Politicians have yielded to public outrage by allowing a juvenile aged 16, charged with committing a heinous crime, to be treated as an adult. The new Act ignores the reality of juvenile crime and disempowers the most vulnerable section of our society

In a speech to Harvard Law School in the 1890s, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. called the law “the government of the living by the dead” and said “to a very considerable extent, no doubt it is inevitable that the living should be so governed”. The December 16, 2012 rape and murder in Delhi of Nirbhaya, and the consequent legislative changes spawned by the incident, illustrate just this proposition.

First, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, redefined the offence of rape as well as the standards of proof required to sustain an allegation. Now the Rajya Sabha has just passed the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Bill, 2015, which allows for children between the ages of 16 and 18 to be tried in adult courts for heinous crimes.

Private grief, public empathy

Driving the agenda of the dead are Asha Devi and Badri Singh Pandey, parents of Nirbhaya, who are now the face of India’s response to the tragedy. For the past three years, their public mourning for their brutalised, dead daughter has been a very intense affair. They are present at every court hearing of consequence, they have attended innumerable condolence meetings, commemorations and vigils. They have not allowed their daughter’s fighting spirit to die. We feel their sorrow, and share and understand their anger. To them, the release of the juvenile offender, in this case after only three years in a correctional facility, appears to be inordinately early.

But the righteous anger of this couple has become Schadenfreude and worse for a whole mass of citizenry. Anger is being exploited by TRP-driven purveyors of outrage porn, to strike at all possible newsworthy targets. The juvenile delinquent has been demonised to the point where any revelation of his current identity is likely to result in violence against him. Parliament is being excoriated in the mistaken belief that a legislative fix could have ensured continued incarceration of the juvenile. It is being suggested that legislative inaction over the passage of the Bill through the Rajya Sabha has been responsible for the juvenile walking free. Even when informed that the Constitution of India prohibits retroactive criminal punishments, the proponents of outrage for outrage’s sake point to the grave dangers of unpunished juvenile crime. They suggest that the new legislation, which enables trying juveniles as adults, is an effective deterrent which will ring-fence middle-class India from being attacked by juvenile criminals hell-bent on rape. The absence of a deterrent law, they suggest, is akin to inviting undeterred juvenile crime.

Worse than the disease

But has juvenile delinquency reached epidemic proportions requiring legislation? Or is it a single juvenile, involved in a grossly revolting case, whose facts are being used to create a fear which did not previously exist? While television anchors have harangued us about how juvenile crime has risen by 47 per cent, they have failed to inform us that actual juvenile crime is still less than 2 per cent of reported crime figures.

Second, most of it is non-violent crime and often the result of vagrancy. Most importantly, most children in trouble with the law come from extremely poor backgrounds and are often runaways from hunger and abuse at home. Does this most vulnerable section of our society require legislation to keep it from being a menace to the rest of us? To my mind, legislation may be a remedy worse than the disease.

Harsh legislation is a cheap fix for politicians to douse public anger at events. But harsh laws do not diminish the problem, nor do they protect future victims. TADA [Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act] and POTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] did not end up reducing terrorism, but they ended up empowering lazy policing. The Act to prevent atrocities on Scheduled Castes often ends up as a vendetta tool in government employment. Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which was introduced to combat dowry-related crimes, has been so abused that the Supreme Court had to step in to regulate its blatant misuse; the section has been responsible for many a salvageable marriage being wrecked. Criminalising cheque bouncing has resulted in our criminal courts being flooded with cases from financial institutional lenders and magistrates ending up as recovery agents. Yet, we as a society, keep clamouring for harsher laws, which politicians enact to escape being targets of outrage. We fail to heed Irish statesman, author and political theorist Edmund Burke’s dictum that “bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny”.

As a country, our lawyers, faced with delay in the civil courts, resort to the threats of the criminal justice system, where pretrial denial of individual liberty is often the norm. The maximum proportion of female offenders in any Indian jail is women arrested under the dowry laws. Their accusers are women as well but often put up to such accusations by male relatives and lawyers. Every crime which entails prison time ends up imprisoning a family as well. Criminal laws made to benefit a particular section end up being misused against them. It is in this background that we must consider the question of whether as a nation, we are better off treating our children in conflict with the law as adult offenders to be punished or as juvenile delinquents to be reformed.

The new Act has yielded to outraged opinion by making possible the trial of a young offender as an adult if he or she is accused of a heinous crime. Heinous crime is defined as crime that carries a sentence of imprisonment for seven years or more under any law. A variety of acts, including non-violent crimes such as forgery, or even crimes of incitement such as sedition, attract a prison term of seven years or more. Under the new law, a stone-pelting teenager in Kashmir or a teenage purveyor of counterfeit currency from Kanyakumari is as likely to be treated as an adult criminal.

