BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD: India, US are on pathway to contain China

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M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Indian Punchline

If the United States is a declining power and China’s rise inevitable in the Indo-Pacific; if Russia regards itself as a global power and is determined to bury the US-dominated rules-based order; if the defeat of the US and NATO in the Ukraine war has become a fait accompli; if Canada was encouraged by the US to fret and fume over alleged Indian involvement in Nijjar’s killing; if Israel’s bloodbath in Gaza is actually genocide — well, India’s policymakers haven’t heard any of this. That is the message coming out of the US-Indian 2+2 foreign and defence ministers meeting in New Delhi on November 10.

The big picture is that after audaciously claiming the mantle of leadership of the Global South as recently as in September, in a span of over two months, India is gliding over to the American camp as the US’ indispensable ally, even aspiring to be a “global defence hub” with Pentagon’s help.

The following were some of the takeaways at the 2+2 meeting:

Maximisation of the scope of the Logistics and Exchange Memorandum Agreement, and identify steps to enhance the reach of the US naval vessels to Indian bases.

No doubt, the above is only the tip of the iceberg, while this extraordinary transition in Indian policies will largely remain behind closed-doors. The US seems supremely confident that India is ready to enter into an exclusive alliance, something that New Delhi never sought with any big power. What is the offer that the Biden Administration has made to India that the latter cannot refuse?

Clearly, such a massive shift in India’s military policies needs to be co-related with the fundamental postulates of foreign policy. That said, curiously, call it “bipartisan consensus” or whatever, India’s main opposition party apparently couldn’t care less about the shift. This is not surprising. The shift is actually about a nascent India-US alliance to counter China — and that is a policy front where it is difficult to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

To be sure, both Russia and China understand that Indian foreign policy is transitioning. But they pretend not to notice and would hope it is an aberration. At any rate, neither Russia nor China can stop India on its tracks. Their capacity to leverage Indian policies has dramatically shrunk — Moscow’s in particular — in the contemporary security environment.

The heart of the matter is that India is not ecstatic about the growing multipolarity in the world order. India is a beneficiary of the “rules-based order” and feels far more comfortable with a bipolar world order where multipolarity, if at all, remains a fringe phenomenon while the US’ pre-eminence will continue to prevail for decades to come. Such a paradigm is perceived as advantageous for India to navigate its pathway toward checking China’s hegemonic instincts while also optimally developing its own comprehensive national power. It is an ambitious agenda which is risky too, as policies change in Washington as presidents come and go and American interests get redefined and priorities change.

Today, however, the Indian willingness to align with the US is more evident than ever before. The animus against China’s rise was palpable at the 2+2 meeting. India has cast away any residual pretensions and is shifting toward an openly adversarial relationship with China. The QUAD has become an important locomotive. To be sure, a Chinese response can be expected — when or in what form, time will tell.

This is only possible because Delhi feels reasonably assured that Washington’s Indo-Pacific focus remains intact under the Biden Administration despite growing engagement with China. Of course, an inflection point is arising as Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first trip to the US in five years and a summit meeting with President Biden has been meticulously prepared, which both sides hope will be productive and make the Sino-American relationship more predictable.

The three regional issues that figured prominently at the 2+2 were Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Palestine-Israel conflict. The Joint Statementdevoted a separate paragraph with the sub-title Afghanistan, which implicitly accused the Taliban rulers of not adhering to their “commitment to prevent any group or individual from using the territory of Afghanistan to threaten the security of any country.”

The joint statement goes on to pointedly recall UNSC Resolution 2593 (2021), which specifically “demands that Afghan territory not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or finance terrorist attacks.”

Delhi is making a radical departure from its attempts to constructively engage with the Taliban rulers. One reason could be intelligence inputs to the effect that Afghanistan is once again becoming a revolving door for international terrorist groups.

A second possibility could be that the US and India share a sense of exasperation over the Taliban’s growing proximity with China and the spectre of Afghanistan turning into a hub of the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing’s plan to build a road connecting Afghanistan via Wakhan Corridor is a game changer in geo-strategy which is profoundly consequential. Anything that relates to the security of Xinjiang cannot but be a matter of incessant interest to Delhi.

