State cornered me andgently chided me for being ignorant ofthe ground realities.

Skirmishes in Uttar Pradesh

“Ever since the Samajwadi Party gov-ernment came to power, Muslims havebeen involved in minority terrorism.They openly molest or harass our wom-en while the administration indulges in acover-up,” he said in an angry tone.“Please make it clear to the top lead-ership that they should steer clear ofissues related to Muslims if they don’twant to lose the support of the majority.Ab is desh me musalmano ki rajneetinahi chalegi (now the politics that allowsthe Muslims to call the shots has no placein this country),” he added.

I asked him if he knew of any specificinstance of a Muslim man raping or ha-rassing a Hindu woman. He furnished atleast three recent instances.

“Would it be fair to evaluate or judgean entire community by the yardstick ofjust two or three individuals,” I askedwithout getting into the merits of hisstatistics. “All the accused in the ‘Nirb-haya’ episode were Hindus and they cer-tainly belonged to one caste or the other.But did we measure their respectivecaste groups on the basis of one individu-al’s action? If not then, why are we mak-ing an exception in the case of Muslimsnow?” I continued.

“There is a big difference,” he said.“The caste or religious doctrines of Hin-dus do not sanction deceitful or forcibleconversion or violence targeted against aparticular community. But ‘their’ reli-gion does so. It is not just that Hinduwomen are being lured into love affairsand marriages with the sanction ofMaulvis; such activities are very well-funded. Look at the proliferation ofmosques along the U.P.-Nepal border.Where is the money coming from? Theworst part is that the State governmenthas been siding with the Muslim cul-prits,” he replied.

I told him I would not get into anargument of demanding “hard evidence”to substantiate such accusations, norwould I engage in platitudes like “the lawshould take its own course” and “theguilty should be punished.” Religiousemotions stirred up by politics are notsusceptible to reasoning or evocations ofIndia’s constitutional ethos.

I decided to talk to him person-to-person. “Let me give you my example,” Isaid. “I dated a Muslim girl while study-ing in a Lucknow college and came veryclose to marrying her. We never saw ourrelationship through the prism of reli-gion and nor did our friends and families.The fact that we didn’t get married hadnothing to do with religious prejudices.This happened in U.P. 16 years ago, but

there was no talk of love jihad then. Thewoman I eventually married — nineyears ago in Mumbai — is a Goan Cathol-ic. I, a Marwari baniya, could easily havebeen accused of indulging in a Hindutvaversion of love jihad by targeting womenfrom different minority communitiesacross multiple States. Perhaps the onlyreason I didn’t land up in trouble wasbecause there were no counterparts ofthe Vishva Hindu Parishad or the Rash-triya Swayamsevak Sangh taking up theissue of the women I had had relation-ships with.”

Unless we segregate girls and boys ofdifferent religions and castes in all pub-lic spaces, inter-religious and inter-castelove affairs and marriages are inevitable.They are bound to happen in the feudaland patriarchal social settings of U.P. asmuch as in the cosmopolitan environs ofMumbai or Delhi.

“But you didn’t forcibly convert yourwife, did you? Look at the Meerut in-stance. They took advantage of her pov-erty by giving her a job, then made herpregnant and converted her to Islam.They want to increase their numbers,”my colleague shot back.

Are the instances of physical abuse or

mistreatment of women only restrictedto relationships between a Muslim manand a Hindu woman? How do most of theHindu women get treated in Hinduhouseholds? Don’t they face physical vi-olence and male dominance at the handsof Hindu men? The problem lies with thepatriarchal and misogynistic mindsetcutting across religious communities,” Iresponded.

“As a political party, we have to appre-ciate public sentiment. This governmentis pro-Muslim and people have made uptheir mind to vote for a party that willshow the Muslims their place. This is notmy voice but the popular sentiment,” hemaintained.

“If we are against minority appease-ment and the vote bank politics of theSamajwadi Party, does the answer to itlie in majority appeasement or Hinduvote bank politics,” I asked him. We haveto break this cycle of competitivecommunalism.

“How do you want the world to see us?A Hindu India which denies equal rightsand equal justice to its citizens who hailfrom the minorities or an India wherethe majority of Hindus has striven forand established a just and fair nation?The worst conduct of a few individualMuslims cannot be the template of con-duct for a majority of Hindus. What kindof conduct will enhance the honour ofHindus and India’s prestige? Do we wantto be seen as modern and progressive ornarrow-minded and regressive,” I askedhim.

