Chinese Maritime Silk Route and South Asia

China’s ‘New Silk Roads’ policy seeks to enhance land connectivity with Central Asia and establish ‘Maritime Silk Roads’ to connect it with the ASEAN countries and the coastal cities of South Asia.

As the Chinese Premier Xi Jingping gets ready to visit India next month, his foremost priority would be to get India to participate in China’s ambitious Maritime Silk Route project. The concept first emerged during Xi’s trip to Southeast Asia last October where he called for increased maritime cooperation between China and the ASEAN countries. Since then, the concept has expanded to cover not only the ASEAN states, but also the subcontinent, the Middle East and the coast of Africa. 

This is not a new concept. The movement of goods has been taking place through this ancient maritime silk route since many centuries and reached its peak in the 15th century. By reviving this ancient trade route, China hopes to set new benchmarks for ‘neighborhood diplomacy’ and seeks to improve ‘regional stability’. However, its aggressive posturing in the South China Sea and strategic encirclement of India in the past has made it difficult to regard this proposal without a jaundiced eye.

The Indian Dilemma

India and China are already cooperating in the development of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor which will connect the Yunnan province of China with the other three countries and will form an important segment of the Southern Silk Road. The Chinese accord special importance to India in their silk roads plan as it lies at the intersection of the overland silk roads and maritime silk routes. However, India has so far resisted signing on the Maritime Silk Route (MSR) project not only due to the opaque nature of the project, but also because it sees this project as an attempt by China to establish a foothold in the Indian Ocean. Despite projecting MSR as an exclusively commercial venture meant for the development of massive maritime infrastructure, China has been surprisingly unforthcoming on the specifics of the project which has lead others to suspect its geopolitical motives. 

India has been wary of any Chinese attempt to raise its naval profile in the Indian Ocean and has scorned at Chinese construction of port infrastructure in Gwadar (Pakistan) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) in the past. However, the sheer scope and scale of the new MSR project and the potential commercial benefits arising out of it are bound to make the new NDA government seriously weigh the implications of rejecting participation in it. 

Response from the Neighborhood

In contrast, the Sri Lankan response to the MSR proposal was enthusiastic as it became the first country to express its support for the project. China is Sri Lanka’s second largest trading partner after India, and both the nations recently signed a Strategic Cooperative Partnership (SCP) agreement during President Rajapaksa’s visit to China in May 2013. The Bilateral relations between both the nations are at their peak as President Xi Jinping will become the first Chinese premier to visit the island nation next month. With the MSR project, Sri Lanka seeks to enhance its strategic identity in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by emerging as a financial hub in South Asia and a link to Africa and the Middle East while China wants to legitimize its increased role in IOR even as it increases the economic viability of its many port infrastructure projects. Both the countries are expected to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to further bolster their ties by the end of 2014. 

Besides India and Sri Lanka, China has also been trying to woo the Maldives to be a part of its pet project. In a meeting with the Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen in Nanjing, President Xi invited the Maldives to be a part of China’s ambitious MSR plan. Earlier in July, the Chinese had offered to train the Maldivian Maritime personnel and to increase their involvement in the infrastructure projects in the small island nation. It is not very difficult to understand why China would want the Maldives to be a part of its MSR initiative as the island nation acts as a converging point for hundreds of cargo ships both from the east and the west and can help in expanding east-west trade.

China and Pakistan are moving rapidly towards the implementation of multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The corridor connects China’s Xinjiang with Pakistan’s Gwadar port. 

Conclusion

China’s eagerness to induct India in its MSR proposal has raised some eyebrows within the strategic community. While Indians remain deeply suspicious of any attempt of strategic encirclement by China through its ‘string of pearls’ strategy, Chinese experts have pointed out that the only purposes of China in the Indian Ocean are economic gains and security of Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC). 

The announcement of a 10 billion Yuan ($1.6 billion) fund for financing the MSR project has shown the seriousness that China attaches to this proposal. The potential short term benefits arising out of this are hard to ignore and can benefit local economies enormously. However, even if the economic benefits of this project were to be delivered, India’s choice must be based on the impact its geopolitical interests will have from such a development in the IOR. The NDA government will have to consider both - the desperate need of connectivity and the threat from China in the IOR before taking any decision on the subject.