The 2+2 joint statement signals a renewed US-Indian convergence on Afghanistan. How far this would translate as proactive moves is a moot point. Notably, the US and its allies are also exploiting Russia’s preoccupations with the conflict in Ukraine to double down on their post-cold war strategy to roll back Russian influence in Afghanistan. Moscow senses that it is losing ground in its backyard.

When it comes to Ukraine and the Palestine-Israel conflict, what emerges is that the US and Indian sides have succeeded in harmonising their respective positions on these crucial regional conflicts. In reality, Delhi is shedding its strategic ambivalence and moving towards the US position. This comes out in the strokes in the joint statement by what it says and what it doesn’t. Thus, on Ukraine, Russia’s attritional war has “consequences predominantly affecting the global South.” This apart, Moscow can learn to live with the 2+2 formulation on the Ukraine war.

As regards the West Asian situation, the joint statement voices vehement support for Israel’s fight against “terrorism”. But here, again, India refuses to call out Hamas. Nor is India endorsing Israel’s war on Hamas, leave alone pre-judge its chances of success. Most important, the joint statement omits any reference to Israel’s so-called “right to self-defence”, a mantra that is constantly on Biden’s lips.

India cannot possibly call the Gaza war an act of “self defence” when Israel has unleashed such a brutal military operation against hapless civilians and razed Gaza City to the ground — reminiscent of the joint British-American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, during World War II on the horrific night of 9-10 March 1945 killing over 25000 German people.

Perhaps, all these diplomatic peregrinations through the valley of death could be better understood against the backdrop of the intense back channel dealings involving Hamas leadership in regional capitals in which Biden administration would have high stakes and is a participant.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE

Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat for three decades in the Indian Foreign Service with multi-year assignments in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey. MK writes extensively on the geopolitics of Eurasia, China, West Asia and US strategies. He is a columnist at The Cradle, writes a popular blog called Indian Punchline, and is a syndicated columnist worldwide.

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U.S. Government Now Goads India to Invade China

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EXPOSING CAPITALISM'S MULTITUDE OF VICES AND INCURABLE PROBLEMS

Eric Zuesse

The United States Government is now actively backing the Indian Government’s demand that China not build a bridge in China that would cross from one side to the other of a lake that is half in China and half in India. This bridge would be crossing a portion of that lake that’s around 20 miles or 30 kilometers from the China-India border and therefore clearly within China.

Meddling Gen. Flynn: ''I think it is worthy of us working together as a counterweight to some of those corrosive and corrupted behaviours that the Chinese [demonstrate]."

New Dehli TeleVision, NDTV, headlined on 6 January 2022, “Chinese Bridge Over Pangong Lake In Illegally Held Territory: Government” and reported

India on Thursday came down strongly on China for building a bridge across the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh, which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said was being constructed in areas “that have been under illegal occupation by China for around 60 years now.” … The bridge is being built across a part of the lake that falls within Chinese territory, but it connects both banks and gives China the ability to move soldiers and heavy weaponry into India at pace.

That phrase “under illegal occupation by China for around 60 years now” is from India’s Government, not from the U.N. or any other international body that possesses actual authority to say what is and is not “legal” under international law; and, in fact, no such international body has ever asserted that a nation possesses some sort of legal right to determine what is and what is not legal within some different nation’s boundaries. In other words: India’s Government is lying here — deceiving — to say that China’s creating a bridge in that place is “illegal.” But the U.S. Government is, nonetheless, now clearly siding with India’s possessing such a supposed legal right to contest what China is doing inside China, and the U.S. is even participating with India’s Government in war-games against China regarding this supposed dispute about international law — but really about international power, and totally outside of any international law.

