Vulnerable wildlife

By Pandurang Hegde
07 Oct 2010

The current policies to protect wildlife have failed to achieve intended goals. Can we think beyond borrowed concepts of Protected Areas and empower local communities to take initiatives for wildlife protection?

Several elephants have been killed by fast running trains this year
The Environment Ministry recently announced the plan to declare elephant as India’s national heritage animal and to establish National Elephant Conservation Authority.
Tragically during the same time seven elephants were crushed to death by speeding goods train in Banarhat forest in West Bengal. This is a clear indicator of the reality, the brazen cruelty of human beings against wildlife. We pride ourselves in the holistic outlook of ancient scriptures, depicting wildlife as incarnation of God. Nevertheless, the way we treat the wildlife is appalling. The train driver could have slowed down to save those elephants, instead he opted to mow thorough the herd, showing least concern for the innocent animals that cannot comprehend the fate of hitting a running train. In another incident, a calf elephant was mowed down by a truck on Ooty road near Bandipur National Park in Karnataka. Except few, majority of the people in this country believe and behave as if only people should have the right of way even at the cost of sacrificing the wildlife.

Despite having declared number of protected areas as National Parks and Sanctuaries, the threats to wildlife have increased rather than giving them any protection. The protected areas have increased manifold from 67 in 1970s to 491 in 2000, a rise of 700 percent over three decades. Enactment of the Wild Life Protection Act in 1972 was another step to provide legal protection to the wild animals in our country. But have these policies helped to give protection to the animals?

Having set up protected areas, the government has framed rules and laws to conserve them from outside threats of poaching as well as making it difficult to divert these areas for other purposes. However, in actual practice, the management of these areas by forest department has led to destruction of the protected areas. In Ranibennur Wild Life Sanctuary in Karnataka, specially carved out in deccan plains to conserve the Black bucks, the area is planted with eucalyptus mono culture. This monoculture hinders the growth of natural grass, creating shortage of fodder for black bucks. The planting of grassy patches in higher regions of Western Ghats with acacia auriculifomis has created fodder shortage for Gaur.

In addition to these anti ecological management practices, the state and central governments have given permission to build hydel dams inside the wild life sanctuaries. This is in clear violation of the existing Wild Life Act. Obviously, the pressure of power lobby is very strong to resist and the temptation is to sacrifice the existing reserves that are meant to be a refugee for wild life. The building of infrastructure projects like roads and rail lines across the protected areas is one of the major threats for smooth movement of wildlife in the country. These infrastructure projects lead to fragmentation of the habitats of wildlife, hindering the migratory paths of animals like elephants.

The selfish human being is so obsessed that he does not want to give space to animals to move during the night time. The ban of traffic in some parts of wild life areas in Karnataka has had positive impact on the movement of wild life. But the transport and tourist lobby is very keen that this ban is lifted in order to allow free movement of people and goods at the cost of sacrificing the wild animals that get killed due to heavy movement of vehicles. Blessed with greater ability to think, the human beings have a role and responsibility to allow wild life to survive and move in the forests. Instead of abiding by this responsibility, most of us seem to absolve ourselves and show our brute strength of superiority to destroy the wild animals. The mowing down of elephants by the running train is the clear manifestation of this brute violence.
In the midst of this gloomy situation, we have unique examples of communities showing rare courage and compassion to conserve wildlife. The Bishnoi sect in Rajasthan and Haryana has shown that it is possible to live in harmony with wild life as well as continue farming activities. We can still see chinkaras roaming in their agricultural fields. Their commitment to protect the wild animals is legendary, as they have stood their grounds against powerful bollywood actors like Salman Khan and Saif Ali Khan for their involvement in the poaching case. Similarly, the villagers in Kokre Bellur in Karnataka have shown that they can conserve the rare birds through community initiatives.