Whose University, Whose Rights? Revisiting the FYUP Debate

Over the last week, the University of Delhi, India's largest public university and the one in which I am currently enrolled, saw the culmination of a very shrill debate that had been going on for the past year and a half over the switching of undergraduate programmes from a three year to a four year scheme. While several critics lashed out at the university administration for their hurry in implementing a half-baked Four Year Undergraduate Programme (henceforth FYUP) full of drawbacks, others pointed out at the several benefits of the scheme and the need to kick-start the long-pending 'reforms' in the education sector of the country.

The new government which assumed charge at the center in May had promised to roll back the FYUP in its election manifesto. As the admission season approached, the cacophony of voices advocating or criticizing the FYUP got louder and it seemed that even this time the university administration would succeed in admitting students under the FYUP. However, a last minute intervention by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the country's university watchdog, which had stood by in the past as the DU administration implemented the four year scheme, compelled the Vice Chancellor to roll back the programme and revert back to the three year scheme.

Now that the admissions have started and dust has settled on the whole issue, it would be pertinent to revisit the main arguments for and against the programme to sift the wheat from the chaff and to impartially interrogate the merits and demerits of the infamous FYUP.

Uncharacteristic Haste 

Writing in The Hindu on 29th April, 2013, Mrs. Jayati Ghosh of Jawaharlal Nehru University questioned the haste with which the FYUP was pushed through.

“There was little in the form of discussion before introducing the programme. No concept papers were circulated by the administration and no feedback was formally sought from any segment of the university...The scheme of the programme was passed by both the Academic Council and the Executive Council in extraordinary haste without any substantial debate.”

Such speed and lack of real discussion, she wrote, seriously undermines even the most minimal academic standards. Similarly, Apoorvanand, a Professor of Hindi in the University, writing on the popular opinion blog Kafila said:

“The FYUP can be used to pilot test the XIIth five year plan strategy for 're-crafting undergraduate education' but its reckless speed of implementation threatens to wreck all positive potential and derail the national reforms process....The enhancement of DU infrastructure promised earlier is yet to materialize, especially classroom space. Around 3,000 UGC sanctioned teaching posts have remained vacant for three years. On this already overstretched infrastructure, the FYUP will inevitably impose an additional burden of 33%.”

He added that a major reform like FYUP has been initiated without the backing of a national policy statement or white paper explaining its rationale. The good reasons why the nation must bear the additional cost of a year, he said, must be spelt out and publicly debated.

The Need for Reforms

However, defenders of the FYUP rebutted the charges of haste in the implementation of the program. Mr. Chandrachur Singh, an assistant professor of Political Science in the University, writing in The Hindu, explained why the FYUP was a good idea.

Rubbishing allegations that the programme had been implemented in a hurry, he said

“The VC Mr. Dinesh Singh has created new channels of communication where none existed, aside from the politically fragmented Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA), for communicating with students and teachers of this vast university which has between 4-5 lakh students on its rolls....In their eagerness to trash the FYUP for its alleged haste in implementation, critics tend to ignore the massive transformation in communication styles. Assembly based discussions and deliberations have made way for cyber discussions where conclusions and consensus are much easier to reach.”

One of the main features of the FYUP, he said, was that the students who were earlier dropping out of the university at the rate of 40-45%, would be able to leave with some sort of formal award – thus increasing their employability, instead of leaving with nothing. Alleging that the critics of FYUP were ideologically biased, Mr Singh added that the scheme enjoyed support from the younger members of the academia and their participation in large numbers in the Academic Congress as well as in the framing of the syllabi proves it. 

Writing in the Op-Ed column of the same newspaper, Mr. Shashi Tharoor, the former Minister of State for Human Resources and Development, under whose watch the programme was implemented, made a strong case for the four year scheme. He wrote:

“The economic reforms of the last 20 odd years have unleashed our economic potential, and the governance reforms of the last 10 years have raised our civic awareness. Education as a sector remains the last frontier largely untouched by reforms and we need to completely overhaul our educational systems and processes if we are to realize the full potential of the demographic potential that awaits us in the coming decades of the 21st century.”

“Relative to the national per capita income, our teachers enjoy a salary structure that is one of the most favorable in the world. And yet, by any measure of performance, as repeatedly shown in a number of professional surveys and global rankings of universities, we are languishing at modest to mediocre levels of educational achievement.”

FYUP: Disadvantage Dalits?