On June 8th, NDTV bannered “‘Alarming’: Top US General On Chinese Infra Build-Up Near Ladakh” and reported that

New Delhi: Chinese activity near Ladakh is "eye-opening" and some of the infrastructure being created is alarming, a top US General has said.
General Charles A Flynn, Commanding General, US Army Pacific described it as "destabilizing and corrosive behaviour" by China as he talked about the Chinese infrastructure build-up across the Himalayan frontier.
"I believe that the activity level is eye-opening. I think some of the infrastructure that is being created in the Western Theatre Command is alarming. And so much, like across all of their military arsenal, one has to ask the question, why," the General, who oversees the Asia-Pacific region, told a select group of journalists.
General Flynn said China's ''incremental and insidious path, and destabilising and corrosive behaviour" projected on to the region was "simply not helpful".
''I think it is worthy of us working together as a counterweight to some of those corrosive and corrupted behaviours that the Chinese [demonstrate]," said the General.
On Chinese military expansion in the Ladakh region, US General Charles A Flynn said, “One has to ask the question, 'why?'”
India and the US are set to conduct high-altitude training missions at an altitude of between 9,000-10,000 feet in the Himalayas as part of the Yuddh Abhyas exercises this October. The location has not been specified. Indian forces will then train in similar extreme-cold weather conditions in Alaska.
The exercises are meant to be extremely high-level joint operations across the gamut of high-altitude warfare.

In order for India to carry out its asserted ‘legal’ ‘right’ against China’s building a bridge there, which is located on the Chinese side, around 20 miles or 30 kilometers away from the closest thing that currently exists to there that would constitute a legally fixed border between India and China — the “Line of Actual Control” as it is formally called — India would need to invade China. The U.S. Government now is officially on public record as being firmly supportive of that happening: it chooses publicly to back India’s claims in that dispute against China. This is what an empire does, and America is now clearly doing it in this matter.

Also on June 8th, Türkiye's (Turkey’s) Anadolu News Agency headlined “US general calls China’s actions on border with India ‘eye opening, destabilizing’”; and noted that “India is part of the US-led Quad, a security alliance that also includes Australia and Japan.” In other words, this U.S. Government effort is actually a part of its effort now to create in the Pacific an anti-China equivalent to the U.S. Government’s long-existing anti-Russia NATO military alliance in the Atlantic.

Back on May 27th, the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) headlined “The Quad Is Getting More Ambitious in the Indo-Pacific” and opened:

What did the latest Quad summit accomplish?
In a joint statement from the Quad summit hosted by Japan in May 2022, the leaders of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan reemphasized the principles of a free and open Indo-Pacific: freedom, rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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NOTE: ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Why India will likely ally with China, not with U.S.

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IMPERIALISM IS ONLY CAPITALISM IN ITS FINAL MONOPOLY PHASE

Eric Zuesse

(L-R) Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose in front of a sand sculpture ahead of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit in Benaulim, in the western state of Goa, India, October 15, 2016. Things have changed a great deal since, with a lot of ups and downs, but the situaiton may be finally rectifying in favor of Eurasian peace.

British imperialism, the very same master; i.e., enemy; as the American public had and — ever since 1945 — still has, though this time in the form of a united UK-&-U.S. Deep-State aristocracy, who control the U.S. Government, behind the scenes). The world is now splitting-up, into two. One side is the pro-imperialist (or “neocon”) side (the conquerors of Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Guatemala, and many other countries), which includes all of the Axis Powers during WW II (Germany, Italy, and Japan), plus almost all of the other EU nations, plus Israel, plus almost all of the Western-Hemisphere countries. It’s headed (behind the scenes) by the U.S.-and-UK billionaires. On the opposite side are the nations that the imperialist nations (the united fascist billionaires) target. They are: China, Russia, Iran, and their allies, all of which targeted nations are ideologically committed anti-imperialist nations.

Therefore, virtually all wars and coups after WW II have been wars and coups by the U.S. and its allies, to conquer (take control over) additional nations (nations that hadn’t yet buckled to them). That (the aggressiveness of the imperialist nations) is just a historical fact, about the world during the years after 1944, and it is now driving the remaining targeted nations (principally China, Russia, and Iran) toward closer-and-closer cooperation amongst themselves, so that if WW III happens, then it will be between the imperialist nations on the one side, versus the anti-imperialist nations on the other. It would be a nuclear-war-updated version of the WW II Axis (pro-imperialist) nations versus the Allied (anti-imperialist) ones. (Churchill was imperialist, but he was forced by FDR to suppress his imperialism during WW II. Truman instead adopted Churchill’s imperialism.) All of the former Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) would then be led by the Rhodesist UK-U.S.-Israel team.

