Natural disasters: Indian plate is increasingly weakening leading to more earthquakes in India's center. The lower part of the Himalayas are prone to brutal land slides. India's eastern seaboard is very vulnerable to massive cyclones. Then there is the threat of disease [remember Ebola]. Who can be relied on to react to all this? Part of the defense budget is used for disaster management.
Border threats: India has 15,000 kilometers of land borders with countries such as China, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Myanmar. [To put this in context, US with 3 times India's area has well less than 10,000 km of land borders and most if it is with a friendly Canada] With China, India still has an unresolved border. With Pakistan, the problem is terrorism exports. With Bangladesh the problem is illegal immigrants. With Myanmar, there are problems with smuggling. India also has a 7500 km of coastline. Thus, we need to spend a lot on BSF and Coast guard, besides spending on border infrastructure to react quick.
Responsibilities to the world: We are now among the world's biggest economies and thus have to carry a lot of world's weight. India is a responsible world citizen & is the among the largest contributor of peacekeeping forces around the world. This again costs a lot of money. Indian Army United Nations peacekeeping missions From West Africa to Middle East, our troops have been at the forefront of maintaining peace. This is important both for India's economy as well as India's morality.
If you are an elephant, no animal dares to mess with you. If you are a deer, you are always hunted.
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Chapter 7: Ocean of Tears
Industrial Disasters
December 2, 1984
It was a typical winter night. The million-odd residents of this central Indian town of Bhopal went to their sleep after their usual chores. With no major history of earthquakes, storms, floods, or hurricanes, the residents of Bhopal had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t wake up alive the next day.
Most of the poor residents didn't know what the 15-year old Union Carbide factory in the edge of the town was making. Nor did they know about the deadly methyl isocyanate compound kept in its large vats. They had no reason to suspect that the reputed foreign company (now owned by Dow Chemicals) would have such weak safety standards. The company was making pesticides and it is assumed that pesticides are designed to kill the pests, not humans.
The next morning, thousands wouldn't wake up. Many more thousands could wake up, but could not see anything. And even more thousands could no longer breathe properly. That night, 45 tons of the deadly odorless gas spread around the city silently touching 500,000 residents of the city. In the deadliest industrial disaster in human history, between 3,700 and 16,000 people died. Many more suffered crippling lifelong consequences. For the following few years, many women gave birth to dead kids.
The poor residents trusted the company and the government to make sure that the stuff they produced wouldn't kill off the surrounding people. There were 61 hazardous events in the prior four years that affected many workers and even killing one with deadly gas. A good company would have tightened its safeguards or tried to decommission the plant. However, Union Carbide continued the production while also reducing the maintenance work. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
But, the disaster was not over. Led by the worst Prime Minister in independent India's history, the government fumbled unable to properly handle the crisis and bring the guilty to justice. India's armed forces did a heroic job in putting down further leaks and cleaning up around the disaster site. However, the handling was poor in other places. There were human carcasses all over city and many dead bodies were thrown on the nearby Narmada river .
The company CEO, Warren Anderson, was arrested while visiting the country on December 7. However, he was released on bail with enough pressure from the top and he escaped India never to return. The company settled for a $470 million fine in 1989 and the shares of the company shot up, eventually merging with Dow Chemicals to form the world's largest chemical company. Activists argued that the government let off the company too easily, settling for a paltry sum especially when the company later settled a much larger claim in Texas for a much smaller Asbestos exposure.
While the Bhopal disaster was the single worst industrial disaster in human history, there were also a few other industrial disasters involving coal mines. There were two such incidents in the present Indian state of Jharkhand (then a part of Bihar). The first one was in Dhanbad in May 1965, when an explosion set a major fire and trapped 375 people. The second was in December 1975, when a flooding caused the death of 372 people in the nearby mine of Chasnala. Both these mining incidents fall into the world's top 10 coal mining disasters. In all of the cases, the safety infrastructure and regulatory enforcement of Indian industries were called into question. But, not much changed on the ground.
Transport Tragedies
December 24, 1999
It was the holiday season in India and middle class travelers were making their short trips to Nepal and other neighboring nations. One such group was returning from Kathmandu in the Indian Airlines flight 814. The flight departed from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport. Captain Saran, who piloted the craft, was planning to be in Delhi in time for Christmas Eve dinner.
However, the flight would not reach Delhi on time. Five armed hijackers from Pakistan took the flight first to Amristar in the northern state of Punjab. They killed one of the passengers and scared the government into providing the fuel for their next adventure. The flight then took off to Lahore, where they tried to land on a road. India and Pakistan had just finished a major border war in Kargil and things were tense. The plane left Lahore with some more fuel.
The flight was then taken to Kabul and then Kandahar, when Afghanistan was ruled by the Talibans. However, both the airports were found to be incapable of handling an Airbus A300 at night. The flight then finally landed in Dubai. UAE negotiated the release of 25 passengers. On the morning of Christmas, the plane headed back to Kandahar and this time it was surrounded by an army of helpful Talibans.