What in Mr. Chandrachur Singh's view was one of the strong points of FYUP, was turned on its head by a powerful critique offered by Mr. Udit Raj and Mr. Hany Babu, members of Joint Action Front for Democratic Education. Questioning the rationale behind multiple exit points offered by the new scheme, the authors, writing in The Hindu, said:

“Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes/ Other Backward Classes (SC/ST/OBC) groups have advocated caution on the potential of the new programme to make the reservation policy mandated by the constitution nugatory, as a large number of students of SC/ST/OBC groups may not be able to complete 4 years of education. The multiple exit points may become death traps for these students. They will exit with unequal degrees, the equalizing force of education will be lost and the social stratification will be further hardened”

“The question is not about the autonomy of the university, but whether the government of India can turn its face the other way when the mandate of the constitution is made a mockery by the university...The government cannot shy away from its responsibility when the national education policy of the 10+2+3 system is replaced by another system without a national debate, especially when it threatens the fundamental policies of social affirmative action mandated by the constitution.”

The Purpose of Liberal Education

However, in midst of these quibbles over procedures and merits/demerits, the larger questions about the purpose of a liberal education eventually sought to be achieved were raised by Mrs. Nandini Sundar, a professor of Sociology in the University and Mr. Gautam Bhan, Professor at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements. 

Mrs. Sundar, writing on her blog, advocated for an 'Indian education for Indian students' and said:

“Instead of enabling a few elite students to merge seamlessly into the US like higher education system, the MHRD should think of the ways to improve what passes by the name of higher education in the country as a whole....An education policy that confines itself to less than 10% of employment that the formal sector constitutes, is bound to shortchange the remaining the 90%.”

Mr. Bhan, writing in the Economic and Political Weekly, quoted Martha Nussbaum and said that liberal education is related not just to particular ends such as employability and skills, but also to a project of building and sustaining the quality of human personhood, democratic societies and everyday life.

“Teaching techniques at the cost of analytical skills may answer an immediate market demand, but it creates a generation of university graduates unable to evolve with the inevitable changes in technique...India today is marked by a deeply contested trajectory of growth and development, a growing trend of intolerant and un-democratic impulses, as well as persistent social, political and economic inequality. Any curriculum must face this moment and prepare its graduates to live and work within it.”

Attacking the FYUP, he added that “students taking the course will learn a set of facts that will be outdated nearly as soon as they leave the classroom. But more importantly, they will lack that deepest promise of a liberal education: the ability to seek and assess knowledge independently because they have been given the conceptual tools to do so.”

Conclusion

The tussle over FYUP has seen numerous protests throughout the last year. It is true that the higher education scenario in India is in urgent need of reforms. Yet, such reforms have to be publicly debated and a consensus has to be formed around any proposed measures.

The failure of FYUP is a tale of the failure of the university administration to properly consult all stakeholders and clearly spell out its vision for the university. By pushing through the FYUP without any substantial debate or discussion in a mere 10 months, the Vice Chancellor Mr. Dinesh Singh sought to introduce overnight change in the university. However, instead of having his cake, he has ended up with burnt fingers.

Movie Review: Steven Zaillian's The Civil Action

We live in a world where huge multi-national corporations have more annual income than the entire GDP of many nations. While elected governments can be held responsible for the crimes committed on their behalf in the court of law, how does one compel the MNCs to accept their wrongdoing when they have huge resources to make a mockery of the entire legal process? Steven Zaillian’s The Civil Action is a legal take on the traditional David v. Goliath battle which assures its viewers that there can be a victory beyond defeat. 

The hard bargain that takes place over the worth of an individual's dignity at the beginning of the movie epitomizes the extent to which life has been commoditized in contemporary America. The clearly artificial concern that Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta’s character) shows for his clients in the courtroom, starkly contrasting with his own abundant and luxurious lifestyle, highlights the propensity of the practitioners of the legal profession to use the argument of morality in pursuit of their borderline immoral ends.

It is such frustratingly effective argumentative capability that sums up Jan's outlook towards his work when he says that “the lawyer who shares his client's pain, in my opinion, does his client such a great disservice, he should have his license to practice taken away”. Ignoring the ridiculously meagre measurements of the proverbial box that such an outlook confines the definition of the term 'service' to, one is not surprised to see him almost reject the 'Woburn case' even though it involves the death of eight children - due to the absence of any defendants with deep pockets. Yet, deep pockets emerge from the margins of the case and Schlichtmann, Conway and Gordon Co. begin their work to drill holes in those pockets.

