Review of World Politics
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Nepal: Where have all the Leaders Gone?
Nepal [or the Himalayan Federal Democratic Republic for progressives/HFDR] is indeed in a very sorry state. India’s deadly second wave of the raging planetary pandemic has also caught up with the fringes, of which Nepal is an integral part. We are now paying for the ‘very special relationship’ and the very open borders. Not all good things come from the South!
The government of Nepal or Goon has now more or less succumbed to its own inherent weaknesses and contradictions [how can a corrupt Communist regime be ‘democratic’?] and thrown in the towel. Like the former Soviet Union in 1989/, we can expect an implosion.
The unfortunate part is that the innocent [perhaps not that innocent!?] people of Nepal have been taken for a ride by the political parties, their honchos, the so-called independent media and the political establishment in general. All the chickens are now coming home to roost. Our very ‘Dear Leader’ is at his wits’ end.
Goon has thrown up their hands in despair and officially announced that in the present situation of a sharp upsurge, there are not enough oxygen cylinders and beds for Covid-19 patients in hospitals. On Saturday, Goon shamelessly announced that the country’s health system was unlikely to sustain the frightening rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the country. Was this a case of frank transparency?
Was this how to treat the people? Instead of giving them hope, to give up in despair?
The various political parties were quick to pounce upon Goon and condemn them, although their own failings were very much in the display.
It is easy now to say that Goon’s remarks not only reflected its helplessness, but also its irresponsible behaviour. After all, Goon, the honchos and their political parties spent the entire year in inter-and intra-party conflict. Our ‘Dear Leader’ even dissolved the House of Representatives [among other peccadillos] and boasted of providing vaccines to all Nepalese in three months.
The opposition parties were [and are still] jockeying for position to achieve positions of power.
The ‘Great Leader’ now has plans to combat Covid-19 on a war footing. He has directed the Nepal Army to set up 1,000 bed temporary hospitals in all provinces and the capital valley (The Himalayan Times, May 3). What were he and his government doing until now? This is the proverbial doing too little, too late. Or locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
King Gyanendra had to sacrifice the monarchy because the three circles of firewalls collapsed. His ministers, the administrative secretaries and army officers, and his personal advisers all failed to give him timely and relevant advice and information. The communication system as a whole was defunct and the persons involved were inept. Is the phenomenon repeating itself?
India’s Covid-19 Apocalypse
India’s initial response was brutal, hasty and total. The central government acted quickly, mandating a lockdown across the country and nearly everyone, from PM Narendra Modi down, started wearing masks.
Other factors also seemed to be working to the country’s advantage. India has a younger population than most other countries. There was also talk of pre-existing immunity among the young demographic.
It looked as if things were improving since case counts were falling [as in neighbouring Nepal]. There arose a sense of complacency, exceptionalism, and triumphalism.
Then, last September, during the lead up to the Bihar assembly elections, the ruling, extreme right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that the state would soon be free of the virus!
Already in October, the party’s national spokesperson argued on BBC that India was almost back to normal!
Early on, the government and the opposition made a show of how important it was to abide by the rules. However, as the pandemic was raging in other parts of the world – above all, in Europe and the Americas – with time, it seemed that India [as well as Nepal] seemed to have escaped the worst. That’s when the political elite let their guard down. The establishment turned less responsible. The people in general also followed their example and started taking the pandemic less seriously.
Last November, as the pandemic cases in the capital territory of Delhi, were increasing by about 40,000 per day, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal celebrated Diwali [the ‘Festival of Lights’] live at a temple. Former Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav stooped so low as to denigrate India’s homegrown vaccine as an untrustworthy product of the BJP!
In January of the New Year, Modi in his speech to the World Economic Forum (WEF), boasted [prematurely as it turned out] that India was now victorious in the fight against the pandemic. Shortly after, the BJP national committee passed a resolution validating Modi.
In February and March 2021, the numbers started moving upwards, but this did not deter the BJP and its supporters from being upbeat, as well as, misguided.
The World Health Organization (WHO) had already clarified that Ayurvedic medication [India’s ancient system of medicine] was ineffective against the deadly virus, but India’s health minister insisted in mid-February on attending an event supporting said medication.
In the meantime, campaigning for five 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Assam continued with gusto, without [mostly] the usual pandemic protocols. Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu had one-day voting, but West Bengal and Assam – for reasons known only to the Modi government and the central election commission – voted in multiple phases, increasing the possibility of infections.