Pitfalls of extreme justice

We, as a nation, also have a warped attitude towards sex and sexuality, with notions of family pride and honour bound in. A lot of cases of young love and elopement do end up in police stations as charges of rape and kidnapping. An angry father of a runaway girl often has no means of restoring societal honour except by alleging that his daughter or ward was unwillingly taken away. Similarly where “love jihad”-type allegations are made, the filing of rape and kidnapping charges is usually the norm. When return is not an option for runaway teenagers, the other option is often voluntary death. When, previously, erring teenagers could be admonished, today we risk imprisoning them unless both sets of parents act maturely. We therefore need to very carefully evaluate how far we wish to traverse down the path of criminalising our youth.

From the policeman who makes the arrest, to the Juvenile Justice Board that takes the call on whether to allow prosecution as an adult, large amounts of discretion will necessarily operate. Those who can afford it can and will challenge any decision to prosecute in higher courts. The result is more likely to be greater uncertainty, and lesser justice, as criminal trials get stalled by appeals to superior courts.

“Extreme justice is often injustice,” wrote dramatist Jean Racine, and an India that disempowers the loneliest, the lost and the last will be a much harsher place. Whether safety lies in the path of harshness, or in effective implementation of existing laws, is a call for the republic to take. Justice Holmes, to return to his Harvard lecture, advised: “The past gives us our vocabulary and fixes the limits of our imagination; we cannot get away from it. There is, too, a peculiar logical pleasure in making manifest the continuity between what we are doing and what has been done before. But the present has a right to govern itself so far as it can; and it ought always to be remembered that historic continuity with the past is not a duty, it is only a necessity.”

Has Nirbhaya’s death necessitated harsh laws to deal with India’s young people or have we elders failed our succeeding generations of youngsters by exposing them to adult penalties?

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The manner in which crucial laws are being amended will end up eroding rights that have deep consequences on the lives of our children and us as citizens of a thriving democracy. All because the state hasn’t been able to deliver what it was mandated to do.

The last few months have seen an alarming trend of crucial laws being amended, or sought to be amended, in a manner that will end up hurting the very cause that they were envisaged for — to protect rights that have deep ramifications on the lives of our children and us as citizens of a thriving democracy. All because the state has not been able to deliver what it was mandated to do.

The most recent, and probably the one that must concern us all the most, is the law upheld by the Supreme Court: the Haryana State government’s amendment of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015. The amendment was ostensibly an attempt to promote education and sanitation by mandating that candidates for Panchayat elections had to be both literate (Class 10 in the general category, Class 8 for Dalits and Class 5 for Dalit woman) and have a toilet in their homes.

While the courts have upheld the amendment, and their decision must be based on the correct interpretation of the law, we could well be at a dangerous inflexion point in our democracy — as such reasoning could extend itself to the next two levels of our democratic institutions (Legislative Assemblies and Parliament) if we are not careful.

We seem to be forgetting that the Constituent Assembly of India had debated the issue of universal adult suffrage extensively and finally decided to give Indians this strongest tenet of modern-day democracy. It took a measured decision that education, gender, economic status or religion cannot restrict an adult Indian’s ability to vote or stand for election.

So, while 100 per cent literacy and sanitation are definitely objectives that the State and national governments must strive towards, the fact that the state has failed to provide the same must not be remedied by taking away the political voice of a citizen of this country.

Impacting learning outcomes

The next and closely related case in point are the amendments to the path-breaking Right to Education (RTE) Act. While the Act’s implementation has been a bit of a mixed bag as poor learning outcomes set alarmbells ringing for policymakers, there is no denying that the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) has seen a steady upswing across the country. At the elementary level (Class I-VIII), the GER is up to a remarkable 95 per cent, with girls seeing an incredible score of 100.6 per cent (2013-14). The news is even more heartening for Scheduled Caste students, with the GER for both boys and girls at a whopping 102.8 per cent for the year 2013-14. When traditionally marginalised sections of society see such significant change, thanks to a piece of legislation, there is reason to celebrate.

Yet, a key and egalitarian aspect of the RTE, the “no detention policy”, that may at least partly be responsible for these off-the-charts GER numbers, is being questioned by some experts, bureaucrats, political parties and governments. The idea behind the policy was that children should not face the psychological and emotional trauma of examinations till Class VIII. Those pushing for dropping the “no detention policy” argue that this has perpetuated poor learning outcomes and essentially postpones the inevitable, burdening the school system from Class IX onwards.

It is a view that led the Delhi and Rajasthan governments to amend the RTE, but it does not take into consideration that as a part of the no-detention policy and the RTE, children’s learning outcomes were meant to be measured via a system called the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, or CCE. The CCE required teachers to track each student’s progress and tailor lessons to student capabilities and provide remedial learning opportunities for students who needed help.