Given this reality, India has recently been tending to get off the ideological fence that it has been sitting on ever since 1947, to side increasingly with its fellow-anti-imperialist nations. If it finally (decisively) does so, then that would become the most momentous blow yet against the Rhodesist UK-U.S.-Zionist joint global empire ever since the UK itself lost India on 15 August 1947. India would then no longer be “neutralist.” It would instead become an additional enemy of the imperialist powers. It would become allied with China, Russia, and Iran, against the imperialist powers — including, finally, at long last, against the UK, which was India’s former master.

For a long time, I was hesitating to say that India seems likely to go with the anti-imperialists, because the indications that India was trending in this direction concerned only recent decisions by its Government, not anything that’s rooted deeply in Indian public opinion which would separately indicate deep-seated cultural support, ideological Indian-cultural support, for any such radically new commitment by its Government — a geostrategic earthquake-in-the-making, in the world’s second-most-populous nation. But, finally, I believe that I have found that ideological-cultural support to exist, in India, and will describe here the evidence for it.

I should start by noting that I had wrongly predicted, on 1 August 2020, that “India and Brazil Are Now the Global Worst Coronavirus Nations”, and I had based that false forecast for India upon (regarding covid-policy-effectiveness) “The key isn’t so much the healthcare system, as it is the public health system. And that’s quite evidently poor in all three of the worst-performing countries: India, Brazil, and U.S.” However, UNLIKE the U.S. and Brazil, India has turned out to have a far better public-health system than I knew. That’s because India has a population who respect their Government. Respect for the Government is a sine-qua-non, essential, in order for any public-health system to be able to function effectively. Without it, the public won’t trust their Government’s public-health requirements (such as masking, vaccinations, etc.) to protect them against a pandemic. But, as things have subsequently turned out, the Indian people DO trust their Government, almost as much as the people in China do.

On 9 December 2021, Morning Consult Polls headlined  “The U.S. has a lower vaccination-rate than any other country tracked besides Russia.” China and India had the highest percentages of willing, the lowest percentage who said that they are “unwilling” to be vaccinated, in all of the 15 surveyed countries. Earlier, Morning Consult had headlined, on 15 July 2021, “The U.S. has a higher rate of vaccine opposition than any country tracked besides Russia.” (The questions had been identical in both surveys.) China and India turned out to have the highest vaccination-rates. Each polling had surveyed 75,000 “nationally representative samples of adults. (In India, the sample is representative of the literate population).” (Illiterates are especially difficult to survey, anywhere.) The 9 December polling showed only 1% each in China and India to be “unwilling” to be vaccinated, and it found 87% of Chinese having already been “vaccinated”, and 86% of Indians having been “vaccinated.” In Russia, where the vaccination-opposition was the highest, 20% were “unwilling” and 43% had been “vaccinated.” In America — the second-worst performer on this factor — 19% were “unwilling” (19 times higher than China’s 1%) and 67% had been “vaccinated.” In the 15 July polling report, 30% of Russians had said they were “unwilling,” and 19% of Americans did. 2% did in each of China and India. The opponents to vaccination seem to be the most-solidly implacable anywhere — 19%, in both pollings — in America.

Previous polls have shown that, whereas Russia’s President, Putin, is highly trusted, Russia’s Government is not. So: Russia is a mixed bag, partly like America, and partly like China (where both the leader, Xi, and the Government, are enormously trusted). Russia has turned out to have been performing, on both disease-cases and disease-deaths, better than U.S. but not nearly as well as either China or India. Vladimir Putin came into power in Russia in 2000 committed to undoing the Americanization of his country as much as possible, but he never undid its libertarianism and therefore Russia’s covid performance is turning out to be nearer to U.S. than to China. In this sense, India, which has also become much Americanized, might actually now be moving away from America at a faster clip now than is Russia. This would put India closer to the anti-imperialist bloc.

What is important in those polls is that they display a deeper-rooted socialism in India than in Russia. (America is rather extremely toward the libertarian/neoliberal pole of ideology, which is opposite to socialism. Almost all developed countries are more socialistic than is America.) Perhaps Russia’s having once HAD an empire, whereas India did not, is the reason why India is now moving more clearly now toward the anti-imperialist bloc, which is being led by China, Russia, and Iran.

