Kosovo Cauldron: Nato on a Dangerous and Illegal Course

The Times of India, March 29, 1999

Kosovo Cauldron

NATO on a Dangerous and Illegal Course

By Siddharth Varadarajan

IT took 50 years but the truth is finally out: NATO is not an organisation for collective defence but an aggressive military alliance dedicated to the projection and promotion of US power in Europe, and even beyond. For the first time in its history, this alliance has attacked a sovereign and independent country, Yugoslavia, a non-aligned state that stands alone in the continent for its refusal to be incorporated in the US-dominated post-Cold War security framework.

Since Yugoslavia has not attacked or threatened any country, NATO member or otherwise, the military alliance cannot invoke the right of self-defence; nor can it advance the claim that it has acted to preserve international peace and security. In international law, the only body that can authorise military action under that head is the UN Security Council, acting pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. But the Security Council has granted no such mandate to NATO or any other group of countries. Its last major resolution on the Kosovo crisis was 1199, passed in September 1998 with one abstention (China). That resolution called on the Yugoslav government to end its offensive against Kosovar Albanian militants but did not sanction the use of force; indeed, it explicitly stated that the Security Council would meet again to decide what steps to take in the event of Yugoslav non- compliance.

Brezhnev Doctrine

It was precisely because the US knew Russia and China would never go along with the use of force that it decided to bypass the Security Council. During the French-sponsored `peace conference' on the Kosovo crisis at Rambouillet near Paris last month, Washington tried to force an agreement down the throat of Yugoslavia. After a suitable time period -- during which the Kosovar delegation gave the appearance of swallowing its unhappiness at not winning the right to a referendum on independence and initialled the `agreement' -- Belgrade was told to sign on the dotted line or else. While Yugoslavia said it did not have a problem with granting wide-ranging autonomy to the Kosovar Albanians, it could not go along with the US demand that a huge contingent of NATO troops be stationed on its territory in order to "monitor" (read: enforce) the Rambouillet compact. That was all the provocation Washington needed to start bombing.

Yugoslavia was well within its sovereign prerogatives in refusing to allow NATO troops to occupy a part of its territory. Apologists for Washington can shout till they are blue in the face that Belgrade was wrong to assume NATO troops would be biased against the Serbs. That is hardly the point. There is no law on earth -- except the law of the jungle and the `Brezhnev Doctrine' -- which says that an independent country can be compelled to accept the military presence of an alien power.

Indeed, according to any standard dictionary, the unauthorised entry of foreign troops into a country is termed an `invasion'. That is what the Warsaw Pact did when it crossed Czechoslovak borders in 1968, or the US did when it entered Grenada and Panama. A more recent example of the unauthorised ingress of foreign troops was Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

With the bombardment of Yugoslavia, the pernicious doctrine of `humanitarian intervention' has taken an ominous turn. In 1993, the US was able to push for the UN-sponsored invasion of Somalia on the pretext that the absence of a government in Mogadishu meant the `international community' could afford to ignore Somali sovereignty. In the process, hundreds of civilians were killed in Mogadishu as the US administration tried its best to eliminate Somali leaders who opposed the foreign military presence.

Dangerous Precedent

The same doctrine of `humanitarian intervention' was invoked when `no- fly zones' were imposed on Iraq, this time allegedly to protect the Kurds, Shias and Marsh Arabs. Though there is no UN authorisation for these `no-fly zones', the US has been able to get away with its violations of Iraqi sovereignty because of Baghdad's `original sin' in invading Kuwait. In the case of Yugoslavia, however, there is neither the pretext of an absence of government or of an invasion of another country.

It is regrettable that some Islamic countries have been short-sighted enough to egg on NATO in its assault on Serbia. Yes, the Kosovars are Muslims and Belgrade has treated them badly. But what these countries don't realise is that the precedent which is being set by Washington will be used against them the next time they pose a challenge to US or western hegemony. If NATO is allowed to get away with its brazen act of aggression against Yugoslavia, the stage will be set for further `humanitarian' displays of force by the big powers. Admittedly, the case of Kosovo is very different from that of ethnic, religious or national minorities in other multi-ethnic, multi-religious or multi- national

states; indeed, Serb president Slobodan Milosevic has been unusually pig-headed in his approach to demands for regional autonomy. Yet, to accept that any country can `punish' another for its approach to questions of federalism, devolution and regional autonomy, or for its way of prosecuting a civil war or fighting terrorism, is to set a dangerous precedent.