Ignoring the traditions of community conserved wild life initiatives spread over different landscapes in the country, the Government of India adopted the elite model of Protected Areas, a borrowed concept from United States. Under this initiative, the divide between “wild nature” and human beings was forced upon the people living around the National Parks and Wild life sanctuaries. These protected areas are the tourist spots for the elite to watch wild life. The increased conflicts between these protected areas and communities living around this region are a clear indicator of the failure of the ongoing wild life conservation policy in India.

The existing policies to address the issue of decreasing wildlife as well as the increasing threats to their survival have miserably failed. The tiger and elephant projects have not been able to provide the basic security for their survival. We need to review these failed initiatives and formulate a practical wildlife policy that can meet the conservation goals as well as protect their existing habitat.

http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1392

Military ties for industrial interests

By S. G. Vombatkere
01 Oct 2010

A careful examination of deepening strategic ties between India and U.S.A. has become necessary, particularly when direct military-to-military dealings are proposed sidelining democratic functioning.

It is necessary in today's world of intimately linked national economies to strengthen and deepen economic and cultural ties between all nations in the interest of peace. This would also be a positive move to effectively combat the scourge of terrorism synergistically. But if economic ties are predicated on ‘fighting terror’ by the use of police and military force and trade in military hardware and software, it would imply that the military-industrial complex (MIC) has an increasing role in economic ties, presaging ill for the whole world and particularly for those countries that join in strengthening such ties. This is especially as USA has made the first-ever step in formally corporatizing armed conflict and confirming the legendary power of USA's MIC by converting ‘combat operations’ by regular U.S. troops in Iraq to ‘stability operations’ by US-paid contractors such as Halliburton in the guise of military disengagement.

Military-to-military relations
A day before the Ninth Anniversary of the horrendous 9/11 attack-cum-tragedy in USA, leading Indian daily The Hindu reported two events indicating deepening strategic ties between India and USA [1, 2]. The on-going defence engagement of ‘military cooperation and inter-operability’ [3] and defence equipment procurement was proposed by US Admiral Willard during his visit to New Delhi, to be expanded to a ‘much richer dialogue’ including the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), to go ‘beyond bilateral exercises and sale of military hardware’. It is acknowledged that the top-most US military commanders have a US foreign policy role in addition to their military role [4]; thus these two Agreements, designed ‘in order to slice away bureaucratic procedures for the armed forces to work with each other’ need to be considered seriously in the public domain.

Speaking of the Indian military, Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi notes that "Our political leadership is highly uncomfortable in dealing with the military directly and prefers to let the bureaucracy do so." [5]. Thus effectively, the military's contact with the elected Executive is through the bureaucracy, giving bureaucrats a large degree of control that the military resents even while it unhesitatingly accepts civilian control. It is easy to blame the bureaucracy for this, but the historic and on-going failure of the political leadership in maintaining contact directly with the Defence Chiefs, cannot be wished away. (Creation of a Chief of Defence Staff post would overcome the problem, but this has been successfully stalled by the bureaucracy for years notwithstanding the cost to national security).

Willard's suggestion to ‘slice away bureaucratic procedures’ in military-to-military contacts seeks to further weaken the existing weak link between India's military and its political leadership by taking the bureaucracy out of the loop. This is interference in India's internal affairs and government functioning, and dangerous for India's security. Thus, even in the present scheme of skewed civilian-military relations within India, it must be ensured that the bureaucracy is not ‘sliced away’ from direct India-US military-to-military interactions; the elected Executive must urgently get its act together in the interest of national security.

Logistic support
The LSA clearly envisages providing logistic bases for the US military. This needs careful thinking-through; it could be the thin end of a wedge commencing with providing facilities for docking or landing, victualling and re-fuelling for US military ships and aircraft, later expandable to ammunitioning that includes stockpiling US weapons protected by US military personnel stationed on Indian territory. The serious problem with this is, a US weapon stockpile is an attractive target for militants and terrorists, and a successful attack can well become reason for USA to multiply its military presence on Indian soil, even without this provision built into the LSA.