Additionally confirming those hypotheses is the “Edelman Trust Barometer 2021” which surveyed in 27 nations. One subhead in it is “A TRUST RECKONING FOR CHINA AND THE U.S.” It showed that the highest 3 nations on overall trust in the country’s various institutions, in both 2020 and 2021, were: India, China, and Indonesia, all at 72% to 82%. U.S. scored in the bottom 30% of nations, #19 in 2020 at 47%, and #21 in 2021 at 48%. Japan was in the bottom 10%, at #25 (42%) in 2020, and #26 (40%) in 2021. The Edelman rankings also showed that the highest 4 nations (in the 74%-80% range) on “Willing to vaccinate” were, in order from the top: India, Brazil, Mexico, and China. U.S. was #20, at 59%. Japan was #24 at 54%. Russia was #27 (last) at 40%. The global average on this was 64%.

Specifically trust in the Government, in those 27 nations, was the highest in #s 1 and 2 tied, being China and Saudi Arabia (82%), #3 UAE (80%), and #4 India (79%). U.S. was #19 (42%). Japan was #22 (37%). Russia was #24 (34%). South Africa was #27 (and at 27%).

Though Russia has BECOME anti-imperialist due to America’s increasing attempt (along with its NATO) to conquer it, India is increasingly becoming anti-imperialist. Russians and Chinese are anti-imperialist by urgent necessity, in order to protect their nationhood or sovereignty over their own territory, which the imperialists covet. However, India is becoming anti-imperialist now because of the UK-U.S. (Rhodesist empire) now forcing the world to choose-up “sides.” (This is happening in regard to the imperialists trying to break Taiwan off from China, and trying to force Donbass back into Ukraine.) Fence-sitting won’t, any longer, be allowed by the imperialists. They demand a commitment, or a stronger commitment, to the imperialist bloc.

The big barrier to India’s decisively joining the anti-imperialist side (including China) is a 2009 India-China border-conflict in a mutually contested region, Arunachal Pradesh. However, on 2 December 2019, the Financial Express headlined “Exercise Hand-in-Hand 2019: Troops from India, China to conduct joint drill this week”, and reported that throughout the following decade, the two countries had been increasing their mutual trust. In addition to this, the still-contested region has only around a million population and isn’t of geostrategic significance; so, if it were to stand in the way of India’s Government decisively joining the anti-imperialist side, then China’s Government would be foolish not to simply tell India’s, “Fine, that’s part of your territory.” With that minor concession, China could effectively win India as being a member of their team, against the global aggressors. But things seem to be drifting that way anyway. However and whenever India’s Government might happen to make that decision, it would be a wrenching break away from the deep cultural roots that England’s empire had planted in Indian culture, ever since 1614, when the world’s first stock company (which had been formed in 1600), the British East India Company, started to take control over India, which ultimately meant also to train India’s aristocracy in the English language and customs, so as to make them representatives of the British monarch. This would be the final divorce of India from Britain’s aristocracy. And, of course, China already went through that divorce when Mao beat out Chiang Kai-shek for control over China, in 1949, which was a huge defeat against the Rhodesists.

The stark covid-policy differences between, on the one hand, China and India, versus, on the other, America and its NATO-and-Japanese-and-Australian allies, might be the canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator of WHICH WAY GEOSTRATEGIC FENCE-SITTERS (such as India) WILL GO. Independent countries where the population trust their Government will tend to go with the anti-imperialists, while independent countries that don’t (such as Ukraine) will tend to side (as Ukraine did in 2014, due to Obama’s coup) with the fascists (who, after Hitler, are and have been solidly in the Rhodesist camp).

Investigative historian They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Lessons to Learn from Kerala

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Vijay Prasad
CONSORTIUM NEWS

March 25, 2021

Vijay Prashad interviews the finance minister of the populous Indian state about the “hop, skip and jump” gains by the Left Democratic Front government there.