If more States and the Centre adopt this amendment, we will be back to children as young as five undergoing the stress of examinations and trauma of being kept behind if they fail. Activists point out that the biggest effect of this step would be on children from poor families, with chances of them dropping out of the system. So, not only could we be reversing the progress we have made in the GER numbers, largely because the state did not ensure effective implementation of the CCE and the RTE Act, but also end up reducing the chances of children from such families later standing for Panchayat elections in, say, Haryana.

Rehabilitating juveniles

The third is a more emotionally charged debate: amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015 adopted by the Lok Sabha this May and expected to be taken up by the Rajya Sabha in the current session of Parliament. The most contentious amendment to this Bill proposes that the minimum age for a child to be placed in the adult criminal justice system should be lowered from the current 18 years to 16 years for certain crimes. This is supported by certain sections of society which have literally been baying for blood, post the horrifying Nirbhaya rape case. Ill-informed arguments have muddied the discourse to make the average citizen believe that juveniles committing crimes do not really face any punishment today, whereas the truth is that the juvenile justice system actually provides an alternative system for trial and punishment of juveniles in keeping with their age, physical and emotional status.

There is extensive research to prove that transferring children to the adult justice and prison system does not reduce crime, and in fact increases recidivism as it exposes these children to hardened criminals. Experts also believe that the human brain is not completely developed till one is in one’s mid-20s and young adults are actually more susceptible to peer pressure, and relatively unstable in emotionally charged situations. Globally, most progressive countries and their judicial systems have taken cognisance of such research, a case in point being the state of Connecticut, in the U.S., which has recently seen a move to raise the age of juvenility. There is also extensive research to prove that more rehabilitative juvenile justice systems have repeatedly been found to lead to lower re-arrest rates than the adult system, and, therefore, result in lowering overall crime numbers.

While National Crime Records Bureau data indicates that children from the marginalised sections of society will suffer the most (as over 55 per cent children in the juvenile justice system come from families from the lowest income bracket) if these amendments pass, they could also end up impacting a number of young boys in consensual relationships, as they may face incarceration in the adult prison system if their partner’s parents decide to file a case against them under the proposed law.

It is strange that the very state which has not been able to ensure the effective implementation of the envisaged ecosystem for rehabilitating children through various institutions (child welfare and selection committees, juvenile justice boards, special juvenile police unit, etc.) established under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 (and therefore has in some way contributed to the rise in crime?) is now trying to “remedy” the situation by actually worsening it.

Children at work

And finally, let’s look at the much ignored issue of child labour in India. There are reportedly 43 lakh children who are forced to work in our country and the proposed amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill is meant to strengthen the legislative framework that prohibits their employment. But will it?

Children under the age of 14 are currently banned from working in hazardous industries but the government proposes to drastically reduce the number of industries considered hazardous from 83 to 3. Under the garb of family-run enterprises, children will also be allowed to work in industries like zari, bangle and carpet making, brick kilns, diamond cutting and, arguably, even scavenging.

The truth is that a number of these industries rely on the small nimble fingers of children and perpetuate a system that thrives on bonded labour, or at best very poor wages. The government argues that these amendments are being made in response to the socio-economic realities of the country and to allow children to learn traditional crafts after school hours.

Even if we were to say for a moment that this was not a specious argument trotted out by those who want to perpetuate the existing system, a sobering study points out that while combining school and work is a reality for poor children in India, the likelihood of children who work for over three hours dropping out of the school system is estimated to be as high as 70 per cent. In a country where the trafficker passes off as a “Mama” or a “Mausi”, where is the question of the state actually being able to monitor the number of hours a child actually works, even if he is actually working in the family enterprise?

And once again it will be the girl child who will be the first to be pulled out of school and put into the workforce, as will children from the economically weaker and marginalised sections of society — the very children most at risk and whom the Act is largely designed to protect.

Not only will these amendments not help eliminate child labour, but they will also, in all likelihood, deny our children their rights under the RTE Act, possibly creating the perfect preconditions for some of them to take to juvenile crime.

Will we be the generation that will preside over a system where the state dropped the ball — and our children and we paid the price for it? Under the garb of doing right by them?

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While the partial success of the Front National is not necessarily a calamity, it is a warning. Europe’s political elites should take heed. They should not chase after the far-right’s polarising and xenophobic rhetoric, but instead think hard about what unites them

For France’s far-right, it wasn’t supposed to end this way. Between the two rounds of the regional elections, Marine Le Pen had assured voters that the Front National (FN) could win “four or five” of 13 regions. Local FN candidates, fresh from their strong performance in the first round, believed that this time the party would break through the “glass ceiling” and actually gain control of a major territorial unit.

Emile Chabal

The FN’s rhetoric was amplified by the media. French and European newspapers warned of the imminent coming of the far-right. After many years of knocking at the door, this election was supposed to mark the FN’s arrival on the national political scene and the beginning of a new political configuration. This was not simply idle talk: the left-wing coalitions in two key regions withdrew their lists entirely to block the FN. They, too, believed the far-right was at the gates of power.