“What U.P. is witnessing today — the

recurrence of skirmishes over loud-speakers blaring at places of worship, thelocation of mosques or temples, the hon-our of ‘our’ women — are all old faultlines caught up in old templates of time.These fault lines had been confrontedand debated over by the makers of ourConstitution: the men and women whospoke for a new India. I think some of thebest Hindus with the assistance of thebest of members from various minoritycommunities drew up our Constitutionand exemplified the collective vision of asecular, just and tolerant India. This wasand continues to the best political road-map for our country. A vision that ap-peals to and invokes the dark sidelurking in each of us would only plungeus in an abyss of darkness. When we talkabout a corruption-free India, it also en-visions an equitable and just nation thatis free of exploitation, injustices and in-equities of all kinds.”

“I agree with you but the problem isthat the other side doesn’t believe in thelogic of communal harmony. Also, howwould you convince those who have beenputting up with minority belligerencefor more than two years? All our goodwork would get negated by one inflam-matory speech of an Azam Khan,” mycolleague said.

It is very difficult to talk sense in anatmosphere where rabble-rousers fromboth sides are stoking ugly passions.

What lies ahead

In the coming months and years, U.P.,the State that once boasted of its Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, is going to pose one ofthe most difficult litmus tests for thesecular and modern vision of India. Thecontagion of mutual hatred and intoler-ance has spread across the length andbreadth of the State. As my conversationabove with a part-colleague shows, itwould not be an easy task to convinceand win over even some of the morereasonable and relatively moderate sec-tions, forget the lunatic fringe.

What U.P. needs today is a sustainedand vigorous political engagement withall communities; a relentless dialogue ofpeace and reconciliation. Conflict reso-lution committees comprising the mod-erates need to be formed at the locallevel. Somehow, it has become child’splay to manufacture and amplify newfissures, and seek out and champion newcommunal causes by falling back uponpatriarchal and feudal notions of loss ofhonour and prestige of one’scommunity.

A continual vigil has to be mounted,and at the first whiff of an incident hav-ing the potential of a communal confla-gration, liberals need to step in tonegotiate amicable and mutually accept-able solutions. Unless the people realisethat communal harmony and equal jus-tice are not airy-fairy sentiments but thebedrock so necessary for material pro-gress, accelerated economic growth and,above all, a better future, containing thevirus of communalism will be an uphilltask.

(Ashish Khetan is a journalist whostood for the 2014 Lok Sabha election asa candidate for the Aam Aadmi Partyfrom the New Delhi constituency.)

Old and new fault lines in Uttar Pradesh

RESOLVING CONFLICT: Unless people realise that communal harmonyand equal justice are the bedrock for material progress, economicgrowth and a better future, containing the virus of communalism willbe an uphill task. Picture shows a security person guarding a mosqueon Eid-al-Fitr in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. — PHOTO: PTI

What the State needs today is a sustained and vigorous political engagement with allcommunities for a dialogue on reconciliationAshish Khetan

In the coming years, thehome of Ganga-JamuniTehzeeb is going to pose alitmus test for the secularand modern vision of India

It is good that Prime Minister NarendraModi and Defence Minister Arun Jait-

ley have made it clear to the U.S. DefenceMinister, Chuck Hagel, who was in Indiaearlier this month, that the pure sale ofdefence hardware by the U.S. to India isfar from enough.

The way we should go with the Amer-icans has to be on the lines of the co-development and co-production of thestate-of-the-art Fifth Generation FighterAircraft (FGFA) with the Russians.

However, India, which agreed to buy 39AH-64D Apache helicopters for the Armyin addition to the 22 now under negotia-tion, is in talks again for purchase by theIndian Air Force (IAF) from the U.S.manufacturer, Boeing. This is being donewithout transfer of technology (TOT) toHindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)for the local manufacture of all these 61helicopters, which is bad for the country.Such a number of helicopters, seniormanagers and engineers of HAL’s Hel-icopter Division argue forcefully, is largeenough for substantial local content-based production. Neither the IAF northe Army contracts with Boeing has goneso far as to make TOT result in techno-commercially viable production here fea-sible and viable. The Ministry of Defenceshould act immediately to tie-up suchTOT-based production by HAL instead ofproceeding with mere import of the fin-ished product.