Into the witches’ cauldron of failed leadership, throw in the magical herbs of religious fanaticism. In March 2020, a Muslim religious congregation took place in Delhi that ended up being a super spreader. But Hindu festivals have also had the same effect.
The Haridwar Khumb Mela (Uttarkhand State), much of India attracted hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus from all over India [and Nepal too] and thus became a super-spreader event.
In addition, much of India celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colours in late March, and like the Khumb Mela celebrations, participants ignored masking and physical distancing.
According to Anil Joshi, a public policy professional in Washington, D.C., the dire situation will continue to get worse before it gets better. A U.S. pandemic model predicts a peak in mid-May (Foreign Policy, April 27).
Afghanistan: Abandoned by Friends, Attacked by Foes
Last Saturday, the final phase of ending America’s so-called ‘forever war ’ in Afghanistan after 20 years formally began with the start of the withdrawal of the last US [2500-3500 troops] and NATO troops [about 7,000] by the end of summer, the start of autumn (Associated Press/AP: Kathy Gannon, May 1).
In recent weeks, the military has already been flying out equipment on massive C-17 cargo planes.
The US is estimated to have spent more than US Dollar $ 2 trillion in Afghanistan in the past two decades according to the ‘Costs of War Project’ at Brown University which documents the hidden costs of the US military engagement.
The US and its NATO allies had gone into Afghanistan together on October 7, 2001, to hunt the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon.
They had lived under the protection and guidance of the country’s diehard Islamist Taliban rulers. Two months later, the Taliban had been defeated and al-Qaida fighters and their leader, Osama bin Laden dispersed, finally finding refuge in the border areas to Pakistan.
Biden claimed the initial mission was accomplished a decade ago when US Navy SEALS killed bin Laden in his hideout in the cantonment town of Abbottabad in neighbouring Pakistan. Since then, al Qaeda had been degraded while the terrorist threat had “metastasized” into a global phenomenon that could not be contained by keeping thousands of troops in one single country.
There seems to be an inherent contradiction in this argument – al Qaeda had been “degraded”, but at the same time, it had also “metastasized”! Biden just wants to get out of Afghanistan, and the devil take the hindmost!
At least the acute threat in the immediate region [the Taliban has a corrupting influence] could have been contained by the already small number of US and NATO troops stationed there.
For many years now, the US government has failed to call the so-called ‘war’ in Afghanistan by its rightful name, i.e. to call a spade a spade. It is in fact no longer a large-scale ‘war’, but an insurgency against a legitimate government. The US mission is not at all accomplished. Trump wanted to leave like a dog with its tail between its legs. Biden should have first found ways and means to bolster the training and morale of the security forces, not least by curtailing corruption in the higher echelons – before abandoning the country to its dismal fate.
It is indeed not a transformational moment in a positive sense. The Biden administration has made much of promoting democracy in the world at large, in fact, a new edition of ‘making the world safe for democracy’. But how does this square with the certain dire fate of women and girls, whose dearly-won rights will certainly be trampled upon by the cut-throat, extremist Islamist Taliban?
Violence has spiked in Afghanistan since the infamous February 2020 deal signed by the Taliban with the Trump administration. There was no logical reason for the time frame of the troop withdrawal. Peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government which were part of the agreement quickly collapsed.
Last Friday, a truck bomb in eastern Logar province senselessly killed 21 people, many of them police and students. If there is some method to their madness, it is to thoroughly terrorize the Afghan people and prepare them for the coming most holy Caliphate.
New Directions in International Politics
A shift in international relations is underway as the rivalry between the US and China intensifies. Alongside this bilateral contest, the state of the planetary climate, migration levels and ageing populations [in Japan, South Korea, possibly China] are all of concern to world leaders.
Such a complex environment demands confidence and agility from would-be leaders.
There are shifts in international alliances, developments in trade and commerce, and the persuasive power of technology. There is an intense race to reach new heights in artificial intelligence (AI).
The US-Soviet Union contest during the Cold War was different in many respects from the emerging Sino-American geostrategic conflict in various geographical and functional areas and at different levels. It can be conceptualized as 3-dimensional chess. However, academics and national security pundits are divided on whether to characterize this as the New Cold War.
There is, however, no disputing the fact that the world’s two superpowers are engaged in intense competition. Since both are armed to the teeth with mind-boggling conventional weapons and the horrifying nuclear arsenal, there is a great need for cooperation on many fronts and the overall sense of peaceful co-existence.
In this emerging scenario, most nations of the world would need to reject taking sides, but instead adopt the stance of positive neutrality: Non-alignment is dead, long live non-alignment!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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