Greater Albania

Kashmir is not Kosovo and India is not Yugoslavia. However, for argument's sake, what would happen if the BJP were to do a Milosevic in Kashmir by revoking Article 370? Of course, most Indians would protest, but would the US have any locus standi in the matter? Could it demand a reversal? Or the right to station NATO `peacekeepers' to make sure Kashmiri autonomy is respected? Or the right to rain missiles and bombs on Delhi? To take an absurd example, if Spain decides to revoke the autonomy granted to the Basques, would a third party like Libya have the right to station its troops in Basque country?

These scenarios are, admittedly, fanciful but there is another, more immediate danger: that the NATO bombing might trigger new instabilities in the Balkan and Mediterranean regions. If NATO persists with its mindless approach and Serbia is forced to comply, an independent Kosovo will be a fait accompli. That would generate irredentist pressures for a `Greater Albania' which might draw Macedonia and possibly even Greece and Turkey into a wider conflagration. By attacking Yugoslavia, NATO might have started a conflict whose end is difficult to predict in all respects save one: the role of the US in European security will be further enhanced.

Dalit students in Delhi battle prejudice

21 March 1999
The Times of India

Dalit students battle prejudice and violence

By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service

NEW DELHI: Vikram Ram, a Dalit student at the University
College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) in east Delhi, got a rude
shock when he sat down for his first meal at the hostel mess.
``Bloody Shaddu'', he was told fiercely by a group of upper caste
students (using an abusive term for Scheduled Castes), ``you
cannot eat with us''. Hurt and bewildered, he made his way to the
row of tables where the Dalit students normally sit.

According to the Dalit students, even the hostel has de facto
been ghettoised, with most of them on two floors. When Rakesh
Kumar, an SC student, was assigned a room elsewhere, a
neighbour said: ``We will not let you stay here, Shaddu. Your
kind of person cleans our toilets.'' Faced with the prospect of
constant harassment, he asked to be shifted.

When this reporter asked some upper caste boys at UCMS
about the term `Shaddu', they denied the word was ever used,
except during arguments. After some prodding, one student,
Anand Bakshi, said: ``It is only a pet name.''

As for separate dining and living areas, the upper caste students
this reporter spoke to say there is no such policy. ``If at all they
eat and live together'', said Sudhir Kathuria, ``it is because they
like sticking to their own community''.

Today, Vikram, Rakesh and several other Dalit students are on
dharna. After years of discrimination, they say they have had
enough. The last straw was the violent attack on them by some
upper caste students on February 22. UCMS authorities insist it
was a run-of-the-mill fight between students but the fact is several
Dalits were badly beaten. The hostel PA system was used to ask
all `general category' students to assemble. The turban of Dr
Jaswant Singh, a gentle, small-built Dalit, was pulled off and he
was punched and kicked. Another Dalit intern, Balwinder Bhatti,
hid himself but the mob ransacked his room.

When this reporter went to talk to the Dalit students, they were
suspicious. It was only gradually that their complaints poured out.
Stubbornly, reluctantly. More than anything, it is the perceived
discrimination from the faculty that rankles. A tall, intense
twenty-something, Vikram had topped his school and had never
before experienced casteism. ``My parents say `thoda seh lo;
but become a doctor at any cost','' he said, wistfully twisting his
stethoscope this way and that.

The son of a driver, Vikram hasn't graduated despite being at
UCMS for eight years. Like many SC students, he has frequently
been made to repeat exams. If the intake of reserved students is
22, only four graduate on time.

``We study as hard as anyone else but it is the faculty's casteism
which is holding us back,'' said a Dalit student. Ram Das, a final
year student, had just appeared in an exam. ``The first question
the examiner asked was `Are you a bania?'. When I said no, he
said `Then what? Are you from reserved category? What is your
caste?'.

``If an exam begins like this'', said Ram, ``we get demoralised,
nervous. How are we supposed to cope?''

(The names of the students have been changed.)

A Critique of the 1999 Budget

1 March 1999
The Times of India

A critique of the 1999 Budget

By SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

EVER since the programme of liberalisation was launched in 1991, a
certain mystique has surrounded the Union Budget. For finance
ministers, it is something akin to an alchemist's manual, a magical
document that will turn dust into gold. Thus we had Mr Yashwant
Sinha tell us on Saturday that ``the basic needs of our people for
food, shelter, health, education and employment will be met within a
decade from now''. If one is overcome by a sense of deja vu, it is
only because such astonishing claims have been made by every finance
minister in recent years, to no discernible effect.