Defence supplies by the U.S.

Will the U.S. government agree? If weuse the multi-billion U.S. dollar value ofthe two contracts as leverage and exertpressure, they will have to. This wouldmean new jobs for HAL and its sub-con-tractors. It would also mean we wouldhave a nationally controlled spares pro-duction base in the country, which wouldbe orders of magnitude cheaper than sup-ply of spares from the U.S. The bread andbutter for the supplier come from hugelypriced spares; not from the mainequipment.

If one were to analyse defence supplies

by U.S. companies under the U.S. govern-ment’s direction and control even to their“closest allies” such as the U.K., onewould find that it is the policy of the U.S.government to severely restrict not onlyTOT in general, but transfer of technol-ogy relating to critical sub-assemblies,modules and components too, making useternally dependent on them.

A specific case will illustrate the reality.The case pertains to the Sea Harrier,which is aircraft carrier-borne and usesvertical take off and landing (VTOL). TheU.K. was the inventor of VTOL technol-ogy. India had bought two squadrons(around 30 aircraft) of the Sea Harrierfrom the British Aircraft Corporation(BAC) way back in the 1970s for its air-craft carriers. When the Atal Bihari Vaj-payee-led National Democratic Alliancegovernment was in power (1999-2004),we sent our Sea Harriers to the BAC for athorough upgrade. At that time, the Min-istry of Defence, the Navy and the BACknew that such an upgrade would call forthe BAC importing some critical sub-sys-

tems, modules and components (hereaf-ter collectively referred to as “modules”)from the U.S. This was because thosemodules had been imported by the BACeven for the Sea Harriers it had producedin the U.K. and supplied to the BritishNavy.

That the U.S. government would prove“difficult” in clearing the supply of thosemodules for our Sea Harriers was recog-nised by both the BAC and the DefenceMinistry. So they sounded out the U.S.government agencies concerned. TheU.S. response was non-committal. Never-theless, the Ministry went ahead. Why?Because we did not have an option. Over

25 years, the Indian Navy operated thoseaircraft, but no effort was made to suc-cessfully indigenise those modules. Wejust merrily went along with importingthose modules from the BAC, which inturn kept importing them from the U.S.companies concerned at huge increasesin prices from time to time.

It was not surprising, therefore, thatthe U.S. government refused the suppliesto the BAC for fitment on our Sea Har-riers. The BAC and the British Navy thentold India that the U.S. government haddone likewise, even in regard to the Har-riers of the British Navy despite the U.K.being the country’s “closest ally.”

The U.S. government finally agreed tothe export of the modules concerned, butonly after former British Prime MinisterTony Blair flew to Washington D.C. tospecifically persuade the U.S. President torelease them. As far as our requirementsof the modules were concerned, Mr. Vaj-payee had done something similar.

This case shows how even British andEuropean defence equipment manufac-turers have to constantly face and dealwith the U.S. government’s export con-trols on them on a wide array of modules,despite the fact that all of them are sup-posedly equal members of NATO.

Being circumspect in dealings

This kind of policy and practice by theU.S. government also came up with re-gard to the “upgraded” F-16 Falcon andthe F-18 Hornet fighter-bombers whichLockheed Martin and Boeing respectivelyhad offered India against the global ten-der put out by the Ministry of Defence/IAF for 126 Medium Multi-Role CombatAircraft (MMRCA) four years ago. Of allthe six bidders, the TOT and terminallocal content were the smallest in the caseof both the U.S. planes. Therefore we haveto be extremely circumspect in dealingwith the U.S. government in all high tech-nology defence systems from the transferof technology and local production con-tent points of view.

(Ashok Parthasarathi was the Scienceand Technology adviser to Prime Minis-ter Indira Gandhi.)

Let’s talk transfer of technology

OFF-CENTRE: India’s decision to buy Apache helicopters withouttransfer of technology for local manufacture is unwise. Picture showsa U.S. Apache helicopter firing rockets in Pocheon in 2010, near theheavily fortified border with North Korea. — PHOTO: AFP

India must insist on co-development and co-production of defence systems that it plans tobuy from the U.S. Ashok Parthasarathi

Having a production basein the country would meannational control overspare parts, so as to notremain at the mercy of thesupplier

With Iraq and Syria ablaze, the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabiaseems almost an afterthought. But Riyadh will be a crucial, if

quixotic, ally as the U.S. seeks to mobilise Sunni Muslims against theterrorist Islamic State.