A fringe player

But it quickly became clear on Sunday night that the wind had changed. As the exit polls turned into actual results, all FN hopes evaporated. The party had come first in six regions in the first round, but it had failed to win overall control of any single region after the second round on Sunday. Marine Le Pen’s angry concession speech denounced the current political “system” but her hyperbole could not hide the fact that these results were a bitter disappointment.

So where did it go wrong? The answer is simple: the FN remains a party on the margins of French politics. Despite vigorous efforts in the past few years to make the FN more palatable by softening its rhetoric on immigrants and expelling the most obviously anti-Semitic and racist activists, the majority of the French electorate still believes the FN’s policies to be unworkable. Its value is principally as a party of protest, not a party of government.

One of the main consequences of this is that the FN does not benefit from any tactical vote transfer from other parties — a crucial stepping stone to success in a two-round electoral system. Over the years, more and more people are voting for the FN, but the party’s unwillingness to form any alliances and its lack of legitimacy have consistently pushed it away from victory.

This long-standing tendency was confirmed yet again in this election where the FN’s vote share fell from 27.73 per cent in the first round to 27.10 per cent in the second round. A huge increase in turnout (from 49.91 per cent in the first round to 58.41 per cent in the second round) and a series of tactical alliances within and between the mainstream parties ensured that even where the FN might have won, it found itself far behind.

Issues despite propitious climate

This is hardly a cause for triumphalism. The centre-right under Nicolas Sarkozy limped to a victory in these elections, but only because the left withdrew altogether in two regions. And the centre-left Socialists have taken a beating, both in the areas they lost and in the areas where there will be no left-wing regional councillors at all because there was no left-wing presence in the second round. But for all the gloom, these elections are a reminder that the nightmare scenario of a dominant far-right is very far from the reality in France and, indeed, in western Europe more generally.

After all, these were elections where the FN was expected to do very well. Of the top four campaign issues, the first was unemployment, but the other three were immigration, security and terrorism. This is hardly surprising given that the November 13 attacks in Paris and Europe’s migrant crisis loomed large on the political scene in France. If there was ever a time for the far-right to capitalise on a profound sense of insecurity, it was now.

And yet the party failed to score the spectacular victory it so desperately wanted. It is true that the FN received more votes than ever before in French electoral history (6.8 million), but this was undone by a sharp rise in voter turnout across the board. Likewise, the number of FN regional councillors has tripled (from 120 to 316), but this still makes up only 18 per cent of the total number of regional councillors in France. Whichever way you look at it, the FN — like many other far-right parties in Europe — faces intractable problems, even in the most propitious climate.

In some ways, there are parallels here with the situation of the French Communist Party, which was one of the largest parties in France in the period from 1945 to 1970 but consistently failed to gain adequate representation in the national parliament or in regional assemblies. Only when the Communists were willing to join forces with moderate left-wing parties — as they did in 1981 — were they able to play a part in government.

But there is a fundamental difference between the French Communist Party in the 1950s and the FN in the 2010s. It is not simply that one was a party of the far-left and the other is a party of the far-right; rather, it is that the FN relies exclusively on elections for its legitimacy. Whereas Communists had a whole world of associative life, trade unions and cultural organisations that gave the movement its strength, the FN today has nothing more than its electoral success.

Paradoxically, then, the FN is completely dependent on the democratic system it so violently attacks. Like many other far-right parties, it denounces the insider trading of French politics and the “corruption” of the European Union while simultaneously striving to build a stronger party structure and gain power through regional, national and European elections. As Sunday’s results prove, it is hard to sustain this contradiction.

Confronting Europe’s problems

This is not to say that there is nothing to worry about. On the contrary, the success of the FN — and of other Eurosceptic, right-wing populist parties in countries like Denmark, Hungary or the United Kingdom — is deeply troubling. In part, this reflects the dizzying rise of immigration as an electoral issue in Europe since the 1980s. It also reflects the fact that European electorates have become more concerned about the inability of their national governments to implement economic reform in a globalised economy. And, since austerity policies have become the norm since the financial crisis of 2008, the far-right’s message of closed borders, closed societies and economic protectionism seems to ring true.

But the far-right has not yet been able to govern as a majority party anywhere in Europe. In places where it has done well, it has been held at between 15-30 per cent of the vote and has only been able to enter government through coalitions. The chances of, say, the UK Independence Party winning 200 seats in the U.K. Parliament in 2020 or of Marine Le Pen winning the presidential election in France in 2017 are virtually non-existent. The overwhelming majority of the European electorate still identify with mainstream centre-right and centre-left parties.

This means that, while the partial success of the FN is not necessarily a calamity, it is a warning. Europe’s political elites should take heed. They should not chase after the far-right’s polarising and xenophobic rhetoric, but they do need to think hard about what unites them and how they can address major issues like climate change together.

