A veto proposal for the G-4

Date:29/04/2005 http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/29/stories/2005042906451100.htm Opinion - News Analysis A veto proposal for Japan and India Siddharth Varadarajan India, Japan, and other aspirants to permanent membership of the Security Council would be naïve to imagine others would support extension of the veto power. INDIA AND Japan are tilting at windmills in demanding that the enlargement of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) include extension of the veto to the proposed new permanent members. Apart from being unrealistic, the demand for veto power shows the two countries have not correctly understood the reason why the majority of the world wants the Security Council to be reformed in the first place. Most nations — barring a handful like Israel who have been the beneficiary of vetoes — consider the veto power of the five existing permanent members (P-5) to be profoundly undemocratic. India, Japan and other aspirants to permanent status would be naïve to imagine that others would support the extension of this privilege to a handful of rising powers. Indeed, the greater the emphasis on the veto, the greater will be the suspicion that what Japan and India are really after is not the democratisation of the U.N. but their own accommodation in an unequal set-up. All states look to further their interest and it is hardly surprising that India and Japan would seek to do the same. But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Other countries, too, will look out for what's best for them. And there is no doubt that medium-sized or small countries will back Model B — which adds eight new semi-permanent members with four-year terms but no new permanent ones. Given the high degree of consensus with which the African Union operates, virtually every state in Africa can nurture the hope of becoming a semi-permanent member for at least one term of four years. And in Latin America, Europe and Asia too, many countries would feel they have a fair chance of occupying a Model B seat at some point. In contrast, Model A gives them nothing. Indeed, getting Model A past the U.N. general Assembly will be a tough enough task for the G-4 without them muddying the waters by demanding the veto. What India and Japan need to do is make a virtue of out of necessity by building on the world's opposition to the veto and proposing that the UNGA demand its abolition. Once the P-5 oppose this, as they surely will, a compromise formula should be proposed whereby the ability of the non-permanent, non-veto wielding members to restrain the UNSC from acting in particular ways is strengthened. The `veto power' exercised by the P-5 flows directly from Article 27 of the U.N. Charter, which specifies the voting procedure for adopting resolutions. Decisions on "procedural matters" are made by an affirmative vote of nine (out of 15) but "on other matters" the affirmative vote of nine must include the "concurring votes of the permanent members." Though the veto is wielded much less today than it was during the Cold War, the power to block resolutions is still routinely exercised. The worst offender, of course, is the U.S., which is responsible for 70 per cent of vetoes cast since 1986, most of them to bail out Israel. The two Chinese vetoes — of U.N. observers to Guatemala and a U.N. force for Macedonia — were linked entirely to these two countries recognising Taiwan. Correctly understood, the veto is not so much a positive power as a negative one: A country with a veto only acquires the power to restrain the UNSC from acting in a particular manner. In order to pass a resolution, however, a permanent member must convince (or arm-twist) at least eight other members to vote yes. As the failure of the U.S. to win support for its illegal invasion of Iraq in February 2003 demonstrated, this is not always an easy matter. Curiously, none of the models for UNSC enlargement have suggested what the number of votes needed should be for a resolution to be passed. A pro rata application of the current 9 out of 15 ratio would suggest that at least 15 positive votes are needed to get a resolution passed in a council of 24. India and Japan should propose that if the P-5 are not willing to give up their veto power, they should at least agree to raise the bar for a resolution — especially Chapter VII resolutions authorising sanctions, the use of force or the prosecution of cases in the International Criminal Court — to 18 or 19 positive votes. This way, resolutions dealing with international peace and security would require a higher degree of consensus and reduce the ability of the P-5 to get the UNSC to act in a partisan or politicised manner. This would still be an imperfect solution. But were India and Japan to steer the debate in this direction, they would find greater support for their candidature in an enlarged Council. © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

The Hindu, April 26, 2005

India and the problem of U.N. reform

There’s a lot more to discuss with Secretary-General Kofi Annan than just a permanent seat in the Security Council.

By Siddharth Varadarajan

WHEN THE United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, meets Indian leaders this week to discuss the ambitious agenda for reform of the world body outlined by him in a landmark report last month, he will find his hosts almost singularly pre-occupied with one issue: the expansion of the U.N. Security Council.

Though this is unfortunate, it is not surprising. Mr. Annan’s report, "In Larger Freedom," contains many other suggestions - both good and bad - which can affect India’s interests in a number of ways. There may be unease in New Delhi at the expanding prerogatives of the Security Council on issues such as the use of force, proliferation, and intervention, for instance, but successive governments have tended to take the view that these concerns can be dealt with once India makes it to the high table that is permanent membership.

Whatever reservations an oversensitive Government might have had about Mr. Annan in the past, the Secretary-General is seen as an ally in this quest for a permanent seat. Though the formal debate on the expansion of Security Council membership began in 1997 with the proposal for the induction of five new permanent members without veto by Razali Ismail - who was President of the General Assembly at the time - it is only with Mr. Annan’s appointment of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2004 that the drive for expansion has moved into top gear. Indeed, by asking member states to take a decision on this in time for the U.N. summit of world leaders in September 2005, Mr. Annan is clearly hurrying the process along. And while his report calls for consensus, Indian officials were pleased to note that it also says failure to reach a consensus "must not become an excuse for postponing action."

So far, Mr. Annan has remained agnostic about the two proposals outlined in his report (see box), though the Indian Government would ideally like him to throw his weight behind Model A. This, of course, is unlikely to happen because there is a genuine and even bitter divide between countries on this question. Italy, Pakistan, Mexico, South Korea and others claim to have brought together more than 40 countries under their `Uniting for Consensus’ banner in opposition to Model A. Some of these countries oppose particular candidates for permanent membership; others feel they would have a better chance at representation under Model B.

While the two proposals for expanding the membership of the Security Council have generated the most excitement - and heartburn - around the world, including India, there has regrettably been virtually no debate on a whole raft of equally controversial proposals being made by Mr. Annan.