Suddenly, we see a parallel fight emerge. This is a fight beyond that of the plaintiff, the respondent or even the courtroom. This fight is the my-brand-is-better-than-your-brand fight and the name of the two fighters is Harvard and Cornell. Jan refuses to submit to an inferiority complex while practicing law in the backyard of Harvard despite not being its alumni. His reasoning is simple – he sees Harvard alumni as bullies and simply refuses to submit to them.

In deposition after deposition, we hear affected families narrate the manner in which they lost their children, sometimes on their way to the hospital, due to leukaemia caused by the contaminated water in their neighbourhood. Jerome Facher, played by the brilliant Robert Duvall, who represents one of the two corporations implicated in the lawsuit, repeatedly patronizes Jan as if he does not know the law at all. The evening before the settlement talks are to commence, we see a contemplative Travolta sitting in his car near the affected neighbourhood, imagining his clients trying to resuscitate their dead baby on the way to the hospital. Is there an ideological change in his character? Has his pride been hurt? Or has the grief of the victims – brought out in the detailed depositions that they gave narrating their loss – finally stirred something at the core of his heart?

As the chances of his securing a conviction grow thinner and thinner, Schlichtmann continues to be patronized by Fascher with an even blunter worldview than that held by him before. “The courtroom isn't the place to find the truth” Fascher says, “you'd be lucky to find here anything that resembles the truth”. Sitting in the hallway of that court, waiting for the jury to return with the verdict, we finally come to know of Schlichtmann's transformation in five odd words: “Eight children are dead, Jerry”. Your heart skips a beat as you realize that he has broken his only cardinal principal in the profession; he has shared his client's pain.

Often, while following the progress of the case, one gets tangled in the technicalities of the law so much that (s)he forgets that in most cases, it is the lawyers that matter in the courtroom. This movie beautifully brings out this facet of the legal profession through the eventual bankruptcy of Travolta in pursuit of justice. Through his bankruptcy, we are reminded of the tagline of the movie: "Justice has a price".

Horror Postcard from Uttar Pradesh

The picture of two low-caste girls hanging from a tree in Badayun powerfully conveys the sense of urgency that is required to curb the crimes against women taking place all over the country.

The non-stop media coverage of the terror of rapes and molestations that women in Uttar Pradesh are living under for the past few days have rained down as hammer blows on the conscience of our nation. Scarcely had we begun to condole the family of the two unfortunate girls in Badayun who lost their children in such a reprehensible crime, that we were told about the manner in which such violence was taking place all over the state in some or the other form. In Aligarh, two men tried to rape a civil judge in her well protected home and forced her to drink pesticide. Exactly a week after the incident in Badayun, another girl was found hanging from a tree in Sitapur district in the state. A minor girl was thrown off the train near Bareilley when she tried to resist the advances of three youngsters.

There is a lengthy list of such crimes. According to a report by Center for Social Research, in 2010, out of a total of 213585 crimes against women recorded by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 20169 were in UP (9.44%), the highest in the country. According to a Times of India report, the state recorded 23,569 crimes against women in 2012, which included 1,963 cases of rape, 7,910 cases of kidnapping, 2,244 cases of dowry death, 3,247 cases of assault on women with intent to outrage modesty, 505 cases of Dowry Prohibition Act, 7661 cases of cruelty by husband apart from other acts of violence against women. In 2013, the state registered 126 rape cases in one week alone.

Despite such chilling statistics, the state government headed by Akhilesh Yadav, son of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, is smug in its defense. Akhilesh's uncle Ramgopal Yadav blamed the media for disproportionately focusing on the crimes in Uttar Pradesh and ignoring other states. During the Election season, Mulayam Singh himself caused an uproar by casually stating that "boys will be boys and they will make mistakes" and promised his supporters that if his party was voted to power, he would change the law prescribing death penalty for those convicted of rape and murder. Akhilesh Yadav too tried to brazen it out of the current crises by asking a journalist to worry about his safety and to leave the safety of the women in the hands of the state government.

Such responses do not surprise anymore. It became apparent after the December 16 gang rape incident that the instinct of those in power in times of crisis is not to solve that crisis, but is instead to shift the limelight so that they can cling on to their power. Although not surprising, this behavior is disappointing as it comes from a government headed by a Chief Minister who was considered a part of the country's younger generation and hence embodying the hopes and aspirations of millions of his counterparts. Yet, instead of taking strict action that could have helped in healing the wounds of the aggrieved families, the Akhilesh Yadav led government has been following the routine investigation-is-going-on track. It took a week for a state government official to even visit the family of the two girls in Badayun to offer his condolences and to assure them of speedy justice in the matter.

