Home & Away

Indrani Bagchi The Gujarat police, NSG and our numerous intelligence and security agencies are currently on an all-India lookout for 10 terrorists who may have “sneaked” into India from Pakistan (terrorists always “sneak” in, though over the years, they may have found other less sneaky ways of coming across). Not only are the top metropolises on high alert – the alert has spread from Gujarat to Delhi, to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Cyberabad. Smaller cities like Lucknow, Vijaywada, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, and the list goes on, are all on hyper alert. Some of the Mahashivratri celebrations in the Somnath temple were cancelled fearing that amidst the dancers celebrating Lord Shiva could be suicide bombers. For the past 48 hours the nation has been on tenterhooks. In other words, the nation has been terrorised without the terrorists having shown themselves. There are intel alerts and then there are intel alerts. Over the years, despite the ones that got away,...

Indrani Bagchi India’s Look/Act East policy is growing a new gateway. Conventional wisdom had Myanmar as India’s lean-in platform for Asia. Bangladesh may be hijacking that role. While India remains locked in a 1947 relationship with Pakistan and a 1950s one with Nepal, Bangladesh seems to have broken out and India and Bangladesh are taking simple but significant steps towards a new neighbourhood paradigm. The relationship is not problem-free by any stretch of the imagination, probably never will be, but dawn is breaking. A big reason for this is a settled land and maritime boundary. The virtually seamless implementation of the land boundary agreement (LBA) on both sides, including movement of people, resettlement, rehabilitation, etc was an enormous confidence booster. India in 2014 accepted the verdict of the international tribunal on the maritime boundary, giving Bangladesh a big chunk of the sea. Sheikh Hasina has invested in India as well – rolling up many extrem...

Indrani Bagchi The Kaladan multi-modal transit-transport system connecting India’s north-eastern states through Myanmar to its Sittwe port was intended to be a landmark project that would power India’s links to Asean region. Signed in 2008, the project was supposed to be completed by 2013. But it’s unlikely to get anywhere for at least another few years largely because the Indian government estimates of the entire project was wildly inaccurate. The project first envisaged 225 km of waterway on the river Kaladan, but this was later found to be incorrect, it has now been modified to 158 km. The road between Paletwa and Indo-Myanmar border was first thought to be 62 km, also incorrect, later corrected to 110 km. Nobody counted the shoals that had to be dredged in the river – there are 6 shoals, which if detected at the time the project was prepared could have altered the project. The cost, starting out at Rs 535 crore in 2008, now needs a massive Rs 2904 crore just to make amends for the...

Indrani Bagchi Two years, four US visits and seven summits later, prime minister, Narendra Modi is, as he told the US Congress, playing a “new symphony”. As he wings back from Mexico with three crucial NSG endorsements in the bag, the flamboyance of Modi or his bulging frequent flyer miles are no longer talking points. The bigger question, is there a method in the 360-degree global outreach of his government? Whether India manages to enter the nuclear traders’ cartel in the coming weeks or whether Modi’s diplomacy collapses in a heap at China’s opposition, there are certain discernible patterns in his foreign policy that emerge from the mass of statements, MOUs, hugs and yoga. It’s easy to see how close India has grown to the US under Modi. What’s less noticeable is how India is using US for its other relationships and other ambitions. In 2008, when Manmohan Singh dropped by to tell Bush how Indians loved him, he also told businessmen and wonks reeling from the fiscal crisis,...

Indrani Bagchi The South China Sea is several seas away from us. The NSG membership will happen some time after we (the people and government) have stopped hyperventilating about it. Instead, look closer home. India’s immediate neighborhood remains on its treadmill: furiously running through myriad crises, without actually getting anywhere. Can India get beyond firefighting as a foreign policy goal in its backyard? KP Oli in Kathmandu is fighting to save his seat, even as Nepal’s only charismatic leader, Prachanda waits impatiently to become Nepal’s 39 th prime minister. For the second time in a few months, Oli has played his extreme-nationalist card, blaming India for his predicament. He has a full-blown Madhesi crisis on his hands, he has barely moved on earthquake reconstruction, the economy needs help, tourism is struggling, but he’s busy laying the fault at India’s doorstep. Chinese diplomats have been rushing around Kathmandu trying to save him, even though almost six...

Indrani Bagchi The Uri terror attack has made us a nation of “jabra” (jaw) fans (as SRK would have said)! Our national bloodthirst also has a cyclical timeline - 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2015 and 2016, and it will go on. Governments have changed, but some things have not. At least in our columns and in our studios, we have inflicted unacceptable damage on Pakistan, after what is arguably the worst attack on Indian security forces (Pathankot was the worst, until Uri happened). In the couple of days since the attack, the Indian diplomatic system has swung into action with practised ease. The world is prepped and on India’s side, as it has been since the Mumbai attacks of 26/11. Honestly, the world has not actually moved from our side. As Pakistan has continued on its path of becoming the world’s best known jihadi entity, global sympathy has been with India. Global opinion is positive to the extent that the US Congress has introduced legislation seeking to declare Pakistan a stat...