Ostensibly a product of the standoff between the United States and the U.N. in the run-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr. Annan’s report represents an effort to overhaul the structure, direction and even legal architecture of the U.N. and its organs and agencies so as to make them more relevant to the problems of today and more effective in dealing with the problems. The report distils many of the observations and recommendations made by the High-Level Panel into a more manageable and, in some respects, politically acceptable set of proposals. However, barring some recommendations - such as the creation of an Integrated Peacebuilding Commission to help war-torn countries create viable new institutions, or the establishment of a democracy fund - several proposals, though eminently reasonable, have not found favour with one or several influential member-states. (See box)

Conceptual flaw

On the use of force, Mr. Annan’s report correctly notes that the U.N. Charter is flexible enough to allow states to defend themselves under a wide variety of circumstances. Article 51 gives countries the right to defend themselves against an imminent threat, and latent but not imminent threats can still be responded to with force provided the Security Council approves it. In suggesting that any decision to authorise the use of force be based on four criteria - (i) the seriousness of threat, (ii) purpose of action, (iii) principle of proportionality, and (iv) chances of success - the report is attempting to ensure the Security Council does not act out of purely political considerations.

However, its recommendation that the Security Council adopt a resolution setting out these principles is unlikely to be accepted by the U.S.

If there is one conceptual flaw in the report, it is the failure to recognise that the credibility problem of the Security Council stems not just form its "ineffectiveness" or unrepresentative character but from its lack of accountability. At a time when the Security Council’s prerogatives seem to be expanding at a fast pace, there also needs to be some effective institutional mechanism for reviewing - if not restraining - the exercise of power by the Council. For example, the Algerian jurist and former President of the International Court of Justice, Mohammed Bedjaoui, has suggested that member-states should have the right to seek a judicial review by the ICJ of an Security Council resolution which affects them. And the former U.N. Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had advocated greater reliance by the General Assembly on Article 96 of the U.N. Charter in order to refer to the ICJ "questions concerning the consistency of resolutions adopted by U.N. bodies with the Charter of the United Nations".

On two other issues, too, Mr. Annan’s report needs to be widely debated in India before its proposals are adopted.

The discussion on the problem of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is lop-sided, focussing exclusively on the tightening of dual-use technologies rather than seeking new mechanisms to restrain the development of new types of nuclear weapons and missiles (including missile defence systems) by the U.S. and other big powers.

Mr. Annan calls on all states to adopt the model Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency (thereby accepting full-scope safeguards) and accept restraints on the development of uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technologies.

These might well be necessary, but non-nuclear NPT members should not give up their right to develop civilian technologies without the nuclear weapons states giving up something in exchange. Similarly, the report’s endorsement of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative - in which the U.S. and its allies give themselves the right to interdict ships on the high seas suspected of carrying illicit nuclear, biological or chemical cargoes - is a little surprising. One would have thought the U.N. Secretary General would advocate the use of a U.N. or multilateral forum for the negotiation of any new instrumentality.

Simply stating that the Conference on Disarmament "faces a crisis of relevance" because of "dysfunctional decision-making procedures" is not good enough. Mr. Annan should have come up with proposals to increase the CD’s effectiveness.

Finally, on the question of terrorism, Mr. Annan has done well to produce a working definition of terrorism that should be acceptable to all: "Any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a Government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act."

However, his attempt to set aside the objection that "state terrorism" be excluded from this purview because states are regulated by other laws such as the Geneva Convention is problematic. As Palestinians, Iraqis and others have found out, accountability for the wrongful use of force by states (by Israel or the U.S. and others) is very poorly regulated and enforced.

Manmohan calls for 'horizontal' globalisation

25 April 2005
The Hindu

Manmohan calls for horizontal globalisation
Asia, Africa should strive for democratisation of world bodies

by Siddharth Varadarajan

JAKARTA: Leaders from more than a hundred countries in Asia and Africa signed a declaration on the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership at an emotional function in Bandung on Sunday, bringing to a close a week-long process of consultation and discussion aimed at increasing the collective power of the two continents in world affairs.

In the meeting, which immediately preceded the signing ceremony, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said that Asia and Africa should direct their efforts towards the democratisation of global institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

If globalisation tended to mean the forging of closer economic ties with North America and Europe alone, the Prime Minister emphasised that the need of the hour was "horizontal" globalisation. "We may well find that the solutions to [our basic] problems are available amongst ourselves," he said in his remarks to the Golden Jubilee meeting of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference at Bandung’s historic Gedung Merdeka (Freedom Building). He was speaking on behalf of all Asian countries present.

Historic walk

Before the meeting, Dr. Singh joined 40 other heads of state or government in a brief walk from Hotel Savoy Homann to Gedung Merdeka - a re-enactment of the historic walk taken by Sukarno, Nehru, Nasser and others 50 years ago.

Sukarno, one of the prime movers of the 1955 meeting, is believed to have first had the idea of such a meeting in 1928, just before the Dutch colonial authorities sent him to prison in Bandung. "If the liong-Sai [dragon] of China works together with the nandi [cow] of India, with the sphinx of Egypt and the peacock of Burma, with the white elephant of Siam, with the Hydra of Vietnam, with the tiger of the Philippines and with the banteng [bull] of Indonesia, then it is certain that international colonialism will be smashed into bits."

Nehru’s vision

The Bandung spirit was equally influenced by Nehru’s vision. "If all the world were to be divided up between these two big blocs what would be the result," he asked delegates.

"The inevitable result would be war. Therefore, every step that takes place in reducing that area in the world which may be called the unaligned area is a dangerous step and leads to war."

Valid instrument

Non-alignment - which grew out of the 1955 conference to become an expression of the "independent voice" of countries that had been dominated by foreign powers - remains a "valid and effective instrument to ensure the creation of a just and fair global order," Dr. Singh said. But if NAM played a central role in the struggle for political emancipation in the past, "we need to revitalise this movement to make it a vehicle for social and economic emancipation today." he added.

Central to this task was the need to increase the level of cooperation between developing countries manifold.

"This will not only give us the benefits of solidarity, it will also force us to look within for suitable solutions and appropriate technologies,"he said. "But this will not happen if we ignore the importance of maintaining horizontal linkages between us in this age of globalisation."

At the core of many of the proposals made by Dr. Singh over the past two days is the belief that the more developing nations build economic and political links with one another, the easier it will be for them to challenge the stranglehold of the West over the U.N. and international financial institutions.

The NAASP declaration, which commits Asian and African leaders to a summit every four years, envisages cooperation in a large number of areas and a separate plan of action has been drawn up to implement the partnership.