But if the BJP-led government is guilty of sophistry, many of the
criticisms of the Opposition are equally facile. Just as all
finance ministers describe their Budgets as ``pro-poor'', opposition
leaders are quick to dub the same as ``anti-poor''. While there is
plenty in Budget 1999 that would fit this description, two points
are in order here. Neither previous Congress Budgets nor the
Budgets of the United Front (which the Left parties voted for on the
floor of the House) have been different in terms of expenditure.
Second, rather than focussing on human development as a policy
objective to be met by hiking allocations but keeping the basic
direction of the economy the same, debate needs to focus on the
structural constraints in the Indian economy that militate against
the satisfaction of basic needs.

Fiscal Fetish

A big obstacle in the way of rational discussion is the
fetishisation of the fiscal deficit. Indeed, one tends to forget
that the deficit is endogenous and reflects underlying trends. Far
from being an independent variable, budget deficits move in a
counter-cyclical fashion. When the economy is in recession and
output is low, budgets tend to be in deficit; during a boom, the
deficit falls or even turns into a surplus. In a developed economy
like the US, recessions lead to a fall in tax revenues and an
increase in government spending as `transfer payments' (on social
welfare) go up. But in India, it is primarily slack tax revenues
that put pressure on the fisc.

In Budget 1999, Mr Sinha has sought to finance the fiscal deficit by
increasing taxes. He has also tried to revive growth by giving a
fillip to housing and to the financial markets, via his concessions
to UTI, mutual fund and gold owners. Though markets have reacted
positively, investors will soon realise that what Keynes called
`animal spirits' are not enough to kickstart the economy. What is
needed is tax-funded higher government expenditure, especially on
the capital side. This Mr Sinha is unable to deliver.

The fact is that low tax revenues are written into the political
contract on which the Indian state is based. There are several
elements to this contract. Farmers must sell their crop cheap to
the state so that food for workers can be priced low and the
industrial wage bill held down. In return, the rural sector, or
rather the rural rich, cannot be taxed. Indeed, any attempt by the
Centre to force the issue will lead to conflict with state
governments, and the regional parties which dominate them. As if
the inability to tax the agricultural sector were not bad enough,
the fiscal deficit is further strained by cheap or free electricity
and water for wealthy farmers. Finally, in urban areas, the state
is too weak (or too unwilling) to ensure that mandated tax and
utility revenues from individuals and corporations actually accrue
to it; there is also the problem of business houses lobbying with
the government to get concessions and subsidies. The revelations of
Mr Mohan Guruswamy, who resigned as advisor to the finance minister
a few weeks ago, illustrate that the last factor is not an
insignificant one.

Capacity Utilisation

So long as growth -- at the `Hindu' rate, of course -- was taking
place on the basis of debt-financed public expenditure, these fiscal
constraints did not bite. But when the level of indebtedness
reached an unsustainable level, the constraint was translated into
cuts in public investment and attempts were made to ensure private
investment, Indian or foreign, filled the gap. Unfortunately,
investment has occurred in a limited cluster of industries. Despite
the generous fiscal concessions doled out to investors,
Infrastructure remains a bottleneck, as does the overall size of the
market.

Today, Indian industry is in recession precisely because the
capacity created during the first wave of reforms has proved to be
unsustainable. Even if we do not accept Jozef Steindl's argument
that excess capacity is endemic to mature economies, it is obvious
that any fall in capacity utilisation rates tends to prolong
stagnation as the fear of excess capacity weighs heavily on the
investment decision of firms. In the US and Western Europe during
the post-War `golden age', governments circumvented this problem
from the demand side by increased expenditure, especially on the
military, financed by higher taxes. But in India, as we have seen
above, any such attempt will not be tenable. That is why Mr Sinha
has not been able to produce a more growth-oriented Budget.

Industrial Recovery

Mergers and acquisitions offer one way for the corporate sector to
weather the downturn. In fact, Mr Sinha's Budget even tries to
encourage this process. Indian firms are also not averse to using
the state to gain advantages over their rivals in order to buck the
recession. If Mr Guruswamy is to be believed, this process is going
on today as well. But ultimately, unless the size of the
`nation-market' expands -- either through domestic consumption or
exports -- any industrial recovery will only be temporary.

There is a way out but it is not possible to achieve that solution
merely by juggling with budgetary arithmetic. The economy must be
put on a new basis; one which treats the fulfilment of basic needs
as the starting point -- rather than an illusory derivative -- of
policy. In such a society, it is not the size of the budget deficit
which will be constitutionally guaranteed, as the Economic Survey
has advocated, but the citizen's fundamental right to education,
health, food, shelter and employment.