The hijackers demanded $200 million without realizing that just one person on that flight could have arranged for that in return for his safe return. Aboard the flight was De La Rue Giori, the Swiss magnate who controlled 90% of the world's currency printing business.
More importantly, the hijackers also demanded the release of some of the deadliest Islamic terrorists languishing in Indian jails. Of the 35 terrorists they wanted released, three were absolutely lethal.
* * *
The year 1999 was a terrible year - bad for the economy and bad for the army. It started with an invasion in Kargil and ended with a major hijack. It was a harrowing time for all of India. We had just finished a major war in our lifetime and now there was another tragedy. Already, Pakistan had built long range missiles; Both nations had just gone fully nuclear. Newspapers were full of different ideas, some of which were inspired from Israel's activities. But others helpfully suggested that with a whole bunch of Talibans surrounding the plane even Israel would have negotiated. The Taliban made it clear that they would not let India use force to bring the ordeal to an end.
TIME correspondent Maseeh Rahman reported that:
The Taliban's ruling council has decreed that no foreign military personnel will be allowed onto Afghan soil, and that rules out a commando raid to take out the hijackers.
After a seven-day ordeal, India finally secured the release of 177 passengers in return for giving up Maulana Masood Azhar (who then founded the most violent terrorist organization - Jaish-e-Muhammad), Ahmad Omar Sayeed Sheik (who murdered many Westerners in that region including Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal) and Mustaq Ahmad Zargar (who trains terrorists in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).
In 67 years since Independence, India has been through many such ordeals by virtue of its dangerous environment, large size, and relatively weak security infrastructure. A number of hijacks have taken place and mostly involved the airports of the northern cities of Amritsar and Sri
nagar while eventually heading to Lahore. Such incidents have occurred in 1971, 1981, 1982, 1984, and 1993. Despite such a disturbing frequency involving the same airports, security has not been tightened until after the 1999 hijacks and the September 11 attacks in the US.
While these hijacks didn't result in a lot of passenger casualties, the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182 in the Montreal-Delhi route was brutal - killing 329 people. Sikh terrorists, at the height of their power, claimed vengeance for the attacks on their community in Delhi.
Natural Tragedies
December 26, 2004
It was my first year in the US as a student. I was holding the Washington Post that had my home town right at the front. It was a long time dream of mine to see my town in that prestigious newspaper. But, this time it was for the wrong reasons. One of the biggest tragedies in human history struck my town as well as plenty others in the Indian Ocean.
I was in a state of panic as my parents were to visit the beach for a concert at the nearby Music Academy. Luckily, they didn't get a ticket to the concert. It was a brutal day, as a region grappled with a natural disaster they had no clue of. A massive undersea earthquake attacked Indonesia and the ripples sent the biggest tsunami ever recorded in South Asia. India lost over 12,000 people and the coastal towns where I studied in school were devastated.
Although the tsunami was a highly unusual event, the coastal belt is known for its massive cyclones that brought unspeakable hardships. This is one reason why you didn't sea Indian empires building massive coastal cities or large navies. The Cholas built a naval empire, but ruled from the inland as the ancient Tamil city of Poompuhar was destroyed by the rough seas. The Kalingas and Pallavas all had to abandon their coastal towns at some point.
Through a tragic coincidence, some of the biggest disasters in modern Indian history have all happened in December. Some even use black humor that the Hindu god of death, Yamaraj, wants to close the annual accounts in a hasty way. There was sadness all around.
December 27, 1975 - Chasnala Mining Disaster (India's biggest mining disaster)
December 2, 1984 - Bhopal gas tragedy (world's worst industrial disaster)
December 24, 1999 - IC 814 hijack (most tragic hijack incident for India)
December 26, 2004 - Indian Ocean Tsunami (world's most destructive tsunami)
Despite the millions lost due to various disasters, it is sad that disaster preparedness has never become a major national priority. India doesn't have a single emergency number like 911 that can be called for any disaster. It doesn't educate its citizens on the ways to react to different disaster situations and it has not acquired major tools to extract people out of the rubble.
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Chapter 8: Political Calculus: Differentiation and Integration of India's Forgotten Communities
[Naxalbari movement is] the front paw of of the revolutionary armed struggle launched by the Indian people under the guidance of Chairman Mao Tse Tung.
-- Radio Peking Broadcast (June 28, 1967)
May 23, 1967
Naxalbari, West Bengal
The village police inspector was killed by the peasants and a major unrest was all around the place. The newly elected Communist government in the state tried to raise an alarm and bring massive police force in. A diehard 49-year old local communist, Charu Mazumdar, wrote a series of eight monographs [known as the historic eight documents] detailing a revolution that was painstakingly smuggled into China to get the support of the Red Army. These ideas were then carried by his comrade, Kanu Sanyal, and spread all around the region. It was to be the start of their Communist revolution, in the line of various such movements in Russia, China, Cuba, and other places.