In an oblique reference to events leading up to the U.S. aggression against Iraq, the declaration emphasises the importance of "multilateral approaches to international relations and the need for countries to strictly abide by the principles of international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations."
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India does U-turn on arms supply to Nepal

24 April 2005 The Hindu Front Page India does a U-turn on arms supply to Nepal, delivery soon Siddharth Varadarajan Democracy will be restored sooner than later, King Gyanendra tells Manmohan JAKARTA: India has decided to reverse its decision to suspend the supply of lethal weapons to the Royal Nepal Army. The decision was conveyed by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to King Gyanendra of Nepal during a 45-minute meeting here on Saturday on the sidelines of the ongoing Asian-African Summit. Although the Prime Minister side-stepped a direct question from journalists on this issue at a press conference later in the day, a senior Indian official told The Hindu that a consignment of arms which had been in the pipeline when King Gyanendra seized direct control of the Government on February 1 would be delivered "very soon." On his part, the King assured the Prime Minister that democracy in Nepal would be restored "sooner rather than later" and that he would be sensitive to Indian concerns that there be a "road map" for restarting the political process. India's concerns At his press conference, Dr. Singh said he told the King that India's concerns about recent developments in Nepal were prompted by its belief that the "twin pillars" of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy must work in harmony. On King Gyanendra's statement that Indian military supplies would now be forthcoming, all Dr. Singh was prepared to say was: "His Majesty raised that issue with me and I said we will look at these things in the proper perspective." The bilateral meeting was sought by King Gyanendra and attended only by the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, from the Indian side. Whatever was said — and understood — at that meeting, Indian officials were caught off guard by the Nepalese monarch's statement to NDTV soon after. Asked about military supplies from India, he said: "We have agreed on certain things ... we have got assurances that they will continue." He claimed the task of "re-energising the political process" had begun, and cited his controversial decision to hold municipal elections as the first step. In an official briefing to the Indian media soon after the meeting, Rajiv Sikri, Secretary (East) in the MEA, refused to comment on the question of arms supplies. He said only that the two leaders had deliberated on the situation in Nepal and had agreed that it was necessary to restart the political process without delay as this would allow Kathmandu to deal with the Maoist insurgency. New Delhi had suspended arms supplies to Nepal in the wake of the royal coup in which a state of emergency was imposed, a large number of politicians and leaders was arrested, and the media were subjected to censorship. Decision not clear It is not clear whether the decision to send the one pending consignment of arms to Nepal will be followed up soon with other deliveries. Officials told The Hindu there was no clear timeframe and that much will depend on what kind of roadmap for the restoration of democracy the King comes up with. But the Indian decision will come as a big boost to King Gyanendra, who continues to defy calls made by people in Nepal — and the international community — for a speedy return to democratic rule. With the United States refusing to join India and Britain in suspending arms supplies to Nepal and the defence establishment in New Delhi increasingly worried by the prospects of the Nepal Maoists gaining the upper hand, a rethink of the Indian policy has been on the cards for a while. One month after India put on hold all weapons consignments, Mr. Natwar Singh made a suo motu statement in Parliament on developments in Nepal where he hinted that New Delhi's tough policy might be reversed. "In view of the current disturbed conditions in Nepal," the External Affairs Minister told the Rajya Sabha on March 4, "the question of military supplies to Nepal is under constant review." In his speech to the Jakarta summit, the King was unapologetic about his seizure of power and claimed that the security situation in Nepal and the international war on terrorism had been strengthened as a result. "Terrorism and the self-induced inability of the political parties and various governments to rise to the challenge of ever-emboldening terrorists were driving the country to the edge of a precipice," he said. "The nation, left with little choice, was compelled to take a decisive course. The decision we took on the first of February this year was in response to the call of our Constitutional duty to prevent the nation from further sliding down to chaos and anarchy." © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

Asia, Africa should end energy dependence: Manmohan

24 April 2005 The Hindu International Asia, Africa should end energy dependence: Manmohan Siddharth Varadarajan "Framework within which we produce and consume energy is determined elsewhere" The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, with the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, in Jakarta on Saturday. — Photo: PTI JAKARTA: India has called for Asia and Africa to end their "anomalous" dependence on Western governments and companies for the buying and selling of oil and gas, saying it was high time the two continents — which include some of the world's largest producers and consumers of energy — evolved a "framework" of their own. This suggestion — made by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, in his speech to the Asian-African summit here on Saturday — reflects India's growing emphasis on energy diplomacy and is of potentially huge significance for the future of the world's oil and gas industry. "While our continents include both major producers and consumers of energy, the framework within which we produce and consume energy is determined elsewhere," Dr. Singh said, adding, "We must end this anomaly." Competition for "new oil" Though buried within the text, the Prime Minister's call for Asian and African Governments to forge direct links in the energy sector is likely to heighten anxieties among Western oil majors about the growing competition for "new oil" from public sector companies in Asia. On Thursday, for example, the CEO of Shell, Jeoen van der Veer, cautioned the new oil producing countries from doing business with state-owned companies from India and China, saying this would make them vulnerable to "interference" by foreign governments. Dr. Singh's use of the word "framework" is a reference not just to the mediatory role of Western companies as producers, buyers and sellers but also to efforts by Western governments, particularly Washington, to direct the Central Asian and African energy sector, including pipeline routes, away from its most important future consumer — South, South-East and East Asia. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India earlier this month, India and China agreed to cooperate in oil extraction activities in third countries, especially in Africa. And the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is being seen in some quarters as the precursor to a more extensive energy grid that could link up Central Asia with India, China and other parts of East Asia. Dr. Singh's speech to the Jakarta summit also focussed on other areas of South-South cooperation. Describing the Non-Aligned Movement — which grew out of the 1955 Bandung Conference — as "one of the greatest peace movements ever," he said colonialism and apartheid "have been comprehensively defeated" and most peoples in Asia and Africa have achieved freedom or statehood "barring the brave Palestinian people." Elusive security order The world today is more integrated than it was in 1955 but "a cooperative and consensual international security order eludes us," Dr. Singh said. "Its consequence is insecurity, not common security." That is why "democratisation of the United Nations and its specialised agencies must be a fundamental plank" of the new strategic partnership between Asia and Africa, he added, without going into any specific calls for Security Council reform. Saying that a "new cooperative global structure is within reach," the Prime Minister stressed the need for Africa and Asia to create "new structures of mutual support, solidarity and cooperation." It was regrettable, he said, that "South-South linkages have weakened when they are most required." Responding to the highly favourable assessment of the recent India-Pakistan summit made by the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, at the Jakarta meeting on Friday, Dr. Singh said he appreciated and fully reciprocated those positive sentiments. "We have embarked upon a journey towards peace and good neighbourly ties [with Pakistan]. ... We are sincere in our desire to resolve all issues in a mutually acceptable manner. This will surely bring benefit to our peoples and region." © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