One can only hope that the threat of the far-right has the positive side effect of focussing the minds of politicians, especially on the left. Surely the time has now come for a new popular front that will challenge the far-right and offer socially-conscious solutions to Europe’s problems.

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All signals point to a new level of partnership between Asia’s two great democracies, imparting new self-confidence to both nations at a particularly critical moment in Asia’s emerging power structure

When the purohit at Kashi’s Dashashwamedh Ghat applied sandalwood paste and vermilion on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s forehead, that red dot on white paste looked like Japan’s national flag. The Sanskrit chanting that accompanied the Ganga aarti after sunset symbolised a new beginning to an old friendship between India and the Land of the Rising Sun.

Sanjaya Baru

Standing next to him on the banks of the Ganga, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could well have recalled the words of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, uttered a hundred years ago in July 1916, to an audience of young students in Tokyo: “I offer, as did my ancestor rishis, my salutation to that sunrise of the East, which is destined once again to illumine the whole world.”

Old bonds, new zeal

More than two decades before Tagore paid his tribute to Japan’s cultural and civilisational attributes, an Indian engineer, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, visited Japan and wrote eloquently about its technological progress and the lessons Japan’s industrial development and economic rise have for India. India’s national leaders drew inspiration not just from Tagore’s poetic tributes and Visvesvaraya’s practical lessons, but equally from Japan’s victory over Russia at the beginning of the 20th century — the first Asian nation to vanquish a Western power. India was among the few countries that stood by Japan as it expressed remorse, nursed its wounds, and sought to rebuild after the Second World War.

Despite this bond between these two Asian nations, it has taken more than a decade of concerted effort to finally get both governments to commit themselves to a transformation of a “Special Strategic and Global Partnership… into a deep, broad-based and action-oriented partnership, which reflects a broad convergence of their long-term political, economic and strategic goals”. The Joint Statement issued by both Prime Ministers clears many cobwebs out of the bilateral equation, especially on contentious issues such as cooperation in the development of nuclear energy and defence capability.

If United States President George Bush had to overrule what strategic affairs guru K. Subrahmanyam famously dubbed as “the Ayatollahs of nuclear non-proliferation” in Washington, D.C., to extend to India full cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, Prime Minister Abe had to battle many post-Hiroshima ghosts and Japan’s own anti-nuclear fundamentalists (ensconced within the safety of the U.S. nuclear umbrella) to be able to extend to India a hand of cooperation in the nuclear and defence field.

Seventeen Decembers ago, and six months after India declared itself a nuclear weapon state (Pokhran-II), inviting Japanese economic sanctions, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee deputed a team of security analysts and retired officials to reach out to counterparts in Japan, explain India’s strategic compulsions to Japanese opinion-makers, and secure an end to sanctions. In December 1998, K. Subrahmanyam led a delegation that included defence analyst Jasjit Singh, former Defence Secretary N.N. Vohra (now Governor of Jammu and Kashmir) and Ambassador Arjun Asrani, a Japanese-speaking diplomat. Realising the need to draw Japanese attention to India’s economic and business potential, and not just explain her security concerns, Mr. Subrahmanyam invited me, at the time the editor of a financial daily, to join this distinguished group.

Our challenge in using the carrot of business opportunity in India against the stick of Japanese economic sanctions was made worse by the fact that Japanese business was not only unenthusiastic about India but was in thrall of the lucrative business opportunity in China. Through the 1990s, China was the biggest recipient of both Japanese aid and investment while Japanese teams would visit India only to submit long lists of demands and complaints about how inhospitable India was to foreign investors.

The China factor

Two things made Japan wake up to the India opportunity. First, the fact that countries like South Korea began to overtake Japan in the Indian market. Second, the emergence of China as the world’s second-biggest economy, overtaking Japan. However, more than the change in the business environment in India, it is the growing challenge posed by China’s rise that has finally forced Japan to invest in India’s rise.

Over the past decade, successive Indian and Japanese leaders have been paying greater attention to the bilateral relationship, but due credit should be given to Prime Ministers Abe and Modi for taking the relationship to an altogether higher level of long-term strategic, economic and cultural engagement. The India-Japan Vision 2025 statement jointly issued by both leaders in New Delhi last week is the most comprehensive statement of long-term bilateral engagement defined by shared interests and values.

By crossing long-standing red lines in a couple of important areas, the joint statement has cut through some Gordian knots. First, the agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy ends years of painstaking negotiations, delayed both by the Fukushima nuclear tragedy in Japan and India’s own confused legislation of a nuclear liability law. Second, India’s decision to agree to “tied aid”, enabling Japanese funds to finance Japanese investment, especially in infrastructure and high-speed railway projects. Third, India’s willingness to promote Japanese industrial townships aimed at making India a more hospitable destination for Japanese business.

Shared strategic concerns

The 44-paragraph Joint Statement sets out a detailed framework for a privileged bilateral partnership that seeks to address a range of Japanese concerns about the security, viability and profitability of Japanese investments in India. This detailing has now been made possible because both Japan and India have come to understand the strategic importance for themselves of their bilateral partnership in a world in which China looms larger and the United States and Europe remain preoccupied with their own problems.