(Still from Peoples Dispatch video, “Kerala Polls, Left triumph”)

Indian farmers and agricultural workers have crossed the hundred-day mark of their protest against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They will not withdraw until the government repeals laws that deliver the advantages of agriculture to large corporate houses. This, the farmers and agricultural workers say, is an existential struggle. Surrender is equivalent to death: even before these laws were passed, more than 315,000 Indian farmers had committed suicide since 1995 because of the debt burden placed on them. (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)

Over the next one and a half months, assembly elections will take place in four Indian states (Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal) and in one union territory (Puducherry). There are 225 million people who live in these four states, which would, if measured by itself, make this area the fifth largest country in the world after Indonesia. Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not a serious contender in any of these states.

In Kerala (population 35 million), the Left Democratic Front has been in the government for the past five years, during which it has confronted a number of serious crises: the aftereffects of Cyclone Ockhi in 2017, the Nipah virus outbreak of 2018, the floods of 2018 and 2019, and then the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, Kerala’s health minister, K.K. Shailaja, has earned the nickname the “Coronavirus Slayer” because of the state’s rapid and comprehensive approach to breaking the chain of infection. All polls indicate that the Left will return to the government, breaking an anti-incumbency trend in the state since 1980.

To better understand the great gains made by the Left Democratic Front government over the past five years, I spoke to Kerala’s Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Isaac begins by telling me that the switch back and forth between the Left Front and the Right Front, as he called it, has cost Kerala a lot of social advancement.

Isaac:

“If the Left wins again, it will have been in power continuously for 10 years. That is a sufficiently long period to leave a very substantial imprint upon Kerala’s development process.”

Vijay Prashad: What would the alternative general orientation of the Left’s approach toward Kerala’s development look like?

Isaac:

“It’s a kind of hop, step and jump. The hop, the first stage, is redistributive politics. Kerala has been very noted for that. Our trade union movement has succeeded in having significant redistribution of income. Kerala has the highest wage rates in the country. Our peasant movement has been able to redistribute landed assets through a very successful land reform program. Powerful social movements which pre-date even the Left movement in Kerala, [and] whose tradition the Left has carried forward, have pressurised successive governments which have been in power in Kerala to provide education, healthcare, [and for the] basic needs of everyone. Therefore, in Kerala, an ordinary person enjoys a quality of life which is much superior to the rest of India….

But there is a problem with this process. Because we have to spend so much on the social sector, there won’t be sufficient money [or] resources for building infrastructure. So [after] a program of social development spread over more than half a century, there’s a serious infrastructure deficit in Kerala.

Our present government has been very remarkable in meeting the crises, ensuring that there is no social breakdown, ensuring that nobody in Kerala would go hungry, and [that] everybody will get treatment during Covid times and so on.”

But, he said, the Left did something more remarkable.

Isaac:

“What the government did was to build the state’s infrastructure and begin to pivot to another economic foundation. The amount needed to upgrade the infrastructure is staggering, about Rs. 60,000 crores (or $11 billion).”

How does a Left government raise the funds to finance this kind of infrastructural development? He said that Kerala, as a state within India, cannot borrow beyond a certain limit, so the Left government set up instruments such as the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB). Through the Board, the government was able to spend Rs. 10,000 crores ($1.85 billion) and produced a remarkable change in the infrastructure. After the hop (redistribution) and infrastructural development (step), comes the jump.

Isaac:

“The jump, is the program that we have placed before the people. Now that infrastructure is there, [such as] transmission lines, assured electricity, industrial parks for investors to come and invest. We will have K-FON [Kerala-Fibre Optic Network], a super-highway of internet owned by the state, which is available to any service provider. [It ensures] equal treatment to everybody; nobody will have an [undue] advantage. And we are going to provide internet to everybody. It is the right of every individual. All the poor are going to get broadband connectivity for free.

All of this has provided a background for us to take the next big jump. That is, we now want to change the economic base of our economy. Our economic base is commercial crops, which are in serious crisis because of opening up [to ‘free trade’], or labor-intensive traditional industries, or very polluting chemical industries and so on. Therefore, we realize now, industries which are of our core competence would be knowledge industries, service industries, skill-based industries and so on. Now how do you make this paradigm shift from your traditional economic base to the new [one]?”