Bandung: Stage set for Asian-African partnership

22 April 2005
The Hindu

Opinion - News Analysis

Stage set for Asian-African partnership

Siddharth Varadarajan

Never before have the Bandung principles of respect for international law been under more severe strain; India's challenge is to forget the past and revive the spirit of the forum.

: ONE HUNDRED AND six countries from Asia and Africa — representing more than 73 per cent of the world's population — will meet this weekend in Indonesia. They will attempt to reinvigorate the spirit of the historic 1955 Afro-Asian conference at Bandung and lay the foundations for a new "strategic partnership" between the two continents.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who will leave for Jakarta on Friday morning, will address the plenary session of the summit on April 23. Apart from a bilateral meeting with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he is to meet China's President, Hu Jintao, as well as Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, on the sidelines. For India — which played a key role along with Indonesia, Ceylon, Burma and Pakistan, in convening the 1955 meeting — the weekend summit is as relevant an international platform as the original edition. The issues that confronted the 29 countries that came to Bandung then were decolonisation and the growing tension between the two superpowers. The United States had replaced France as the imperial occupier in Vietnam after Dien Bien Phu and the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet had begun making threatening forays into Asia, particularly in the South China and East China Seas. The Bandung principles, understandably, focussed on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, abstention from non-interference in the internal affairs of states, non-aggression and the need for the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means.

In its day, the Bandung Conference was considered a landmark event because it sought to bring together two diverse continents that were struggling to rid themselves of foreign domination. Many of its participants later went on to form the Non-Aligned Movement. At the time, however, this first concrete attempt to forge unity between Asia and Africa seemed, to many contemporary commentators, to be improbable, romantic and highly audacious.

`Meeting of underdogs'

Richard Wright, the African-American writer and author of the well-known novel, Native Sun, attended the 1955 conference and went on to write a book about it. "The despised, the insulted, the hurt, the dispossessed — in short, the underdogs of the human race were meeting," he wrote in The Colour Curtain. "Here were class and racial and religious consciousness on a global scale. Who had thought of organising such a meeting? And what had these nations in common? Nothing, it seemed to me, but what their past relationship to the Western world had made them feel. This meeting of the rejected was in itself a kind of judgment upon the Western world!"

Since most of Africa was still under colonial rule, only six African nations attended: Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, Liberia, Libya and the Gold Coast (Ghana). In his closing speech to that conference, Jawaharlal Nehru spoke eloquently of the "Tragedy of Africa" and said that it was "greater than any other". It is up to Asia to help Africa, he said, to the best of her ability "because we are sister continents".

Since then, Asia — particularly India, China and South-East Asia — has come a long way and Africa, even if it has not managed to bring the curtains down on its tragedy, is making definite strides. Its economy is still hampered by political instability, outside interference and the domination of foreign economic interests but such is the combined strength and potential of the two continents that a meeting of Asia and Africa today cannot be considered a "meeting of the rejected".

In other respects, too, the international situation has — and has not — changed. The world may no longer be divided into hostile blocs, but restraining and managing the behaviour and ambitions of the only superpower is emerging as a principal security dilemma in many regions of the globe. Indeed, never before have the Bandung principles — with their focus on the respect for international law — been under more severe strain than they are now.

India's challenge

The challenge for India is to avoid dwelling in the past and instead seek a reinvigoration of the Bandung spirit and forum on a new basis. The Indonesians say that if the Americas and East Asia can join hands across the Pacific Ocean in APEC and the Atlantic Ocean has the alliance between Europe and the U.S., it is only logical for Asia and Africa to come together in a grouping that spans the Indian Ocean.

With the sub-Saharan region emerging as an important source of energy — Angola, Gabon, Nigeria, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Chad, to name only the most well-developed prospects — there is an objective basis for greater economic interaction between Asia and Africa. Asian companies, particularly Indian ones, are also an excellent source for cheaper and more appropriate technologies as far as Africa is concerned.

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

Kashmir: Peace roadmap is 'out of the box'

19 April 2005
The Hindu


PEACE ROAD MAP IS NOW OUT OF THE BOX

In the joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharaf lie most of the elements of a roadmap for peace between India and Pakistan.

By Siddharth Varadarajan

THE LATEST meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is proof of the fact that in diplomacy - as in cricket - the results of a high-level encounter are often inversely proportional to the expectations that precede it.

If the excitement before the July 2001 Agra summit led to nothing but bitterness and rancour all around, the days leading up to Sunday's path-breaking summit had seen both sides consciously seeking to talk down the hype. At an off-the-record briefing a few hours before the General arrived in New Delhi, senior Indian officials cautioned that the impending summit was not really a summit or even a mini-summit but simply an occasion for the frank exchange of views. And yet, what transpired during the 36 hours the Pakistani President was in the Capital was as momentous as anything the two countries have seen in recent years.

The joint statement read out by the Prime Minister in his deadpan style on Monday morning may seem anodyne to some but within its terse sentences and paragraphs - and the call made by General Musharaf and Dr. Singh in separate meetings with the press to make existing borders irrelevant - lie most of the elements of a roadmap for peace between India and Pakistan.

No turning back

Though the two sides wisely avoided formally capturing the notion of soft borders - the concept needs to be fleshed out and debated adequately in both countries - the joint statement is noteworthy in six respects.

First, it stresses the irreversibility of the peace process now under way. The two Governments are saying that come what may, there will be no turning back from what has been achieved so far - the resumption and enhancement of cross-border traffic and people-to-people contact, including sports, and the ceasefire along the Line of Control and up in the Siachen Glacier. The self-imposed quarantine India brought about by cutting all air, raid and road links following the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament will, hopefully, never again be repeated.