The kingdom’s many critics argue that Saudi Arabia itself helped spreadthe toxic virus by bankrolling Islamist rebels and their extremist SalafistMuslim ideology. As if to insulate itself from such criticism, the kingdomrecently donated $100 million to a new U.N. counterterrorism centre, andits senior religious leader, the grand mufti, declared the Islamic State andits al-Qaeda forebear “enemy No. 1 of Islam.”

Complicating Saudi Arabia’s pivotal role in containing regionalinstability is the fact that generational change is slowly coming in the

kingdom, too. The stakes for the U.S. in thisleadership transition are large, and the outcomeis hard to predict.

King Abdullah remains in power, a generallypopular and respected monarch. But at 90, hisenergy and attention span are limited. Tensionshave surfaced at several Saudi ministries overthe last year, suggesting a jockeying for power.

For a generation, Americans and Saudis haveworried that the kingdom was a potentialtinderbox, with Muslim and secular extremistsvying to undermine the conservative monarchy.If anything, the kingdom seems slightly morestable now than a decade ago — but Sunni andShiite extremists, otherwise deadly adversaries,share a common dream of toppling the House ofSaud.

The inner workings of the royal family remainall but impenetrable to outsiders. The seniorprinces are slow-moving, self-protective andresistant to foreign counsel — traits that invitespeculation about what’s happening behind thepalace walls. But whatever their internaldisagreements, the sons and grandsons of KingAbdul Aziz, the kingdom’s modern founder, havebeen able to maintain the family consensusnecessary to preserve their rule.

U.S. and Arab experts describe a kingdom thatis worried about three dangers: the rise of Iranand its Shiite Muslim allies; the resurgence ofSunni extremism embodied by the Islamic State;and the reliability of the U.S., the kingdom’sprotector, which is seen by many Saudis as a

superpower in retreat.The unsettled situation is illustrated by the mercurial Prince Bandar bin

Sultan. He was ousted as intelligence chief last April, then rehabilitatedthis summer with the honorific title of chairman of the national securitycouncil. The outcome is probably a net gain for Saudi stability: Khaled binBandar bin Abdul Aziz, the new chief of the spy service, is seen as a morereliable and professional operator; he works well with Prince Mohammedbin Nayef, the interior minister who is trusted by the U.S.

The new spy chief and the interior minister, accompanied by PrinceBandar and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, travelled to Qatar thisweek, presenting a common front to a regional rival that has oftenbedevilled Saudi and U.S. policy.

One question mark has been Crown Prince Salman, 78, the DefenceMinister, who is reportedly in poor health. Speculation about successionwas fuelled by the appointment of Prince Muqrin as deputy crown princelast March. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Salman has struggled to run theDefence Ministry. Since assuming that post in November 2011, he has hadfour deputies, including two sons of his predecessor, Prince Sultan.

The wild card in the Saudi deck is Prince Bandar, the flamboyant formerambassador to Washington. When he was head of Saudi intelligence andpaymaster to Saudi allies in Syria and Lebanon, he was an unpredictable —and in Washington’s eyes, sometimes untrustworthy — operator.

Some Americans feared Prince Bandar’s covert efforts in the Syrian civilwar were unintentionally spawning al-Qaeda terrorists. U.S. officials wererelieved when Prince Bandar was removed as steward of the Syrianopposition.

It has been Saudi Arabia’s recurring nightmare to fight external enemiesby encouraging Sunni movements that turn extremist and threaten thekingdom itself. This happened in the 1980s, when the Saudis joined theCIA in sponsoring the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The devout Muslimfighters drove out Soviet troops but evolved into the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Saudis must worry that a similar process has happened again. Someof the Sunni fighters they backed against Iran have drifted toward theIslamic State. The Saudis didn’t intend the ensuing disaster, but they mustnow deal with it.

Western analysts credit Mohammed bin Nayef and Khaled bin Bandarfor seeking to build more competent, professional security services atInterior and Intelligence. They’ll need that skill, and luck, too. For SaudiArabia, big challenges lie just over the horizon. — © 2014. TheWashington Post.

Saudi challenge: TheIslamic State

WORLD VIEW

Complicating

Saudi Arabia’s

pivotal role in

containing

regional

instability is the

fact that

generational

change is slowly

coming in the

kingdom, too

DAVID IGNATIUS