Because of the shift to the digital platform economy, Kerala will now develop its IT industry with the immense advantages of the state’s high literacy rates as well as 100 percent state-funded internet connectivity that will soon be available to the entire population.

This, Isaac said, is going to have a tremendous impact upon women’s employment. Kerala’s Left government will restructure higher education to promote innovation and deepen Kerala’s history of cooperative production (the example here is the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society, which recently rebuilt an old bridge in five months, seven months ahead of schedule).

Kerala, he said, aims to go beyond the paradigms of the Gujarat Model (high rates of growth for capitalist firms, but little social security and welfare for the people), the Uttar Pradesh Model (neither high growth nor social welfare), and the model that would provide high welfare but little industrial growth. The new Kerala project would go for high but managed growth and high welfare.

Isaac:

“We want to create in Kerala [the basis for] individual dignity of life, security and welfare [which requires both industry and welfare]… We are not a socialist country. we are part of Indian capitalism. But in this part, within the limitations, we shall design a society which will inspire all progressive-thinking people in India. Yes, it is possible to build something different. That’s the idea of Kerala.”

Kerala’s Powerful Social Movements

A key element in the Kerala Model is the powerful social movements that grip the state. Amongst them is a mass front of the hundred-year-old communist movement and the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), which formed 40 years ago in 1981 and which has a membership in excess of 10 million women.

One of the founders of AIDWA was Kanak Mukherjee (1921-2005). Kanakdi, as she was called, joined the freedom movement at the age of 10 and never stopped fighting to emancipate our world from the chains of colonialism and capitalism. In 1938, at the age of 17, Kanakdi joined the Communist Party of India, using her immense talents to organize students and industrial workers.

In 1942, as part of the anti-fascist struggle, Kanakdi helped found the Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (Women’s Self Defence Committee’, which played a key role in helping those devastated by the Bengal Famine of 1943 — a famine created by imperialist policy that resulted in as many as three million deaths. These experiences deepened Kanakdi’s commitment to the communist struggle, to which she devoted the rest of her life.

To honor this pioneer communist, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research dedicated our second feminisms study (Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle) to her life and work. Professor Elisabeth Armstrong, who was a key contributor to this study, recently published a book on AIDWA, which is now out as a paperback from LeftWord Books.

Today, organizations such as AIDWA continue to lift the confidence and power of working-class and peasant women, whose role has been considerable in Kerala and in the farmer’s revolt, as well as in struggles across the world. They speak out not only about their suffering but also about their aspirations, their great dreams of a socialist society – dreams that need to be built alongside other instruments such as the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala.

Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, journalist and commentator, is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the chief editor of Left Word Books.

This article is from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

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Massive Indian farmer uprising against neoliberalism explained

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THE GRAYZONE

Massive Indian farmer uprising against neoliberalism explained

It was inevitable that sociopathic neoliberalism would eventually detonate the biggest strike in human history.

Striking farmers have now surrounded India's capital, and are planning a huge demonstration.

The Grayzone

Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Prasanth Radhakrishnan, a New Delhi based journalist with Newclick.in and People's Dispatch, about the historic farmer strike currently sweeping India. Radhakrishnan explains why farmers are rising up, how they are organized, and how the neoliberal government of Narendra Modi has responded to the movement. Just one day after this interview, the Modi government raided the offices of Newsclick.in and detained its editors in what has been denounced as an act of intimidation against critical media. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3pgo69y ||| The Grayzone ||| Find more reporting at https://thegrayzone.com

• ADDENDUM •

PBS report corroborates The Grayzone account

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BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD: India, US are on pathway to contain China

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR Indian Punchline

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U.S. Government Now Goads India to Invade China

Eric Zuesse

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Why India will likely ally with China, not with U.S.

Eric Zuesse

Lessons to Learn from Kerala

Massive Indian farmer uprising against neoliberalism explained

Massive Indian farmer uprising against neoliberalism explained

It was inevitable that sociopathic neoliberalism would eventually detonate the biggest strike in human history.

• ADDENDUM • PBS report corroborates The Grayzone account

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Indian Punchline

• ADDENDUM •

PBS report corroborates The Grayzone account