Secondly, it says that terrorism will not be allowed to disrupt the relationship. The specific formulation is worth noting: "The two leaders pledged that they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process." Terrorism, here, is no longer a stick for India to beat Pakistan with but a problem which confronts both countries equally. If the statement implies that Islamabad will continue to work to ensure terrorist incidents are not planned or launched from territories it controls, New Delhi, too, has undertaken not to over-react to the odd terrorist incident that might still take place.

In other words, India and Pakistan have jointly resolved not to give terrorists the right to veto the peace process through dramatic acts of violence.

Thirdly, the statement stresses that the purpose of having discussions on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is to reach a "final settlement." In contrast, the September 24, 2004 statement issued in New York spoke of "possible options for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the issue," while the January 6, 2004 joint statement spoke of the "peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides." However, the reference in the latest statement to a `final settlement,' though refreshing, is hardly new; it is, in fact, taken directly from the Shimla Agreement of July 2, 1972, Clause 6 of which commits both Governments "to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalization of relations, including the questions of prisoners of war and civilian internees, a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir and the resumption of diplomatic relations." (emphasis added)

After conceding the need for such a final settlement as far back as 1972, India, somewhere along the line, chose to take the view that this was unnecessary. Reams of paper have been wasted on futile debates about whether Kashmir is a core issue or not. By returning to the Shimla language, India and Pakistan have wisely agreed to give the Kashmir issue the importance it actually has and not remain hostage to the linguistic sensibilities of those who do not know the diplomatic history of the bilateral relationship.

Trucks bearing fruit

Fourthly, having stressed the need for a final settlement, the statement suggests preliminary steps consistent with the notion of soft borders. Thus, it speaks of further measures "to enhance interaction and cooperation across the LoC," including passenger movement and trade.

Allowing trucks to cross the LoC - presumably laden with fruit on the outbound, and Pakistan-made consumer goods on the inbound - is a radical leap of faith for both India and Pakistan as it will eventually allow the economic geography of the region to revert to its pre-partition days. The position of Jammu as an entrepot, not just for the valley but also Poonch and Rajouri - once the road to Rawalakot in Pakistan is opened up (or even the old `Mughal Road' to the valley) - would be undermined, which could have unintended consequences for Jammu and Kashmir.

Fifthly, the joint statement undertakes to speed up deliverables, such as an agreement on Siachen and Sir Creek, and strive for greater business interaction. So long as Pakistan had the impression that India was using CBMs as a diversionary tactic to avoid reaching a final settlement on Kashmir, it was not interested in forward-movement on trade or fast-tracking the solution of specific disputes that have readymade agreements for the taking.

By not shying away from the Kashmir issue, India has achieved what it wanted: a Pakistani commitment to put easier problems on the front-burner.

Sixthly, Dr. Singh and General Musharraf have not only endorsed the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline in the face of U.S. criticism of the project but also expanded the scope for energy cooperation between their two countries.

Given the growing demand for energy in both Pakistan and India and the need for South Asia to access Iranian and Central Asian oil and gas, it is essential that the two countries start a broad energy dialogue.

Irrelevance of LoC

In his interaction with Indian editors, General Musharraf reiterated the proposal for soft borders made by him a few days ago. It is my belief that the Indian side - our leadership and the bulk of our media - has not yet understood the huge shift that the General's endorsement of soft borders along the LoC implies. To drive home the point, he reminded the editors of Pakistan's position that the LoC should not become the border, India's position that that there could be no redrawing of borders and the only possible via media between these two positions: "The LoC cannot be permanent, borders must be made irrelevant and boundaries cannot be altered. Take the three together and now discuss the solution," he said.

A soft border is the only administrative arrangement that allows India and Pakistan to maintain their respective de jure or de facto sovereignties in Kashmir while not coming in the way of the people of the divided State enjoying the fruits of a unified territory. The LoC need not be made permanent or redrawn; the solution is to make it irrelevant. Monday's joint statement contains six new elements that will enhance the irrelevance of the LoC. Future meetings between India and Pakistan must find many, many more.

Kashmir: 'Soft border' emerges as common vocabulary

16 April 2005
The Hindu

KASHMIR: 'SOFT BORDER' EMERGES AS COMMON VOCABULARY

India and Pakistan are still far from a breakthrough on Kashmir. But by constantly coming up with formulae and suggestions, General Musharraf's aim is to ensure that the focus remains on the Kashmir issue.

Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI: In using the words "soft border" on the eve of his visit to India, Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, has, for the first time, hit upon an element of a solution for Kashmir that has also been explicitly endorsed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

General Musharraf told the Reuters news agency in an interview on Thursday that the Srinagar-Muzaffarbad bus and other proposed routes within Jammu and Kashmir could be "the first step towards converting (the Line of Control) into a soft border". On May 24, 2004, Dr. Singh, in his first interview after being sworn in as Prime Minister, had made the same suggestion. "Short of succession, short of re-drawing boundaries, the Indian establishment can live with anything," he told the columnist Jonathan Power, adding that meanwhile, "we need soft borders — then borders are not so important. People on both sides of the border should be able to move freely."

While accepting the significance of what President Musharraf said on Thursday, Indian officials are cautious about the precise implications. "This is the first time Pakistan is talking of soft borders", an official told The Hindu. "But we shall have to see what precisely comes up in his discussions here."

At this stage, it is reasonable to assume that a wide gulf probably separates what the two countries mean by a "soft border." General Musharraf himself was quick to add that Pakistan would not accept the proposal that the LoC be converted into a permanent border. Indeed, by counter-posing `soft' with `permanent', the General has bowled the Indian side something of a googly since the opposite of `soft' is `hard' while `permanent' is the opposite of `temporary'.

Range of proposals

Given the Pakistani fear that India considers soft borders a sop for maintenance of the political status quo, what General Musharraf probably means is that a soft border is only a temporary solution. Amidst all the clutter of proposals, counter-proposals and trial balloons from both sides over the past few years, this is perhaps the first time that anything resembling a common vocabulary has appeared on the table.