India's strategic hot potato

By S. G. Vombatkere
11 Sep 2010

Willingly or forced by global developments, India got into an uncomfortable strategic embrace with USA and invested heavily in Afghanistan's reconstruction. But as USA is desperately looking for a way out of Afghanistan, India may soon find itself in a difficult situation.

Manmohan Singh is keen to further strengthen Indo-US relations
Exactly nine years ago the world stood aghast at the real-time TV screening of the audacious, coordinated attack on WTC and the Pentagon and trembled when, weeks later, USA invaded Afghanistan in retaliation to what was understood as an Al Qaeda attack masterminded by Osama bin Laden. This was first seen as a knee-jerk reaction to retrieve American pride and prop up USA's international image, but soon enough the world interpreted it as a strategic move to gain a secure foothold in Asia. This interpretation was confirmed when USA subsequently defined it as a Global War on Terror (GWOT) and invaded Iraq to execute “regime change” there.

USA's global strategic interests are by now well-defined, and the shocks delivered to Afghanistan and Iraq have been integrated into the way in which the world views USA. US President Obama's recent commitment of withdrawing US troops from Iraq is nothing but outsourcing warfare and corporatizing conflict, since “combat operations” by troops becomes “stability operations” by US-paid mercenaries operating out of US bases in Iraq to maintain hold on the ground.
Strategic partnership

After 9/11 attack, New Delhi thought that USA had at last become aware of cross-border terrorism of which India had been complaining for years. But Pakistan being the long-time seed-bed for terror attacks against India and then becoming a strategic partner of USA, and that too for GWOT, made New Delhi's complaints somewhat ineffective.

After 2004, New Delhi, under a Congress-led UPA government with known “Americanophiles” at the top of the pile, began to cosy up to the US administration, going so far as to say words to the effect that India loves G. W. Bush.
Thus it came to pass that in Washington in July 2005, Indian PM Manmohan Singh and US President G. W. Bush issued a joint statement on a framework agreement for India-USA civilian nuclear cooperation that came to be known as the 123 Agreement. However, this N-deal was overshadowed by the provisions of the Hyde Act enacted by the US Congress in January 2006, which is an India-specific legislation (titled “Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006“) that visualises India having a foreign policy “congruent with” that of USA, and actively participating in USA’s efforts to implement sanctions against Iran if that country fails to conform to USA’s checks on its acquisition of N-weapons.

While certainly India was not bound by the Hyde Act, it is necessary to understand that the provisions of that legislation were part of USA’s foreign policy to bring as many countries as possible under its influence, if not control, for its global designs. Thus, notwithstanding New Delhi's protestations to the contrary, the 123 Agreement overshadowed by the Hyde Act was in fact nothing less than a strategic convergence between India and USA. Indeed, following this, there have been several army, navy and air force joint exercises between India and USA with the stated aim of enhancing military cooperation and inter-operability.

Locked in a strategic embrace
To emphasize the fact of it being a wide-spectrum strategic tie-up, it needs to be noted that the nuclear framework joint statement was issued on 18 July 2005, and on the same day, the Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture (KIA) Agreement was finalized and the KIA Working Group formed. And just two days later, on 20 July 2005, the KIA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Indian PM Manmohan Singh and US President G. W. Bush. It is left to conjecture whether India was being railroaded into strategic linkage with USA.

On March 3, 2006, US President G. W. Bush was in New Delhi, and he and PM Manmohan Singh signed the Joint Statement on India-US Strategic Partnership with emphasis on civilian nuclear cooperation, but including KIA. This came to be known as the Indo-US Nuclear Treaty, which raised a furore in Indian politics and nearly caused the UPA government to fall when the Left Parties withdrew their support.

It is not out of place to note that the USA's KIA Board gives official status to US seed and food MNCs like Archer-Daniels-Midland, Monsanto and Walmart since their representatives are US KIA Board members, while the Indian KIA Board has full representation of industrial interests with the sole “representative” of the agricultural sector being Dr. M. S. Swaminathan. The purpose of highlighting this is to show, firstly, that the Indo-US Nuclear Treaty was the trojan horse with the little known and even less debated KIA Agreement (which gives free rein to US MNCs and impacts India's food security) in its belly, and secondly, that the strategic tie-up was carried out with political stealth. Of course, with the MNC-friendly provisions of the nuclear accident liability bill, it is clear that for USA at least, the nuclear deal was meant to resuscitate and hugely benefit moribund US nuclear corporations. In sum, India is locked in a strategic embrace with USA, a fact internationally well recognized.