Indrani Bagchi Since the Uri attacks, a dominant theme in the national discourse was of capability, and whether India had what it took to take the fight to the enemy. The only thing that separated the believers from the others was faith. Thursday’s midnight operations across the LOC settled that debate. The strikes did a lot more, which will hold even if Pakistan decides to retaliate. What can Pakistan do? They can ratchet up border tensions, maybe hit some Indians either on the LOC or boundary; they can activate sleeper cells to launch terror attacks in other parts of India; they can attack Indian interests in Afghanistan. All of these would qualify as terrorism, and play into the Indian narrative. Terrorism will no longer be a low-cost option for Pakistan, thriving under a nuclear threshold. The complacency that accompanied terror attacks from Pakistan just evaporated – Pakistanis were comfortable in the belief that India would be all sound and fury, while Indians would fatal...

Indrani Bagchi Take your ringside seats, people, as another US-China tournament of shadows unfolds. When Donald Trump spoke to Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-Wen and challenged established US-China policy, many parts of Asia, India included, quietly cheered. As expected, China retaliated -- by stealing a US Navy drone from South China Sea, testing both a departing president and an incoming one.  Bill Clinton had the Taiwan Straits crisis, George Bush was greeted with the embarrassment of the EP-3E crash, and Obama was challenged when five Chinese navy ships harassed the USNS Impeccable. Trump is being greeted ahead of his term but we await events with interest, because they could determine global events of the coming four years. Both US and China are in a dangerous part of the field. China has to protect the aura of “core leader” Xi Jinping, who is driving the combined tigers of nationalism, military modernization, anti-corruption and a slowing economy. The US pi...

Indrani Bagchi This time last year, Indians and Pakistanis were basking in the glow of the birthday bumps Nawaz Sharif got from Narendra Modi. The Nepal blockade was being lifted, Afghans had got their parliament and military helicopters … after charming the Fortune 500, PM wowed Silicon Valley and the Arabs with equal felicity, we reached out with a fab Africa summit, sealed a border agreement with Bangladesh, rolled out an ambitious Indian Ocean policy and hey, we were up there with the Americans to give the world a climate change deal. 2015 was about Modi changing global perceptions about India. In 2016, Modi took a breather from his global blitz, as India consolidated some of the gains and foreign policy ventured into some new areas. But peering into 2017, the horizon appears much darker -- the world is “loosening”, alliances and relationships are getting complicated, and the old-fashioned balance of power is making a comeback. For India, a non status-quo power, the challenge...

Indrani Bagchi Fun fact: Star Wars – The Force Awakens, shot a large part of the film in the desert landscape of the UAE. But the futuristic sets of the latest George Lucas creation were created by Bollywood for an Abu Dhabi company. Gulf Arabs ideally want the marriage of Bollywood and Hollywood on their sands. On the geopolitical level, they say they have been waiting for India to claim its space in the region for years, a space that continues to be dominated by the US. But the sands are shifting, compelling India to look west in a way it hadn’t done before. As the Crown Prince of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan takes the spotlight as chief guest for Republic Day, the journey that began with the visit of late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2006 moves to the next level. Investment and economic opportunity are strong attractions – India is looking at over $60 billion in investment interests by the third largest economy in the Gulf region. This time they are pri...

Indrani Bagchi In a few weeks, when Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, China will be tempted to make a Mongolia out of India. It shouldn’t. 2017 is not turning out to be anything like how China imagined at all, just when Xi Jinping is getting ready to become a leader without a successor. Foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar stated 2017 would be a year when Indian foreign policy would “invest” more in China. The newly minted strategic dialogue in Beijing though showed the distance that still needs to be traveled, despite the gloss put on it by India. China is nowhere close to addressing India’s concerns, but India and China are nothing if not mature, pragmatic powers, so they decided to do stuff together in Afghanistan. Not wildly exciting, and they continue to have divergent political tools. China is pushing “reconciliation” with Taliban, India is not. India is clear-eyed about Taliban hosting LeT, JeM etc against us. China is realizing that Uighur ETIM m...

Indrani Bagchi Washington mavens have a new parlour game – called “impeachment & removal”, the game is all about devising new and innovative ways of putting President Donald Trump out to grass. But Trump has danced with Saudi leaders, eaten chocolate cake with Xi Jinping and burgers with Netanyahu, played golf with Abe and been blessed by the Pope. In a few weeks, it will be his turn to get the Modi hug. India has watched with apprehension as the Trump administration moved from being a promising tabula rasa to the OMG-what-will-they-do-next roller coaster. The China relationship is … now, where is it exactly? The chocolate cake came with 59 missiles to Syria; overnight Xi Jinping found himself holding the North Korean nuclear can, fearfully contemplating a THAAD system in South Korea when he has more important things like the 19 th  Party Congress on his mind. In fact, Xi has reasons to be a worried man. A readout of the Xi-Trump discussions shows the depth of unpredict...