To be sure, India and Pakistan are still far, far away from a breakthrough on Kashmir. But by constantly coming up with formulae and suggestions — in his iftaar dinner proposal last year he spoke of the divided state as consisting of seven distinct regions whose fates could be settled individually, and now there is the endorsement of a soft border — General Musharraf's aim is to ensure that the focus remains on the Kashmir issue.

Specifically, his concern is that India's approach of front-loading confidence-building measures (CBMs) might end up creating new facts on the ground in Kashmir that could then weaken the demand for self-determination within the Kashmir Valley.

Indian officials, on their part, deny that the emphasis on CBMs is meant as a diversion from tackling what Pakistan considers the "core issue" of Kashmir. "It is only by slowly building confidence and mutual trust that India and Pakistan can reach a stage where they can tackle a difficult problem in any meaningful sense", a senior official said. "Besides, the CBMs help the people of Kashmir, they are directly improving their quality of life".

At the same time, New Delhi knows Gen Musharraf is likely to use his time in India to call for the Kashmir issue to be dealt with promptly. So much water has flowed under the bridge since his last visit that it will take a lot more than a breakfast meeting with editors — scheduled for the morning of April 18 — to rock the ongoing peace process.

Three-and-a-half years after Agra, the General's preoccupations might not have changed but his language and formulations certainly have. As for India, its leadership today is far more self-assured and far less prickly than it was in the summer of 2001, when the Pakistan President's televised references to "Kashmiri freedom fighters" pushed an angry Vajpayee Government into abort mode as far as that summit was concerned.

Tangible gains

There may not have been any progress so far on the political aspects of the Kashmir issue but the 18-month-long ceasefire on the LoC as well as the starting of fortnightly bus services between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad represent tangible gains for the people of the divided region. Moving beyond Kashmir, the scale of people-to-people contact has reached such a level that it is difficult to imagine New Delhi or Islamabad turning the tap off. Indeed, judging by the public response to the intra-Kashmir bus service inside `Azad Jammu Kashmir', the Pakistan Government will soon find itself under pressure to accept the demand for additional buses and points of contact and transit, especially to Poonch and Jammu and even Kargil, where the bulk of divided families on the Indian side of the State live. At the current frequency and capacity, the bus from Muzaffarabad will remain booked solid for two years in advance if the applications for travel already submitted are anything to go by.

Fuel enough for dragon and elephant

Date:14/04/2005 http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/14/stories/2005041401251000.htm Opinion - Leader Page Articles Fuel enough for dragon and elephant Siddharth Varadarajan India and China can be partners, not rivals, in the quest for energy security. A RECURRING theme in most writings on the emerging international energy scenario is the pressure that rising Chinese and Indian demand for oil and gas is exerting on world prices. Though oil prices have risen and fallen through the better part of the past two decades and cyclical movement still exists, there is little doubt that we are entering a period of a secular upward trend in the price level. The reasons for this are not hard to find. On the supply side, despite the many great discoveries of the past 10 years, most oil majors like Shell and Chevron-Texaco are having difficulty finding fresh reserves to replace those they extract in any given year. And on the demand side, despite the sluggishness still evident in Japan and Western Europe, the rapid economic growth witnessed across most of Asia is leading to a rapid surge in net imports of oil into the region. Rising demand and dwindling supply China alone accounts for 40 per cent of the growth in world oil demand since 2000. Asian gas imports too are rising, though the scale of the new discoveries in Iran, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and other smaller fields in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India means landed prices will depend less on rising demand than on any economies of scale effected in the mode of transportation, such as multi-destination pipelines. Against such a background of rising demand and dwindling supply, it is tempting to assume India and China are rivals in the quest for new — but eventually finite — sources of oil. Even if the possibilities for cooperation are substantial, it is a fact that China has been much more focussed than India on the hydrocarbons front. At the Asian energy conference in New Delhi this January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sounded a warning: "China is ahead of us in planning for its energy security." "India can no longer be complacent," he said. Despite generating substantial internal production, China has been a net importer of oil since 1993. According to reliable estimates, its internal reserves at Daqing and elsewhere are likely to run out by 2020. Though there is some possibility of exploiting oil in the Tarim basin, the costs involved are substantial. With the Chinese economy continuing to grow, its need for imported oil will only go up. Chinese response The Chinese response to this scenario has been multi-pronged. First, it is building U.S.-style strategic petroleum reserves at four locations in Zhejiang, Shandong, and Liaoning provinces with the aim of having at hand 30-75 days consumption as reserve. Alongside this, it is paying closer attention to security issues along its vital sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Beijing's areas of concern are the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca (where 80 per cent of Chinese imports pass through), Luzon, and Taiwan. The Chinese presence in Gwadar in Pakistan and the Myanmar coast is linked more to energy security concerns than to any threat from — or challenge to — India. China today is extracting oil in more than 12 countries around the world. In addition, it recently entered into a $100 billion 25-year agreement for supply of LNG from Iran. When Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin went to China in January 2005, the two countries agreed on an energy partnership for the 21st century that might give China access to the Athabasca tar sands. Also in January, following Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong's visit to Caracas, Chinese firms signed a $400 million investment deal involving as many as 15 Venezuelan oil fields. The last two deals have sent alarm bells ringing in Washington, which fears losing its power as a monopsonist: More than 95 per cent of Canadian oil exports today go to the U.S., which is also Venezuela's single largest customer. As for land-based supply routes, work has already started on a 1,000 km pipeline from Atasu in Kazakhstan to Alataw in Xinjiang. When completed, China can bring in as much as 10 million tonnes of oil annually through this route. The Chinese side was also keen on a 2,400 km pipeline from Angarsk in eastern Siberia to Daqing. But the Japanese, who have their own energy needs to worry about, want the Siberian pipeline to go to Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan. For the moment, Tokyo appears to have convinced Moscow about the viability of this route, though Beijing has also mooted a cooperative plan that would help both countries. It stands to reason that energy figures prominently amongst all the issues underlying the recent increase in tension between China and Japan. Given China's large global footprint in the energy sector, what kind of policy should India have? ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) faces strong competition from Chinese firms in most territories and lost out the chance to buy Shell's 50 per cent share in Angola's lucrative Block 18 when the Angolan state company, Sonagol, exercised its pre-emption rights to hand the stake over to CNPC. In pursuing this deal, the Chinese Government backed up CNPC's bid with an offer of $2 billion worth of development assistance. All India could offer was concessional funding for a $200 million rail deal. While the Indian side laments the lack of transparent audit procedures in China — which enables Beijing to be more `flexible' in sealing up contracts outside — it is also true that Indian companies are not aggressive enough. Despite India wanting a share of Kazakhstan's booming energy sector, for example, no Indian energy sector company has seen fit to open an office in Almaty or Astana to scout for opportunities. Focussed partnership But if India and China have squared off in Angola and also Indonesia and Sudan, there are also examples of cooperation. Both countries have a partnership in the Yahavaran oil field in Iran, as well as the Greater Nile oil project in Sudan. There is also talk of collaboration in Russian projects where India could take an equity stake with a view to supplying not its own but Chinese markets. Going beyond specific corporate tie-ups, there is tremendous strategic sense in India and China evolving a focussed partnership on the energy security front. Indeed, one may argue that as far as Central Asian energy resources are concerned, India and China are natural allies because both share an interest in ensuring that the battle over export routes is settled in favour of Asia rather than Europe or the United States. When Central Asia has an energy surplus and South and East Asia have energy deficits, it is logical that transportation routes be established between these two regions over the shortest possible distance. If the U.S. has its way, oil and gas from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will travel westward through the Caspian Sea, Georgia and Turkey. And India and China, which currently pay an `Asian premium' for oil from West Asia, will find themselves paying more for Central Asian resources. Thus the two countries have a stake in ensuring that the energy resources of Asia are used within the continent. Specifically, this means working together to ensure that the U.S. effort to isolate Iran is frustrated. No doubt there are other mutually beneficial routes. When Xinjiang Autonomous Region chairman Ismail Tiliwandi visited New Delhi last year, he broached the subject of a direct gas pipeline from China to India. And there is also a suggestion, made recently by Sudha Mahalingam of TERI, for the export of hydro-electricity from Kyrgyzstan to India via High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines through Xinjiang. But a pipeline through Iran remains the best bet for India, not just because it will eventually let us tap into Central Asian gas but also because of the positive geopolitical spin-offs. Proposed pipeline Most tantalising of all is the proposal floated by India's Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, for the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline to be extended across north India, Assam and upper Myanmar all the way into China's southern Yunnan province. Because it is equidistant from Central Asia and China's eastern seaboard, Yunnan is perhaps the region hardest for Beijing to supply. For the Chinese side, such a pipeline would be a good alternative to the proposed pipeline from Sittwe on the Myanmar coast to Kunming in Yunnan. And for India, having China as an end user for Iranian or Central Asian gas would lessen the chances of Pakistan ever turning off the tap. The 21st century will not be an `Asian century' unless the two biggest countries in the continent work as partners. And what better place to start than energy, the control of which helped the U.S. establish the previous century as an American one? © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