Presence in Afghanistan
India has ancient and modern cultural and economic ties with Afghanistan. New Delhi's interests in Afghanistan also coincided with undoing Pakistan's influence there, and the US invasion was a convenient excuse to upgrade its “soft power” and regain its former strategic depth. However at present, Indian presence there is opposed by the Taliban and Pakistan because New Delhi supported the 10-year long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan which was opposed by CIA-sponsored Taliban trained in Pakistan.
The US occupation of Afghanistan post-9/11 placed Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan in a subordinate position relative to its earlier dominant position following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. This, along with the India-US strategic partnership and USA's happy acceptance of India's role in Afghanistan, led to New Delhi providing monetary aid for Afghanistan and actively assisting in infrastructural construction and re-construction by sending manpower.

It should be clear to any perceptive observer of Afghanistan that the rules of the contemporary “Great Game” imposed by USA in Afghanistan would last only so long as the US military has a presence in that country. Even though New Delhi knew the history of the impossibility of subjugating the fiercely independent tribal people of Afghanistan, as the British and Soviets know at their cost (never mind the cost paid by the Afghanis), the inevitable withdrawal of USA from Afghanistan was apparently not considered when New Delhi jumped into Afghanistan with both feet.

Thus, New Delhi as USA's strategic partner, went ahead to help Afghanistan with monetary investment – while people starve at home and there is no money for education and health, India pledged to invest $1.2 billion, becoming the second largest contributor of funds after USA – and also sent Indians to undertake construction work in the face of attacks by the Taliban. India's Kabul embassy is its largest in the world and India has re-built two previous and opened two new consulates in Afghanistan. All this shows India's level of commitment to “re-build” Afghanistan and maintain an enhanced diplomatic presence; predictably, this has enraged Pakistan.
New Delhi's investment in Afghanistan in construction and re-construction work is considerable. Border Roads engineers and Indian military personnel have been airlifted to construct roads and other infrastructure such as a new Parliament House, erecting power transmission lines and a sub-station to supply Kabul with 24x7 power, building the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway, sinking tube wells in 6 provinces, running sanitation projects and medical missions, lighting 100 villages with solar power, and building a dam. In addition, India has given three airbus aircraft to Afghanistan's Ariana airline and offers scholarships for studies in India to young Afghans. All this may add up to cost New Delhi around $1.2 billion – a huge amount considering that India's internal development suffers at least partly due to lack of funds.

The Afghan hot potato
When USA begins to consider withdrawing its military from Afghanistan, it is obvious that Pakistan will strenuously endeavour to regain its former influence, and it follows that India would be forced into a difficult position due to its considerable investment in Afghanistan being at stake. Its position may by similar to a man putting a hot potato into his mouth – he cannot chew or swallow it and he cannot spit it out either; and it burns his mouth. New Delhi appears to have already acquired the hot potato by its involvement in Afghanistan, and may put it “into the mouth” when US troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

To put a finer point on the matter, some questions need to be asked: Will India be able to withstand the combined might of Pakistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda on its own in Afghanistan? Will it be worthwhile to pump Indian troops into Afghanistan at enormous cost in order to “save face” and protect Indian interests in Afghanistan? If so, for how long would India remain committed militarily in Afghanistan and, more importantly, will there be an exit policy? Or will New Delhi pull out of Afghanistan a tad earlier than USA does (at the risk of displeasing its senior strategic partner), and write off its huge investment in Afghanistan as a financial misadventure?

The die is cast; the act is committed. Now only time will tell; but the tale it will tell will surely be an unhappy one. Either way, it will have huge repercussions at home.