Apart from leaving the state government red-faced, these incidents have also pointed to an urgent need to improve the sanitary conditions in India's countrysides. Various reports published in the aftermath of this incident (see, for example, here, here and here) have pointed to the absence of toilets as one of the primary threats to the safety of women. The central government slammed the Uttar Pradesh government for not utilizing Rs 293 crores out of a total of Rs 543 crores allocated to it under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme for building toilets in the state. Considering that the new Prime Minister himself had outlined his policy of "Toilets first, Temples later" during the election campaign, ensuring an end to the practice of open defecation should become one of the top priorities of the new administration.

As news of the horrific incident in Badayun spread, political leaders from various parties made it a point to visit the grief stricken family for a photo-op. It is an image that people in India have grown accustomed to. One can say with some surety that what the public would really like to see is the image of the culprits, heads lowered in shame, being sent on their way to long prison sentences. It is up for the new government to decide which image will prevail by the time its term comes to an end.

What Shahid taught Me

As a law student, you are often taught that your duty is to defend your client and it is the judge's duty to determine whether (s)he is guilty or not. You look at the legal high society and find people like Ram Jethmalani, who have made an illustrious career for themselves by strictly adhering to this maxim. Any law student would know that in litigation you cannot afford to be choosy as clients are hard to come by and establishing a successful practice is dependent upon your argumentative skills and not judgemental ones. Many young and honest lawyers have to swallow their rightfulness and pride to defend those clients whom they know to be guilty simply because of the nature and pressures of the business.

Gradually, you begin to internalize and rationalize these ideas and the humanist within you starts giving away to the realist. You begin to question the veracity of your judgements and the foundations of your assumptions. You cannot decide whether this change taking place within you is for the good or for the bad. You do not know whether your questions and endless queries are just arrows in the dark or purposeful taunts on a conscience unaccustomed to such piercing interrogation. When you read the law it is fairly simple and straightforward and as soon as you start reading the cases, a maze of ifs and buts and whys and why nots crops up. Every day, you find yourself sinking deeper and deeper into the ideological morass of your own creation.

It is when you are still fighting with these questions that you see Shahid, a movie based on the life and times of Shahid Azmi, a noted lawyer and human rights activist who was killed for successfully defending many innocent muslims falsely implicated in cases of terrorism. You see Shahid as a vulnerable, sensitive young man trying to find his feet in the world with the help of the law. He is passionate and hard working individual who believes in the fights that he is fighting and quotes Roy Black with impunity:

“By showing me injustice, he taught me to love justice. By teaching me what pain and humiliation were all about, he awakened my heart to mercy.  Through these hardships I learned hard lessons. Fight against prejudice, battle the oppressors, support the underdog. Question authority, shake up the system, never be discouraged by hard times and hard people.  Embrace those who are placed last, to whom even bottom looks like up.  It took me some time to find my mission in life – that of a criminal defense lawyer. But that ‘school’, and that Teacher, put me on my true path.  I will never be discouraged. Even thorns and thistles can teach you something, and lead to success.”  

Slowly, as the movie progresses, the humanist within you starts fighting back. The ability to distinguish between white and black is called common sense, it retorts. Sure, defending the guilty will bring great rewards and recognition but what about the idea of law as a public service? What about the moral compass of the society which operates by the fundamental belief of everyone that justice will be done, truth will prevail and that the guilty will be punished? What about the corruption of that moral compass by the agony of countless irreproachable paupers pitted against the might of the state?

Throughout the movie, you see Shahid as a lone warrior fighting against the legal system, the media, the society and even his own family to stand for what is right and what is correct. You cheer as victories come his way, you froth with indignation as wrongs are heaped upon him. Gradually you realize that more than just being a tool for making money, law can actually be used for serving the cause of social justice - a cause for which it was promulgated in the first place.

Long after the movie has ended and you realize that Shahid is no more, you sit thinking about the role of law and its practitioners in the society. You think about all the questions and counter questions that cropped up in your mind during those brief two hours and realize that you won't be able to stand a lifetime of such questions. The ideological dilemma solves itself, the mind is unburdened and sleep creeps its way inside among the thoughts of justice, equity and good conscience.