India Tertia and the mapping of the colonial imaginary

Original version of my (drastically shortened) essay on the same subject for Outlook Traveller's latest book on Heritage Travel in India

India Tertia and the mapping of the colonial imaginary

By Siddharth Varadarajan

“…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forbears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are tattered ruins of that Map, inhabited by animals and beggars; in all the land, there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography”.

Jorge Luis Borges, ‘On Exactitude in Science’,
Collected Fictions, New York, 1998, p. 325.
Translated by Andrew Hurley

If Borges’s parable about the perfect map establishes forever the impossibility of exactitude, then we must also accept his implied claim that as with other fictions of the human mind, maps usually convey to us more about their creators – their knowledge and ignorance, their fears and ambitions – than they do about the objects sought to be represented. Unlike Marx’s philosophers, who were content to describe the world without seeking to transform it, inherent in the cartographic imagination – in the very act of rendering intelligible the world with lines and shapes on stone, parchment or vellum – is always and everywhere an attempt to fashion new social boundaries and domains from the arid reality of geography. This is as true of Ptolemy and the anonymous mapmakers who carved petroglyphs in ancient southern Africa as of the Chinese Ch’uan Chin, the Arab Ibn Sa’id or the Dutchman Gerardus Mercator. However, it is in the hands of European merchant-explorers and colonial surveyors that cartography abandons all pretences of mere geographical description and portraiture and emerges as an intrinsic prop to the act of staking claims, of appropriating territory and peoples.

Hidden within the phantasmagoric but often ‘empty’ land masses and elaborate decorative cartouches of the earliest European maps of Asia, Africa and the Americas was an innocent dread of the unknown that Christendom and Capital were destined eventually to conquer through brave and improbable acts of “Discovery”. “I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”, Joseph Conrad’s Marlow recounts in Heart of Darkness. “At that time, there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map, I would put my finger on it and say, when I grow up, I will go there”. As European trading interests irradiated outwards through hundreds of sea voyages, the imprecision and tentativeness of the early mapmakers made way for the more definite lines demanded by the metropolitan centers of power. As newer lands were conquered, the ‘blank spaces’ were gradually filled in.

Though tainted inevitably by assumptions of cultural and moral superiority on the part of travelers whose descriptions formed pretty much the only the basis for cartographic knowledge, the earliest European maps of India were not necessarily instruments of conquest. Missionary explorers gave free vent to their prejudices about the nature of the ‘savages’ they encountered – and one sees this reflected in the decorative flourishes on some maps – but often the maps and cartouches were surprisingly value free or even deferential to the distant kingdoms and empires being depicted. Jordanus , the 14th century Dominican explorer and missionary who traveled to Asia via the overland route and lived awhile in Surat, divided India in his Mirabilia Descripta into three parts: India Minor, India Major and ‘India Tertia’, an almost imaginary land mass which connected the regions west of Sindh with Ethiopia. This was not Lemuria, the lost continent which supposedly existed between India and Africa, an idea which British geologists would conjure up only in the 19th century.

Sir Henry Yule -- the geographer, Orientalist and co-author of the Hobson-Jobson glossary of Anglo-Indian words and phrases -- has claimed that Jordanus’s division of India corresponds closely to the Hind, Sindh and Zinj of the Arabs[1]; whatever the truth, the Arabs certainly did not share the Dominican missionary’s exotic description of the men of India Minor and Major as people who "dwell a long way from the sea, underground and in woody tracts, seem altogether infernal, neither eating, drinking, nor clothing themselves like others who dwell by the sea”. Elsewhere in this region were islands, writes Jordanus, whose women are said to be beautiful even if “the men are having the heads of dogs”.