The Jhargaon village in India's northeast at first didn’t appear to have the potential to cause a major revolution in India. Revolutions often start from the cities and this decrepit village was days away from any major city. However, if you looked closer at the map, it seemed the ideal place for any competitor of India to instigate major trouble.
The village, located in the Naxalbari region of West Bengal, is just a few kilometers away from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) with which India fought a war just two years prior. It is about 50 kilometers from the borders of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim (at that time an independent protectorate of India) and about 80 kilometers from the Chinese border - which fought a major border war with India five years prior. There were plenty of forests and mountains to hide and easy getaways through any of the porous borders. It was perfect for any separatist getting foreign help.
If an enemy of India wants to strangle India, it would be at this place. The "chicken neck" - as it is known locally - is the narrow corridor that connects the seven states of India's northeast with the rest of India. If this neck is choked, India's northeast would suffocate and probably secede.
The Naxalbari Movement
About 60 villages of the tribal Santhals are located in this idyllic Naxalbari region adjacent to India's tourist resort of Darjeeling. There were about 1.2 million people at that time and most of the tribals were hired by the landlords - jotedars - in a contract system named adhiar. There was plenty of exploitation of the laborers by the well-connected landlords.
This farmer pain was well amplified by the increasing trend of leftward movement across the nation. In the 1967 elections, Congress significantly lost its position due to the war between Indira and the syndicate of major party warlords [we will see more on this in next chapter]. As inflation and unemployment raged after the two wars [with China and Pakistan] people increasingly became attracted to communism. The Congressional party was overthrown in West Bengal. For the first time, a Communist party led coalition took power in West Bengal.
Although the ruling Communist Party - CPI(M) was initially instigating the protestors, they got cold feet as the tribal militia used their bows and arrows to announce a "liberated land". Police and paramilitary were brought in. After a 52-day confrontation, the police broke the uprising and arrested key leaders like Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal, and Jagdu Santal.
While the 1967 movement was broken in the Naxalbari area, the communist extremists [termed as Naxalites since then and officially called CPI(Marxist Leninist)] spread over a vast position of central India. Using forest cover and political inaction, they established themselves in 10 states from Bengal to Karnataka. States like Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh were especially affected.
Students from Calcutta's famous campuses like the Presidency College were drawn in large numbers to provide muscle to the uprising. Poor economic infrastructure and insufficient autonomy to the various tribals provided fuel to the fire. This was then further aided by China and other foreign elements.
In 1971, Indira Gandhi provided a massive counterattack through Operation Steeplechase that temporarily arrested the movement. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, renewed action by the state government also helped manage the problem a bit. However, the rise to power of Maoist rebels in neighboring Nepal has strengthened the movement in Central India since about 2000.
As of 2014, the Naxalite problem remains the biggest challenge to the Indian government. Thousands of people die every year from the violence and it has hindered development in a vast chunk of India's interior. Since 2009, Operation Green Hunt by the Indian government involving over 350,000 police and paramilitary forces have been pursuing the extremists and the problem still remains.
The Seven Sisters
On June 8, 1980, a wave of tribes armed with bows and native knives stormed into the village of Mandwi in the north eastern state of Tripura. The tribals complained about the influx of Hindu Bengalis from neighboring Bangladesh. Then they proceeded to execute one of the largest massacres in Indian history. Over two days, the entire village - men, women, and children were ruthlessly massacred. Children's heads were spiked on sticks and there were skulls everywhere. The massacre was yet another grim reminder of the violent struggle between the tribes and settlers from the plain
s in the region. Twenty years later, the same ethnic group was targeted in another massacre near the same region. A grim reminder of the tension between the hill tribes and the settlers from the plains.
The seven states of the Indian Northeast - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tripura are some of the most ignored states due to the geographic isolation and cultural differences from the mainland. Except for Assam, the other states have predominantly tribal languages speaking Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages. They are connected to the rest of India through a narrow Siliguri corridor of northern West Bengal via the Naxalbari region mentioned earlier.
Until the 1970s, the states of the North East didn't have sufficient autonomy. They were controlled either by a government from Assam or through the representatives of the central government. Tribal autonomy and migration are the key issues affecting this region.
Treaty of Yandabo
Throughout most of history, the kingdoms in the intersection of the Arakan mountains and the Himalayas - in India's northeast - were in India's cultural sphere but not in the political sphere. Although the people of the historic Kamarupa kingdom of Assam and the Manipuris follow variants of Hinduism, for the most part India's major dynasties didn’t extend that far and were non-overlapping political entities.
From Tryst to Tendulkar: The History of Independent India Page 13