While Japan is a member of the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and India is not, both countries are engaged in creating a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Japan has agreed to support India’s case for membership of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), even as the U.S. continues to drag its feet over this. The Joint Statement repeatedly refers to the Indo-Pacific as the shared region of strategic engagement for both powers.

There are several interesting new initiatives that Mr. Abe and Mr. Modi have signed on for. One of them is an agreement for Japanese funding of India’s own “belt-and-road” connectivity projects across Asia. While committing itself to investing in infrastructure within India to improve road and rail connectivity, Japan has also agreed to promote India’s “Act East” policy by developing and strengthening “reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructures that augment connectivity within India and between India and other countries in the region” aimed at advancing Asian industrial networks and regional value chains with open, fair and transparent business environment in the region. Japan and India can build road and rail connectivity across the Eurasian landmass, running parallel to China’s own “One Belt, One Road” project.

All this signals a new level of partnership between Asia’s two great democracies, imparting new self-confidence to both nations at a particularly critical moment in Asia’s emerging power structure. In 1916, Gurudev Tagore ended his Tokyo speech with these words: “When Japan is in imminent peril of neglecting to realise where she is great, it is the duty of a foreigner like myself to remind her, that she has given rise to a civilisation which is perfect in its form, and has evolved a sense of sight which clearly sees truth in beauty and beauty in truth. She has achieved something which is positive and complete… Such a civilisation has the gift of immortality; for it does not offend against the laws of creation and is not assailed by all the forces of nature. I feel it is an impiety to be indifferent to its protection from the incursion of vulgarity of power.”

In 1916 Tagore had the vulgarity of European power in mind. Today, Japan and India are mindful of new centres of assertive power and have reminded each other of the immortality of their own civilisation and the potential of their partnership in ensuring Asia’s peaceful rise.

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The combination of geo-economics and geopolitics is today fuelling a degree of paranoia. Many in Europe see the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris as the precursor to a fresh wave of violence across the continent

The world has been looking to the COP-21 (2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference) with great anticipation, hoping that the outcomes would pave the way for an equitable agreement that would satisfactorily address the issue of global warming and achieve the prescribed target of limiting the rise in global temperatures to less than 2° Celsius. The jury is still out on what COP-21 will ultimately achieve.

M. K. Narayanan

There was, however, an uninvited guest present in many of the same salons in Paris, where the climate change meetings have been held. Like Banquo’s ghost, terrorism was an overwhelming presence, never absent from the thoughts of both leaders and other participants attending the COP-21. The incidents where there were five shootings and two bombings by gunmen and suicide bombers belonging to the Islamic State (IS) on predetermined targets in Paris on November 13, and resulting in 130 fatalities and injuries to over 200 more people, have left France in a state of shock. Worse, they have left an indelible imprint on the French ethos. This is now beginning to reverberate across most of Europe. The meticulous planning, the calibrated nature of the attacks and the use of modern communication equipment by the perpetrators have jolted France and Europe. Governments across Europe are being compelled to review and change their laissez-faire procedures and security doctrines.

Jolted by Paris

If any one single act could make Europe truly understand the meaning of German philosopher general Carl von Clausewitz’s phrase, that “war is an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will” (substitute the word terrorism for war), then it was the November 13 attacks in Paris. It has had serious repercussions in neighbouring Belgium, which shut down for a while. Meanwhile, an entire continent has developed a siege mentality.

This was clearly evident during a meeting that I attended of erstwhile senior policymakers in Europe, held exactly a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris. What was apparent during the discussions was that Europe had changed. As Europe weeps over this, and is outraged by the barbaric acts of premeditated violence, indignation over the terrorist attacks, together with the uncontrolled flow of migrants/refugees into the continent from West Asia and other regions, is beginning to cast a shadow over the character of Europe, especially its approach to humanitarian and other causes.

Europe has been wrestling with economic issues since the 2007-2008 economic crisis and financial meltdown. It had, consequently, put geo-economics on top of its agenda. Even as the existential crisis regarding the future of the Euro-zone is still to be resolved, and Europe is yet to fully recover from the great debt crisis, it now confronts a range of newer threats. This has required the return of geopolitics. The combination of geo-economics and geopolitics is today fuelling a degree of paranoia. Many in Europe see the November 13 terrorist attacks as the precursor to a fresh wave of violence across Europe.

Beginning 2015, Europe, including France, has witnessed terror attacks with increasing regularity. Since 2008, the death toll in violent conflict has gone up in geometrical progression. It is in this milieu that Europe is confronted with the greatest influx of refugees since the end of the Second World War. Europe seems overwhelmed as a result. One immediate result is that it has led to a divided European Union. It has also given an impetus to right-wing nationalist forces in many countries. The Schengen concept is under grave threat.