British historian Ian J. Barrow argues in his paper ‘Moving Frontiers: Changing colonial notions of the Indian frontiers’, that mediaeval travel writing like that of Jordanus or the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Mandeville's Travels “are each probing for ways to articulate either the unimagined or the undiscovered: all are searching for a vocabulary and methodology with which to reveal what lies hidden”. Central to this project, he argues, is the notion of a “world of polarities” in which “the further the traveler went from known lands (the Mediterranean basin) the more bizarre and antipodean the inhabitants became”. Thus in the Periplus, a supposed account of the land and peoples of the Indian Ocean (or Erythraean Sea) littoral, distance from the Mediterranean accentuates the physical peculiarities of the natives present. Barrow describes how for the Periplus, the lands just before the Ganges are inhabited by "many barbarous tribes, among them the Cirrhadae, a race of wild men with flattened noses, very savage; another tribe, the Bargysi; and the Horse-faces and the Long-faces, who are said to be cannibals."

Barrow goes on to argue that these fanciful mediaeval accounts set a standard or benchmark which subsequent travelers and explorers had to match or validate in order for their own descriptions to be taken as genuine. But though he posits a link between such literature and European cartographic practice, it is evident that pre-colonial European maps do not necessarily follow Jordanus or his counterparts in their more fanciful geographical or ethnographic assertions. For example, a famous 15th century Catalan mappamundi or world map, made

before Europe’s colonial encounter with the rest of the world had begun, depicts Africa south of the Mediterranean region and Asia beyond the Levant (including India) with considerable imaginary detail. But there are no fearsome beasts lurking in the margins other than sea nymphs and no deformed beastlike men. Indeed, India and sub-Saharan Africa are shown being ruled by a number of lustrously robed, dignified kings.

One reason for this more enlightened cartographic practice could be the production of newer travel writings such as the volumes published by the Dutch physician and scholar, Olfert Dapper, or the De Bry brothers. Producers of ‘travel’ literature like Dapper rarely traveled themselves, relying entirely on secondary information that was nevertheless state of the art as far as the time was concerned. Though he never left Amsterdam, Dapper produced in the early part of the 17th century several finely illustrated volumes describing travels in Asia, Asia Minor, the Middle East, and Africa. Culled from a variety of accounts, his works were hugely popular at the time and were prized for their maps and illustrations. His volume on India had detailed accounts of Hindu and Buddhist myuthology and a double-page map of ‘Indostan’. In this genre were the Petit Voyages of Johann Theodor and Johann Israel De Bry, published in Leiden and Frankfurt between 1598 and 1619, and considered one of the most elaborate and richly illustrated accounts of major voyages undertaken by European seafarers during the Age of Discovery. Parts II and III, where the De Brys cover regions of Indiae Orientalis that are today a part of modern India, contain one of the earliest maps of Goa, and a rare plan of Agra.

The exquisite India Orientalis by Mercator and Jodocus Hondius from their Atlas sive cosmographicae meditations, 1606, is one of the most important examples of European cartography’s depiction of India, made more than a century after Vasco da Gama’s arrival in the land after circumnavigating Africa. There is very little unknown territory and a large number of the place names mentioned within correspond to cities or regions still in existence today – ‘Jessalmer’, Berar, Daulatabad. Goa is the only European presence on the subcontinent, but figures solely as a place name without the artistic accoutrements of coloniality and conquest.

Mercator and Hondius, India Orientalis

Johannes Janssonius's Magni Mogolis Imperium of 1638 is today more highly prized than the Blaeu family map of the Mughal empire he copied because of the decorative cartouche he inserted depicting two Mughal emperors. The cartouche affords dignity and agency to an empire that a 120 years from then would be conquered by Europe. It is especially significant because

Johannes Janssonius, Magni Mogolis Imperium

Janssonius’s map draws on one published twenty years earlier in London by the Englishman, William Baffin, but drops his arrogant, Eurocentric inscription under the heading: "Vera quae visa; quae non, veriora"-- The things that we have seen are true; those we have not seen are truer still, an inscription -- which Barrow considers an exemplar of the mindset of the earlier mediaeval travel writers. Incidentally, the Blaeu brothers' original Magni Mogolis Imperium includes in its cartouche the standard Eurocentric, colonising image of a cherub aiming arrows at the Indian coast.

By the 18th century, cartographic practices in Europe had become too enmeshed in the pursuit of geopolitical power and wealth to retain their innocence. With the European race to secure colonies in Asia in full swing, the presence of trading vessels on the edges became a standard part of most maps. George Matthaus Seutter’s 1750 map, Imperii Magni Mogolis sive Indici Padschach, for example, depicts sailing ships despite the regions being mapped – northern India and Afghanistan—being quite far from any coast. It also became common for maps of this period -- when the transition from exploration and ‘discovery’ to conquest and control was being effected -- to be decorated by angels, cherubs and nymphs, sometimes with the pigmentation of the peoples they were looking over, as if to reinforce the European or Judeo-Christian hold over the earth and all its inhabitants. Maps of the New World would also now depict slavery as a benign institution, as in Seutter’s Recens edita totius Novi Belgii in America Septentrionali, 1760.

In India, as the British stranglehold tightened, scientific mapping techniques – via trigonometric surveys and the like – became another way of creating fresh political facts on the ground. James Rennel’s 1782 map, Hindoostan, best illustrates the political purpose of the new cartography that was under way. Rennel was the first surveyor general of Bengal and in his first full map of India, the actual depiction of territoriality is given the same prominence as an illustration of native supplicants receiving envelopes from a mythical Queen Boadicea, symbolizing that she was not just mistress of all that was being surveyed by Rennell but also the benevolent dispenser of justice and source of well-being for the people who were in the process of being subjugated.

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The author is deputy editor of The Hindu. He combines an interest in the history of cartography with a modest collection of old maps, mostly of South Asia and Africa.

Notes

[1] Sir Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither: Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China -- Vol. 1, London, 1861, p. 487, n. 1.

© Copyright Siddharth Varadarajan, 2005