Living with terror

Europe, though, is no stranger to terrorism or terrorist attacks. The Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, the 17 November in Greece and other terror groups that operated in France, the United Kingdom and Spain during the latter half of the 20th century had all wrought a great deal of fear. The 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games ranks among the most diabolical events in the annals of terrorism anywhere. Nevertheless, European strategic experts tend to think that the latest events signal a turning point in the history of Europe.

It is not merely that every one of them had underestimated the threat posed by the IS — or their capacity to strike far beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq, extending further into West Asia and now into Europe. Further, they had misjudged the fallout of the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars, which had now metastasised into Lebanon, into Jordan, into Turkey and now into Europe, with thousands of refugees likely to seek asylum in Europe in the coming years. The real fear is that the combination of pressures had the potential to create a situation leading to the disintegration of a united Europe.

As the crisis in Europe deepens, concerns are also being voiced at the same time over the implications of French President François Hollande’s “Declaration of War” against the IS. Europe tends to be divided between those who want the state to be armed with greater powers and those who fear that indiscriminate “war talk” may lead to a crackdown domestically on any contrarian voices.

The employment and the use of extraordinary powers under the plea that the nation and its institutions are under grave and immediate threat have serious connotations for Europe’s future according to the champions of civil liberty and keepers of the European way of life. Following the terror attacks in Paris, the passing of a statute in peacetime granting the French President emergency powers is seen as far too draconian a measure, which they believe is likely to have unforeseen consequences. France’s example, they think, would in turn be emulated by other European states.

Emergency measures vs civil freedoms

The chasm between those who are pressing for changes in the statute and also in policies and those others who want the existing safeguards to be preserved to retain France’s European character is increasing with each passing day. This has added to the sense of impending crisis. What is considered certain by most is that European intelligence agencies will be invested with greater powers for surveillance and to carry out more intrusive attacks. At present, those who insist on the importance of safeguarding civil freedoms are clearly in the minority.

As Europe flounders on how to deal with a cornucopia of new problems, it is worth considering whether the developments in Europe will have an impact on global governance. Coexistence among people of different regions and the compact among those belonging to different religions across the planet — something that Europeans, in particular, are said to greatly treasure — is coming under threat. This may well turn into a major geopolitical issue.

Many, and this includes those not only in Europe, express fear that the Muslim world is coming apart, enabling extreme radicalist elements like the IS to flourish. Sustaining a reasonably open and tolerant state in such circumstances, they believe, has become difficult. Most European leaders, as of now, hew to the view that an open attitude at this juncture may be too much to ask for.

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Those who are leading the fight against terror need a strong helping hand rather than condemnation. If IS continues to strike terror in all of us, it is not because governments the world over have not tried every means to outwit a deadly outfit. It is because they have simply been outclassed and outmanoeuvred

In perhaps what has been his most difficult speech in recent times, U.S. President Barack Obama, told his nation on Sunday that he will not flinch from using his government’s military might to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or IS as it is more popularly known. This was in the context of theSan Bernardino (California) killing of 14 people on December 2, 2015, by a couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, in what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified categorically to be a terrorist attack.

R.K. Raghavan

The savagery — the two used assault weapons to mow down Farook’s colleagues — once again proved that we cannot rob the terrorist of the advantage of surprisethat he packs in his armoury. He will strike anywhere he wants, especially when he confronts soft targets like the employees of the Inland Regional Center of the County Department of Public Health in San Bernardino, near Los Angeles, who had gathered for a training event and subsequent partying. The centre offers assistance to disabled people. This makes the attack on providers of a noble service to the disadvantaged in the local community all the more poignant.

Unpredictable and selective

Those who have watched and listened to Mr. Obama on television after similar gory incidents in the past — some terror-related and others the work of deranged, but dangerously armed, individuals who had run amok — may not have been convinced that the President had still the ability or the energy to handle terrorism imaginatively. On this occasion, Mr. Obama was not exactly the picture of assurance that he used to be. He looked jaded, and his brave rhetoric on television sounded perfunctory and superficial, despite the doubtless sincerity of the man. You can’t, however, fault him, because with the tragic frequency of such gory events even for an eloquent speaker like him, using appropriate adjectives and emotions to describe them will be difficult now.

Terror attacks are, undoubtedly, becoming increasingly unpredictable. More and more soft targets are being used to demoralise not only the community, but also law enforcement. The world strongly believed after Osama bin Laden’s liquidation, in May 2011, that we had seen the end of unremitting terror. Even experts have been proved wrong. As a relatively small outfit that does not boast of a central directing hierarchy, and with less than 20,000 active members, the IS is now holding most of West Asia to ransom. Its lure has become nearly irresistible to a large number of Muslim youths drawn from various parts of the world, including India.

“More and more soft targets are being used to demoralise not only the community, but also law enforcement.”

This phenomenon has baffled governments as well as intelligence agencies. It explains the ease with which Paris was attacked recently. Interestingly, while the Paris massacre was the outcome of coordinated action by a group of more than 10 people across Europe, the San Bernardino incident was the act of two lone wolves bound by matrimony. This contrast alone highlights how counterterrorism had become a nearly impossible mission.

I am not here to hold a brief for those in government who are accountable to protecting us, and who fail far too often for our comfort. I am merely pointing out the enormity and complexity of the task of defanging and destroying the IS and similar outfits across the world.

Challenge for intelligence

Farook and Malik were a nondescript couple who had aroused little attention prior to the incident. Farook, an inspector in the Department of Public Health, was an American citizen of Pakistani descent, and his wife Malik, a Pakistan-born legal resident of the U.S. This Pakistani connection, however slender it may be, should cause dismay to many detractors of the Modi government who assail it for its mindless hostility to Pakistan. Police investigation has revealed that Farook had gone to Saudi Arabia for Haj in October 2013. A Facebook entry now unearthed reveals how Malik had sometime ago pledged her allegiance to the IS. The couple, killed in the police chase after the incident, leave behind a daughter, less than a year old. How on earth could you expect such a young couple to indulge in this kind of violence? If this was not radicalisation of youth, what else was it? Also, one basic question. How did the couple get their firearms? Their case shows that firearms control in the U.S. is a cruel joke.

It is easy to fault the FBI, which covers domestic intelligence in the U.S., for having failed to identify the couple before the incident. When there is no information that the two had received any external directions to act the way they did, surveillance — physical or electronic — may not have helped. This is the complexity of the task that daunts intelligence agencies the world over.

One cannot brand intelligence and police agencies as total failures. Do we know how many terrorist attempts have been foiled? We don’t, because governments cannot go to town with their successes in having nipped some diabolic plans in the bud. Once in a while they do, however, let us know of some of their achievements. A very recent example is the arrest of a few Lashkar-e-Taiba cadres in New Delhi who are said to have been prowling around for quite some time to strike. It is said that one of their targets was Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We need to laud the Delhi Police and the Intelligence Bureau for this remarkable piece of work.

“One cannot brand intelligence and police agencies as total failures.”

Outdone

It would be equally unfair to believe that anyone in Mr. Obama’s place could have done better. He may look drained out having led the nation for seven difficult years. That does not detract from the fact that he is trying to leave a deep impression on the nation in this vital area. Such is the highly insidious nature of modern terrorism that we can hardly expect from any government the kind of dramatic results we desperately want. I won’t go to the extent of what one CNN commentator said after the Sunday broadcast: the President’s fulmination could be greeted with laughter by the ISIL. That was a cynical and possibly harsh reaction flowing from frustration that no leader has been able to tame terror of the kind we saw in Paris, and now San Bernardino. A charitable response would be that those who are leading the fight need a strong helping hand rather than condemnation. If the IS continues to strike terror in all of us, it is not because governments the world over have not tried every means to outwit what has proved to be an outfit deadlier than al-Qaeda. Those in the administration in many countries have simply been outclassed and outmanoeuvred. Here, we need to recall the classic statement of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which was out to get British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “We’ve to be lucky just once. You’ve to be lucky all the time!” This is the harsh truth of a problem that is getting increasingly out of hand due to radicalisation of young minds.

Domestic impact

Mr. Obama was skating on thin ice while referring to Islam in his address. He laboured to convince his audience that great care should be shown while condemning those guilty of terrorist attacks so as not to defame a whole religion. He pointed out how a large number of Muslims themselves were victims of terror. While this benign outlook to Islam is unexceptionable, I thought we had gone far beyond these trite statements in outlining a future strategy.

“Citizens the world over are no longer willing to accept governments’ excuses for non-performance in any sphere.”

We must remember that as the head of state, Mr. Obama had precious little options, and especially in an election year. This is why all eyes are centred on Hillary Clinton. Will she toe Mr. Obama’s line, or will she up the ante by plumping for tougher measures, including enhanced surveillance, both physically and electronically? She cannot afford to seem/seen to be soft against some Republican rabble-rousers like Donald Trump. Before long, her dilemma is likely to become glaringly pronounced. Interesting times lie ahead for the U.S. voter.

The President’s statement that terrorism was still evolving in the form of IS and that counterterrorism had to adapt itself was striking for its home truth. In this context, increased gun control and greater use of technology seem to be of limited value in neutralising groups that are openly promoting and abetting the IS’s cause. But what about the lone wolves acting recklessly? There is no answer as yet.

In the final analysis, citizens the world over are no longer willing to accept governments’ excuses for non-performance in any sphere. This is particularly true of terrorism. They want hard results by way of prevention. They may be artless and naive to believe that terrorists can be extirpated, and that governments could do a lot more. But then they simply don’t want to be victims of religious fundamentalism. It is as simple as that.

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